Day 71-77: Sydney (Week 6)
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2004
1
17
57
Trip End
Jan 05, 2006
Sydney,
Australia
Monday, November 29, 2004
Had a nice lay in this morning and went to the gym at lunch time. Shadowed Gabby in her combat class and on the first track I did a side kick and felt something snap, I knew I had done something not good, not serious but not good! Battled through the rest of the class but took a slow stroll home. Went and bought a bag of peas from the supermarket - best ice pack in the world! - and iced the back of my thigh, think i've strained the Biceps Femoris (stick it in google...lol) but icing it will help so basically spent the afternoon with my leg up with a pack of peas under it. By a very nice coincidence Arron who I met last night is a massage therapist, we'd already planned to meet in the evening so he kindly offered to take a look at my leg and give me some treatment which should help with the recovery.
Just before going off to meet Arron I got a call from a recruitment consultant to let me know that I've got an interview on Wednesday for a Lotus Notes Developer contract with the Office of State Revenue in Parramatta. Parramatta is a suburb of sydney and it's about a 30 min train journey from the city to the west side. It's a bit of a way out and obviously they'll be transport costs to think about but of course it's worth going for the interview, I mean I might not even get offered but be good to see what the interviews are like, and how much they're gonna pay.
After the massage and a bit of food - very handy knowing someone that owns 2 restaurants! - we went to the cinema to see 'The Grudge' - not too bad, quite enjoyed it, good enough for a scary movie. Bit more about Arron....he owns the restaurants with his partner who's back in Melbourne. They basically operate the restaurants for hotels, in Sydney it's the Hyde Park Plaza which unsurprisingly is near Hyde Park and I walk past it practically every day. I'd even seen them putting the new signs up outside the restaurant. One is called 'Two Fat Ducks on the Park' and the other is called 'Darkside on the Park'. If you look at the website you'll understand what it's all about, and why he wants a new site, god it's awful! But basically it's all about eating in the dark so take a look at the site if you wanna know more.
Tuesday:
Just went into the city in the morning, was raining so got the bus in, wanted to nip into the casting agency to see if my photos were ready. Still not ready and it'll be 2 weeks on Friday since they were taken - not sure about this lot, haven't had any phone calls from them about work since joining up and still no photos to show for it. Supposedly they should be ready tomorrow so I'll pop into the office on the way to my interview.
Checked my emails for a message from the agency about the interview on Wednesday. Apparently I'm being interviewed by 3 people! A notes developer, notes administrator and the tech team leader - so that should be pretty intimidating. The agency also want me to pop into their offices on the way to the interview so they can brief me and meet me in person too just in case the company asks the agency for their opinion of the candidates. Apparently the agency is sending about 4 people for the interview so there's a little bit of competition. So at least I've got some smart clothes for the interview so they won't go to waste.
Also checked on the net how far away Parramatta is and how'd I'd get to it every day. Unfortunately the nearest station to me doesn't have a direct line to the suburb, so I'd either have a 20 min walk to another station in the city or I'd have to change trains. A travelpass for the 3 months of the contract would be $388 or $484 depending on whether I want just train or train, bus and ferry. However when I first spoke to the agency they indicated that it could be a daily rate of about $400 so if that was the case it'd soon pay for the travel....anyway, I'll find this all out tomorrow.
Late afternoon I took some pics for Arron. He'd needed some shots of the Darkside restaurant to give to the press, of course being a restaurant where you eat in the dark it's not possible to take pictures when it's open, so he wanted some set up shots with the waiters serving some diners whilst in their night vision goggles. He was pretty pleased with them and it means I've returned the favour for the massage so that's cool, I'll probably put a couple of the shots online so you can see what it's all about too. Just stayed in for the evening coz of the early start on Wednesday for the interview.
Wednesday:
Up about 8.30 to get ready to walk into town and meet the woman from the agency, Nodlaig -don't ask me how to pronounce it, she's Irish. Anyway had a quick meeting with her at about 10am, she told me a little about the company and who would be interviewing and how much it is too....$45 per hour including super, so I guess once you take that and tax off it'll end up being about $27/28 and hour, not too bad I guess - just over $1000 (£400) a week. After the chat with he got on the train, had about a 10 min wait before one turned up. Then timed the journey and it took about 25 mins, bear in mind that it's not rush hour, and then the office is about a 5 min walk from Parramatta station.
The interview itself seemed to go quite well tho was only about 20 mins so don't know whether they just wanted me out the door! lol.....basically they want a developer with some admin experience for the next 3 months to support their existing set up whilst they phase Notes out. So at the end of February they won't be using Notes anymore. They have a english bloke doing the job at the mo but he's leaving so I'm just replacing him, their Notes Admin is also an english bloke so there's a few of them around. I was interview by three people, one Notes Developer, one Notes Admin and their Team Leader. They asked me some tech questions and seemed to do ok with that and I think we got on quite well. The only cross against me is that they asked if I'd be about to do out of hours support occasionally which would involve me dialling into the office over a laptop if there were any problems, the main issue with that is that I don't have a phone line at the flat! Oh well, depends how important this will be to them - they didn't specify it on the job description.
