That Bloke In The Big Smoke

As you know, my three favourite sports are cricket, football and tennis. It's been an eventful week for all three and the teams/sportsmen that I support. It started with Liverpool's victory away at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge last Sunday, continued with Roger Federer's demolition of Rafael Nadal during the week and subsequent unbeaten run to his 100th professional tournament final, 70th career title overall and record-breaking 6th ATP World Tour Finals success. In between, there were two close finishes in the Test cricket matches between South Africa/Australia and India/West Indies. Neither of the teams which I wanted to win succeeded, but both matches were a fantastic advert for the game's longer version. Then to cap off the eventful week, Liverpool became only the second club in this season's Premier League to take points off leaders Manchester City, in a game we really should've won. Not a bad way to lead myself into starting a new temp job tomorrow morning!

Getting blessed by the holy elephant in Madurai's Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple in Tamil Nadu. (July 2005)

In 48 hours I will be on a flight to Muscat. I cannae wait to get away. As much as I love living in London, sometimes you just need to get away from the hustle, bustle and big nights out. I've also been studying non-stop since October and I want a change of scenery.

In Muscat, my dad has organised a two-week training for me with Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, an American-based international law firm. It'll be my first work experience in the legal profession. I'm quite excited about it. However from previous work and training experiences, I've finally learnt two important lessons. Firstly, don't go in with expectations of coming out with the perfect experience or achieving misplaced pre-conceived goals. Secondly, while it's always useful to learn things during the training, speaking to others and from my own experiences, I've realised that the real value of such experiences occurs sometime after the dust has settled.

I then have a few days to relax before jetting off to Madras. It's my first trip to the motherland since before moving to London in May 2007. As usual, I'm excited and nervous about it. But so much has changed in my life since my last trip, than compared to any previous trip to India. Most obviously, I have cemented my confusing twenty-three year relationship with the British Isles. It's got to the point where I hardly feel Indian anymore. I only have a handful of good Indian friends but I hardly see or chat with them for it to have any real meaning. I don't listen to Indian music or watch Indian movies much anymore. And besides the fact I eat a lot of Indian food, keep in touch with my family and follow Indian cricket, the former obsessions have dried up big time. I don't read or watch Indian news as much as I did before. I'm a Londoner now. I'm a part of the United Kingdom. This is my home. But am I British yet? I don't know...

It'll be an interesting week in the motherland. I won't have much time to think while I'm there because I'll be shuttling between Madras and the towns where my extended family live. There's even a wedding to attend, one of my second-cousins, which will be fabulatastic. I'll definitely be taking pictures and hopefully posting them on here before the return of Halley's Comet. Watch this Space!

And then exactly a month after leaving The Big Smoke I return a day before my solicitor's training course begins. I won't have much time to recover from jet lag. And the weekend following my arrival in September I travel to Newcastle. There really is no rest for the wicked!

In a record of sorts, I've just finished working 82 hours this week. Add the hours of travel and it works out to nearly 100 hours. Then add the time it takes to get ready for work and you get 105 hours. Throw in some sleep and it works out to roughly 140 hours. There are 168 hours in a week. In the remaining hours I have watched Manchester United defeat Chelsea in the Champions League Final, hosted a sleepover get-together and hung out with my new, temporary roommate. That paycheck I get on Thursday better be worth the effort. Good "night"!

The fascinating aspect of working in customer service, for me at least, is the opportunity to speak to hundreds of different people every day. And in a city like Montreal or London, there is the added incentive to interact with a really diverse population.

When I was in Montreal, I worked as a student fundraiser at my university's alumni association for two years. As one of the world's most international institutions, the fundraising job at McGill involved extensive interaction with people originating from more than 100 countries in the world, even if all the people we spoke to lived in Canada or the US. Similarly, my current job in Central London involves speaking to hundreds of people originating from every corner of the globe - some have lived here for generations, others have recently moved here. It's exciting to speak to so many different people, despite the occasional non-English-speaking git.

What I have found especially interesting however, working in the two phone-based jobs, is the noticeable difference in demographics I have encountered. In Montreal, it was rare to speak to recently-immigrated Africans or African-Americans. I spoke to a lot more people of Polish, Greek and (continental) French-origin than I have here in London. And though I haven't measured it accurately, I'd venture to guess that a third of the customers I deal with are of African-origin, most of whom are from West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana in particular). In Montreal I spoke to a lot of Jews, here I rarely speak to people with noticeable Jewish names. Conversely, I spoke to a small though noticeable percentage of people of Indian-origin in Montreal, but here I'd guess that between a seventh and sixth of all my customers are of South Asian origin. Most of these South Asians are Bangladeshi. In Montreal, most of the South Asians were Indian, a few were Pakistani and hardly any were Bangladeshi. There were a handful of Sri Lankans - all Singhalese. Here, all but one or two Sri Lankans I've dealt with were Tamil. Most of the Indians are either Gujarati or Punjabi. There is also a noticeable minority of Malayalis (or Keralites).

There's also an interesting difference in East Asian demographics. In Montreal I felt like I spoke to people of greater East Asian diversity than here in London, but there are noticeable differences in their origins. In Montreal most were of Vietnamese-extract, followed by Chinese. Over here the overwhelming majority are Filipinos. More specifically, they dominate the Cleaning, Portering and Lower level Nursing services. (And as a brief aside, this situation is virtually replicated in Muscat's hospitals in Oman!) In fact, I'd go as far as saying that after West Africans, the biggest group of foreigners that I deal with are Filipinos. It feels especially pronounced because two of the three main types of jobs we deal with regularly are Cleaning and Portering. After Filipinos, there is a minority of Malaysians and then Chinese. In stark contrast, I've spoken to only one or two people of Vietnamese-extraction over here.

Then there's people of Scottish and Irish-origins. It's probably fair to say that I spoke to more people of each group in Montreal, but the major difference is generation (and I'm basing my hypothesis on thickness of accent). Most, if not all the Scots and Irishmen I've spoken to here are recent arrivals whereas all the Gaelic folk in North America had pukka North American accents.

I've also found that I've spoken to surprisingly few people from Latin America or Spain and Portugal both here and in Montreal. I've spoken to a few Brazilians and Spaniards over here that I don't even remember speaking to in McGill. And though it may surprise some that I spoke to few Mexicans in North America, one must remember that these were all McGill graduates that I spoke to. And finally, I've also noticed that I speak to a lot more people whose English is not their forte here in London, than was the case in McGill.

Next Post in Series: The Actual Demographics

I'm back from Paris and the most important news is that I've been accepted into the BPP Law School.

If all goes well I could start working as early as Tuesday!

Today's Math class signals the end of another semester's worth of classes @ that esteemed institution, McGill University. Don't get me wrong, this is definitely one of the better places to study around the world but there is definitely a lining of sarcasm to that sentence. ( As good as this university maybe )


( Don't Mess wit da West Side Gangsta's! )