Impossible Choices

As an emigre, you tend to feel that you are the one taking control of your life and making all the decisions.  After all, you've decided to move to a new country, you're not allowing yourself to be restricted by the place of your birth or allowing your family's decisions on where they want to live to restrain your life and lifestyle choices.  You are grabbing life by the throat and making it into exactly what you want it to be, no longer merely a passenger, but the pilot.

However, sometimes things happen which make you realise that although you may be making the decisions, the choices open to you aren't always ones you want!  I have just experienced one such moment.

At the end of last week, I met a very different recruitment consultant.  Not one of those responsible for putting bums on seats, but one who's raison d'être is to match the right candidate to the right company to create a marriage made in heaven.  She has devoted her life to this, hence why she now, very successfully, runs her own boutique consultancy.  Having spent some time with me and dug around to understand my motivations and desires, we agreed she would send my CV off for a Finance Director role with a private hospital - an ideal position, very similar to what I've just left in the UK, but in a much bigger hospital.  Within an hour, she'd contacted me to say the interview was next Wednesday!  My first interview in Australia!!  At last, just what I'd been waiting for!  Now why has she found it so easy to get me to the point of meeting a client when none of the usual agencies have come close, even when my experience matches exactly with the business they're looking to place me in?  Definitely a talented and more importantly, a well-respected lady.

So, today I headed off to the interview, a little nervous, but actually quite excited by the idea that the ball was in my court - now it was only me and my performance which stood between me and a great job!  Within minutes of arriving I felt any nervousness evaporate.  Shaune, the CEO of the hospital was a lovely guy and we hit it off from the start.  The second person who was supposed to be interviewing had been unable to make it and was instead replaced by another Finance Director from another one of their hospitals, who dialled in on Skype.  Over the course of an hour and a half, we all got to find out how amazingly closely aligned the UK health sector is to that of Australia and had a laugh at the companies' budget setting processes which seemed almost identical!  The role seems absolutely perfect as its within my comfort zone from what I've been doing, but will give me the opportunity to understand the local market within a larger hospital and learn about local reporting and payroll differences which seem to be such a barrier to market entry for emigres over here.

When I finally left, in a cab which Shaune insisted on providing, I had a good feeling about the whole episode.  Within a couple of hours, I'd heard back from the recruitment consultant that they wanted to do a second interview with the National Director for Private Hospitals & the Group CFO at their head office in Sydney in 2 days!

Now I can hear those cogs whirring as you wonder why I've prefaced this story with the "impossible choices" theme.  Well, this is the perfect role, working with what seems like a great team in a well-respected nationwide healthcare company... BUT the hospital is in Canberra.  So, the impossible choice is whether to live in Australia's equivalent to Milton Keynes, take on a great job, but give up everything I love about living in Sydney, including the fantastic friends I've made there, the great groups I've joined; or turn it down and hold out for a job in the best place to live on earth?

It's a tough decision to say "yes" to Canberra, especially when you factor in their weather, which is very similar to the UK... it's already getting pretty cold and we're still 3 months off the coldest month!  However the alternative is to say "no", which could result in a) my finding a suitable job in Sydney (although probably only an interim or contract role), or b) finding nothing in the 2 months I have remaining (before I need to be earning money) and then having to return to the UK.  The latter option is unthinkable... the one thing I do know is that I want to remain in Australia, which really gives me my answer.  I would never forgive myself if I turned something down which would have enabled me to stay and then ended up going back to the UK, so even living for a couple of years in Canberra is do-able if it means that I then stand a good chance of moving back to Sydney.  The Sydney market should also be easier to crack once I've been working in Australia for a while and I now have a great recruitment consultant there too!!

But let's not get too carried away... there's still another interview to get through and they may decide I'm not right for the role.  In which case it's back to the drawing board in Sydney and maybe expanding my options to a few other cities too.

