Job interview

I had a job interview this week and it was totally different from all the other interviews I ever had before. They did not ask ANY of the questions everybody else always asks, like 'why should we employ you', 'why did you leave your last job' and 'what are your weak points'. (Tempting but wrong answers to these questions are by the way: 'because I'm the best', 'the boss was an arsehole' and 'I don't have any'). Also no questions about my cover letter, my CV or my three pages addressing of the nine selection criteria.

Anyway, we had a nice talk, crammed with four people in a tiny office, around a round coffee table. Our knees almost touched, so formality was out of the question, which suits me fine. I felt right at home and would love to start. Rather sooner than later. Got the impression though, that they got a part timer lined up for the full time job, because they asked me if I would mind working part time. Well, actually I prefer that. No probs!

So, keep my fingers crossed till January (after I finished typing of course), cause they will take that long to let me know.

Saint Nicolas-day

Yep, today is the day. Sinterklaas, or Saint Nicolas birthday. Surprisingly he managed to find me here in Oz, cause I got a chocolate letter in my uggie this morning. For the unknowing: your are supposed to get it out and eat it, not walk around with it in your shoe. Our half-Dutch cousins are coming tonight to celebrate with us, which means I have to go out and buy some presents and then give my best shot to making the mandatory poems in English. Scary!

Been busy

It's been a while, because I've been busy writing job applications, addressing selection criteria and more boring stuff. Also been having nice lunches with friends and done a lot of reading. Of course. And had an, expensive, haircut. Have to enjoy the free time while it lasts, won't I? That's why I go to the reception at the Dutch Embassy this afternoon, to welcome our female national hockey team. Wonder if they serve raw herring, white bread and Dutch cheese for fingerfood?? I'm hoping for 'bitterballen' though. Mjummie.

Snot

I'm a terrible hayfever sufferer on the best of days and today it is really windy, so really horrible. All the way to the city I was sniffing and sneezing to the extent that I didn't even bother to get out my hanky anymore, cause there was no way of keeping up with it. In stead I tried to sniff it back up, which is gros, but is actually recommended by doctors as being more healthy. Anyway, I was browsing through this shop full of kitschy Oz stuff in order to buy presents for the Dutch Sinterklaas, on the 5th of Decembre. Maybe you heard about it: it is like Christmas, but then just for fun.

while browsing I was still sniffing and sneezing. And not until I finally had chosen 6 presents and reached into my backpack for my wallet, I noticed this big blob of snot on my purple cladded left breast. Yeah, even grosser. How do you solve that and keep your dignity? I honestly cannot tell you. Don't think I can ever go back to that store again.

Enjoying

I have a neighbour that I never met, but I know one thing about him of her: he or she plays the violin. Beautifully. And does so in daytime. So I sit behind my laptop with the windows open and lovely music streams in. The sun is shining too. And the postie brought a nice postcard from my sister in the Netherlands and a package from my mother. Is this the good life or what? (I mean, who cares about stupid headhunters not calling back, people unreachable by phone or other down to earth stuff? Not me, not today!)

No hurry

This weekend I realised that for the first time I left home when I turned 18, I do not have to find a job in any hurry. I'm used to having to take care of myself and to earn my own money. Worked through uni, started fulltime work 2 weeks after graduation. And now I have this wonderful husband. Who tells me not to hurry, but in stead look for something nice, interesting and/or fun. Because he will earn the money for a while. So I can enjoy this feeling of freedom for a while. There is someone that wants to take care of me. And likes to do that. This makes me feel like a totally new person. Weird.

Dance teacher

Considering the name of this blog, I feel obliged to tell that I've been to a job interview for a position as dance teacher. It sounded like fun, dancing in stead of sitting on a chair, but as expected working hours are in the evening and the pay is lousy. I would also have to invest 6 weeks of 4 hours a day into a training, in order to be able to teach people the English walsh or the Lindy Hop. Unpaid, of course. Wait and see. I got the distinct feeling that I was way too old in the eyes of the boss, so he will probably not ask me anyway. Ah well, something else will turn up. At least I really enjoyed the contra dance night yesterday: having fun, getting tired, relaxing the mind. Bliss!

