Two Filipino-Australian made it to the Top 20 of So You Think You Can Dance Australia. J. D. Carteret and Demi Sorono hope to wow Australian viewers of the dance reality show. One might consider the show as a counterpart of the “Idol” show.
Category: Australia
All about Australia
It was a word that most indigenous Australians have been waiting for more than four decades and it came at a right time. It came as a surprise that the opposition has supported the apology when it was implying weeks before that it will not agree to such moves. The nation was ecstatic and everyone was unanimous that this is the start of the healing process and Australia can now move forward. This came at a very good time when the economy of Australia is bullish and it has a new leadership with commitment.
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Western Australia Needs More Workers
Western Australia is said to spend around Aus$600,000 to attract workers to answer the chronic worker shortages, Perthnow reported early last month. Some of the workers needed for this current call include school cleaners, gardeners and tourism tourism workers. In the Philippines, these workers might not be given that attention unless you are profession is one of the most treasured export of the country.
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Heath Ledger, 1979-2008
The news about Heath Ledger’s death spread like fire over Perth yesterday as radio, TV and internet broadcast news about his untimely death. His family formally confirmed Heath’s death and described his death as accidental. While police downplayed foul play, mystery still hounds the cause of Heath’s death as initial autopsy were inconclusive and it might take about 10 days more to identify the cause of death of the rising star.
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Another New Beginning
I wanted to start 2007 right, so I blogged about it and envisioned where I wanted to go. Let’s just take a quick look at some excerpt of that blog and what happened.
Australia welcomed the New Year ahead of other countries. The iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge became a spectacular site as fireworks marked the start of the New Year in Australia. Meanwhile here in Perth, about 10,000 are estimated to have attended the NYE (New Year’s Eve) Disco in Northbrige.
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Christmas in Australia’s hot
While most of the world have to deal with snow and frost, Australia is bracing for hot weather in the coming days especially on Christmas when Perth is expected to be the hottest capital city in Australia at 38oC, news.com.au reported.
While Western Australia Bureau of Meteorology said that this forecast “will be hotter than the previous five years,” it also confirmed that this month is WA’s coldest on record due to cold and wet conditions brought by easterly winds. Daytime could be warm but a cold snap could sometimes be felt during night time or early morning.
Some areas of WA have experienced an average of 45 degrees Celsius but the rest of December for WA is expected to be normal, i.e., warm as usual.
Australia recently announced that its population has breached the 20 million mark reaching about 21 million in a recent official census. Western Australia was the fastest growing state in terms (both in population and economy).
News.com reported that “immigration accounted for 56 per cent of Australia’s growth, while 272,900 births minus 134,800 deaths made up 44 per cent of the increase.” This is a welcome news here in Australia as there were fears before that the country might suffer Japan’s predicament of having an aging population. The Australian government has placed incentives for couples who decide to have a child giving a “baby bonus” of about Aus$4000 for a baby (dead or alive) and an additional weekly support (if alive).
On a personal note, I can personally say that the booming economy here in Western Australia is definitely felt at the household level. Almost everybody (even as young as 12) has a chance to land a job whether part-time, casual or full-time. Now, this is an economy working.
Back home, the Philippines has breached the 90 million mark. A July 2007 estimate was placed at 91,077,287. I can personally say also that my family back home are not feeling the fruits of the economic growth that the country is apparently achieving.
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Busy, Busy, Busy… :)
Well, I might be stating the obvious but yes it’s been a very busy past few days/weeks but the good news is that my blogging hiatus came rewarded. 🙂 A poster presentation that I gave at Uni was awarded the first recipient of the Geoff Griffiths Prize and my recent introductory seminar went well (thanks to my colleagues at the trailer trash who came to listen. :)). So, many things happened in the past few weeks, Australia has a new prime minister (now I’m hearing some mates claiming to be proud to be Australians again!), Beckham-mania hit Australia while Trillanes “snapped” and holed himself with his mates in a Philippine five-star hotel, the Spice Girls were re-united and the US becomes the only developed country not to ratify Kyoto.
Thanks to Sasha, by the way, for the invitation to the Blogger Meet and Greet in Manila last 30 November. Well, for another obvious reason, I couldn’t honor the invitation but I would have loved to attend (maybe next year, given the chance). 🙂
Just a quick observation of the general media trends in the three countries that I’ve been based in. I can say that as to balanced programming, by and large, Australia might be on the right track but this is just a quick assessment. 🙂 So, here’s what to expect with media outlets in each country.
Philippines
I might not be an authority on this now but as far as I can remember news tend to be “crowded” with entertainment news. First thing in the morning, there might be morning shows on TV, this will be followed by talk shows with topics ranging from personal development to showbiz. A noon time show will follow then followed by either a soap opera TV or showbiz talk show. A children’s show might follow, then news then movies or another three to four hours of soap program again. Before coming to Thailand, I remember news programs being relegated from prime time to almost late night (or the cheap time slots, which is close to midnight).
Print media, as most of my Filipino readers know, tend to be mainly politics if not crime focused (well, that’s news in the country anyway). By and large, most of the print media tend to be entertainment focused as with tabloids.
Thailand
News and current affairs in Thailand tend to be “sporty.”After a morning show, which is basically much like a radio talk show on TV, programs that follow will be news and entertainment. There are some noon time shows, which are almost like the Bubble Gang show in the Philippines, then these will be followed by sports news again (mostly football/soccer). Then usually news are on by 6pm. They also have soap operas here but mostly are fantasy in topic, although it differs from season to season (themes might be country to family drama). One thing I like in Thai media are the good funny commercials they have, pretty good! 🙂
Australia
Just like Thailand, most of the programming on Australian TV are sports news (football/rugby or cricket). There is a morning show, which is followed by children’s show, then talk shows from the US and then an Australian soap opera then children’s show. Programs on prime time include US TV series (CSI, NCIS, Californication, Heroes, Australian Idol among others) and Australian talk shows.
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