I am leaving Australia for a number of reasons, and I figured it made sense to explain my thought process.
If you've read any of my entries you'll know that I don't like my house or my job. I live with people either twice or three times my age who don't have any interest in my life and aren't very good at hiding that fact. (Landlady has asked me three separate times if Rachael is also moving back to the UK. I have explained each time that she is not. I don't know why the answer just doesn't register. Perhaps she thinks Rachael might change her mind because she loves me so much.) I worked with people who had no real interest in me and thought I was vastly incompetent. This is obviously absolutely nothing to do with Australia - it's just bad luck.
So I wondered about moving. I could either move somewhere else in Sydney, or move to a different city altogether. Either option would have been equally expensive: Sydney is pricey, but I'd have to pay out the arse to travel to a cheaper city. Either option would have cleared out my bank balance entirely. I used the last of my savings to come to Australia and ended up in a situation that was a bit balls; I wasn't sure I wanted to take another gamble to move to another city that might have been equally balls and then be unable to afford to leave the country at all.
"But you should make the most of being in the country!" you're thinking. You're thinking it's stupid to go all the way to the other side of the world, work a shitty job for a while, living in a house with people you hate, and then come back. And I'm well aware that it is pretty stupid. If I had stayed here, it would have been primarily because of that feeling of obligation. But that's not a good enough reason to stay somewhere. Coming here wasn't really my dream. I came here on a whim because I thought it might be fun to hang out with Rachael, and some awesome opportunities would arise, and maybe it'd be great!
But to get a decent job on the working holiday visa means a certain level of openness on your part to being sponsored (i.e. staying in Australia for ages so's a company can get you the right to work for them longer than the six months the visa will allow you to do). I realised pretty quickly that I didn't want to stay here for very long, meaning that I would be limited to jobs that lasted less than six months... Or I could just lie to an employer about how long you want to stay. I actually did the latter, and immediately realised when I was offered a second job that I really, really didn't want it.
I entertained the idea of festivals because there are a shittonne in Australia, and it would be a means of travelling around the country, but had no luck with any of the many I got in touch with. And there's also the issue of affording to travel around and stay in these places. In my situation, I was covering rent and living on cereal. If I did anything else, I'd be losing money and would have to go home before I haemorrhaged too much money anyway.
I started thinking about going home when I realised it was stupid to stay here solely because I felt like I should and wasn't actually happy here. As soon as I thought about it seriously I couldn't shake the idea from my head. I don't want to be here. I could work a few jobs and earn the money to travel for a couple of weeks, and I could just go and pick fruit on a farm for a while and earn the money to travel for a few months. I could take the risk of spending every dollar I had to move to another flat, even another city, and try again, forging a life I enjoyed more, with people I liked working with and spending time around.
But as soon as I realised I was totally capable of that I realised there was no point in being here. A large reason I came here was to see what it would be like setting up a life for myself on the other side of the world; whether I could do it at all. I can. My attempt turned out to be a bit of a flop, but I did it. And as soon as I did it I realised I didn't love the country and that I'd rather be somewhere else. I might come back here when I have time and money to see what there is to see in Australia. I don't need a year-long visa to do that, but I do need money - and I have it the wrong way round right now.
I like Sydney and I like Australia, but I'm done. And that's fine! That's fine.
No wukkas!
Thursday 27 March 2014
The last supper, v.2
A new person has moved in to our house.
That's right! Now I live with Landlady, Alcoholic Flatmate, and Pastry Lady. Pastry Lady is from North Carolina, speaks in a monotone drawl, and works in a local bakery. The day after she moved in I heard her singing Locked Out Of Heaven by Bruno Mars loudly with her door open. She is in her fifties.
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I have become very good at avoiding the rest of the house. I know that makes me sound like a terrible flatmate, and in all honesty I probably am. I imagine it comes off as rude and antisocial. So it was to my surprise that one day last week after I got back from work, Landlady knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to join the three of them for a meal. The three of them had planned to do it and there was no way I could really come up with an excuse not to, seeing as I would be in the house and my room is the closest to the kitchen. Maybe it would be fun!
Alcoholic Flatmate roasted a leg of lamb for the meal. Landlady and Pastry Lady roasted some vegetables. That was it. It wasn't the feast I had half-expected from a landlady who used to run a restaurant, but I wasn't put out. I had come to expect that Landlady operates on a plane separate from anyone else.
