A Venezuelan wacky guy living his Australian dream

Why?... What? Didn’t I tell you? I had to move to an apartment in the Caracas CBD (which isn’t that glamorous as the Sydney CBD by the way...) meanwhile my family moved to a town called “Sabaneta del Hatillo”, a satellite town of Caracas.

The thing is, I didn’t pictured moving elsewhere but Australia. The truth is, I had to move here... At first (I must onfess) did not like the idea of moving to a dangerous place as the CBD, but didn’t had a choice because my parents house will be too far from my office and I really had to start going by my own (when is related to self hosted or living alone with my wife).

So, how is everything? A lot better than expected... With several painting layers and tons of work started to be our home; not too big, not too shabby but ours.

Funny thing, the packing and unpacking had pretty good consequences, lots of garbage were throw, useful clothes gave away and some research about how to save space (which you might read, link is above), but even with all those preparations we didn’t even give a thought on... “What will we need for the apartment?”

The Sundays night (March 1st, our first night in the apartment) we didn’t had enough to have a decent dinner... Thankfully a couple of sandwiches were the solution and during the entire week fill up our food stocks. But Murphy’s Law is always working... with the apartment done (or almost done) we got a letter from DIAC saying “a case officer was assigned to your application... you are requested to sign and send over the form 1281 before March 31, 2009”. Amazed and confused, didn’t give the proper credit to my eyes and read again... and again... and again. “Woohoo! We have a case officer!!!” said jumping, and with the same impulse took the cell phone called my wife, as soon as her voice said “Alo?” my mouth said “we have CO!!! We have CO!!!”. My co-workers should have been thinking “this dude gone crazy or what? What’s all that fuzz?” but the matter of fact is, the closure of my visa application and a final answer is getting closer, a sweet feeling after 15 months when my application got to DIAC.

It had been sort of a month and a bit from the physicals and this stage of the process is a silent killer. Awful…
Anyway, giving you an update of the process, the day when the physicals were sent to the immigration medical office my doctor told me to send the exams to the embassy of Australia in Chile… I wasn’t so sure but I said ok.
A couple of weeks later my case manager told me it was a big mistake… More than a mistake, an issue. So, I decided to write to the embassy of Oz in Chile querying some information about my medical examination status. Thankfully the response reached me no time saying my package was about to be sent to Oz.
Kind of silly, hun?
Anyway, if you are about to do the medical examinations, double check the direction and send it directly to Australia.
That’s all for now. Cya maties

Everyone knows what a farewell party is. A couple of your closest friends gathering together to say goodbye / trip to those how are starting a new journey. As I said before (in other post named “meeting new people”) the idea of organize reunions are to meet new people; but in this parties the idea is to get even more close with those whom you want to become neighbor of.

When you start the migration process you start feeling a bit lonely and out of the planet, not many people share your same ideas and realities; so a way to deal with it is to find more friends, share your picture and open up your mind. But this isn’t enough, you need to find those whom fulfill you somehow, whom you feel comfortable with and as the time goes by you start to have some connection and friendship.

The same thing happened to us with other couples and families way ahead of us in the process and we could not let them go ahead without a proper reunion and “have a nice trip and see you soon…” the good see you soon.

Those with a path already walked invited us to share a night with them, something small but nice, just family and closest friends, it was our first farewell party, saying goodbye to Ricardo and his family as well to Jea, and it was so nice that we started the feeling to organized something alike. The first experiment was the Reinaldo’s farewell on hooters (also mentioned in other post). Everything was ok and another date was set to another reunion, another friend on its way (Victor and Betzy family).

The Victor’s family farewell party was hosted on my house. It started Sunday at 10 am and ended Monday at 1am, all day menus was subs sandwiches, beer, coke, snacks, etc. It was amazing the quality of the people… everyone took anything to the party, it didn’t matter so much what it was, but at least something to eat or to get distracted made the reunion memorable and thanks god the party showed exactly how I wanted to say goodbye to these dear friends. Again at the end of the party another reunion was set; same place, same channel (hehe, Spanish way to say same hour, location and conditions) this time was Moira’s family (my dear and liberated Moira, Alfonso and Guille).

The Moira’s family farewell was planed Saturday morning till Sarvo (Saturday afternoon) but again the night came, everyone chatting and having a great time. This time menu was meat and chicken skewers, “guasacaca pico e’ perico” (a sauce made with advocado, onions, tomato and parsley finely chopped and mixed with a little bit of pepper and salt) and cassava with milk cream sauce. It was simply magnificent and hopefully they liked it.

In the end, another party was on its way and the arrangement was to organize these parties once every month to say goodbye to our closest friend and those you are on its way to become close.

If you want to organize this kind of reunions all you need is.

• Proper clean location, not too cold, not to hot.
• Chairs… Unless you want to torture your guests you need chairs for them to rest. Tables are not required unless you’re menus requires it.
• Background music isn’t required and in some cases, will be not desired. In our case wasn’t necessary.
• Flexible menus… It means, if you are going to prepare food, make different flavors, variety is the key point to make everyone happy.
• Plenty of snacks… the people is going to be more distracted than hungry and need something easy to eat but constant. Snacks will do it. Bring some nachos, cheese balls and stuff like that. Try also some sweet but remember, sweet will be over first, so keep it out side of the stares until you know everyone invited has arrived.
• Plenty of drinks… this is vital, have sodas, water, beers, ice… everything needed to have a nice refreshing drink made in less than 10 seconds because people will talk a lot… and we you talk a lot you mouth turns into a hot and dry desert.
• Reservoirs. Other key points are the reservoirs because you don’t know exactly how much time the reunion will take (unless you start kicking out people out your home). Have anything for an emergency in case you ran out of food and your guests are a little at the expectation of something to eat.
  