Life is easy

if you're about to finish your manuscipt, had a nice lunch with an ex colleague who is becoming a friend, have a chat lined up with someone useful network wise, are looking forward to having a nice tea session with an interesting lady and the sun is shining too. Sometimes, life is just so easy.

Flamenco: yes!

Consistent with the name of this blog and my username, I have at last been to a flamenco class. Although I already got a terrible cramp in my thighs after 5 minutes, I really loved it. It has been over a year since I've been to a class and I'm happy I did. After 2 hours all my muscles were sore, my shoulders hurt and my feet were killing me. Cann't wait till next week! ;-)

Sobering thoughts

Yesterday when I rode back from my last day at work, I suddenly wondered why I am so stressed out about finding a 'good' job right away. The reason we came here, was because we wanted to experience what it is like to live in another country and that is what we are doing. Why on earth should I make a career move at the same time? Miss Perfectionist strikes again, let's leave it at that.

I sneezed my way home (very hayfeverish) while smelling not only the roses, enjoyed our luxurious freestanding (rental) home when I swung into the garden, feeling very silly. Again. I am going to enjoy this experience more from now on, promiss to me.

Courage under fire

Is sometimes just quitting. Refusing to be there any longer. So, that is what I did today: quit the job. Boy, that feels good! I'll take two weeks to finish our book and then I can finally focus on finding a job in education. Or any other job that does not require being glued to a chair in front of a computer for 8 hours a day while pretending to be brain dead.

Right away decided to check out a flamenco class next Sunday too. See, it is working wonders already. I'm happy. Watch out world, here I come! :-))

Coward

Okay, I'll admit I'm being a coward at the moment. What I should do is just quit the job right now, finish the book and find a proper job. It is not that there is nothing for me to do, it is just that I don't get the chance of doing it. So I spend a lot of hours in the day feeling very very unuseful. And frustrated, cause I see what I could improve or contribute to. On the positive site is that I learn a lot of things that will benefit me personally: about working in Oz, about Ozzies, about the 'no worries mate'-mentality (but how long does it take to become a mate???). Sticking it out for the money, doesn't that sound horrible. Did I turn into a cowardish horrible person all of a sudden? How did that happen?

Most boring lunch ever

Picture this: 6 people sharing lunch in a nice Thai restaurant. 4 people talking about old times, 2 people staring into the blue getting totally ignored. Nobody asks them anything, nobody speaks to them. Did I tell you they all work at the same office?? Must have been the most boring lunch I ever attended. Only positive thing was that I could really concentrate on my food and try to chew each bite 36 times, since that is supposed to work wonders for you digestive system. Give me a Dutch cheese sandwich (broodje kaas) anytime!

It never rains in Canberra

and I'm really glad about that, cause if it rained any more than it has done for the past months, I'm afraid we would drown. :-(

Anniversary

With a clairvoyant view on the future, we got married 4 years ago. Which did help in obtaining a visa for Oz. Today is our anniversary, which we normally celebrate by going to a nice Italian restaurant (mind you: not a pizzajoint!) in Breda. Since that is a bit far from Canberra to go for a dinner, we will settle for good Vietnamese instead. Gosh, what a dissapointment .... ;-)

Girlie talk

I always said I did not want to live in Queensland, since they do have the most horrendous weather over there. Think humid and hot. Think mosquitos and cockcroaches. Definitely not me. But, and this is a biggie, that weather at least leaves you looking good. Canberra means dryer than dry, even when it rains oddly enough. So since I moved here, my hair is getting oily within no time, while at the same time it is horribly dry and frizzy. Where are the curls I still had in Malaysia??? I spend like a fortune on stuff to put on my skin and it is still dry and itchy. Two years further and I'll look like I'm 85. Some good advice anyone??

Tik tok tik tok

4.45 pm
4.46 pm
4.47 pm
4.48 pm

Don't you just love to work?

Work and all that

Okee, I know I'm not all that, but this job isn't all that either. So I decided to get back to square one and try to find another one that suits me and my abilities better. A job in education preferably. I'm excited by the idea alone, although I have no clue about how to find one. Scary! The nice Singaporian chick that is my colleague (her words by the way, in case you think I'm using disciminating language) gave me a contact at the uni. Hope that will lead to some information on how to go about it. Keep my fingers crossed.