So sometimes the choices aren't great and even in choosing where you want to be you can't get right there, right now, taking the direct route.  But being able to see opportunities within the options you do have available can work to your advantage and who knows what future possibilities they may open up for you.  Maybe, if I do end up going to Canberra, I'll find I love it so much I'll want to give Julia Gillard a run for her money and stand for Prime Minister, just so I can carry on living there!!!

Sporty Aussies & the Weekend Footy!

Footy is a bit of a misnomer as its the term used to refer to any kind of ball sport over here which may involve the occasional kick, apart from soccer!  In fact, from what I can see, the more kicking it involves, the less likely it is to be called footy!!!

In the UK we believe that all this Aussie talk of football relates to Aussie Rules, but that isn't the case here in Sydney where footy almost inevitably means NRL (National Rugby League).  A round of the league is played each week, with matches on Friday - Monday nights as well as weekend afternoons, meaning weekends are dominated by the NRL headlines.  If you don't like sport, you've come to the wrong country!!

There are 16 teams in all, with a  fair number of them being NSW ones.  So, the number one question is which team do you choose to support?  My friends up the northern beaches follow the Manly Sea Eagles, so I could have gone for them, but I'm not really a North Sydney girl.  Having always been based on the South side of the harbour, the South Sydney Rabbitohs seemed like the team for me... they also have the best logo in the league, the Burgess twins (from the UK) play for them and the fact that I have a friend who loves anything to do with bunnies (to the extent that she spends her Christmases helping out at the local bunny rescue centre) was the clincher!  The Sea Eagles would have been a better colour scheme for me... burgundy is much more me than the red & green combo of the Rabbitohs, but that would be far too girly a reason not to support my local team!!!

So having decided which team to support, the next question is how much does it cost to go and see them play.  UK football matches are exorbitantly expensive these days, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the Rabbitohs offering tickets at $25 for standing or unreserved seating, with reserved seating only costing $40.  You certainly wouldn't get a football ticket in the UK for the price of a main course pub lunch!  You can get further reductions plus a whole host of goodies if you want to become a member and there are plenty of membership options, including just a 3 home game reserved seat membership for $100!  If you fancy following the team, check out the membership options at http://membership.rabbitohs.com.au/membership-packages/.

So Friday night was my first introduction to live NRL as I headed off to ANZ stadium to see the South Sydney Rabbitohs play the North Queensland Cowboys!  The ANZ stadium is the old 2000 Olympic Stadium and a nightmare to get to in rush hour gridlock which paralyses the length of Parramatta Road out of central Sydney.  In the end I gave up waiting for a bus and walked to the closest train station... at least trains can't get stuck in traffic!!  There were a good few Rabbitohs supporters in their red & green striped shirts on the train, so I was fairly confident I wouldn't miss the start, despite being much later than planned.  We arrived just in time for kick-off to a great atmosphere, despite only achieving a crowd of just under 16,000.  Playing North Queensland means there aren't many away fans (it's rather a long way to travel for an 80 minute match), but the lack of numbers were made up for by the noise of the Rabbitohs, particularly those in The Burrow... the standing area populated by those die-hard members and fans, just like we used to have at footy matches in the UK before standing areas were banned after the Hillsborough disaster.

The bunnies (as the Rabbitohs are fondly known) got off to a bit of a rocky start, giving the ball away and going 4 points down within the first 15 mins.  They gradually got their act together, although it remained rather a scrappy game with some butter-fingers ball drops along the way. Having said that there were also some inspired periods of play with an amazing breakaway run down the pitch from the far end by Greg Inglis to score his second try of the night and the fifth for the team.  Rabbitohs supporters are certainly a vocal bunch, so there was plenty of encouragement for the team to push themselves and make it a resounding win, which they eventually did with the final score being 28-10.  That puts them at the top of the league for the time being, even if it's only until Melbourne Storm play on Sunday... if they win they'll go back into the lead not on points (which will be equal), but on goal difference.

Normally I hate the getting away from a sporting fixture... too many people, not enough transport and too much pushing and shoving.  Not in this instance - the crowds were in good spirits, everyone was friendly (even the girl stood next to me on the crammed train who was wearing thongs (flip flops) and had her toes trodden on by pretty much everyone trying to squeeze into the carriage!) and it was great to see so many kids among the regular supporters.

