Sydney Stories - Week 45 (and 44)

Hello,

Yes, I couldn't make it to write last week. Right about Thursday I had some time, but then it was too late and too early for this week's story. Suddenly life seems to be running on turbo mode.  Gotta slow down. :-)

I was reading a book review in a kid's magazine picked up in Nandhitha's pre-school. The title is "The Very Bad Book". Here's a sentence from the review - "This book is 172 pages of rotten rhymes, despicable drawings, crude cartoons and juvenile jokes that are anarchic, offensive and even funny". Apparently there no censor board for children's books!!!

It is spring time here and flowers abloom all over. There is this purple Jacaranda flowers all over Sydney. Didn't notice this in Melbourne seems like a feature of Sydney and Brisbane. Wonder if it is the same sampangi flower found in Bangalore but a purple version. 

This Friday we had a "Family Disco" event in Nandhitha's pre-school. A nice way of raising funds for the school. However I was not "prepared" for it.  Maybe a little more orientation would've helped. However did come back with a dinner voucher worth $50. Guess I should not complain. :-)  

The dinner voucher - we got it as part of a raffle ticket prize. It is one of the trends of the holiday season to have a Xmas raffle going around. Everybody seems to have one including our doctor's office. It's not too expensive - 50c a ticket so one would not feel the pinch.

Talking about donations, my Movember collection has been pretty pathetic. I was the only one who donated (to me) inspite of me reaching out to my "network" via email and also shamelessly asking people to donate whenever someone commented (positively) on my moustache. Firstly I wonder why I even wanted to do this, next wonder what I can do next year to improve the collection. 

I have told this many times already but will repeat again. Australia does not know how to deal with temporary workers like us. Or should I say temporary workers should be just that - temporary for a few months and not hope to have a decent living. One of my colleagues had their 2nd child last week. He is also on a 457 visa just like me. The health insurance for people like us works a bit differently compared to the normal private health insurance (am not talking about the public medical care). The coverage is so bad that one should'nt really be thinking about having babies with this visa. My friend was pretty nervous that nothing should happen over the weekend because the costs will increase and his insurance will not cover that additional weekend charges. The treatment itself seems under par when I compare to what I had experienced in US. Maybe it was just that hospital which apparently had underpaid nurses. There was a board outside the hospital...beware of underpaid and overworked nurses. 

Ta ta for now.

Have A Great Week!!

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 43

Hello,

The holiday mood is slowly settling in at work with the desks getting decorated with the red and green stuff. The week went by quickly as usual with all the fun stuff at work.

Our anniversary was celebrated by me doing a WFH (working from home). In the evening went to a Murugan temple in Westmead. It is run by Sri Lankan tamils and the day we went was Surasamharam I believe. It was interesting to see the crowd there. The men were wearing the dhoti in a very unique way with the borders (paettu) displayed in 3 different layers. Later in the evening went to a North Indian restuarant called Haveli. Had a nice "banquet" dinner. It was supposed to be like a thali meal with unlimited supply of curry and naans. They had a simple rule, we can ask for as many repeats we want, but we can't take home anything if it was requested for a repeat. However we couldn't even finish the 1st rounds. 

Weekend was quite hectic as well. Finally made a visit to THE Bondi beach of Sydney. Some of my clients and colleagues had planned on a 2 km walk along the beach where there were some sculpture exhibits. I had foolishly signed up for it thinking we can still manage with the 2 vaandus in strollers. Thankfully we got delayed with yet another commitment en route. Must've been a pretty scenic walk but would've been treacherous to attempt with kids. We finally caught up with the gang for lunch in a beach side cafe. Nandhitha had some fun later at the beach. And yes, finding a parking spot was a nightmare. Spent about half an hour just roaming around to find a parking spot. Lesson learned, never ever try to drive to Bondi again. Bondi beach can be considered the Miami or Santa Monica of Australia. It was the most happening place. In fact right when I was searching for parking there was some arrest happening and a  TV crew was interviewing some life guard. 

Slowly getting used to the road ways in Sydney. What is called as "car pool" or heavy occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane in US  is called as a "T2" or "T3" lane which mandates a minimum of 2 or 3 passengers to be travelling in the vehicle. Continuing to be learning lessons not to rely on the GPS 100%. 

On Sunday went to the Helensburgh temple where my uncle had organized a Kanda Shasti pooja which apparently they do every year. If not for anything temples are a good source for socializing. Was fortunate to meet a  senior person in the IT industry. It was a bit unnerving to see Indian women visiting the temple in shorts and minis. Not sure if they were visiting the temple for religious or touristy purposes. I understand the foreigners (or should I say the locals) coming like that, but Indians? Oh well...let me not be judgemental. ;-)

Went to our neighbour's son's b'day party in the evening at Hungry Jacks. Hungry Jacks is the equivalent of Burger King (everywhere else in the world). For the first time in my life had a veggie burger (outside India) on recommendation from my neighbour. Was pleasantly surprised by the taste. Didn't expect to enjoy a veggie patty. 