The lamb was not cooked through. I'm not sure why, but it cooked on one side and not the other. Landlady carved what she could of the cooked meat, except she said she had never carved meat before and so it all fell off in these odd little slivers. She then couldn't get through one bit and said it must have been bone, even though it couldn't physiologically have been bone in that bit of the leg - it transpired the next day that it was just tough fat. (Again, this woman used to run her own restaurant.)
Alcoholic Flatmate seemed reluctant to eat any of the lamb, and I had assumed initially it was because it hadn't been cooked through properly - although the bits we were served were fine. I was incorrect. It transpired that when he came back from Indonesia a couple of months ago, he had planned to be vegetarian. "But I've eaten lamb now!" he muttered irritably. The lamb that he had cooked for a house meal.
Landlady said that Alcoholic Flatmate liked meat but didn't like vegetables. This was a bizarre thing to say because he was eating the vegetables and not the meat. Indeed, Alcoholic Flatmate said "no, I like vegetables". Landlady said "you should eat more vegetables. And drink water. Isn't that right, CHRIS?" before pointedly staring at me with a grin on her face.
This was a pointed attack from Landlady on Alcoholic Flatmate because of that whole alcoholism thing he's got going on. Landlady doesn't drink at all - still dizzy the morning after if she has one glass, apparently, which I imagine is a bare-faced lie - and has confronted Alcoholic Flatmate about his alcohol problems. I only know that because she has told me she's done it, though. This is the first time I've been treated to a confrontation in person.
And I'm infuriated because she has dragged me into it. She has made it obvious that she has spoken to me about her problems with Alcoholic Flatmate, and expects me to back her up - despite the fact that we are having this meal in part because Alcoholic Flatmate barely even knows me. We can count the number of times we've seen each other on one hand. For me to be brought into that serious an issue which is really nothing to do with me is completely out of line. To laugh about it is cruel, and weird.
Alcoholic Flatmate didn't really like Landlady's tone. He tried to change the subject. We spoke about spiders, and how he had been bitten by a huntsman when he was younger because he was playing with it, and how he's been bitten by redbacks but he's never died so they can't be that dangerous and people have nothing to fear. Pastry Lady - who, yes, is there, having had to sit through Landlady pressing mine and Alcoholic Flatmate's buttons, not saying a word - told a story of when she saw a blue-ringed octopus at a friend's. (They are octopuses that are - obviously - incredibly dangerous because they are found in Australia.) "I don't know what possessed me to do it but I poked it with a stick," she said. "It did this wriggly thing and I saw its blue rings. Scary, but so cool!"
This didn't tickle Alcoholic Flatmate. "It only did that because you provoked it," he muttered. "I know," said Pastry Lady. "You shouldn't do that," he said.
Silence.
I turned to Pastry Lady. We spoke about the US and how humid it is and how I've been to North Carolina and alligators and and and. Maybe Landlady was jealous that she wasn't involved, because she interjected with "DO YOU LIKE BUTTER?"
"Yeah, I like butter," said Pastry Lady. "I'm a pastry chef."
"Do you put butter on sandwiches?" asked Landlady.
Pastry Lady explained that at her bakery, they don't put butter on sandwiches if they have mayo or relish.
"I tried a sandwich with peanut butter and jam on it," Landlady explained. "Peanut butter and jam sandwiches, they call them."
I stifled a laugh. Alcoholic Flatmate said "Yes. They are common. I had them as a kid."
Silence.
"So where is the bottle of wine we were going to have with this meal?" Alcoholic Flatmate asked.
WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? I scream internally. Then it occurs to me that a functioning alcoholic doesn't necessarily remember everything that's happened in a conversation he is currently having. Maybe I should point out that Alcoholic Flatmate smells strongly of spirits and I can see his arm shaking whenever he reaches for something.
"No. You drink water," Landlady says.
"Alright, MUM," Alcoholic Flatmate retorts.
Pastry Lady and I start talking about Vegemite because this is Australia and we are foreigners.
"Where is the broom? I need to sweep up the bowl I broke earlier," Alcoholic Flatmate asks.
