11520 in Adelaide

Not counting the odd hundred ticks since dawn, today marks the 11,520^th minute I’ve been away from home, in a land I’ve never been before. The land down under.

My exodus began roughly that long ago when I and Al (a colleague) boarded a flight to a 2-hour stopover in Singapore. I did my best impression of Arnie, swearing “I’ll be back” a few moons down the line on my return trip home. ‘lookin’ forward to finally sampling some of Singapore’s finest wares (electronic, of course) on a 2-day stopover.

Morning greeted us with the soft thud of rubber meeting tarmac. The state manager was waiting at the lobby, a company profile booklet (?) in his hands in lieu of a placard reading “Mr. Israel Magalit.”

The nippy air welcomed us to Adelaide, and made me forget the 72 sachets of 3-in-1 instant coffee mix I had to give up at quarantine because it contained dairy products (“milk proteins”) either from Malaysia or the Philippines. Both countries have foot-and-mouth disease. Bummer.

A short drive promptly brought us to our apartments in the upscale part of town, a city called Unley, just south of Adelaide city proper. Our unit was one of a series of two-storey fully-furnished apartments each with 2 rooms and 2 toilet/baths, a living room, dining room and kitchen, a small yard out front and 2 small balconies on the second floor.

After a brief rest, my colleague and I decided to hop on over to the city to grab lunch and get some supplies. We thought it a good idea to get Oz SIM cards for our phones for cheaper calls, at least locally. We also went to the supermarket to tide us over for the next couple of days. Steak was on the menu that night!

The past week has seen us doing the standard office induction, and getting to know the local staff. Friday noon had us being honorees to a pizza lunch to welcome us to the Adelaide office, a 2-storey building in Wayville, just near the ANZACC highway.

Our colleagues here have been quite pleasant, and we got to enjoy some beers with them (and a schnitzel or two) in a German pub on one of their fortnightly events last Friday. We found out that they can be a pretty wild bunch. But you wouldn’t know it, just working with them. All in all a good mix of people who are good at what they do, and yet know how to have fun.

We’ve started to settle in our roles here, taking work off the hands of some project managers who are getting overloaded. Good thing a few of the junior staff at the Ortigas office have become quite capable project managers, so Al and I were able to delegate the work we left behind, with a minimum of worries. We’re both looking forward to learning a lot here, even as we are able to make our contributions to the Wayville office.

I am praying this interim solution to the local project manager shortage would be addressed soon, so Al and I can get back home sooner than the planned 3 months.

I can’t imagine being like that welder who sat beside me on the plane to Singapore. He was headed for Perth on a 4-year contract. There’s no way in the world I can be away from my family that long. I’d never been so thankful for my job as I am now. But still, being away from Cindy and the kids even for this “short” period is hard. Knowing I won’t be there to see Zach’s first steps doesn’t make things any easier.

I just console myself with the fact that our time away from loved ones, while irreplaceable, is decently compensated.

One sad thing is, it has taken something like this to make me realise how precious the oft-taken-for-granted things in my life are.

I pray you never have to go through what I’m going through to realise the same thing.

Approximately 115,200 minutes to go.

(P.S. I left my camera at home, so Cindy can document Zach's first steps. I'm relying on Al's camera, so photos will follow later)