Fade Away

Again tonight was another social event, this time with the young professionals. Went to the gym in the afternoon and then headed to the event. Met Dan and we headed there early, so early that no one was there yet. Eventually Linda (our host) arrived and proceeded to confirm our reservation, funny thing was she didn't print the voucher properly so was trying to find it on her iphone whilst everyone started to phone her. the table had only been booked with people with vouchers, Dan managed to sneak onto our table as we where the first people there, so we just waited for more people  since the restaurant was fully booked.. Someone else joined our table without a voucher an took the place of someone that had a voucher, which meant the person was left sitting at another table till we managed to get another table. Dinner took 3 hours and wasn't really worth it in my opinion. Had a beer afterwards and then decided to head home as the place was a bit 'ferral' as Dan put it!

All the love in the world

Today I went for dinner, again we went to the QV and the Mamak restaurant it was ok.
afterwards. Some of us headed to an Irish pub to celebrate St Patricks day!

We have forgottten

Didn't do much today, the usual; get up look for jobs and then go to the Nike training run for kids! Some girl overtook me on the last stretch, I managed to claw it back and over take her and we sprinted to the finished point, where she just beat me, she hi-fived me on a good finish.

Wasn't too please, imagine getting beat by a girl! lol

Later in the evening I was teaching myself Revit for the test and watching TV. I have been reading this, this is the most funniest thing I have read in my life! Sort of reminds me of last weeks email episode!

http://www.27bslash6.com

Jumper

Today I was struggling to get up for my personal training session at the gym at 8am, I am regretting setting it up for this time! Good workout losing strength after the fourth set!

Later in the day I went to see bespoke an architecture recruitment agency, very positive about my UK experience and also my experience in general. Told me it should be easier to place me that graduates! I volunteered myself to do a Revit assessment test to my skill level. After that I went home to have a look at some Revit books.

Semi-charmed life

Today I went on a 20km walking hike to Cape Schanck. By the time (9am) I got to the pickup point for my lift I had eaten about a third of my lunch!

We arrived just after 10.30am at Cape Schanck. Initially the walk was only mean to be14km, but the organiser informed us it would take 3km to get to the starting point!Good 4 -5 hours of walking  followed by a swift pint at the pub afterwards. The only downside is that we got stuck in a bit of traffic on the way back (People retuning from the long weekend - labour day)

Good scenery and company! I upload the photo's late I left my iphone cable in the house!

Just to say I was rather knacked after that!

Beautiful day

Today I hosted the first boot camp. There was a good turnout, 4 people turned up! Half the group just walked and whilst one member ran with me, we only did about 5km but it didn't seem like that. I decided to stop it there as i didn’t want to scare people from coming back. I knew someone would suggest going for food, sort of defeats the purpose of doing the exercise! But hey if it gets more people to join it’s a good thing. I just make sure we don’t release the place of eating till they do the exercise.
I texted one on my friends to ask him where he was as he was meant to turn up and told him that we were having lunch / yum cha. His response was

‘Cool. When is yum cha? I can prob get in the city abt 40mins’

This was part of my response; please remember I was being sarcastic!

‘Well you can’t come if you haven’t been to the boot camp! lol

Later in the day I met up with a couple of friends and we headed to the food festival, by the time I got there it was closing, so we went for cake and ice cream afterwards. I showed my friends the picture from earlier today and one of them said.

'Its good that Say and you are wearing uniforms, your very organised!' 

I found this rather funny! We were wearing similar tops!


The chocokait place on Little Collins Street http://www.chokolait.com.au
Run by a husband and wife team, really friendly and is nice and a relaxing place to unwind

Fireworks

Today.. couldn't be arsed much... I went to the city and meet up with some friends! Afterwards we went to some Japanese restaurant. Then we headed to the Yarra to watch the fireworks at the moomba festival.. my iphone had died that this point so there isn't any photographs. It was nice and after that went to have a pint at the robo bar (Japanese bar)

Some might say - Part 2

This was the response I got back after writing that email!

"How ridicules, have you got nothing better to do with your time Jan than write such a long winded email."

