Subtitles Required

The following blog was originally posted from my old blog, The Geejay Journal:

Back in the days when I had to drive by car back and forth between Melbourne and Canberra, I usually stopped by at the Sundowner Paddlesteamer Lodge in Albury for the night. They had cable TV so I was able to watch Discovery Channel again.

Anyway, this one time I was watching Discovery Channel, they had this feature about this Filipina health worker working in East Asia (I forgot which country). Anyway, she spoke in English for the show, though with a thick Filipino accent, and she got subtitles whenever she spoke. I actually found it funny that the producers thought that there might be westerners who may not understand her brand of English.

Another time, I watched an ABC program called Global Village and it featured a segment regarding Filipinos taking up house in Manila cemeteries because they have nowhere else to live. In interviews, the locals would reply in English but again, they had subtitles whenever they spoke. I thought the Filipino accent wasn’t that thick.

I am now feeling that maybe I need subtitles of my own when I talk to Australians. They seem to understand me clearly enough though. They do tell me that I have an American accent and they guessed that maybe I lived in the US for a while or something. I just tell them that it was because of my Americanesque education we get in the Philippines, with our country being a wanna-be US state and all. That and we were colonised by the Americans back in the early 20th century.

Anyway, one day was watching this American series showing a non-city dwelling family (I forgot which US state they reside in but I thought their accent was a bit southern) and they too got subtitles when they spoke. Now that was funny. I thought I understood them quite clearly (without any effort in trying to understand them, in fact) yet they have subtitles. Weird.

I’m not sure if it was the Americans themselves that put the subtitles there or the Australian broadcasting company that showed the series. In any case, I don’t feel as insulted as before when they subtitled my fellow Filipinos after that.

On the topic of insulting subtitles, I found this very funny video news feed that was supposedly taken in Iraq. Watch it now. It’s a 1mb file though so if you don’t have broadband, it may take a while to load.

Finally, I just like to say that I have nothing against subtitles personally. Whenever Raquel and I watch DVDs, we usually turn on the subtitles just to make sure we don’t miss any words. Since we are both fast readers, the subtitles don’t really bother us. We think it actually helps us understand the show better.

Just Another Shopping Centre

The following blog was originally posted from my old blog, The Geejay Journal:

Yesterday, Raquel asked me where we would go for the day. We would regularly go out somewhere on weekends whether it be the park, a shopping centre, the library or the beach.

This weekend, I thought we go see what the Eastland Shopping Centre. Not too exciting I know but you have to understand that a lot of Filipinos, such as myself, consider going to malls a very leisurely activity much like going to the park for a picnic.

So finding a good-sized mall where one can hang-out for a day is highly desired. Ever since moving to Melbourne in July, I’ve scouted for such malls nearby and so far I’ve been to Chadstone, The Glen, Southland and Crowne. Although all of them are big shopping centres, I usually go to Chadstone and Southland as they are fairly easy to go to via car.

So yesterday, I told Raquel that maybe we can see this place called Eastland Shopping Centre in Ringwood. To digress for a bit, Raquel and I noticed the apparent lack of imagination in naming these big shopping centres sometimes as there is the Southland in the south, Eastland in the east and Northland in, you guessed it, the north.

So off we went. Took the car and drove north via the St Kilda Road then through Punt Road. Then we went eastward through the Eastern Freeway where I can drive at 100kph. Still, the whole trip took around 25-30 minutes and this was without heavy traffic. We were thinking that maybe the reason there wasn’t much traffic was because everybody was at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) watching the Australian Rules Football League (AFL) grand final match between Port Adelaide and Brisbane. Probably.

When we got there, we weren’t really impressed. It sure is big but not as classy as Chadstone and doesn’t seem to be as big as the one in Southland. Although it is a big enough mall, it does not seem to be worth the time and effort spent to get there.

If you are still reading this, then you must either be family or one of my friends, who are my primary target audience anyway. I just want my family and friends to know what I do on an ordinary day.

So this is just another day about just another shopping centre.

Settling In

Well, I moved to Melbourne back in July and it is only now that I’m beginning to settle in. AHHH. And I love the feeling.

The thing was, during the first few weeks in Melbourne, I was preoccupied with trying to get the new apartment in order and trying to fit in my new work then as a programmer consultant.

After a few weeks working at the client site at Transurban Citylink, I realised that I am no longer cut-out for the consulting/contracting life. I must be getting old because I’m now more interested in getting a job that will provide me with stability and predictability.

With consulting/contracting, you never know where your next job will be (after the current one). When you go to another client site, you’ll have to get to know the people working there again, learn the system their working on again, and just live with the fact that the next client might be located an hour’s train ride from your current home. Then there is also the fact that I have to dress-up in very formal business attire (which I totally understand because my company then had to live up to this professional image).

I just want to find a job where I know that it’ll be 20 minutes away by train everyday; where I just need to get to know the people once and it’ll be worth it because I’ll be socialising with these people for a long while; where I don’t have to wear formal business attire everyday; where I can come in at 10 am and it’ll be alright (because it’ll be flexible hours). Well, my prayer has been answered.

I saw this job opening for a company on Seek.com.au one day and the skill set they were looking for matched my skill set exactly. So I gave it a go and submitted my resume. I received an email from them the next day saying that they wanted me to come over to their office for an interview. I’ll cut it short by saying that I got the job! 😀

It’s in the CBD city centre and is only 15 minutes away by train. I can get there in 20 minutes. The work atmosphere is pretty relaxed. It’s flexible hours. The dress code is casual so I come to work in a t-shirt, jeans and rubber shoes. The technology is what I’m familiar with plus I get to work with newer technology like C# and ASP.NET (it’s a Microsoft shop company).

So all in all, I find myself blessed. It’s my fourth day at work and I’m loving it. The work, although challenging, I still find enjoyable to do and I guess it’s also because of the relaxed environment. Now I don’t feel as stressed when I get home from work.

I guess what I’m saying is that maybe I have more energy to get back to drawing now. Whereas before, although I want to make updates on the gallery and on my comic site, I just don’t have the motivation to sit down and pick up the tablet to draw anything decent. Now, it’s different. Of course, I could just spend my free time just watching TV or playing Counter-strike. Still, I think I’m actually getting back the enthusiasm in drawing I once had.

We’ll see.