I can definitely say I thoroughly enjoyed my first NRL game and will be going back for more... maybe next Friday's game against the Tigers, another local team which should mean a much bigger crowd!  Who knows, if things pick upon the job front, I may even become a member... although I'll definitely be going for the black top with white bunnies rather than the red and green stripes!!

Keeping busy

One of the hardest things when you don't have a job is keeping busy once you've finished everything you can do in a day of job hunting.  That really hasn't been a problem for me and now when I look at my diary, I only have 2 days with nothing going on between now and the end of May!!  In fact I'm beginning to wonder how I'm going to find time to fit work in!!  It is certainly much easier to find things to do when you live in a big city rather than a small town (which is more like where I've been living in the UK) as there is just so much going on.

Last weekend saw me doing a meet-up walk from Rose Bay to Bondi... the long way round the South Heads, which is approx. 15km.  We had fabulous weather and I met another great girl - Becky - as well as a couple of guys who've been over here for 18 months.  Alex who works in media and Richard, who is the first accountant I've met over here!  It was a little depressing to hear that he'd been in Sydney since October and hadn't managed to find a job and that prior to that he'd been in Melbourne with no more luck.  However, I shall take heart that we're all different and he did give the impression of being your typical bean-counter, which is far removed from me, so hopefully it's no indication that I'll be heading back to the UK in a couple of months without having found something.  Maybe it does help to explain why UK immigrants don't seem to be top of the list for securing interviews if employers' experiences have been with the bean-counter types!!

We managed to lose Sean, the walk leader as we headed across the final headland into Bondi, but carried on regardless to the Icebergs where we settled down in the bar with a fresh glass of Pinot Grigio watching the surfers riding the waves outside! A perfect end to the day!

Apart from what are now my standard choir commitments, I traded a run with the Hash House Harriettes on Wednesday evening for another free concert at the 'Con'... this time students performing piano sonatas.  Both Becky & Hannah were keen to go and Becky also had friend she'd met at a rock climbing meet-up to bring along too.   In the end it was just Becky, Mark & myself as Hannah was sick, but the concert was fantastic and we then migrated to a German bar in The Rocks to drink Wheat beer... possibly the best in the Southern Hemisphere!  It was a great evening and the plan is to do a single malt night soon... once I've identified a good bar that does a full range of single malts! Becky is a novice whilst Mark & I are connoisseurs, so that should be a fun night!

I can honestly say that my wobbly day of homesickness seems to have been a one-off occurrence and I'm sure that is down to keeping busy, meeting new people and sharing experiences.  Despite the lack of a job, it's easy to avoid becoming despondent when you have other things occupying your mind and it makes you focus on how to achieve what you want rather than dwelling on what you haven't got.

Joining In!

So, alongside what's turned into the usual slog of looking for work, this week was the start of the new term and time to try out a raft of different choirs!

For those who've known me for a long time, you'll know my childhood was spent singing sacred choral music in Cathedrals across the UK.  I haven't done any of this sort of singing for 20 years, but it's something I've hankered after doing for a couple of years now.  So, my first choir on Monday night was St Mary's Singers who sing a service in the magnificent cathedral on the second Saturday each month.  Despite getting stuck in rush hour gridlock down George Street trying to get into town for 6pm, I did manage to make it to the rehearsal with time to spare and met a really friendly bunch of people.  Katie is another British music graduate, over here travelling and working and joined the choir just a week before the end of term.  Cynthia is an Australian Chartered Surveyor who also joined that week, then there's Jenny, Lydia, Teneal and a whole host of others who came over and introduced themselves.  It's a far cry from the rather aloof reception you get as a newbie joining a choir in the UK!

