YES, I have a job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I will start working already tomorrow, December 13th.

I had an interview last Monday with Fujitsu Australia and last Friday they offered me a contract after checking my referees (thanks Graziella, Robert and Paul!). The contract becomes a permanent position automatically once I get my permanent residency. This should happen within the next 3 months. And not unimportant, they offered me the salary I asked for (so should I have asked more?????). Fujitsu is a Japanese firm and the world's third largest IT company. Last month they acquired AtosOrigin Australia to strengthen their end-to-end capabilities in packaged business software solutions and managed services. So far they didn't have SAP consultants within their company but they have quite some customers using SAP. They were mainly focused on strategic and infrastructure consultancy and management. So, I expect quite some opportunities.

But I'm not the only one who got a job. Paul, where I'm staying at the moment, was also job hunting and confirmed his new contract last Friday and will also start working this Monday. As you can imagine we were quite happy and after some champagne it was quite difficult to get a straight picture of our celebrations as you can see on one of the pictures.

That means I found a job after exactly one month and just before Christmas. So, I'm on track so far. I got a new passport already, my visa application is in its final stage (I survived the medical test!!!) and I applied for my personal tax file number (which is actually not good, because this means I have to pay tax. Unfortunately it's mandatory). What's next? I will start looking for my own apartment now. I had some strolls around town already and saw some nice areas, close to the water and Harbour Bridge. But the question is, QUANTO CUESTA??? Hopefully next time, I can show you pictures of my new home.

So, what did I do last month next to sending around my CV and emailing/phoning recruiters? By the way, my job with Fujitsu I got via Jacklyn, who works with Fujitsu now and AtosOrigin before. I know her already from years ago when we both worked on the famous Mistral project in Brussels and we also worked together on the Philips project in Sydney 2 years ago. So I owe her one!!

Who did I meet here? * Robert Slob was in Sydney for business and we had a good night out. * Sonja and Kiwi Mark are happily living in McMahons Point, 100 meter from THE spot to watch the New Year's Eve Sydney Harbour Bridge fireworks. Three guesses were I will be that night!!!! * Belinda invited me for a night out with Justin, Brian, Rachel, Cameron and by surprise Toni, who works in London at the moment, came in. Brian's face was like: "This is a ghost." * I went to the club night of the Young Dutch in Sydney. On the menu: "patat met sate en kroketten". Quite funny to meet such a divers group of Dutch people abroad. And I wasn't the only one from Landgraaf! * Gunter and Ghislaine are still enjoying Australia. * Last week I joined Matt for the Twilight Race in Sydney Harbour on his dad's sailing boat. Amazing, there were for classes and around 100 boats participating. Ok, I have never sailed before, so I just did whatever I was told to do. But is was fun. Kate, seems like your brother took over your offer!!!!! I'm still waiting for your sailing lesson!! Matt will actually participate in the yearly Boxing Day race Sydney-Hobart with this boat, which will take them around 4.5 days one way. * This weekend I started with my Rescue Diver course, a serious but also fun course. Today we resuscitated Annie, our "assistant". * And finally I was able to join one of Paul's famous curry nights. Paul is quite famous for preparing Indian curries and yesterday he prepared like 6 different curries and we had a good night with some of their friends as you can see on one of the pictures. Paul is waving and next to him on the left is his wife Pat. They live just outside Sydney close to a forest and they have a lot of beautiful native birds flying around in their garden, like the Kookaburra (see picture), Cockatoo and lots of parrots. But I will move a little bit closer to the city and the action (for young people!!).

What's Next? Christmas with family in Melbourne and a big New Year's Eve party at McMahons Point.

Cheers, Ruud