Landlady won't let him sweep it up and says she'll do it in the morning. This is something she does to me too - not letting me do something myself because she can do it. She likes to baby people. It's frustrating enough for me, never mind a fifty-year-old man.
Pastry Lady and I are talking about Uluru by this point. Alcoholic Flatmate has a story about Uluru!
"Yeah, when I was younger, me and a few mates went there. Had a few beers. One mate had a helicopter. So we were having beers, pilot included, yeah, and we flew up, yeah, landed on Ayers Rock, saw some people climbing up, we were just like, hey mate!" he laughed.
I contorted my mouth not into a smile, but at least into a shape it wasn't before, so he knew I had reacted. I objected pretty strongly to a) the drunk flying of a helicopter and b) landing it on something I knew was sacred to Aborigines and laughing about getting pissed there.
Silence! Ha ha ha.
"Does anyone want to play Bananagrams?" asked Pastry Lady.
"I'll play it after we go to the pub. Let's go to the pub!" said Alcoholic Flatmate.
Thankfully, Pastry Lady shot it down. "I have to get up early tomorrow," she explained. I did too.
We chatted about early mornings until Landlady cut us off with "THIS WAS A NICE MEAL".
Silence! Woops. Ha ha.
I slipped out of the room when Alcoholic Flatmate started arguing with Landlady about how she shouldn't insist on doing all the dishes.
I'm leaving Australia tomorrow!
That's right! Now I live with Landlady, Alcoholic Flatmate, and Pastry Lady. Pastry Lady is from North Carolina, speaks in a monotone drawl, and works in a local bakery. The day after she moved in I heard her singing Locked Out Of Heaven by Bruno Mars loudly with her door open. She is in her fifties.
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I have become very good at avoiding the rest of the house. I know that makes me sound like a terrible flatmate, and in all honesty I probably am. I imagine it comes off as rude and antisocial. So it was to my surprise that one day last week after I got back from work, Landlady knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to join the three of them for a meal. The three of them had planned to do it and there was no way I could really come up with an excuse not to, seeing as I would be in the house and my room is the closest to the kitchen. Maybe it would be fun!
Alcoholic Flatmate roasted a leg of lamb for the meal. Landlady and Pastry Lady roasted some vegetables. That was it. It wasn't the feast I had half-expected from a landlady who used to run a restaurant, but I wasn't put out. I had come to expect that Landlady operates on a plane separate from anyone else.
The lamb was not cooked through. I'm not sure why, but it cooked on one side and not the other. Landlady carved what she could of the cooked meat, except she said she had never carved meat before and so it all fell off in these odd little slivers. She then couldn't get through one bit and said it must have been bone, even though it couldn't physiologically have been bone in that bit of the leg - it transpired the next day that it was just tough fat. (Again, this woman used to run her own restaurant.)
Alcoholic Flatmate seemed reluctant to eat any of the lamb, and I had assumed initially it was because it hadn't been cooked through properly - although the bits we were served were fine. I was incorrect. It transpired that when he came back from Indonesia a couple of months ago, he had planned to be vegetarian. "But I've eaten lamb now!" he muttered irritably. The lamb that he had cooked for a house meal.
Landlady said that Alcoholic Flatmate liked meat but didn't like vegetables. This was a bizarre thing to say because he was eating the vegetables and not the meat. Indeed, Alcoholic Flatmate said "no, I like vegetables". Landlady said "you should eat more vegetables. And drink water. Isn't that right, CHRIS?" before pointedly staring at me with a grin on her face.
This was a pointed attack from Landlady on Alcoholic Flatmate because of that whole alcoholism thing he's got going on. Landlady doesn't drink at all - still dizzy the morning after if she has one glass, apparently, which I imagine is a bare-faced lie - and has confronted Alcoholic Flatmate about his alcohol problems. I only know that because she has told me she's done it, though. This is the first time I've been treated to a confrontation in person.
And I'm infuriated because she has dragged me into it. She has made it obvious that she has spoken to me about her problems with Alcoholic Flatmate, and expects me to back her up - despite the fact that we are having this meal in part because Alcoholic Flatmate barely even knows me. We can count the number of times we've seen each other on one hand. For me to be brought into that serious an issue which is really nothing to do with me is completely out of line. To laugh about it is cruel, and weird.
