Guest Posted August 29, 2014 Share Posted August 29, 2014 Liked ONLY in admiration of the new signature! Right back at ya mate!. Who do you think on PIO would make it onto Tony's Team? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harpodom Posted August 29, 2014 Author Share Posted August 29, 2014 Right back at ya mate!. Who do you think on PIO would make it onto Tony's Team? Plenty! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Keeptrying Posted August 29, 2014 Share Posted August 29, 2014 A great kids to bring up kids? I think not more than fair to average. As European and many Asian kids find on entering the education system here as being extremely un taxing. Then in places like Perth those with initiative to do better are often forced to leave to further career. Happiness is a state of mind that can be ascertained most anywhere. If "untaxing" why do the pom kids who join my kids school find it so hard? Parents constantly whinging about too much homework, compulsory uniform, sport too hard etc etc. Oh and the schooling varies a lot from state to state anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katie22 Posted August 30, 2014 Share Posted August 30, 2014 Agreed, but when they reach teenage years I'm not so sure. I reckon you've got a point there. I've got one daughter who's thrived here but one son who completely went off the rails. When kids are young the warmer weather and sunny days certainly makes it easier to keep them occupied but when they become teenagers there's still the issues of alcohol, drugs, social media etc to deal with as in any other place in the world and I would think it's certainly no less here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted August 30, 2014 Share Posted August 30, 2014 I guess you are a 'successful migrant' when you stop thinking of yourself as a 'migrant!' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katie22 Posted August 30, 2014 Share Posted August 30, 2014 I guess you are a 'successful migrant' when you stop thinking of yourself as a 'migrant!' I don't think I regard myself as a migrant anymore really, been here too long now. Often only times I do is when people hear my accent and then as me where I come from! You sound like a successful migrant MaryRose! Even though I stayed here for my partner and never really wanted to I didn't want to constantly be miserable about it so have got on with life here as in the scheme of things my life is bloody good compared to other people (just turn on the news and see millions in refugees camps) and believe we need to appreciate what we have rather than don't have. Up until my marriage ending I never believed the opportunity of returning would happen so resigned myself to that fact. There are times when I worry that I've been here too long now and will miss the familiarity and will arrive in England feeling like a complete stranger. But I suppose the successful migrant wouldn't even contemplate moving back to where they came from! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 I don't think I regard myself as a migrant anymore really, been here too long now. Often only times I do is when people hear my accent and then as me where I come from! You sound like a successful migrant MaryRose! Even though I stayed here for my partner and never really wanted to I didn't want to constantly be miserable about it so have got on with life here as in the scheme of things my life is bloody good compared to other people (just turn on the news and see millions in refugees camps) and believe we need to appreciate what we have rather than don't have. Up until my marriage ending I never believed the opportunity of returning would happen so resigned myself to that fact. There are times when I worry that I've been here too long now and will miss the familiarity and will arrive in England feeling like a complete stranger. But I suppose the successful migrant wouldn't even contemplate moving back to where they came from! I have had my ups and downs since I came here, though much of that was because I was 'mollycoddled' at home, and then had the shock of living alone in a far away country. But I also know that there is/was nothing about Australia and Australians that caused it. I would have been the same had I moved up to London. (I have a mate who moved to London at 17, and I have always envied him, whilst he has always envied me for moving to OZ!) I loved going back to England for holidays too, which also probably unsettled me, whereas my brother Neil never went back, (until our Mum's funeral 18 years after he left.) When he did finally come to England, he just could not relate to it any more. I had the same feelings, though not as strong, difficult to explain, you go down your old street, see your old home, your old school, but you cannot really believe that you were ever really there? When I finally went back to England to live, I went through the whole emigration process in reverse, learning how to live and work, not just 'holiday' in England. I just re-read your last couple of sentences, and I'm telling you the same thing! The one thing that stops me from wanting to go back to England is that my parents are no longer alive. Funny thing is that I suddenly started thinking about retirement, and how I could spend the northern summers in the UK, in The New Forest. Everything about Australia is 'the same but different!?' I read somewhere that the life of an expat is to be 'at home abroad, and abroad at home!?' For some reason, this is one of the first Sundays (in 30 odd years) that I don't feel unsettled and even a bit lonely. I remember my first Sundays in Sydney, when EVERYTHING was closed, except for the cinemas and Macca! