Keeping busy

One of the hardest things when you don't have a job is keeping busy once you've finished everything you can do in a day of job hunting.  That really hasn't been a problem for me and now when I look at my diary, I only have 2 days with nothing going on between now and the end of May!!  In fact I'm beginning to wonder how I'm going to find time to fit work in!!  It is certainly much easier to find things to do when you live in a big city rather than a small town (which is more like where I've been living in the UK) as there is just so much going on.

Last weekend saw me doing a meet-up walk from Rose Bay to Bondi... the long way round the South Heads, which is approx. 15km.  We had fabulous weather and I met another great girl - Becky - as well as a couple of guys who've been over here for 18 months.  Alex who works in media and Richard, who is the first accountant I've met over here!  It was a little depressing to hear that he'd been in Sydney since October and hadn't managed to find a job and that prior to that he'd been in Melbourne with no more luck.  However, I shall take heart that we're all different and he did give the impression of being your typical bean-counter, which is far removed from me, so hopefully it's no indication that I'll be heading back to the UK in a couple of months without having found something.  Maybe it does help to explain why UK immigrants don't seem to be top of the list for securing interviews if employers' experiences have been with the bean-counter types!!

We managed to lose Sean, the walk leader as we headed across the final headland into Bondi, but carried on regardless to the Icebergs where we settled down in the bar with a fresh glass of Pinot Grigio watching the surfers riding the waves outside! A perfect end to the day!

Apart from what are now my standard choir commitments, I traded a run with the Hash House Harriettes on Wednesday evening for another free concert at the 'Con'... this time students performing piano sonatas.  Both Becky & Hannah were keen to go and Becky also had friend she'd met at a rock climbing meet-up to bring along too.   In the end it was just Becky, Mark & myself as Hannah was sick, but the concert was fantastic and we then migrated to a German bar in The Rocks to drink Wheat beer... possibly the best in the Southern Hemisphere!  It was a great evening and the plan is to do a single malt night soon... once I've identified a good bar that does a full range of single malts! Becky is a novice whilst Mark & I are connoisseurs, so that should be a fun night!

I can honestly say that my wobbly day of homesickness seems to have been a one-off occurrence and I'm sure that is down to keeping busy, meeting new people and sharing experiences.  Despite the lack of a job, it's easy to avoid becoming despondent when you have other things occupying your mind and it makes you focus on how to achieve what you want rather than dwelling on what you haven't got.