Alcoholic Flatmate didn't really like Landlady's tone. He tried to change the subject. We spoke about spiders, and how he had been bitten by a huntsman when he was younger because he was playing with it, and how he's been bitten by redbacks but he's never died so they can't be that dangerous and people have nothing to fear. Pastry Lady - who, yes, is there, having had to sit through Landlady pressing mine and Alcoholic Flatmate's buttons, not saying a word - told a story of when she saw a blue-ringed octopus at a friend's. (They are octopuses that are - obviously - incredibly dangerous because they are found in Australia.) "I don't know what possessed me to do it but I poked it with a stick," she said. "It did this wriggly thing and I saw its blue rings. Scary, but so cool!"
This didn't tickle Alcoholic Flatmate. "It only did that because you provoked it," he muttered. "I know," said Pastry Lady. "You shouldn't do that," he said.
Silence.
I turned to Pastry Lady. We spoke about the US and how humid it is and how I've been to North Carolina and alligators and and and. Maybe Landlady was jealous that she wasn't involved, because she interjected with "DO YOU LIKE BUTTER?"
"Yeah, I like butter," said Pastry Lady. "I'm a pastry chef."
"Do you put butter on sandwiches?" asked Landlady.
Pastry Lady explained that at her bakery, they don't put butter on sandwiches if they have mayo or relish.
"I tried a sandwich with peanut butter and jam on it," Landlady explained. "Peanut butter and jam sandwiches, they call them."
I stifled a laugh. Alcoholic Flatmate said "Yes. They are common. I had them as a kid."
Silence.
"So where is the bottle of wine we were going to have with this meal?" Alcoholic Flatmate asked.
WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? I scream internally. Then it occurs to me that a functioning alcoholic doesn't necessarily remember everything that's happened in a conversation he is currently having. Maybe I should point out that Alcoholic Flatmate smells strongly of spirits and I can see his arm shaking whenever he reaches for something.
"No. You drink water," Landlady says.
"Alright, MUM," Alcoholic Flatmate retorts.
Pastry Lady and I start talking about Vegemite because this is Australia and we are foreigners.
"Where is the broom? I need to sweep up the bowl I broke earlier," Alcoholic Flatmate asks.
Landlady won't let him sweep it up and says she'll do it in the morning. This is something she does to me too - not letting me do something myself because she can do it. She likes to baby people. It's frustrating enough for me, never mind a fifty-year-old man.
Pastry Lady and I are talking about Uluru by this point. Alcoholic Flatmate has a story about Uluru!
"Yeah, when I was younger, me and a few mates went there. Had a few beers. One mate had a helicopter. So we were having beers, pilot included, yeah, and we flew up, yeah, landed on Ayers Rock, saw some people climbing up, we were just like, hey mate!" he laughed.
I contorted my mouth not into a smile, but at least into a shape it wasn't before, so he knew I had reacted. I objected pretty strongly to a) the drunk flying of a helicopter and b) landing it on something I knew was sacred to Aborigines and laughing about getting pissed there.
Silence! Ha ha ha.
"Does anyone want to play Bananagrams?" asked Pastry Lady.
"I'll play it after we go to the pub. Let's go to the pub!" said Alcoholic Flatmate.
Thankfully, Pastry Lady shot it down. "I have to get up early tomorrow," she explained. I did too.
We chatted about early mornings until Landlady cut us off with "THIS WAS A NICE MEAL".
Silence! Woops. Ha ha.
I slipped out of the room when Alcoholic Flatmate started arguing with Landlady about how she shouldn't insist on doing all the dishes.
I'm leaving Australia tomorrow!
Job report card
I got to the point where I actually did like everyone I worked with, bar my boss.
Lovely Chef was easily my favourite. She started just after I did and so didn't patronise me to fuck, and isn't as crass and self-assured as some of the others. She gave me sweets sometimes and was always apologetic when she ended up in my way, even though she only ever was when she had to be. It's genuinely a shame that I won't ever get the chance to actually get to know her properly.
Grade: A+, will go far.
Mrs Waitress got married just after I started and so I didn't see a lot of her. When we did work together, we often tried to outdo each other on politeness, immediately thanking the other as soon as they thanked us.
Grade: B+, very conscientious.
