Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Ti'nh Chuyen Con Ca'i


We've been married for a year and a half, it's time to think about having babies!
Life isn't easy when you are living away from family, i mean parents and relatives. We are living in Sydney on our own since we were both around 19-20 years of age. We are both independent individual, we tried to study and work at the same time so we can help our parents as much as possible.

Being able to support ourselves since a young age allows us to have a number of survival skills. We have been doing many different jobs before our current positions. I remember Rebecca had been working in Woolworth (Supermarket) as the cashier, then part-time accountant, selling flowers in Martin Palace, working for State Transit, Library, then currently working for Randwick Children's Hospital as a full-time accountant.

I started as a kitchen-hand at Drummoyne, I wash dishes, prepare foods, cook and cleaning, very hard work during my first school holiday in Sydney. I then found another kitchen-hand position in Manly, so I worked two jobs at the same time. I couldnt cope with it for long, I quited the job at Manly and stayed at Drummoyne for another month or so. I then moved to Harbord Hilton Hotel and work as a permanent part-time kitchen-hand there while I was studying Electrical Engineering at UTS. Until the end of my 2nd year, I moved to the city and hence worked as a cook at Deckbar.

Im cooking PHO in my kitchen at home

I did find another job while i was working as a cook here during my break :) (absolutely no break for me since i came to Australia in 2001) So I worked as a cook and also Retail Sales Officer at Telstra - one of the biggest telecommunication provider in Australia. Well again, 2 jobs at the same time to help me pay for Uni's fee and cost of living. After finishing Uni, I married Rebecca and start looking for a full-time position within my professional. I straight away worked for National Instruments as an Applications Engineer. NI is a multi-billion dollars company, It is everywhere in the industry. Im so glad that i had a chance to start my career at NI, one of the top in the list companies to work for when i was still seating in Uni.
Iam now working for Optium/Finisar as a Manufacturing Software Engineer after more than a year working for NI, traveling around Australia and teaching LabVIEW (a programming language used in the measurements and automation industry) . My main job now is to design and create automate test systems for all of our state of the art optical products which are mainly used in telecommunication industry. For example: mobile networks, TV networks, Foxtel, Digital TV etc...

Im doing push-ups while working in the office at NI (Australia)

We've been trained enough, we have grown up on our own here in Sydney, it's the time for the next big step in life, having kids. Im ready for it, I will try my best to be a good dad, support my family and build my home a better place everyday.


Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Dua Vo Di Choi


Weekends is the time we normally spend time together. We go shopping for foods, fruits, cloths and household products. Broadway, Bondi Junction, Pitt Street Mall, yeah you name it. This photo of Rebecca - my wife - was taken in Level 3 Broadway Shopping Centre - Sydney.


We also found couple of nice spoons for PHO - my favorite Vietnamese Rice Noodle Soup - at Victoria Basement QVB. PHO will even be tastier with this gear