Had a lot of fun today by the way with this same colleague. Don't know anyone who can impersonate a goldfish that well and still be cute! ;-)

Best discovery so far

A month has past with the speed of lightning since my last post. Must be starting a new job. And I cannot even say 'time flies when you're having fun', cause I'm not having much fun. The general feeling is more of exhaustion so far. Well, since it is Sunday now, I'm not going on about it. Let's switch to nice subjects.

Nice as in nice food. Best discovery so far are the beer battered chips with chili mayonaise of the pub in Ainslie. Wow! I know, I know, not much vitamins and all that in it, but hey, it's the weekend!

Finished the first draft of the book and I'm very happy. We will still have to rewrite stuff, but this draft is sent off to the publisher. Keep my fingers crossed that they will actually approve of our 180 pages hard work and that they will send their feedback to us very soon. Looking forward to having some free weekends again.

Movie movie

I honestly don't know what went wrong with this one. I seem to remember I wrote a nice piece about some interesting movie .... which of course I do not remember anymore. But this weekends movie was nice to: The bicycle. It shows you the importance of having a bicycle if you are a teenager in Bejing. Interesting stuff!

Magazines and tea

Yesterday I received a postpackage from the Netherlands with some very usefull things. For starters, it contained the powercabel for my new laptop-with-a-flat-battery. No need to elaborate on that one. I was also very pleased with the Dutch liquorice, or 'dropjes'. Although I hardly ever eat 'drop' at home, having more of a savoury tooth, here they all of a sudden give me that homey feeling. The best things in there though were 1. really good redbush tea with fruit and 2. Dutch magazines. Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Ozzies have no clue about either of these items. The teas here are either very black and need a lot of diluting with milk to come close to being drinkable, or they are fruity infusions which are always sort of sour. The best I discovered so far is the green Chai tea, which also needs milk. Pickwick in the Netherlands on the other hand makes nice lightly coloured fresh tasting teas, which even got my English coffee loving friend Julie on to drinking tea. Well, have to be very careful with this one package, so I'm afraid you cannot stop by and sample it. ;-p
Never thought much about the magazines before. I mean, they were there and I read them, until we left. Here in Oz I haven't found any women's magazines so far that are not either about celebs, beauty or kids. All of them subjects I'm not particularly interested in, to tell you the truth. So I have rationed myself now to one magazine every few days, in order to enjoy the Esta's and Viva's for as long as possible. Thanks so much Martine, for sending my some FUN! J

Wintery birthday

It was very very strange having my birthday in the middle of winter instead of in the middle of summer, as I'm used too. The night before it was freezing cold and I didn't sleep much, due to the horrible effect an airbed has on your bodytemperature if the floor is cold. Daytime was fine though: spend the afternoon sitting outside in the sun with my husbands parents, eating applepie. Had lots of phonecalls and e-mails and even postcards, so I don't feel forgotten although I'm on the other side of the world now. People love me, fantastic! ;-)

Pj's

For the first time in many many years I bought a pair of pj's today. Unbelievable though: we move from a cold rainy country as the Netherlands to sunny Oz and need night clothing. This morning the pegs were frozen stuck to the drying lines! They are pink too, considering if you have to be square you might as well be as square as possible. I'll look like a big pink elephant no doubt, so I'll have to warn my love that it is just me and not some delirious vision, brought about by to many beers.

Readers

Apparently I did something wrong with the settings, because this log still doesn't show up as 'recently changed'. Hope that is the reason I have not noticed anyone reading this yet. Thought it wouldn't matter, but it does. I need some feedback to get inspired. Have to work on that one.

Not much news anyway. I'm working on an educational book, which is fun, but very demanding. Hope we'll make the deadline in October! So, between working on the book and walking to the library, nothing much happening. Only inside my head ..... ;-)

Mouldy

We don't have a bed yet, just mattresses on the floor. I've slept like that for years in the Netherlands and never had a problem. Now within 1 week, the mattress was soaking wet (probably also due to my illness and the profuse sweating caused by it, yuk) and starting to get mouldy! And of course it is raining today, so no chance of putting it in the sun. Been trying to get it dry before the gas heater. Hope it works. No idea if you have to treat it with special anti-mould stuff or anything. Bummer.