Feeling a little apprehensive about how my voice would match up to everyone else's, I quickly felt right at home as we were joined by our British musical director, Oliver, who turned out to be a younger incarnation of the inimitable David Spencer (my director of music at school), with exacting standards and a dry sense of humour!  Nowhere in the UK do I believe you'd find a non-auditioned choir with such a high standard... maybe the Aussies don't believer they should do something if they can't do it well, so none of the tone deaf people even try to join?!  We started with "God is Gone Up" by Finzi, which I vaguely remember performing once in the dim and distant past, but it was like the past 20 years just disappeared and I felt like I was back where I belonged!  I've often said to anyone that wants to listen that doing a music degree is the best way of turning you off music for life.  It was certainly the case for me and it's only now that's feel I'm finding my way back from the wilderness to appreciating my ability to make and enjoy music again.

So, my first choir was a resounding success and I'll definitely be back again next week and joining up!  The next choir was the Espresso Chorus on Tuesday evening... chosen not only because of its location (just 10 mins walk from my apartment), but because I loved the name!  This is run by a live wire of a lady, Michelle, who seems to have boundless energy and who commissions composers to write pieces for the choir.  Each concert (usually 3 per year) is designed around a theme, the music is commissioned and then other aspects (theatre, readings, etc) are woven around the pieces to create the finished performance. I have always enjoyed singing new works, but in this case it seems the compositions continue to change right up until the performance date as Michelle feeds back to the composers about what is and what isn't working.  Again the standard was high despite the fact that auditions aren't required, but although there were some interesting pieces of music, I didn't find I really gelled with the group and their way of working.  Coupled with the fact that they charge $160 per term to participate in the choir (presumably paying all those composers!), this is a choir I won't be returning to.

On Wednesday evening I took a break from singing and headed up to North Manly to join the Hash House Harriettes!  For anyone who's not come across the Hash House Harriers, this is a global movement, popularly known as "a drinking group with a running problem"!  There are a number of groups in cities all over the world and I chose to join this one because it's (mainly) a women's group, so I thought I might be able to manage the pace!!  They meet weekly and members take it in turns to set a trail (marked out using chalked arrows on pavements or flour on rough ground).  The rest of the group has to try and follow the route, which includes some false trails and junctions where the trail might lead in any direction.  I've never been a huge running fan, but the fact that you are concentrating on following the trail rather than just putting one foot in front of the other really makes a difference.  I loved it and couldn't believe that I kept up the running all the way along the trail... normally I'm the world's worst for giving up and walking within 5 minutes of the start!!  I shall certainly be going back and enjoyed meeting yet another group of very friendly people.

Thursday night was my final choir try-out... this time with Alchemy ACappella.  As my youth was spent singing in an ACappella choir, I thought it would be quite good to see if I was still up to singing unaccompanied.  This is well out of my comfort zone at the moment, although singing with St Mary's Singers on Monday had certainly improved my confidence levels.  I was quite surprised when I arrived to find a group of about 10 singers, including myself and a German girl called Selina who were just trying it out!  This really is getting into territory where you have to be 100% confident in your vocal abilities... there's no hiding with that few voices, especially when parts split leaving you with just 2 people to a part!!  We sang a variety of popular music, most of which Ronelle (the MD) arranges and most of the performances the choir does is for weddings.  It's a great group with a collective sense of fun in between concentrating on getting the music right.  I loved doing the whole acappella thing again, so this will be my second choir, giving me a real range of music and vocal styles to get into.

I rounded off the week on Friday by meeting up with a new friend from last week's Manly Meet-up to go and see a free concert at the Conservatorium of Music.  It was a performance by a group called Ironwood of 2 Bach Cantatas and a world premier of a newly composed work for harpsichord and viola de gamba.  It was a great concert in the fabulous Verbrugghen Hall at the "Con" (as it's of course known in Aussie abbreviation speak!) and featured the beautiful voice of German-born mezzo-soprano Charlotte Betts-Dean.  There is quite a big programme of free concerts at the Con, both lunchtime and evening ones, so I shall no doubt be checking out some more over the coming weeks.

Well I can thoroughly recommend joining in with something, whatever your interest may be, as a great way of settling into a new city or country.  I'm starting to feel well and truly settled now and just need to get something sorted on the job front so I can stay in Sydney for the long term!