Rockin' Robin Waitress got on my nerves to begin with, primarily because she explained to me that Rockin' Robin was about a dancing bird. Apps were her "thing", but that sat weirdly as a thing because it's not like she was particularly up to date with any of them. She only just discovered Instagram and Tinder within the past couple of weeks, and hasn't yet sussed out Snapchat. She tended to make more of an effort to hold a conversation with me than the others to begin with, though, and I appreciated her utter nonsense ("I think I was born Irish. I've got the witty banter! But I'm not Irish any more. But I've got the banter!")
Grade: C+, needs to apply herself.
Nose Piercing Chef was someone I worked with almost every shift but it took forever to get to know her. By the time I actually started getting on with her, learning that two of her life loves were Green Wing and Mario Kart meaning she was essentially my kindred spirit, I was in my last week of work. She made all the work playlists and often filled them with a heady concoction of Spandau Ballet, Phil Collins and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Sometimes she'd add slabs of halloumi to my lunches and she was very good at poking fun at me without annoying me ("Ooh, wow! That's eh... that's pretty special, Chris!") She was the one I had to get on with in order to get nice treats at the end of the day, and she is also the only one that can get away with ripping our boss. She is a tough nut and a good egg, although I did grow paranoid that whenever she got me to prepare the pulled pork she was making wank jokes that I didn't register until it was too late because I'm an innocent flower.
Grade: A, but must work on communication skills ("you prepare parsley too angrily"?)
Bearded Barista looked to me like he was in a band and was only working in a cafe because he needed to pay the bills. Turned out that's exactly what he was doing. Once I saw him when he'd trimmed his hair and his beard and he looked so different that I started talking to him and then immediately panicked that I was talking to someone I didn't know, stumbling over my words before eventually stopping mid-sentence. From then on the only exchange we really bothered having was "coffee?"; "yes please".
Grade: C, should have warned me about beard edit.
Racist Barista is a lovely guy in all but the racism. He made more effort to get to know me than anyone else, asking me about actual thoughts and opinions I had, and showing me photos of things he'd seen that he thought I'd appreciate (although one of those was a Rolf Harris record he'd found which led to a Yewtree conversation that I wasn't really ready to have at work). The racism led to occasional uncomfortable moments, such as when I thought one of his friends had yellow fever and it turned out it was just slang for a white man who has a thing for Asian women; and when he made reference to "towelheads", unsure if it was offensive.
Grade: D, really needs to stop the racism lark.
Psycho Twat Boss is infuriating. Even when I knew how to do everything and she stopped micromanaging every task I did, she was consistently unpleasant. This wasn't specific to me. She made fun of Lovely Chef for making muffins that were too small, slagged Mrs Waitress behind her back for not "appreciating" her job when it was clear that she wanted to leave but couldn't afford to, screeched at Rockin' Robin Waitress for missing her train (once!) and being twenty minutes late for her shift, had an argument with Nose Piercing Chef about what they had cooked in the past (shooting Chef down saying they had never cooked a certain meal in the kitchen, despite the fact that she was arguing with chef who cooks the meals), and had frequent gos at Bearded Barista for not having done minor things that it was never in his remit to do. Everyone recognises and has said to Psycho Twat Boss that Racist Barista is clearly her favourite, which I think is the case - although I don't know what he did to avoid her wrath.
I still never managed to hold a decent conversation with Psycho Twat Boss, though, whereas the rest of them did. I think she thought I was an idiot, but she'd never tell me why. Once I had to go and get some coffee from her car, but I took a while because I thought it was in the boot and the boot wouldn't open. So I tried to open the boot, until I realised that the coffee was sitting on the back seat. When I came back with it, she said "why did you spend so much time looking at my car?". I explained, and joked that "I wasn't just admiring it!". She said "I didn't think you were admiring it". I asked "What did you think I was doing?" and she stared at me, shook her head, and walked away.
Grade: F, needs to get a better grasp of common decency.
While you might look at my 100% accurate grade thinking that what I say to my boss might have been inappropriate, what with the whole "boss/employee" relationship thing, I should point out that Psycho Twat Boss has spoken to us all about how she likes pineapple because it makes cum taste nice, and that she was chatting to customers about "labial stretching". She gave Rockin' Robin Waitress her old iPhone but not before "checking there are no pictures of boobs on it". "Gotta clear your fanny off it first!" Nose Piercing Chef cheerfully interjected. The boss/employee relationship was quite flexible in that regard.
