quicko: wedding speeches

Well now that WE'RE ENGAGED!!!!!!!!! there may be a few wedding-y quickos to come and spice up this now-rejuvenated blog.  Such as:  wedding speeches in Australia are a pretty big deal.  As in, they're usually made by the best man, maid of honor, parents of the bride and groom and also the groom as well as possibly a handful of others.  Or something like that.  I'm looking into it.

(Americans usually do the toast by the best man/maid of honor, but not all the others.)

quicko: selection criteria

So a major difference between applying for a job in America versus Australia is the whole concept of selection criteria.  In America, you keep a good resume up to date, and you work decently hard to write a good cover letter for each different application.  In Australia, you do all that PLUS you also address a list of your prospective employer's selection criteria -- generally about 8-10 rather precise requirements ("thou shalt give multiple examples to show thou ist the best team player the world hast ever known").  It is expected that for most of these (with the possible exception of "thou shalt be able to use MS Office to perfection") you'll come up with at least a paragraph if not three addressing these with pertinent examples from your professional life thus far.  All in all, the selection criteria document generally ends up being 3-4 pages and trumps the cover letter in terms of importance, though both are still required.

All that to say:  job applications here are way more intense.  Sigh.

photos: we're ENGAGED!!!!!

quicko: parcheesi

Australians don't seem to know -- or even know of -- Parcheesi.  When the American photographer (not me!) made a joke about "say Parcheesi" instead of "say cheese" nobody else got it (though they all pretended to.  I saw through them and discovered the truth.).