Travelling again!

On Friday I felt like I'd returned to my favourite pastime, finally getting the opportunity to travel to somewhere I haven't visited before!

I was off to Newcastle - 100 miles north of Sydney & 2.5hrs on the train!  That means the trains out here travel at the kind of speed steam trains used to in the UK... what a progressive nation I now live in!!  It's easy to understand why there is so much controversy over the governments plans for high speed rail links which will cost billions, take 50 years and be outdated by the time they're finished.  Surely just building a 'normal' speed rail link would be good!

It's amazing how far Sydney's rail system extends and for just $61 per week, you have full access to all of it, so you can travel to Newcastle in the North, Wollongong and beyond in the South, into the Southern Highlands, the Hunter Valley or the Blue Mountains and beyond!  This was the ticket I purchased, so I now have an excuse to travel a bit more over the next week at no extra cost!

The reason for my trip to Newcastle was to visit an old school friend who I haven't seen in 23 years, but who, like me, has ended up on the other side of the world!  The trip up to Newcastle is fabulous and is worth doing even if you have no specific reason for going there.  Once you leave Sydney's suburbs, you are travelling through dense bush (trees) along the Hawkesbury River with views out across wide expanses of water with boats sailing in the sunshine and marinas tucked into corners of the waterways.  It is a watersports enthusiast's nirvana and makes you wonder why more people don't choose to, live out here.  Oh, of course, it'll be that slow-speed rail link!

Newcastle is the centre of coal mining and transportation, which means you rather expect it to look black and grimy.  Instead it has a beautifully modernised, busy waterfront lined with eateries along the river and then massive stretches of beaches running from Nobbies lighthouse south, interspersed with rocky headlands and hidden coves.  It's certainly not a haven of activity as far as shopping goes with just a couple of sleepy main streets, so possibly not a great place to be if you're a shopaholic!  The residential areas are fairly sprawling, so you really need a car to get around, but if you like living somewhere close to countryside, this would be a great place to base yourself.  We visited a number of different places, all within around 25km of Newcastle, including a lovely nature reserve with raised walkways where you could spot the local wildlife, from birds to wombats, koalas to kangaroos.  Although further north than the Hawkesbury River, there is still inland water near to Newcastle and we did a lovely lakeside walk at Lake Macquarie Park, where we also found a great local farmer's market where we got a delicious lunch.

Saturday afternoon saw me travelling south again, back towards the city.  An hour & a half closer to Sydney are the small towns of Woy Woy and Umina, where I was off to visit another friend who's recently moved out here from the centre of Sydney.  It seems Sydney property prices are now starting to drive people out here and they realise you've got great beaches, right on the Hawkesbury river, a relaxed way of life, but still have access to the city with the train journey taking around an hour & 15 mins.  For the price of a small apartment share in the Inner West of Sydney, you can find yourself a 2/3 bed house with a garden out here.  There is a ferry from here to Palm Beach, which joins you to Sydney's Northern Beaches and as the crow flies, I'm probably not more than 5 miles away from my friends in Avalon, just south of Palm Beach.  The views are magnificent and we enjoyed a long sunset walk along the beach which seems to go on forever.  The only downside to life out here, it seems, are the bogans that seem to congregate here!

My relaxing long weekend was completed by a trip to Manly to join my first Meet-up group on Sunday.  If you find yourself in a new place, anywhere in the world, I would strongly recommend heading to the meet-up website (www.meetup.com).  There are literally thousands of different meet-up groups all over the place, geared up to all different kinds of things, so whether you're into outdoor activities, wine tasting, partying, quiz nights or whatever, there will be a meet-up group for you.  The one I went along to on this occasion was Manly Meetup - Fun, Fitness & Friendship where they were having a meet-up for snorkelling and picnicking at Shelley Beach, Manly... one of my favourite spots in Sydney.  I arrived a bit late, but managed to find the group and met some great people from the UK, NZ, China and some home grown Aussies too!  The website (and the app) are great and once you've met some people, it's easy to see which other groups they belong to or what other events they're going to so you can attend other meet-ups where you know at least someone going along as well as meeting lots of new people too.