Unless you are me. I just couldn't crack the code to getting on with her. And when I left, she asked me what I was going to do. I lied about having another job to go to. And then I left, Nose Piercing Chef saying that it was really nice working with me and thanking me for everything I'd done, with Imagine by John Lennon playing in the background. It is my least favourite song in the world. I actively hate Imagine by John Lennon.
Conclusion: I didn't even get a treat on my last day. D.
Lovely Chef was easily my favourite. She started just after I did and so didn't patronise me to fuck, and isn't as crass and self-assured as some of the others. She gave me sweets sometimes and was always apologetic when she ended up in my way, even though she only ever was when she had to be. It's genuinely a shame that I won't ever get the chance to actually get to know her properly.
Grade: A+, will go far.
Mrs Waitress got married just after I started and so I didn't see a lot of her. When we did work together, we often tried to outdo each other on politeness, immediately thanking the other as soon as they thanked us.
Grade: B+, very conscientious.
Rockin' Robin Waitress got on my nerves to begin with, primarily because she explained to me that Rockin' Robin was about a dancing bird. Apps were her "thing", but that sat weirdly as a thing because it's not like she was particularly up to date with any of them. She only just discovered Instagram and Tinder within the past couple of weeks, and hasn't yet sussed out Snapchat. She tended to make more of an effort to hold a conversation with me than the others to begin with, though, and I appreciated her utter nonsense ("I think I was born Irish. I've got the witty banter! But I'm not Irish any more. But I've got the banter!")
Grade: C+, needs to apply herself.
Nose Piercing Chef was someone I worked with almost every shift but it took forever to get to know her. By the time I actually started getting on with her, learning that two of her life loves were Green Wing and Mario Kart meaning she was essentially my kindred spirit, I was in my last week of work. She made all the work playlists and often filled them with a heady concoction of Spandau Ballet, Phil Collins and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Sometimes she'd add slabs of halloumi to my lunches and she was very good at poking fun at me without annoying me ("Ooh, wow! That's eh... that's pretty special, Chris!") She was the one I had to get on with in order to get nice treats at the end of the day, and she is also the only one that can get away with ripping our boss. She is a tough nut and a good egg, although I did grow paranoid that whenever she got me to prepare the pulled pork she was making wank jokes that I didn't register until it was too late because I'm an innocent flower.
Grade: A, but must work on communication skills ("you prepare parsley too angrily"?)
Bearded Barista looked to me like he was in a band and was only working in a cafe because he needed to pay the bills. Turned out that's exactly what he was doing. Once I saw him when he'd trimmed his hair and his beard and he looked so different that I started talking to him and then immediately panicked that I was talking to someone I didn't know, stumbling over my words before eventually stopping mid-sentence. From then on the only exchange we really bothered having was "coffee?"; "yes please".
Grade: C, should have warned me about beard edit.
Racist Barista is a lovely guy in all but the racism. He made more effort to get to know me than anyone else, asking me about actual thoughts and opinions I had, and showing me photos of things he'd seen that he thought I'd appreciate (although one of those was a Rolf Harris record he'd found which led to a Yewtree conversation that I wasn't really ready to have at work). The racism led to occasional uncomfortable moments, such as when I thought one of his friends had yellow fever and it turned out it was just slang for a white man who has a thing for Asian women; and when he made reference to "towelheads", unsure if it was offensive.
Grade: D, really needs to stop the racism lark.
Psycho Twat Boss is infuriating. Even when I knew how to do everything and she stopped micromanaging every task I did, she was consistently unpleasant. This wasn't specific to me. She made fun of Lovely Chef for making muffins that were too small, slagged Mrs Waitress behind her back for not "appreciating" her job when it was clear that she wanted to leave but couldn't afford to, screeched at Rockin' Robin Waitress for missing her train (once!) and being twenty minutes late for her shift, had an argument with Nose Piercing Chef about what they had cooked in the past (shooting Chef down saying they had never cooked a certain meal in the kitchen, despite the fact that she was arguing with chef who cooks the meals), and had frequent gos at Bearded Barista for not having done minor things that it was never in his remit to do. Everyone recognises and has said to Psycho Twat Boss that Racist Barista is clearly her favourite, which I think is the case - although I don't know what he did to avoid her wrath.