We received the email at dinner, wasn't sure if I should response back, but being egged on by some of the others I decided to! Trying to character assassinate my friend was a bad mistake!

If I was Michael I would have just acknowledged I was wrong and apologised after the first email and it would have been left at that! I didn't response straight away to his email as it is always better to let a couple of days past to see if he would have the balls to do the right thing, but alias he didn't!

"You can't teach someone to care."
- Art Sakaguchi


Also if you reply straight away to someone, you may regret what you have said, better to calm down and be rational about it.

"Speak when you are angry and you'll give the best speech that you will ever regret."
- Lawrence J Peter

Dear Michael, 

Well clearly I use my time efficiently, getting all the facts and making a valid argument, instead of throwing accusations at people with no solid evidence to back up your claims. Maybe you should master the 'Queens English' before learning such a complex language as Mandarin as your spelling is appalling! 

Have you been watching the film 'How to lose friends and alienate people.' because you are doing a very good job at this! 

The reason why I wrote such an email was to explain in detail the purpose of the group.

You obviously have nothing better to do if with you time either, by initiating this conversation with your callous email!

If you are purely looking for a language exchange maybe you should invest in some private lessons!

Yours Truly 

Jan

Sent from my iPhone
 

It has turned out to be rather funny! I even got a couple of emails of encouragement form other members of the group!

"The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow."
- H G Wells

Dinner was good, Yes it must be true all the girls are scared of eating rice here! A couple of them only had half bowls, I must have had about 2 or 3 bowls of rice so did some of the other guys. I was pretty hungry as I had just been to the gym!

The 'Michael' incident gave us an interesting conversation topic! Michael has now left the group apparently, my intention was never to do this! I just wanted to state the facts to him!

The IOS 4.3 update for the iphone is out! I am downloading it in the library as the internet in my flat still isn't sorted yet. They were meant to come yesterday! Reminds me of Etisalat in the UAE!

Some might say

Got this email a couple of days ago and decided to respond to it today, it wasn't addressed to me personal but I thought I reply anyway.

"why are you sending junk mail to me from this group, is no one interested in language exchange, it seems most the time people just want to promote their friends resturants,  I can't remember the last time I recived infomation about genuine language learning."

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your email, by sending that email you yourself are now sending what you call ‘junk mail’. I'm sorry to hear that you don't agree with how the organisation is run, but our goal is to help the majority of members within this organization.

You must remember although this group is does function as a language exchange group, we believe in promoting Chinese culture as well. If you are just interested in language exchange, you are limiting your expectations from what this group is offering. The aim of organisation is to bring people together that have similar interests.

Learning language isn’t about just sitting and speaking to each other across a table or in a classroom environment, by interacting on different levels it is then when people can really truly experience what Chinese culture is. Since eating is a large part of Chinese culture with different regions specialising in unique cuisine it is only natural for us to experience this. Many of the people joining this group have been or are going to travel to China etc.; do you think they are just going to eat McDonalds in China? I think not!

I can assure you that we don’t promote ‘our friends restaurants'. The fact that you made this assumption offends me; many of our members are professionals or students and have no affiliation with any of these establishments. We are a non profit organisation and do not promote ‘our friends restaurants’. Believe it or not many business deals in China are conducted over the dinner table in China etc. and this is an important part of Chinese culture, which the majority of this group embrace with open arms. Many interesting conversations are also sparked from the dinner table at these meet ups.

Another aspect of Chinese culture is the martial arts and sports. Since the emergent of China as a dominate force in the world of sports. It is only natural for some of our members to take the sports seriously. The competitive streak is abundant in most Asians’ as it is instilled from birth!  Having spoken to many members they were keen to have an organised sporting activity and such as the demand, we have started to organise some events. We know that this might not be everyone’s ‘cup of tea’ but in order to have a successful organisation publicity is the key, hence the email announcements.

There is a setting in meet up that allows you to turn off messages, so if you are worried about receiving junk mail I suggest you change this setting.