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flag of convenience Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 If "untaxing" why do the pom kids who join my kids school find it so hard? Parents constantly whinging about too much homework, compulsory uniform, sport too hard etc etc. Oh and the schooling varies a lot from state to state anyway Can't say for UK kids, but definitely German and Korean families we know here in Perth find the system very underwhelming as far as homework goes. Compulsory uniform for Europeans does appear strange, never heard about sport though, but the schooling overall both claim far easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flag of convenience Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Being mediocre still something of an advantage. Don't shine, be too different and generally stand out too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie 2 Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Being mediocre still something of an advantage. Don't shine, be too different and generally stand out too much. You must live in a totally different Australia to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katie22 Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 I have had my ups and downs since I came here, though much of that was because I was 'mollycoddled' at home, and then had the shock of living alone in a far away country. But I also know that there is/was nothing about Australia and Australians that caused it. I would have been the same had I moved up to London. (I have a mate who moved to London at 17, and I have always envied him, whilst he has always envied me for moving to OZ!) I loved going back to England for holidays too, which also probably unsettled me, whereas my brother Neil never went back, (until our Mum's funeral 18 years after he left.) When he did finally come to England, he just could not relate to it any more. I had the same feelings, though not as strong, difficult to explain, you go down your old street, see your old home, your old school, but you cannot really believe that you were ever really there? When I finally went back to England to live, I went through the whole emigration process in reverse, learning how to live and work, not just 'holiday' in England. I just re-read your last couple of sentences, and I'm telling you the same thing! The one thing that stops me from wanting to go back to England is that my parents are no longer alive. Funny thing is that I suddenly started thinking about retirement, and how I could spend the northern summers in the UK, in The New Forest. Everything about Australia is 'the same but different!?' I read somewhere that the life of an expat is to be 'at home abroad, and abroad at home!?' For some reason, this is one of the first Sundays (in 30 odd years) that I don't feel unsettled and even a bit lonely. I remember my first Sundays in Sydney, when EVERYTHING was closed, except for the cinemas and Macca! It's interesting reading posts on this forum and realising that people seem to want to return at certain stages of their lives. The desire to come over seems very strong when you're young and when also when you've got a young family, then the desire to return seems strong when pregnancy looms and the same with retirement too. I suppose they are the major life changing events in our lives. Even though my parents have both died I still have lots of family over there, half there and half here and I will be honest I still have my real valued friends over there too. But as the years go by you just feel torn between those two lives. At first migrating is such an exciting adventure for most but at the end of the day nearly all of us move away from families and initially the excitement blots all that out but in years to come it can end up being a very painful lesson learnt. I regret not being there for big family occasions and being there for times when my English family have gone through hard times but if I was over there I would feel the same about my Australian family too. The New Forest is a beautiful place. A good friend of mine lives in Ringwood and I left Bournemouth to come here so not too far away. Not such a bad place to retire I think but then again Sydney aint too bad either! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Can't say for UK kids, but definitely German and Korean families we know here in Perth find the system very underwhelming as far as homework goes. Compulsory uniform for Europeans does appear strange, never heard about sport though, but the schooling overall both claim far easier. Does that mean that the Korean and German education systems are better, or worse? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyHeart Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Can't say for UK kids, but definitely German and Korean families we know here in Perth find the system very underwhelming as far as homework goes. Compulsory uniform for Europeans does appear strange, never heard about sport though, but the schooling overall both claim far easier. Might not be a bad thing...I never understood the concept of huge amounts of homework. Stifles creativity and breeds automatons Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 (edited) Being mediocre still something of an advantage. Don't shine, be too different and generally stand out too much. Just the usual anti-Aussie BS. Is HSC easier for Aussie kids than 'A' Levels for Pommie kids? Do Aussie kids celebrate any more or less when they get their results? ?Is it any easier to get into Aussie universities than Pommie universities? Is it any easier to get good jobs for graduates in Australia (often with the same multinational companies who operate in the UK, USA, and regularly transfer/promote their key staff around the world. Do AFL/NRL/RU/cricket, etc, players have less of a competitive edge than their Pommie counterparts. Do they care less about winning Grand Finals/Premierships/International games against the Poms? Are Aussies any different to Pommies when it comes to careers, buying homes, travelling overseas, pushing their kids into the best schools? Edited August 31, 2014 by MARYROSE02 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Might not be a bad thing...I never understood the concept of huge amounts of homework. Stifles creativity and breeds automatons I expect Koreans make the other Asian 'Tiger Mothers' or whatever they are called? look positively casual by comparison! What do you mean my child can't have extra lessons on Saturdays? He's been weaned. He can walk! Steady on too, calling Germans automatons! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 It's interesting reading posts on this forum and realising that people seem to want to return at certain stages of their lives. The desire to come over seems very strong when you're young and when also when you've got a young family, then the desire to return seems strong when pregnancy looms and the same with retirement too. I suppose they are the major life changing events in our lives. Even though my parents have both died I still have lots of family over there, half there and half here and I will be honest I still have my real valued friends over there too. But as the years go by you just feel torn between those two lives. At first migrating is such an exciting adventure for most but at the end of the day nearly all of us move away from families and initially the excitement blots all that out but in years to come it can end up being a very painful lesson learnt. I regret not being there for big family occasions and being there for times when my English family have gone through hard times but if I was over there I would feel the same about my Australian family too. The New Forest is a beautiful place. A good friend of mine lives in Ringwood and I left Bournemouth to come here so not too far away. Not such a bad place to retire I think but then again Sydney aint too bad either! I went back for the first time in 1983 after nearly five years, and stayed for six months, did not want to come back to OZ. In fact, if I had not taken six months unpaid leave from my job with the Public Service, and thus had a job to go back to, I might have stayed. Then I started going back every couple of years, Xmas 84/85, summer, 86, Xmas 89/90, summer 1993, summer 1995, autumn 1996, which turned into twelve years! I was on a 12 month holiday following redundancy but did not plan staying, then I got a job with Royal Mail, and I had this, for me, amazing thought. "I can STAY here, work here, live here!" My Mum died within a year, so I was glad to have had a year with her, and then glad too, to stay with my Dad until he passed away nearly eight years later. I stlll stayed on in England though, bought the house, carried on with the job, could still be there now. Actually, whilst I was in England, not just my parents passed away, but their friends, my friends' parents, so there was a loosening of my links, already weaker with my original village - Blackfield - where I was brought up and went to school. Now I think I came from Marchwood, where my parents moved to, after we went to OZ. Bournemouth would be nice to live. The winters on the south coast are not as 'raw' as further north and with it being a seaside resort, there's a bit of life - Winter Gardens? Harry Rednapp lives in Sandbanks doesn't he? Isn't that one, if not THE most expensive place to live? Ringwood is a lovely market town. I was trying to picture it, confusing it at first with Fordingbridge. Living on the eastern edge of the Forest, I tended ot think of those places to the west of a line from Lymington thru Brockenhurst, Lyndhurst and Ashurst, or being 'beyond the pale!' I rarely used to cycle past that line you see! The New Forest is wonderful though, beautiful countryside, but not as 'wild' or 'fierce' as, say, Dartmoor and Exmoor (which are equally if not as good!) it's just that cycling on my own, I knew I would never get truly lost and would always come out on a road somewhere. I remember once getting lost in an inclosure, coming across cycle tracks, then realizing they were mine and I'd gone in a circle. One of the things we Poms often forget is that Australia is a nation of migrants who all face the same problems. In some ways we are almost arrogant about it. We are the only ones who have problems. y brother married an Italian Aussie girl whose parents came here in the 1950's. My friend has just rang me to come round and she is from Belgrade. She has just been home so is missing her parents/sister/nephew. We'll have a coffee in a cafe run by Vietnamese Aussies. We all have/had parents and other family overseas. I remember young Chinese guy I work with who loves Australia now, but he told me when he came with his parents at 14, he missed his grandparents horribly. My barber is from Iraq. Chinese families run the convenience stores. Cambodian family runs the other cafe. The sun is out! (and he's coming out to play!) Got to hang my washing out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flag of convenience Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Does that mean that the Korean and German education systems are better, or worse? Looking from the aspect of a fifteen year old possibly better wouldn't you think? The two German kids find the system here far less taxing and like it. The Korean according to parents doesn't find it challenging enough, but expect that is more the parents talking or being told what they want to hear. I'm not a big fan of an over competitive system. Especially from what I hear of the Korean education system. Quite like the intellectual rigour of the German system though by and large. Also how the system how it streams students into different schools according to those with academic ability going into one stream and those of trades and related into another. It has its critics but makes sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flag of convenience Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 You must live in a totally different Australia to me. I wonder which one you live in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flag of convenience Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Just the usual anti-Aussie BS. Is HSC easier for Aussie kids than 'A' Levels for Pommie kids? Do Aussie kids celebrate any more or less when they get their results? ?Is it any easier to get into Aussie universities than Pommie universities? Is it any easier to get good jobs for graduates in Australia (often with the same multinational companies who operate in the