Sydney in Spring

Check out those waves! Intensity at Coogee Beach


The Sydney Bridge


The infamous Opera House! (soon to be Oprah House...)

Ah, spring is upon us in Sydney, Australia. Last week was the first time that I could truly smell spring in the air. And spring smells sweet, indeed! I spent the morning on the beach, reading and writing. Winds were high, and the waves were incredible. Then I traversed to the city to have lunch with Cara at Wagamama, and it was fantastic. Great catch up, and then she went back to work while I...hmm..what did I do? With my new job starting on 5 October, I had the luxury of doing pretty much nothing! I took a stroll around Circular Quay, down to wharf. I admired the bridge for a while, then made my way to the Opera House. I still feel like a tourist in this country, because seeing these views is still breathtaking every time. It was a beautiful afternoon, however, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. My touristy ways were reaffirmed when I was unable to resist the photo-opportunity temptations (see above). I love Australia!

The 5 Steps to Musical Corruption in 3-5 Year Olds

Grandparents, parents, children and babies all discovering the joys of music together. Sniff...sniff. So beautiful!!


Kids of all ages exploring the sounds of the keyboard! (The girl on the left can now play "The Frog Song" perfectly. So proud!)


Oh, look! She's found the treble clef! Nope, no clue what's on her head.


These girls were working with their parents at the Aussie Farmers' Direct booth next to me, and dying to get away from those free bread samples and get into learning how to play "Hot Cross Buns" with an older but not too old to be cool Miss Mariah. And they made those Yamaha signs on their own, I swear!!


The kids' station. Nope, not ashamed of bribing future students with colouring and lollies. Not. At. All.


My beautiful Yamaha booth!! See close up of display board here.

This weekend was extremely Yamaha-intensive (surprised much?). On Saturday I ran my first Yamaha promotion, which was incredibly successful! It was at the Engadine Church Primary School, about twenty minutes from the Yamaha School in Jannali. It ran from 9-2, and I have to admit, it was completely exhausting! There were dozens upon dozens upon DOZENS of little kids running around, from toddlers to ten-year-olds. As it was a church function, many of the parents let their kids...shall we say...wander freely...throughout the day. Suffice to say, I had a few clingers! I loved it, though. I most certainly converted a few "interested in what happens when I press these keys" into "I WANT TO TAKE MUSIC LESSONS WITH MISS MARIAH!! NOW!!" Mission Musical Corruption: Accomplished :)

I had plenty of informational literature for the parents, including my Benefits of Music Education sheet as well as term dates, choosing the right instrument (a Yamaha instrument, of course), examples of workbooks/music books and Yamaha methodologies. There was also the Yamaha DVD playing in the background (a supplementary DVD that comes with each child's music books, in addition to the CD) and it most certainly attracted a demographic of I've-been-jumping-on-blow-up-trampolines-and-running-around-with-my-face-painted-eating-hot-dogs-and-infusing-sugary-candy-into-me-for-four-hours-and-I-need-a-break sort of kids.

Step 1: Grab a kids' chair and plop them on down in front of the TV for a minute or two. Watch with them.
Step 2: Wow! Is that an ELEPHANT showing you where DO is on the keyboard!?
Step 3: Do you want me to show you where DO is on THIS keyboard?!
Step 4: Yes, you can bang on these keys to make cool sounds (enter sound effects: trumpet, violin, maybe some thunder and lightning for the tough crowd) AND you know where all the DOs are on the keyboard! Aren't you clever!? Don't you want to learn more?
Step 5: Where's your mum? Oh hi, Jake's Mum! Jake and I have been having SUCH a great time on the keyboard..he's at the PERFECT age for our Junior Music Class! Did you know that music lessons will encourage Jake to express himself creatively, and will also improve his verbal skills and enhance his memory? Our classes run every Saturday morning....


And that, my dear readers, are the 5 Steps to Musical Corruption in 3-5 year olds.

Addicted to Yamaha

Today I traversed down south to Jannali to work on my bee-you-ti-ful display board (see above). This weekend I'll be setting up a booth at the Engadine Church Primary School, about twenty minutes from our Yamaha Music School in Jannali. They're having a spring festival from 9-2 (my classes are moved to Sunday this week) and my fabulous display board will be....well, on display, along with informational packets, flyers, candy, stickers and balloons for the kids, a keyboard for mini-lessons, a CD player jammin' all of Yamaha's finest tunes, a muted DVD showing last year's Sydney concert and an informational sheet authored by yours truly on just a few of the Benefits of Music Education.