A lot of time and effort has been put in by the organisers to host these events; I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for doing a splendid job.

Kind Regards

Jan

Never say never

Today I been in the library brushing up on my Revit skills, I attended a seminar last night, to be honest I was rather bored as it went on for 2 hours. There seems to be a shortage of talented revit designers, now will someone just give me a job! Met an architect who said his firm is looking for people in the next month as they have a couple of big projects that are about to take off so I emailed my CV off to him for him to pass it on to his manager, so fingers crossed on that one!

Day rest from the gym, shoulders are hurting from all the lifting I am doing! I am going to the Nike training run later today! "I train my legs when I run"

Need to find some new tunes to workout to, listening to 'The climb' is good but I need so more power songs! I saw the clip for Limitless, looks like a good film to watch!

'The easiest way to get a healthy body is MARRY one.' I laughed at that one!

Happiness

This post on facebook by my friend Paul reminded of the happy times I had in Abu Dhabi! I am sure he won't mind if I share it! My comments are in the italic pink!

I was thinking today how I miss the call to prayer. It's so exotic and distinctive to the region. I hated those tannoys at first but now I realise they help create that buzz you feel. I still hate those tannoys, well you would if you lived right beside a mosque and got woken up at 4am nearly every day.

"aaaaaaaalahu Akbar!"

It got me thinking about the other things I miss. Things like...

My friends; totally agree
Queueing up twice to buy fruit and veg; I hate that only in Abu Dhabi can they find more complicated ways to do simple things.
Fearing for my life every time I get into a taxi; I hate it when they short change you and don't tell you, it's' the principle if I want to give you a tip I give you a tip, you just don't take it! The funny thing is I knew how to get to more places than some of those drivers!
Hearing the taxi computer warning "Slow down, you are crossing the speed limit" about seven seconds after you get in the taxi; Being a former boy racer and having rolled and written off  my brothers car I understand the importance of road safety and no longer drive that way!
Fresh, hot, Arabic bread; the time we had curry at your place and watched machete, followed by rum and coke!
That night in Dubai; Fuzzy duck, that was a night to remember!
The Indian head wiggle; I only got that once and it was relaxing, my Indian barber in Abu Dhabi made a better job than my Indian barber here in Melbourne and he can't even speak or understand English!
My wrist hurting every Sunday from hitting the volleyball wrong; you must have been playing by yourself as we played on a Saturday! lol
Arabic timekeeping; When Turning up to a meeting half an hour late is the norm and taking phone calls during the meeting... lol
Arif's standard greeting "Hey man, whatsup?!!" I miss that guy, one of my true friends in Abu Dhabi!
Seeing women in Abayas running up the Corniche; I never seen that, just them walking!
Hearing Zombie by the Cranberries several times a night in PJs; I hope the Cranberries are getting the royalties they be rolling in dough by now! lol
Locals looking at me funny like I've just landed from another planet; well I miss the locals and the Filipino population asking me 'Are you Korean?'
Indian workmen in hard-hats and sandals; I don't miss them, it's funny as they do no work but as some as someone important comes on site they start rushing about like mad men and saying look what I done!
Sand; I hate sand!
Those little tiny birds and scrawny cats; I miss Titan!
Getting annoyed when some other hotel guest dared use "my" gym; you should try the 24 hour ghetto workout!
Beijing restaurant; The best Chinese in Abu Dhabi, it was a bit embarrassing when the staff started to recognise us and telling us 'oh your friends are already upstairs'!
Turning down Jan's offer of running on the corniche every single time; Bitch...I liked your excuse...I would, but I would melt!
Jan's Filipino followers; hahhahahaha... you are just jealous of my Korean looks!
The horrible, horrible architecture; True, there is a lot of horrible architecture!
Alaa and his millions of activities; Alaa is pretty relaxed and a cool guy to hang out with and not in your face like some other people I won't mention, just like me!
Jet skiing; never tried that, scared of drowning! :(
Having several showers a day out of pure necessity; I think the most I had was about 4 a day!
Having Arabic TV on in the background for hours and not understanding a single moment of it; I switched channels as soon as anything Arabic came on, although I remember I was engrossed in a Filipino music/variety show at Alona's on Wii night!
Swearing in Mandarin with Yang; I can't remember those words!
Wessam's dancing; we should have taken him to an arcade to test him!
Wessam's sweat; you miss that really, I sure he could bottle it for you and send you some! hahahahaaha
Working the film festival; that was funny apart from the kid that thought he was better than everyone else!
Apartment envy when I was round Sheetal's “flat "; yeah a bit over the top for one person!
Speaking more to my Mum that I do now (good old skype); No one in my family has skype!
Watching people water the walls in the morning; never seen that!
Having to go back to my room to collect my sunglasses when I forgot them (even though it's December); Yeah and also wearing just a t-shirt and shorts in winter, awesome!
Being the whitest person around; I told you to get yourself some fake tan so that you could blend in, but as usual you never listen to my great advice! hahahahahahahaah
Adam the friendliest guy in the world; True and his facebook posts that sometimes don't make much sense, God bless him!
McDonalds big tasty burger; Yeah the big tasty was awesome; it is no wonder all the Arabs are fat! That and there exercise regime, oh we can buy pills to make us lose weight no need to exercise!
Floating in the Arabic Sea; I tried that, I must have heavy bones because I can't float!
Watchings kids trying to catch those tiny fish in the Sea with their lunchboxes (only happened once but made me laugh); missed that!
Robin's daily health tips; How true, when I was living with Robin, she gave me daily health tips and told me what not to eat, I stopped drinking Nescafe as a result! One of the people I miss a lot!
Zoe failing to understand my English - I mutter; that’s funny as your where my translator on many occasions, I don't know why cause I'll been told I don't have an accent, though the Scots I met can pick it up straight away!
Having 100% confidence in Inigo's navigation “skills "; Yeah Inigo and the hiking group, good times! Also his greeting ... hello, hello, hello... Classic!
That Hinglish radio station; I didn't listen to the radio or watch TV out there as it was rather rubbish, pretty much the same in Australia, I just have to find some TVB series to download and watch!
The absolutely unbelievable heat in the summer.... It wasn't that hot, 50 degrees is nothing!

