Happy Canada Day!

Today is Canada Day, and all my Canadian coworkers aren't here. Some are coming back but don't know when, other went back to Canada a couple weeks ago. So I could have a drink to celebrate, but no one to "cheers" with. Oh well.

Today I went out to lunch again with some korean students. It's been a while since I've done this, but it was nice again. One of the guys, after service and he was waiting around for lunch asked if I was going. I said no, but then he said he'd like to have lunch with me and he went on about his "situation". I wasn't totally understanding the whole thing so I went to lunch, but didn't get to talk to him. Perhaps another week. But I wonder to myself, do some of these guys like me because I am an asian who can speak english? Last time I went out to eat with them, one of the guys I met who was not part of the larger group mentioned that to me, that these korean students wish "envy" me because I can speak english. Oh, these korean students are all here to learn english. So it got me thinking, that I could really get to know them and help them by just getting to know them more in english. Interesting.

Last week I told one of the people at the church that I'd like to help out somehow, anything. She asked me, well what would you like to do, which is a valid question. However, I said to her that it did not matter to me. That I felt that I could do anything, I can't do everything good nor do I think I will be good at doing everything, but if it needed help then I'd be up for the challenge. She and everyone else looked at me weird, they were like "you don't know what you are saying". Whereas I felt I surely do know, I just felt I don't want to just do things I may be good at, or what people think I would be good at (something computer related), I want to challenge myself to try new things even if I felt I wouldn't be good at it, I may be surprised that I have a gift I have not yet discovered. I'm not sure they were convinced.

Church I attend. New Hope Brisbane.

So today I talked to her again and said the same thing, and perhaps she gave in and she said to me, "do you think you can be at the church office at 6AM?". I was thinking, you are kidding right? So apparently the group that sets up the church (the office and church are not the same place) meet at 6AM. Man, what these people need is to be more efficient, maybe that's what I can do, is make them cut that down to like 7AM, maybe even 8AM. If it takes 4 hours to set up, there must be something wrong! So next week I will make the half hour walk to meet them at the church office at 6AM. We'll see how things go.

Last week I went to the Brisbane Broncos game. That is Rugby League, which is the more worldwide known rugby game. The PM on the project is from Accenture, and apparently many Accenture office have season seats at stadiums for the managers to take their teams out for. So my coworker who used to work in London said his office used to have three sets of seats for the Arsenal team because he was a fan of Arsenal. And so the Brisbane office has 10 seats (10!) for the Suncorp stadium where the Brisbane Broncos play! The game itself is ok, I prefer the Aussie Rules game more. But the stadium is beautiful, very comfortable. I did not get the sense that people were saying how steep it is, cause we were sitting towards the bottom.

Brisbane Broncos vs. West Tigers @ Suncorp Stadium

I started playing soccer here with my coworkers! We are team "Witness the Fitness". hahaha, not that it happens. We played two games so far and I think we've gotten better already. And we got our new jerseys. I really like them, they have red and black stripes running vertically. they looks so much like soccer jerseys, I'd wear it on a normal day. But this game is really good, it really has a team spirit kind of thing. And it's really great to do some stuff outside of the office with coworkers. And it gives me some consolation for not getting to play softball and ultimate this summer.

Something interesting about houses here in Australia is it is not standard to have central heating. It surprised me a bit when I was in Melbourne when my apartment did not have it, and then the same thing in Brisbane. I was really cold some nights, had to put on all the blankets I had. Luckily the apartment I have now does have central heating but it isn't that good. However, this really hit me when I went to a church friend's place and he greeted me with full jacket and tuque on. I was like, is this normal. It looked so weird. And they have this one unit on the wall that has A/C and heat, but they don't always turn it on. I was talking about it and apparently some people are in denial that it actually gets cold here in Brisbane. I guess I can see, I mean it's cold maybe 2 months of the year and not even that cold, it's bearable. So perhaps it's not such a great investment? But it's just surprising that most homes don't have it. Guess I'll just bundle up a bit more.