So after a hectic weekend, I watched sunset in Manly before heading back to Circular Quay on the ferry and home on the bus, ready to start a fresh week of job hunting!

Anzac Day

Despite my good intentions of getting up and going to a dawn service, either my alarm failed to go off or I failed to hear it!  Not surprising when it was on for 3.15am and I'd only gone to bed at midnight!  When I did finally awake, I headed into town and instead saw the Anzac Day parade.  The streets were packed to see all the different services and bands march through the centre of the city and there was a really great buzz.  After the parade I did a really shameful thing... I visited Starbucks!  Now I know I wouldn't normally go within a million miles of the only coffee chain I've ever come across which has now idea of what coffee is, but it was the only place with a perfect spot, drenched in sunshine and right next to Hyde Park so I could be close to where I wanted to see the Commemoration Service a bit later on.  Excuses over, the coffee was as bad as ever, but the raisin toast was delicious, so a reasonable place to visit if you don't want to drink coffee!

After my break, I headed into Hyde Park and took up a spot along the pool in front of the memorial... a front row view, but I was on the sunny side, which probably wasn't a great idea for a long wait and the service.  The service started at 12.30pm with music from the Sydney Police Band and a choir whose name I didn't catch.  It was attended by various dignitaries, including the NSW Premier, who made a really good speech.  The service was really moving and it was great to see so many people and such a great age range attending.  Judging by the service and what I'd also been listening to on the radio, the Australians take the commemoration of servicemen lost in conflicts very seriously in comparison to in the UK where you often only see elderly veterans out on armistice day.

The tradition of Anzac Day is to spend the morning remembering and the afternoon having fun.  In NSW that means a game of Two-Up, a gambling based pastime which is banned in the State on every day of the year except Anzac Day!  I gave it a miss on this occasion and instead entertained myself shopping for a new pair of jeans as mine were literally falling apart!  I was pleasantly surprised to find the same pair of Levi's costing less over here than in the UK despite the exchange rate, so that really made my day!

The Sun'll Come Out, Tomorrow!

And it did... Sunday dawned with clear skies and bright sunshine and my mood seemed to mirror it!  Maybe it was just the grey skies and rain which had affected me yesterday... isn't Australia supposed to be perpetually sunny?!

I had a bit of a lazy morning... breakfast in bed, reading my book and then enjoying a long email from my Mum.  She really is wonderful at writing as if she's just sat across the table talking to you!  It really helped to put yesterday's demons in perspective and drew a good few belly laughs, which are supposed to be great for releasing endorphins and making you feel happy!  With that and the sunshine streaming through the open door to my balcony, how could my mood fail to improve!

I eventually got up and after contemplating going off to the beach for the day, I decided the weather is forecast to be good (and getting better!) all week, so I'd be better off sorting out the remainder of the stuff I needed to get to make my studio a home.  So I was backwards and forwards all day, first to KMart and the Reject Shop, then home with my purchases.  Then out to SuperBarn, the local supermarket that sells "farm fresh" produce alongside everything else, where I picked up a special - 2kg of potatoes for 99c!  Now there's one thing I really don't understand in Oz... they only have 5, 10, 20 & 50 cent coins, so why do they price something at 99c, which by definition has to be rounded to $1?!  Its absolutely mad!  With the shopping all done, I headed back out to Glebe where I had a good wander around, checking out the local shops, before picking up a take-out coffee and heading back home with it as I'd arranged to call my Mum at 5pm.

How lovely to have a long chat with my wonderful Mum who can always make me laugh, whatever the circumstances!  Although I miss having her around to chat more regularly, I really do hope I get a job and stay out here as I will love bringing her out and showing her Sydney... not the sights, but the places you only know about when you're a local.  After 2.5hrs, we finally said goodbye and I thanked my lucky stars that I'd found such a great mobile phone deal which meant I could chat for so long and pay nothing!