I decided to join up a yahoo group labeled “gotoau”. Obviously is a community of families in the same migration process as I am. Why I wanted to join? Because I need to start knowing people in Australia before I get there.

As I said before, i had to take again the IELTS… I did and I got a solid 7.0.

I must confess to those thinking to take the IELTS, is a very tricky test. Those who haven’t take it yet here is a short description of the IELTS and a couple of tips.

First you are going to have the Speaking module (In some cases this test is the very last because this section of the examination is individual and usually in a separated date) which isn’t difficult. Don’t worry; you are not going to be asked to tell the entire theory of relativity, just the half of it… Ha ha, joking. First you are going to be asked to give a short description of yourself (your name, your age, if you are from around the area and stuff like that). Next you are going to be giving a situation, the first time I took the test was “globalization” and next time was mass transportation. The very last part of these module consist on chatting with the examiner about the previous topic taking out the most of your vocabulary out, this activity takes about 5 minutes. It was fun both times because the people are very nice and they try to get you calmed. The entire module examination takes 15 minutes the most.

All the other modules are taken at the same day (I took the speaking module the Wednesday and the other examination started the Saturday noon).

The first of these modules are the listening module, this is one of those tricky test which takes more speed as it goes by, so don’t take it for granted because you did it great at first. It requires concentration more than anything… I was having the test near someone which started to cough every 5 minutes… I wanted to kill him. Anyway, you will hear people calling to an info centre asking prices on items or subscriptions, a guide talking in the visit to a museum, infomercials or related stuffs. The listing module takes 30 minutes divided in 20 minutes listening the recording and 10 minutes (30 seconds after every dialog completing 6 dialogs, and several minutes at the end to check your answers). My advice, avoid people with a sick look… Another good advice would be try to read your questions before listening every dialog, this is vital, otherwise you will be lost in the context of the conversation and you will not catch the answers.

The second module is the Reading Module which is fun (if you are taking the general training) because you are given a bunch or articles telling you very specific things (such as a hall’s/building’s description, painting course’s description, newspaper articles, magazine spots, etc. If you are taking the Academic training it would be like reading manuals or book short chapters. Then you are asked to respond things such as which is the name of the hall with lots of parking lots or, do you have to take your own colors to the first class of painting? The module takes about 60 minutes. My advice, sum the article and then read the questions, if you find something familiar you would know where you read it, confirm your reading and set the answer. If you read the entire article you are screw, because you will be wasting time… the sick men next to me didn’t matter.

The third and last module is the writing module (which you might take after a nice break, so try to call the muses). Here you will be given two ideas which you have to develop. The first idea is to write a letter directed to a manager, friend or government because you had a defective item (or want to say something nice to the manager) or want to have a meeting with someone or want to serve to your community… The second idea is based on your opinion… when I took the test for the first time I was asked to give my opinion related to the education of kids with their parents and the second time was related to the importance of drama, art, music and languages for balanced minds. I pretty much recommend practice it because you’ll better be quick thinker in order to reduce the thinking and start writing something coherent and not just throwing lots of ideas into the paper. The first idea should take about 20 minutes and the other one 40 minutes, don’t count the words and just write till the paper is filled up. When the paper is full write a quick end and jump to the other idea till its paper ran out. If you think at this point you can add some thoughts to any of the reasoning ask another sheet and keep writing but keep in mind that at any moment the examination will be ended and you will have 30 seconds until the examiner tell you to avoid writing. So, any extra reasoning must sound like a closure. The sick person might help you with reasoning about how annoying are or to write the friend later and you just want to tell him how bastard he was coughing at the EILTS test…

Which was the reason?

Well, to begin with, the IELTS was taken by 200 people at once, in the very same hall at the Caracas place hotel. The idea of a huge room where everyone could make weird sounds avoiding you listen the tape in some modules or someone getting you out of focus in the huge room wasn’t a pleasure. The British Council wasn't prepared at all to handle this kind of situations. The test started at 1 PM and everything was done at 6 PM.

Isn’t necessary to remark, a 5 hour test is not a good test. I only enjoyed the first module (speaking module) where I stood open minded, speaking about everything I wanted to… When I got the results back I notice this module was the only one I was great.

This doesn’t means that I fail the test, I just got the pass mark in 1 module (5.5) and just a bit better in everything else (6.5 to 7.5). It wasn’t good enough for the Australian migration process.

If you think the IELTS is a hard and tricky test, don’t worry anymore. I think is a practice matter. Those who take the test without the concern of not practicing at all, must have a great confidence and concentration.

Easy, the EILTS general course is based on the common language you will be using day to day and a little more complex phrases.
First thing to do is getting the IELTS preparation guide. It gives you a better understanding of what to expect of the exam.
If you want to practice a little bit every exam’s module you can take a couple of times spaced some week between each or, you can search some papers, articles and posts all over the internet to practice your skills to sum up, quick searching and reading. For the speaking module all you have to practice is your pronunciation and consistent ideas over your speech.
The non speakers of English should prepare very well for the examination. For example my wife took a full year course (her preparation was two months before taking the test) not just for the examination, it was also getting ready for the big change when the time comes.