I think I could go on all night but I'll stop for now. I wasn't always sure at the time, but I had the best time out there. Second that mate, I don't think I could have survived that long out there if it wasn't for all the great friends out there!

Some other things I miss:
Hanging out with friends like you and the simple times like when we sat and chatted whilst drinking rum and coke in your hotel room!
Going to Arcadia and Cheers (Filipino bars), where you could see everyone on the dance floor!
Squash, no one seems to play this here, it's too dangerous for them!
Running along the corniche (the beach) and my regular running partners Alexandra, Diane and Jennifer, I would include Aamir and Arif in there but they just became fat and lazy after the first couple of months... lol;
Working Sunday to Thursday!
Using my blackberry, I can't bbm here without a bloody contract! :(
My Filipino followers!
My 'Born To Run AD' group, I am glad Aamir and Robin are still keeping it going.
"It's time to run again Amigos.. carrying on Jans Legacy" Thanks Aamir 

Heads will roll!

When I woke up this morning, my flatmate Michelle was taking ages in the shower and Sebastian was also waitng so I decided to nip to the gym and do some weights. I wanted to see if I could still do an inverted chin up's (a chin up where you put your legs through your arms and then back again) along with my usual chin up set. Still able to manage a couple! Some guy taught me all this crazy shit in Scotland!

Back in Scotland I was doing crazy shit in the gym. i.e. using a stack machine to hang upside down with my arms... I think they took that machine away because of me!

I like this quote, at one point in my life I was at the gym for about 1 to 2 hours 6 to 7 times a week!

'The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you're a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.'

Later on in the day, headed doon the toon to watch a movie with firends, saw Dan on the train, trying to get me to have a game of tennis with him! We ate at the Old Kopitiam QV it was ok and then watched the movie 'I am number 4'. Typical Sci fi movie, some of  the girls where a bit jumpy at the scary parts, which bought a smile to my face!