Sick

Nothing as bad as being sick in a strange country, far away from you mother. Pretty childish huh? But still. Everything is different here. Going to a new doctor. Having to pay right away when you leave. Not quite understanding the way healthcare works here. Feeling very sick and miserable. Yesterday was definitely not my best day so far. Although it was nice that our cousin straight away came to take me to the doctor. And gave me some motherly advice. That helps. A little.

The Big Issue

I used to buy the Dutch version of the Big Issue, so I decided to make it a tradition and buy the paper here too. Apart from the interesting stuff that is in it, you can have fun buying it too.

Just around the corner from the library where I go to use the internet, were 3 blokes propped up against a shopwindow. The papers were on a little table in front of them, just barely out of the dripping rain. I passed them twice and they didn't give me as much as a look. Well, I do not feel really obliged to ask if I can please please buy a newspaper from them, so no deal there.

Luckily another vendor got the idea of how to sell and was able to follow up on it. He was on his own two streets further up and smiling at everyone, while trying to make conversation. You know, saying things as 'How is your day today?' and 'How are you?'. How can you resist? Actually, a lot of fancy dressed people did, but being a just immigrated Dutchie, without any friends here, I was of course a pushover. So we started a conversation and he tried to guess my birthcountry. When I admitted being Dutch, he seamlessly went on with the remark 'Dutch women are always very beautiful. I've known one and she had the most incredible blue eyes.'

Well, to cut a long story short: you'll understand that he will be my regular vendor from now on?

Bye the way, I also had a good laugh yesterday with a guy who put up a sign reading '3 jokes for a dollar'. Works a lot better than 'I'm hungry', I can assure you.

Yes!

I got a job! Hurray! And I even can cancel another second job interview. Doesn't get more luxurious then that. Great. I'm happy. :-)))))

Some weekends

Lots of nice things happened over the weekend, as in we finally managed to get the key of the rental house that we have been waiting for the last two months. Okay, there is no working kitchen yet, nor a toilet, but the plummer should be attending to these things as we speak, so to speak. Keep my fingers crossed.

Also the audition I went to to get a part in Ruddigore went really well. At least I was able to sing a whole song this time and even sound pretty okay.

But everything was overclouded by the fact that my father in law had a stroke and is in hospital now, waiting for more information about the cause and hoping for the return of movement in his left limbs. It is great that we can go over there, since he is actually in Oz at the moment, but I had imagined our reunion in a little bit happier place than a shitty hospital (no offence). Damn.

Quick quick

Racing through today. The sun was out for the first time this week, so put in a shitload of washing. Took me half an hour to put it on the drying lines! (Gee, where are the days gone that I had a dryer to stuff it all in within three minutes! Those things you never think about when you try to imagine your life in a different country, now do you?)

Called the library for an internet hour but all the computers were fully booked for the day. Managed to find an odd hour during everyone else's lunchbreak. Walked in a hurry to the library in order not to miss a minute. (Very good actually, since 'brisk walking' for at least half an hour a day is highly recommended here.) Behind the computer I raced through the website of the organisation where I have a job interview on Monday and printed everything. Hope the printer managed to get all the letters this time instead of only twothird on the left side.

Tried to read up on some weblogs I love, but fat chance. Next person is already breathing down my neck here. Have to get internet at our new home. Don't care what it will cost actually. :-~

Dancing through life

Actually, I'm not really a person that goes through life dancing. I mean in a way I do, literally. Because I love to dance. Dancing makes me feel good, happy, without worries. Just let the music guide me. Doesn't really matter if it is on flamenco music with my shoes-con-tacons-cubano, or ballroom or disco or salsa or jazz ballet or tapdance. Every dance will do. So, that is why I choose this name for my blog. Problem is that my mind tends to be on the melancholy site. Not dancing at all. Sometimes down right noir. But I would like to be different. Get 'inner poise' as Bridget Jones tries so hard for in her struggle with life. And although I don't have a problem with drinking or smoking or nasty boyfriends, the inner poise bit would be quite useful to obtain.

So here we go, trying to look at the bright sight and subsequently dance through life. Don't be disappointed if it is a slow dance every now and then.