Harlo Everyone

I'll moving my blogging to a new service. Please update your links to

http://circularquay.blogspot.com" title="http://circularquay.blogspot.com" target="_blank"http://circularquay.blogspot....

I'm going to miss my blog home which has been me home for 9 mths.

cheers.

overseas

okies, the main difference between the east coast and the west coast of australia is huge. the east coast especially sydney, melbourne and brisbane have bigger populations, a real chinatown, better shopping experience.

in the west coast, we are so far behind... i remember when i was flying back from sydney to perth... the cabin crew informed us "that perth is 20 years behind the east" haha actually she apologised, she was meant to say rather that perth is 2 hours behind the east, same timezone as Taipei, Shanghai, Singapore, Malaysia. +800 GMT. Actually the first statement she made has a ring of truth about it.

Alot of miscreants, misfits, underachievers from the east coast settle in perth, i'm talking about the ang moh lar, they like the quiet sleepy perth lifestyle. they wanna escape of the big concrete jungle of sydney, melbourne and brisbane.

I found that Sydney and Brisbane have HMV, Borders, Kinokuniya, starbucks. Now they have kruspy kreme, an American franchise doughnut joint. quite popular in Sydney, only shop on York St. off George Street in Sydney. I have not been to Melbourne, I suspect Melbourne also got HMV, Borders and Kinokuniya. We should have them in Perth, we are closer to Asia, Singapore have them all... But its all based on population size ~ market. Perth needs alot of catching up to do. har har.

I was talking to my workmate, that I had a talked with my friend's father, Australia is a really big island in south east asia. that means the coastline is so vast and huge. hard to defend... if Indonesia, China or India decides to send a boat load of people, maybe 500+ to 1000+ on each boat, to Australia, Australia will be colonised already by now har har.

Another workmate indicated China have 20 million paratroopers, I am not sure how accurate is it, I know the People's Liberation Army have 1 to 2 million troops. But let say 20 million paratroopers land in Australia, this is equivalent to Australia's population har har, we will basically be conquered.

Lets put things in perspective, there are 4 million people in Sydney. There are also 4 million people in Singapore. Obviously Singapore is smaller, higher population density, more happening, shops open later at night... higher frequency of buses and trains. Sydney is happening in the day, the 4 million people are spreaded over vast distances in surburbs. Also lets look at New Zealand, obviously also got 4 million people but scattered over the two main islands. the population density is definitely lower than singapore's and sydneys. From the tour to the blue mountain the bus driver aka tour guide mentioned Sydney is also growing really fast, about 9000 people settle in Sydney each week, migrants and people from other places settle in big cities like Sydney bcos of better job opportunites and services.

In some places of Sydney, I feel like I am in Asia, so many black hair har har. I feel like I am in Bugis Junction in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. Alot of mainland chinese, japanese, hong kongers, indonesians, thai, vietnamese, a few malaysians and singaporeans. I only heard one gurl speaking hokkien. All sorts of people really. In Brisbane, there are more taiwanese, mainland chinese over there. Taiwan has a sub tropical climate that is very similar to Brisbane and the Gold Coast. The winter is dry, they get most of their rain during summer. It is only Perth that feels more malaysian and singaporeans. Every you go, you sure can tell malaysians or singaporeans. This is perth, close proximity to Singapore/Malaysia. My uncle said Melbourne is very hong konger, (correct me if I am wrong). Lotsa hong konger everywhere I suppose. The majority of restaurants have cantonese speakers. Also indonesians are also everywhere because the ones that come here are off course rich lar, come here and study... also have fun, go to the mountains and see snow, ski and have fun.

First day back at work... started at 8 am. Lotsa and lotsa ppl to deal with. The photocopying people are not doing their job. I was about to do the paper runs for the printers and get new toners I saw the photocopying boss in his office. I told him, I paged the photocopying attendant many times to go and refill paper and replace toner cartridges. He apologised, they have a new gurl around... he acknowledged they got the page message but thought it was old messages from last week. I wondered to myself "huh" all paged messages have a date stamp on it. Dun tell me they are so blur?... not realising to check the date and time the message was sent. I also talked to another staff member on the loans desk, bcos we also got a message from her about the photocopiers in the reserve room out of commission. She paged everybody. She told me, she was so busy today, alot of things not working, frustrated... I said same here at the service counter. I am also angry alot of things are not done... we copped alot of flak because we are the front line dealing with people and when things are not done on time/out of our control, we are the first one the students or staff like to spill their anger...

I talked to my workmates today... one guy chris quitted work about two weeks ago, fed up with the IT dept poor handling of IT systems and the people in charged of the systesm. Its true... the people that worked at our uni, if they were working for the private sector, would have gotten the sack long time ago. They have such poor people skills and cannot deliver services on time. Take for example, the week I went away to Sydney for holiday, the student database went down, staff cannot check enrollments, the timetable where students do their lecture timetabling was down 3 days, a host of things went down... Its just unacceptable for students to take that sorta nonsense, waited 3 days to do their timetables.

Matt the runner boy, said he has had enuff of full-time work, going back to casual, working 3 days a week if he can get his way. He said, he got pushed and shoved around, taking the blame... His job description was not clear, he had to do alot of other jobs that other staff responsible should have done but they as usual, slack, unmotivated shirkers hence his going to go back to casual working about $100 less when he was full-time. He still wants to get a V8 5 litre second car. But he might not afford the fuel for it.

I also saw this indonesian gurl, I couldn't recognise her at all until my friend said it was the gurl that always wore the tennis cap last semester, always in the library lab doing her assignment or using the net. She now spots blonde hair and a red jacket. Matt reckons she looks hot too. har har...

Whats with all the blonde hair these days!, maybe it was me who started it when I got bored and coloured my hair blonde. But blonde hair with asians were there even before I did coloured my hair during the first semester's break. I guess people these days wanna be more interesting, test out new hair looks... gurls are always more fashion conscious than guys :P

After work at 1230, I went down to the bookshop with my fren, bought a book for $98. Man!!! thats so expensive, my fren told me, to go to Singapore, in clementi there is a bookshop to get my books over there, its so much cheaper even though its paperback. I told him, yah, my uncle also said the same, better go to clementi bookshop next time. But this is my last 6 months of uni, I'll go back to studying in the future. I want to also work and also travel. I like travelling by myself, I'm feel so happy, I am free and nobody's bitch. I basically did everything I wanted when I was in Brisbane and Sydney. I felt homesick the first day, but everyday after that, I felt so happy to be going out, shopping, sightseeing, eating and also talking to other people from different background.

When I was on holidays, I talked to a few Britons, one german school teacher taking his small class around in sydney, half indonesian-American guy going to UTS (Uni of Technology Sydney), a New Zealander, some Japanese people, an Irish dude in Brisbane, two Dutch gurls of Filipino descent, one Hong Konger who has lived in Britain his whole life.

If I get the chance to travel alone again... I'll be more than happy. I need to go back to Malaysia for Chinese New Year to visit my dad's relatives. I have not seen my dad's relatives for yonks! time to meet and strengthen the family ties. My mum said I have to take my brother back to Malaysia, he has not been back for quite some time.

My uncle who lives in Australia is going back to Malaysia via Singapore this tuesday. He needs to see his father who is not feeling well and also sort out some stuff over there.