A bit of me is hoping that they don't offer it to me coz then I won't have to make a hard decision....It's the commute that's putting me off a bit, it could be up to an hour there and an hour back which is gonna add quite a lot to the day....if they offer it to me I'll have to have a good think about it, the money of course would be nice but I dont want my stay here to be ruined by spending most of my day working and not enjoying the rest of the time.....we'll see....oh, BREAKING NEWS...as I sit here typing this update 3 hours after the interview I've just had a call from the agency saying the client has decided to go with another candidate. Apparently I did a really good interview, they were impressed with me technically but felt that one of the other guys would be better for their team, she didn't say whether it was the inability to help with out of hours support that helped them make their decision but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a factor - well at least I don't have to make that decision....the search continues!
In the evening I ate out at The Dark Side with Arron. It's a very weird experience trying to eat in the dark. Firstly you order your meal in the Light Side, then you're led into the restaurant by the waiters who can see everything coz they're wearing night vision goggles. They seat you and explain where everything is on your table. It takes a little while to get used to the darkness, your eyes constantly try to adapt so it's best to close them for a little while. It's a different atmosphere to other restaurants as people tend to talk to other tables, seems more friendly. It also means that you can't people watch and look around to see who's there. When it comes to eating it wasn't too difficult, the main problem was finding the food in the first place and getting it on the fork, I also found that I ended up having huge amounts of food on the end of the fork and therefore got through the meal too quickly - and you can't pick and choose what foods to combine so it's all just lumped together. Not sure I'd do it again, even Arron admits that it's something people will probably only do once, but it's definately worth trying.
Thursday & Friday:
It was my First Aid training on both these days...8am start for gods sake! It's not normal, came as a bit of a struggle to get up at 6.30. It wasn't too far to walk for the course, it was at the St John offices near the BIG hostel so was only 15 mins away. There was about 20 of us altogether, most of them taking the course for work reasons. The trainer was called Sue and if any of you have seen 'Kath & Kim' then she was basically Kath without the bleach perm! The way she spoke was identical, she also seemed to end every question she asked with "True?" so that became a little catchphrase. There was lots of theory and some practical sessions dealing with casualties which we got into groups with. In my group I had a couple of young women, Kylie and Tatea, who worked in a youth group for young women and girls in the Waterloo area of Sydney, and Tilly who was a 50 yr old worker for the Sydney Harbour National Park walking tourists around. They were fun guys so enjoyed working with them, we had a laugh. Covered all the usual First Aid stuff from bleeds to EAR and CPR. On Friday we had the theory and practical exams, not difficult of course, it's one of those courses where they want you to pass so everyone did and I've got the certificate now so I can fax that to Fitness NSW and I'm ready to go looking for Combat work.
Thursday night was the usual SGLC rehearsal and Friday night I went out on Oxford for a couple of hours, ended up in Midnight Shift, had a little boogie and bumped into Carlos who was out with his 'friend/practically boyfriend' Steve. Didn't stay out too late as I needed to be up early ish for a Combat session.
Saturday:
Up about 8 to catch the bus to get over to the University Sports Centre. It's the place where I went to the Les Mills workshop last Sunday and where I was introduced to Vincent. It's his class this morning and he invited me along so thought I should show my face as he's a good contact to have. First there was a Tech class at 9 and then the proper combat class at 9.30. I had to take it easy coz of the injury from Monday, it's much better but it wouldn't be too difficult to over work it and damage it again. Anyways, it was a good class, I just participated, didn't shadow or anything, Vincent did ask if I wanted to teach anything but thought I needed a bit more practice after not teaching for so long.
Just came home and did a little housework after, felt a bit knackered so had a little lay down. My neck had been aching a little for the last day or so which was a bit weird. Late afternoon I met up with a guy called Aron (yes another Aron, different spelling tho) who I'd been talking to for ages but never got round to meeting. It was a very hot afternoon so we just got a drink and sat in the park chatting for a couple of hours. Interesting bloke, he's a horticulturist and also into eastern religions and meditation. A lot of what he said about how learning about them had helped him feel happier in his life, removed a lot of anger, made a lot of sense...might even get myself a book and read up on it. It was a nice couple of hours in the park tho.
Got home and still felt tired, didn't really feel up to much in the evening so just stayed in front of the telly.
Sunday:
Woke up and felt bloody awful! Headache, sore throat, swollen glands on my neck, ached all over. I've had something like that before but couldn't remember what I had to do/take. Layed in bed until about 2pm and thought that I needed to get to a chemist to get something to help....problem was that it was 38C outside and I already felt really hot and didn't really want to walk out in the heat. Not much choice tho so just chucked a few clothes on, sun hat and sunglasses and gingerly walked over to the chemist which was about 5 mins away. The pharmacist said it sounded like it was viral and so there was nothing he could give me, just suggested painkillers to help me get through it, though did say it could last up to 5 days. Wandered home and just went back to bed.
By 5pm i'd had enough of being in bed so got up and sat in front of the telly which is basically what I didn't for the rest of the day. Everytime I stood up my head felt like it was gonna explode! Ironically Carlos called to see if I wanted to go to his apartment and go for a swim in the complex pool - which normally I'd have loved to do, sods law that normally I hardly ever get any calls inviting me out to do something, and when I do I'm too ill to go out!
And you know what probably made me ill....having to get up so early for that First Aid training and having to do full days! Clearly my body is telling me that it's rejecting full time work and that I can no longer work again - perhaps I should listen to my body more ;O)