As much as I love, love, love, LOVE teaching music to little kids, I have to admit that I'm a wee bit nervous for next school term. My course load for teaching has been tripled, and I'll also be teaching in Chatswood. 9 classes total, with 5 in Jannali on Saturdays and 4 in Chatswood on Sundays--both starting at 9 am. That means I'll be working 7 days a week. Eek. There are school holidays, so I'll have 2 week reliefs (i.e. major sleep days) every 10 weeks, but still. I'll be teaching a new course (Young Musician's Course for 6-8 year olds) and my Junior Music Book 2ers will be moving on to books 3 and 4. This means new material, new songs to learn, new repertoire to teach and more practice and preparation time during the week. Then again, I'm looking to become regional coordinator by this time next year, so I know that it's worth the extra hours. Talk about a busy little bee!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm EMPLOYED!!

Well, it's finally happened. After dozens of phone chats, interviews, internet research, pro and con charts, negotiations and deep, deep contemplation, I have finally made a career move, and a major one, at that. I am officially and happily employed with JXT Consulting in North Sydney, as Social Media and Communications Specialist! Ya-HOO! (er, sorry, Yahoo! 7, I decided not to go with you, despite the beautiful views and fantastic harbour location).

I am so, SO excited to get on board! My new job doesn't start until 5 October, so I have some time to prepare. And prepare I most certainly will. I'm spending heaps of time online these days, just listening to conversations on twitter, reading articles on social media platforms, social media marketing, SEO, FBML, etc. My job will be essentially to sell social media to recruitment companies. How perfect is that!? I've just spent the past 4 months as a recruiter dying to get into the social media space, and along comes an opportunity for me to just that, allowing me to utilise my recruitment experience, to boot!

Let me back up for a minute. I had initially signed a contract with Ability People in Sydney CBD, where I was to be trained and mentored into a recruiter, eventually opening up my own division in the social media/digital media arena. In addition, I would act as Communications/Marketing Manager across all of their locations, including their UK sites. Very cool! I'd set them up on facebook, twitter, etc and implement a social recruiting strategy for the company itself, as well. In my work at Sherborne, I had become increasingly interested in the ways in which social media could be used by recruiters to find talent; after all, candidates these days are more likely than not to turn to facebook first when looking for a job.

Anyway, so I was fully on board with Ability People, anxious to start and ready to go, when I received a phone call from JXT. They had found my resume on linkme.com.au (the SECOND time now that I have successfully landed a full time job via this website, without having to apply or even express interest--incredible!) and they wanted me to come in and have a chat. At first I was hesitant, as I was already settled into the idea of working for Ability People, but when he said the words "social media," my ears really perked up. I heard him out, and agreed to go in and chat. To be honest, I was astounded that were jobs out there in social media (which I love) for someone as junior as myself. I knew that there were social media specialists (in fact, I single handedly placed one at BUPA healthcare while I was at Sherborne; you're welcome, Cara!!), but I had never considered myself social-media-savvy enough to actually do it myself. I subscribe to all the social media RSS feeds, read blogs and tweet about social media, but I haven't actually implemented a real SM campaign before, aside from Sherborne's lame facebook and twitter pages, which I never had time to monitor/build upon during my time there.

So I went to North Sydney on a Monday afternoon, had a chat with the Sales Manager and the BDM, met the developers and even the CEO. It's a small office, with a small team, but everyone was fantastically friendly. JXT provides technology solutions for recruiters, implementing SEO and SMO strategies for recruitment companies. SMO--social media optimisation--is where I come in. I'll be "selling" the social media side of things to clients, both new and old, implementing SM strategies (facebook, twitter, blogs, etc), monitoring their online presence for a few months, then educating them on how to best maintain and build upon that online community. I also get to do a fair bit of copywriting, so the $20G I spent on my masters degree (Journo & Comm) isn't completely gone to waste! I also get to do a fair bit of traveling around Sydney, and thus will be given a company car. Hasta la vista, public transportation! And hello, Sydney roads. LEFT is RIGHT...LEFT is RIGHT...LEFT is RIGHT....

So I interviewed Monday arvo, was offered the job Tuesday morning, took Wednesday to think about it, and sent through the signed contract on Thursday. Oh, and they're sponsoring me! Australians are stuck with me for at LEAST another four years :)

All in all, I'm a very happy little vegemite :) I cannot WAIT to get on board with JXT, and really show them what I'm made of. I've said it before, and I'll say it again....

World, watch out!!