Oz

Well, I guess it took more than 24 hours to follow up yesterday's post.

Anyway, I'm going off to work soon. But not offshore.

I'll be leaving for Perth, Australia very soon. Maybe in as little as ten days. I'm going to work on a farm for the next 18 months. Maybe longer if I end up liking it there.

The pay is... quite good. Provided I don't get carried away I could make a hell of a lot of money.

The last few days have been spent doing research and asking around for tips and advise about living in Western Australia.

This is a huuuge deal for me. I've never gone this far away before.

Well, let's just say things will be very different for me very soon. Very, very different.

Today I went to see the placement agency responsible for the trip to hand in my details and paperwork. Things are almost ready and after all the necessary paperwork we are ready to go. There are ten of us in this group. There is a bit of a delay because 7 out of 10 have no passports.

Another thing came up today which could be considered very bad timing. Just as I'm wrapping up the Oz trip, a Radio Operator opening appeared out of nowhere. A pretty good one too from a very reputable offshore services company.

So yeah, unfortunately this caused a bit of a tense moment at home just now. My dad isn't happy at all about me not going to sea. His reason apparently is that it's a waste of all my documents and the courses that I took. I know this. I have plans to pay this back with my Oz job.

Another thing was we got help from a relative for this RO opening. I guess the parental units didn't want to offend them by telling them immediately that I've decided to get another job.

But I have a nagging feeling there is something else behind that. I'm not going to speculate on what it is.

We asked the youngest bro to pick up this job. Hopefully he will move to get it.

That's just the thing isn't it? Such a great moment blemished by bad timing. There you go, me and the dysfunctional unit that is my family...

So why did I decide to go to Oz instead of offshore.

Why wouldn't I go?

Here I have a chance to work in a country I've never been to and earn 300% more than I could if I had stayed in Kuching. Yes, there is that question about cost of living in Perth. I have plans to deal with this. Provided I don't live large this should not be a problem. I'm a very cheap person. Go ask my friends.

The job offer includes accomodation and transport. I have to pay for this out of my pocket but it's not so high.

Minus everything including rent and other stuff I should be bringing home a good amount of cash. Even after all this plus other expenses I put in my calculations, the final number is still more than what I would be making on a rig or a barge.

Plus it's on land and it's not as dangerous. There is no risk of the strawberry/apple/tomato/pear farm going Piper Alpha on my ass.

At the end of the day, the bottom line counts. I'm doing all this for two main reasons. One is money. A lot of it.

Two, is adventure. I'm 35 going on 36 and I haven't really done anything radical or very different.

So after all this at least once in my life I can say that I stepped out and did something with my life...

I hope to God it works out.