I still never managed to hold a decent conversation with Psycho Twat Boss, though, whereas the rest of them did. I think she thought I was an idiot, but she'd never tell me why. Once I had to go and get some coffee from her car, but I took a while because I thought it was in the boot and the boot wouldn't open. So I tried to open the boot, until I realised that the coffee was sitting on the back seat. When I came back with it, she said "why did you spend so much time looking at my car?". I explained, and joked that "I wasn't just admiring it!". She said "I didn't think you were admiring it". I asked "What did you think I was doing?" and she stared at me, shook her head, and walked away.
Grade: F, needs to get a better grasp of common decency.
While you might look at my 100% accurate grade thinking that what I say to my boss might have been inappropriate, what with the whole "boss/employee" relationship thing, I should point out that Psycho Twat Boss has spoken to us all about how she likes pineapple because it makes cum taste nice, and that she was chatting to customers about "labial stretching". She gave Rockin' Robin Waitress her old iPhone but not before "checking there are no pictures of boobs on it". "Gotta clear your fanny off it first!" Nose Piercing Chef cheerfully interjected. The boss/employee relationship was quite flexible in that regard.
Unless you are me. I just couldn't crack the code to getting on with her. And when I left, she asked me what I was going to do. I lied about having another job to go to. And then I left, Nose Piercing Chef saying that it was really nice working with me and thanking me for everything I'd done, with Imagine by John Lennon playing in the background. It is my least favourite song in the world. I actively hate Imagine by John Lennon.
Conclusion: I didn't even get a treat on my last day. D.
Thursday 13 March 2014
The Liebster Award
The reason I haven't posted much recently is because I haven't really had the opportunity to do much. If I have any stories, they're generally about work, and I never wanted this to be a blog where I complain about my job in every entry, because that has nothing to do with the blog's namesake. (That said, I got pretty annoyed at work this week because my boss took me aside and said I needed to just started saying "yes" to stuff because my tendency to argue with her when I feel hard done by made her feel "patronised and angry". I handed in my notice yesterday.)
I also don't want the blog to turn into various rants about Landlady. Not that it could, really, because I don't see her much - I am now a master hider. I heard her talking to Alcoholic Flatmate about me the other day (right outside my bedroom door, bizarrely - they are not pros like me). Alcoholic Flatmate said something about where "the Scottish boy" was all the time. Landlady said "I know he works sometimes".* The last time I actually saw Landlady properly we had a conversation in which she said I "should have gotten a good job before [I] came here". If you suspect that it is insights like this that have led me to avoid her for the past week then yes, you'd be right. A+.
So, while I try and construct an entry that has some substance, I will tide you over with this: my friend Hillevi (author of Superbitca in Space) nominated me for this Liebster Award thing a while ago, which seems to be a means of telling your readers about bloggers whom you like. Basically you get nominated, answer the nominator's questions, and then nominate more people and ask them your own questions. This means that I should really come up with questions and get other bloggers to answer them, but I don't really read many and I don't know what I'd ask them. (In fact, to echo Hillevi, "I don’t really follow a lot of blogs where I feel comfortable just randomly asking some weird questions".) So I'm not going to. Fuck you.
In order to make this blog-relevant, every answer will have a subtle Australian twist.
1. Who would play you in the film about your life?
I imagine there would be multiple actors playing me, portraying me at different ages, so's the audience can get a feel for the real me. As a child, I would be played by child-sized Australian Kylie Minogue. (She was in Doctor Who once and I'm pretty sure she did something in Moulin Rouge, so she's a seasoned acting pro.) My teenage years would be best realised by Elle MacPherson, as my hair was long and luscious. My progression into manhood could be played by Hugh Jackman and/or Russell Crowe, Australia's Two Actors. And the OST would be performed by The Wiggles. And Jason Donovan.
2. If you’ve had a bad day, what meal will bring comfort to your soul?
An Aussie burger. To all intents and purposes this is exactly the same as any other beefburger you've come across. The only difference is that Australians put beetroot on their burgers. I'm not sure you'd define it as soul-enriching but it's definitely comforting, and you might be lucky enough to have some weird-looking wee afterwards.