Michelle left a mess in the kitchen the other day for ages, she can't seem to clean plates either!

Your Song

Sunday. I stayed in bed all till about 11am, just so tired and felt like I been hit by a train so I decided to take a rest day from doing any exercise! When I got up I did my laundry, made some pasta and then went window and food shopping. I was browsing in Borders and decided to to buy a book cause it looked rather interested and was ony $5, It's called 'Every Monday Matters', about making a difference!

So in the next couple of days I need to start to organise this fitness activity for the group.

I watched a couple of films 21, how to alienate people and lose friends, kickass and push. I seen 2 of these films before but some of the 300 other films I have don't seem that interesting to me! I started to watch 'When lanes merge' a TVB chinese series it is rather good!

Nature's law

Today I went to the gym in the morning then to the library. Later that day I went to the meetup seemed to be getting postive feedback for the sporting activities so thats good, I'll try to arrange something for next weekend. The meetup was dragging for a bit and I was getting hunger so we then headed to chinatown for dinner, had to nip out and get some cash form the cash machine as I wasn't sure if I had enought. I went to Lonsdale street to the nearest Westpac branch (If you withdraw from an ATM this isn't affilated with your bank they charge you). the greek festival was on so I told the other upon my return and we decided to go there after to get desert.

The food was ok, cheap which is always good, I ate loads of rice, cause I like rice but I am too lazy to cook it at home! I think all asian girls must be scared of getting fat here cause they never seem to eat any rice and never do any exercise! lol

 We went to the the festival, its just another way for the shops to make money to be honest. the desert shop was mobbed when we went past. I been past that shop many of times and it has never been that busy! The shop even had a stall outside their shop! See what I mean!

So we bought our baklava, very sweet and sat outside the state library where it was less busy. after a bit we moved to a bar and had some beers! In my opinion not a very good bar, they didn't sell corona! I had some carton draught instead.

The following quote reminds of some of the antics in grand designs (a UK TV show about building homes, which is on Australia TV), I saw a bit of an episode the other day. The couple instead of getting  a steel plate with holes punched through opted to get a steel plate with holes laser etched into the steel for their walkway! I wouldn't like to think of the cost of that! Some people have more money than sense!

 “If you think of brick, for instance, and you say to brick, 'What do you want brick?' And brick says to you 'I like an arch.' And if you say to brick 'Look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintol over you. What do you think of that brick?' Brick says:'... I like an arch'” Louis Khan

xx

Looking again for jobs and spoke to a couple of agents. Went to the gym ofr a quick session and then my friend texted me to see what I was up to.We decided to go for a movie after dinner, but she timed it so that we the only film we could watch was 'No strings attached'. Hmmm.... Well I can't really complain as I made her go and watch 127 hours and she was hiding behind her hand for the scary parts! (the bits where he is cutting his arm off).

To be honest the film was quite enjoyable!

The seldom seem kid

I went to the library with Barron on our way down the street he pointed out the dead possum or rat on the telephone wire. He told me it had been there for eight years and it had been mummifed by the sun!

Went for a run with the running group, only 4 people turned up. I ran with a girl called Dianne we ran two laps of the tan after the first lap I wanted to stop as I been running the day before, but she kept on going so I had to as well.

Headed to the gym afterwards for a quick session!

Runaway

Today went for an interview, went well but as always you think to yourself after the interview
 that you could have done better etc! Not stressing about it if it is meant to be it is meant to be it will be!

You should walk barefeet, ground the negative energy!

I also got a free plant as they where giving them away for free outside federation square!

Later in the day I went to the Nike training for the Run for Kids. I moved up one group and  finished 3rd! Runnning with people makes all the difference as there is competition, Nothing in life is worth doing if it is easy!

Bleeding love!

Decided to have a look at this new gym that is just around the corner from me! Got a quick tour and the trainer said I could come and try out the boxercise class for free. So I did some shopping and came back later! It was pretty intensive, skinned two of my knuckles! Walked to the toon and back!

Location:South Yarra,Australia