The lifts in our apartment stopped working again. :-( Apparently some major fault due to some water leakage somewhere. Not fun to go up and down 5 floors with 2 kids.

Oki doki. Have a good rest of the week.

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 42

Hello,

Last week turned out to be quite eventful as I expected it to be.

After all it was the week when there was a "race that stops a nation" took place. Last year while I was in Melbourne it was a public holiday in the state of Victoria. They might as well announce a national public holiday. You might've heard of the solar solstices, the "Cup day"  can be called the lunch solstice of Oz. Whichever office is working it is considered to be the longest lunch of the year. In other words people leave for lunch and not return till 4 PM only to pack up their bags. The most "impressive" part was when we were in the middle of a very important meeting. The meeting facilitator interrupted the meeting at 2.55 PM announcing a break for 20 minutes. The race goes from 3 PM - 3.07 PM and everybody is expected to be betting on the horses and be rooting for their horse to win. This can happen ONLY in AU. I guess I shouldn't ridicule this...it is a part of local culture one needs to adapt to.

November is called Movember here. It is the month where men grow mustaches to collect donations to contribute towards mens health. Particularly for prostrate cancer and depression. Yes, men can get into depression too!! I got an invite from a customer to join the program and am participating as well. I am growing the 70s style mouche. Will post some photos later. If you are interested to donate, feel free to click on http://au.movember.com/ and search for my name to donate. 

The other day I was waiting for the train in Parramatta station and a desi guy walks up to me and starts a conversation. I was first very apprehensive (remember the Piyush episode?). He immediately started making connections just by knowing where I worked. He mentioned a person's full name who used to work at my client's office. So I let my guard down a bit. He then mentioned that he is also a Test lead. I thought...wow..must be handy to network with other peers in the industry. I asked him a few questions about the industry in general and by the way he answered I was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about. So, I let my guard down and exchange phone numbers. On Sunday evening he calls me and says..."So Chenni...would you be interested in an internet based business...". I don't know if there is a "E-vaayan" (loser)  label written on my face that I keep attracting such people. :-( Oh well...

Deepavali...this year was quite unique in many ways. The celebrations started on Thursday at office with a pot luck lunch organized by moi. I had taken tomato rice, masala vadai and coconut chutney. It was a good hit. I had bought some Pune's famous Chitale Bandu's bhakarwadi's from one of the Indian groceries here. In the gang there was a guy from Mumbai. I asked him if he was excited about the bhakarwadi coming from Mumbai. He had a rather sad face saying these exported ones are no where close  compared to the fresh ones they can get only in Pune. I just realized that I myself avoided Adyar Anandha Bhavan sweets in the same shop knowing it must've been cooked at least a few days ago!! 

Deepavali started off as any other usual day, just that I got home a few hours early. The best part for this year was we could burst sparklers which I never had an opportunity while in US. Friday night we had a dinner at a cousin's house. We had made kothamalli (coriander) chutney as our contribution. It was alright. The crowd was mostly my cousin's kids' parents so not a whole lot in common. Saturday night was the mega event. Our neighour and his group of friends had arranged a super Deepavali party. It was arranged in a hall about an hour's drive from our place in some secluded forest called South Maroota. It was like college culturals albeit with kids. The program started aptly with a song from Endhiran to set the mood. A clown was arranged to do some face painting and magic show for kids. There were a few kids entertainment activities and then the adults cultural events - singing and dance. Hats off to those who volunteered and participated in all those events. Apparently all of them working parents spending late nights practicing for these events for almost a month. Yes, there were a few rough performances, but definitely not bad for a set of amateurs. Sunday we had another fairly quiet pot luck at another friend's place. This time it was chicken curry with Mangalam masala. The other ladies were curious to get the recipe from me. ;-)

So long folks...

Have a good rest of the week.

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 41

Hello,

They say it is better to teach a person how to fish rather than catching a fish for him (/her). However, if someone was taught how to fish, also given a fish, marinated and grilled and at the end they say is this how you eat chicken? Well maybe I am exaggerating a little bit. However this is how I felt when one of my team members after an hour long lesson in Excel ignores every bit of it. The client who wanted something in Excel at the end did it himself and showed my team member what he was looking for. Ignorance definitely seems like bliss for someone!! 

Australia has a lot of things, but 2 things I haven't see so far is grape jam (or jelly) and egg substitute in any grocery store. Wonder what the deal is with that. Maybe the Sydneysiders don't care this?

The kids cartoons like Dora and Diego seems like serious business. There are PhDs as part of the research team for these programs. Next time someone completes a PhD in anthropology  he / she might be sought after material for the next kids program.

Halloween was celebrated in pockets here. The stores were marketing the spooky candies but definitely nothing like in US of A. 

Fairly uneventful week last week. Pretty sure this week is going to be interesting. :-)

Have A Great Week!!

Chetty