A Piece of My Life

Today is our last day here in Melbourne. We fly back home tomorrow morning with a one hour stopover at Singapore. We will be touching down on Philippine soil at about 8:30 in the evening.

I have mixed feelings about leaving Australia. Happy and sad at the same time. Mostly sad because I will be leaving my new friends behind. The past 20 months have really been a roller coaster of emotions, plus the good and bad experiences that I went through when we were still newbies in this place. Much to my chagrin, it is only now when I am leaving Melbourne that I have finally found a feeling of familiarity and a starting sense of acceptance to the Aussie way of life. But that’s life! The twists and turns that come your way only makes you a better person.

Last night, I couldn’t sleep well… a lot of things were crossing my mind. Mostly about my future plans like going back to work, enrolling the kids in time for the June school opening, fixing up our house etc. etc. I really don’t like to think and analyze my situation too much. I would rather be there in the moment, actually going through each process and seeing everything unfold right before my eyes.

Good bye Melbourne…..good bye Australia…..thanks for the memories

Yesterday, I had a short meeting with my manager, Maureen, and team leader, Tony, that I will be resigning from ADP Employer Services and will be staying until end of April. Of course they had to ask why, and I told them that I wanted to go back to the Philippines.

It took me a long time to reach the decision of going back home. There were a lot of sleepless nights, coupled with internal debates going in my head plus doing some research on what I needed to do before leaving Australia. Like filing for a tax refund, withdrawing my superannuation, and disposing of my car and other stuff. At the end of it, I finally decided to go home. Of course this decision was also largely influenced by Kevin and Mariel’s constant urging that they wanted to go back to the Philippines.

Well, at least I won’t have any “what if’s” to be asked later in my life.

We had no work from March 21 to 24. Here in Australia, Good Friday is a holiday, as well as the Monday after Easter, which is aptly called Easter Monday. So 4 days of just lazing around and doing mostly nothing. Well, on Saturday we went to the laundromat. First time ever here in Melbourne so it was really more of a getting-to-know-how-to-use all of the machines there. It was good that my daughter was with me or else it would have taken me ages to finish the 4 loads of wash. Easter Sunday dinner was spent with my friends eating, drinking, playing bingo, poker and whatever. Oh well, it’s gatherings like this that make my days here more tolerable.

Yesterday was a holiday in Australia. The Aussies celebrate Australia Day very January 26, but since this year the day fell on a Saturday, Monday became a no-work day. Woohoo!! Me and the kids went to the beach with some of our friends and it was really fun. As is typical with Pinoy get-togethers, food was a-plenty. Aside from the standard Aussie barbie fare like sausages, chicken kebabs and lamb, we also had inihaw na liempo and chicken inasal! With lots of rice, bread, watermelon, plums, mangoes, Krispy Kreme donuts, muffins, chips, soda……….. grabe yun food! The weather was perfect, with a nice, warm sun and a cool sea breeze occasionally caressing our bodies. We also spent the rest of the afternoon playing poker and pusoy dos. I had a lot of coaching from my kids, who knew more on how to play the card games than I did (hhmmmm….baka hindi pumapasok sa school itong mga ‘to).

Me and my two kids are back in Melbourne. We arrived at 9:30 am Melb time yesterday, after flying for about 10 hours, from Manila to Singapore was 3 hours, with a 1 and a half hours stopover, and another 7 hours from Singapore to Melbourne. Sobrang kakapagod! Notwithstanding the fact that it was another heartbreaking farewell from the people and places that I will really miss!

Anyway, it’s back to reality……

 I will post pics of our vacation as soon as I get the photos downloaded from our camera

Hurray! Only 13 more days (and still counting) until we leave for a 5 week vacation in the Philippines…..ang saya-saya

My kids started the countdown when the -BER months came in, and they have already planned several activities with their friends once we get home. Siempre, we also have amassed quite a stash of pasalubongs for relatives and friends - chocolates, t-shirts, Christmas gifts etc. I still have to check how heavy our check-in luggage would be since I don’t want to have a repeat of what happened to us when we left the PI for Melbourne. In short, since our maletas weighed more than the allowed 25 kilos per pax, we had to remove stuff from our maletas and scrounge for plastic bags so that we can handcarry the excess kilos. Kaka-tense no!

Anyway, the countdown continues…….

My current work involves resolving problems of ADP’s clients in using the SAP HR system. The work can be really challenging at times because I encounter issues from different countries around the Asia Pacific region. I have been assigned as the default Support Consultant for the Philippines (naturally ha!) and Japan clients , but from time to time, I also get to handle issues from Malaysia, Thailand, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia. The variety of issues that come my way manage to keep me on my toes. However, sometimes it can be really frustrating at times especially when the clients (the end-user) are difficult to interact with. These are my observations - Singaporeans are the most exacting clients to work with, working with the Japanese and even the Chinese is quite a pleasure since they are very polite people, Aussies are a pretty straightforward no-nonsense bunch…

The one thing that I like most working in an Australian company is that they are rather lenient when it comes to family-related matters. They have always believed (and practice fervently), that there must be a balance between the family and work life. So if one needs to take a leave from work because a family member is sick or there’s no one to take care of the kids, it is fairly easy to do so. Working here is a breeze.

We are now officially one year residents of Melbourne Australia!

My kids and I came here on September 10,2006, actually we took the flight from Manila on the 9th but we arrived early morning of the 10th. As we stepped off the airport, there was a chauffered car waiting to take us to the house where we would be staying temporarily for a month. These were all arranged by the company, ADP Employer Services, who also sponsored the working visas for me and my kids. Thinking back, it was a really good start to beginning our life in the land down under.

Upon reaching the house, I took a short nap and when I i woke up, everyone was also asleep, the kids tired and exhausted after the long 10 hour flight. It was at that moment that I gave in to my feelings of apprehension, anxiety and the starting pangs of homesickness that I shed some tears. Did I make the right choice in coming here to Melbourne? and with my children at that?

<p>After a year, I still cannot say if I made the right decision to come here. But as far as I can tell, things would definitely be better in the days, weeks and months to come. :-)</p>

Me and a few of my friends thought about having a potluck dinner just so we can be together and catch up on each other’s lives after not seeing each other for some time now.

So we decided to have a potluck dinner. This was last Saturday, August 11,2007, and I never really expected a whole bunch of people to show up. And of course, food was aplenty! Well, that’s the secret if you want to be sure that you have a takeaway bag at the end of the night.

To my Melbourne barkada! Until the next potluck gathering!