UK, USA, and regularly transfer/promote their key staff around the world. Do AFL/NRL/RU/cricket, etc, players have less of a competitive edge than their Pommie counterparts. Do they care less about winning Grand Finals/Premierships/International games against the Poms? Are Aussies any different to Pommies when it comes to careers, buying homes, travelling overseas, pushing their kids into the best schools? No not the usual anti Aussie BS. I don't even compare with UK system. Having gone to school in both systems I've no idea which is better as have heard arguments for and against both. Both are Anglo Saxon countries which I believe are close in most aspects in most things. In the work place being mediocre is pretty much my experience and many having a European working background. I have no interest whether or not agree it is our experience in many but of course not all levels. I could go lot further into describing why I consider this so but I'll leave it at personal experience. It may well be the area but have found a general slackness and a tradespersons as well management. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parley Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Why do you think you were mediocre at work ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flag of convenience Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Why do you think you were mediocre at work ? Such a question goes in part to explain what I refer to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frozen Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Just the usual anti-Aussie BS. Is HSC easier for Aussie kids than 'A' Levels for Pommie kids? Do Aussie kids celebrate any more or less when they get their results? ?Is it any easier to get into Aussie universities than Pommie universities? Is it any easier to get good jobs for graduates in Australia (often with the same multinational companies who operate in the UK, USA, and regularly transfer/promote their key staff around the world. Do AFL/NRL/RU/cricket, etc, players have less of a competitive edge than their Pommie counterparts. Do they care less about winning Grand Finals/Premierships/International games against the Poms? Are Aussies any different to Pommies when it comes to careers, buying homes, travelling overseas, pushing their kids into the best schools? Well, in June this year I was taken aside by my so called teamlead and told to not "work so hard as I was making everybody else look bad"... I work in IT at a national bank.... My husband has been told the same thing. He works in IT at a University. So yes Aussies ARE different when it comes to careers in IT. They're not hungry. Not willing to do the hours and a job is a job for life whether you perform or not. Needless to say we're looking to go back to London in 2015.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harpodom Posted August 31, 2014 Author Share Posted August 31, 2014 I understood exactly what you meant with the celebrating mediocrity comment flag. The mainstream media and politicians positively revel in propagating the crass boorish anti culture of bogan Australia: meat pies, thongs, V8's, FIT IN OR FK OFF, FK OFF WE'RE FULL, LOVE IT OR LEAVE, all that. Tony Abottt taps into it indirectly with his Team Australia banalfest, Brandis appeals to the lowest common denominator with his infamous 'people have a right to be bigots' gaffe, Palmer calls the Chinese 'mongrels'. There is such a mediocre level of talent in politics and in commercial TV (have you EVER tried watching 'Kochy' on Sunrise or whatever?), is it any wonder that mediocrity permeates the culture so deeply here? That's not to say there aren't Australians who abhor that mediocrity: many are repulsed by the crassness, mortified even. You don't have to 'FIT IN OR FK OFF', you just need to find intelligent, rational people who aren't afraid to criticise their own country and also don't immediately resort to the 'well if you don't love it, leave' mantra if you criticise govt policy or whatever. On PIO there are LOADS of Aussies who go mental if you so much as slag off an aspect of govt policy EVEN if they fervently agree with your political standpoint!! There is definitely an issue IMO with *some* Australians and critical thinking: their inbred jingoism gets in the way. Pretty mediocre really No not the usual anti Aussie BS. I don't even compare with UK system. Having gone to school in both systems I've no idea which is better as have heard arguments for and against both. Both are Anglo Saxon countries which I believe are close in most aspects in most things. In the work place being mediocre is pretty much my experience and many having a European working background. I have no interest whether or not agree it is our experience in many but of course not all levels. I could go lot further into describing why I consider this so but I'll leave it at personal experience. It may well be the area but have found a general slackness and a tradespersons as well management. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peach Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Wanting to be here and not having a chip on both shoulders about the place, apparently are essential traits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 On PIO there are LOADS of Aussies who go mental if you so much as slag off an aspect of govt policy EVEN if they fervently agree with your political standpoint!! There is definitely an issue IMO with *some* Australians and critical thinking: their inbred jingoism gets in the way. Pretty mediocre really Completely agree Harpo. I think it's important to distinguish between criticisms of this current government and criticisms of Australia generally. They're not the same thing. I don't think it means that you love your country any less if you question or critique the actions of the people who are currently running it. In fact, I'd say it's an act of social responsibility do so. It might help keep the b*stards honest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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