3. What is your favourite television moment?
Australian TV is shit so this is pretty tough. Maybe when, in Neighbours, Harold came back (after being swept out to sea, as I recall) as a total dick because he'd forgotten who he was.
4. What do you want the tag line for the movie about your life to be?
Probably this immortal line from Sabrina Down Under: "He so as mad as a gumtree full of galahs." It's so authentic.
5. What song do you choose for your battle anthem? (What kind of battle you ask? Any at all – be it with swords or word, the choice is yours)
Jason Donovan could surely quell any warrior's spirit.
6. What talent do you wish you had that you currently don’t? Would you be willing to give up a present talent in exchange for this one?
I didn't think the stereotype of everyone surfing here would be so true. It would be cool to surf confidently enough so that if you were swept away by a fast current or confronted by a box jellyfish then you'd know what to do - and I'd have something to talk to Australians about. (Even if they don't surf, they paddleboard: stand on a big surfboard and paddle around with oars, I think.) I'd like to be able to surf if it meant not having to learn how to surf (i.e. go through the horror of having to be in the water as a complete incompetent. But as and when I leave Australia it would be something I'd probably never do again so no, I'll keep a hold on my existing skills.
7. Favourite city in the world? Why?
Sydney! Because it is the only Australian city I have been to and therefore I cannot say any other city for fear of breaking my own arbitrary rules.
8. What would be your survival plan for the zombie apocalypse?
A zombie apocalypse would be bad enough in the UK. Australia is deadly enough as it is. I would have no survival plan. Immediate suicide as soon as I heard the news.
9. Who would win in a fight between cavemen and astronauts?
Cavemen. Astronauts would be all shrivelled because space makes your muscles disintegrate. And after years of eating that freeze-dried ice cream they'd probably welcome death's warm grasp. And to make this answer more Australian: HUNTSMEN SPIDERS AM I RIGHT
10. If you could enter and live in a fictional reality/world, which one would it be? Would you do it if it meant you’d never come back to this reality?
AUSTRALIA!!! HAHAHA, nah, turns out this place is real. Who knew. I'm all over returning to the reality of the UK, though.
*If you need help in creating an air of mystery, I'd be happy to help.
I also don't want the blog to turn into various rants about Landlady. Not that it could, really, because I don't see her much - I am now a master hider. I heard her talking to Alcoholic Flatmate about me the other day (right outside my bedroom door, bizarrely - they are not pros like me). Alcoholic Flatmate said something about where "the Scottish boy" was all the time. Landlady said "I know he works sometimes".* The last time I actually saw Landlady properly we had a conversation in which she said I "should have gotten a good job before [I] came here". If you suspect that it is insights like this that have led me to avoid her for the past week then yes, you'd be right. A+.
So, while I try and construct an entry that has some substance, I will tide you over with this: my friend Hillevi (author of Superbitca in Space) nominated me for this Liebster Award thing a while ago, which seems to be a means of telling your readers about bloggers whom you like. Basically you get nominated, answer the nominator's questions, and then nominate more people and ask them your own questions. This means that I should really come up with questions and get other bloggers to answer them, but I don't really read many and I don't know what I'd ask them. (In fact, to echo Hillevi, "I don’t really follow a lot of blogs where I feel comfortable just randomly asking some weird questions".) So I'm not going to. Fuck you.
In order to make this blog-relevant, every answer will have a subtle Australian twist.
1. Who would play you in the film about your life?
I imagine there would be multiple actors playing me, portraying me at different ages, so's the audience can get a feel for the real me. As a child, I would be played by child-sized Australian Kylie Minogue. (She was in Doctor Who once and I'm pretty sure she did something in Moulin Rouge, so she's a seasoned acting pro.) My teenage years would be best realised by Elle MacPherson, as my hair was long and luscious. My progression into manhood could be played by Hugh Jackman and/or Russell Crowe, Australia's Two Actors. And the OST would be performed by The Wiggles. And Jason Donovan.
2. If you’ve had a bad day, what meal will bring comfort to your soul?
An Aussie burger. To all intents and purposes this is exactly the same as any other beefburger you've come across. The only difference is that Australians put beetroot on their burgers. I'm not sure you'd define it as soul-enriching but it's definitely comforting, and you might be lucky enough to have some weird-looking wee afterwards.
3. What is your favourite television moment?
Australian TV is shit so this is pretty tough. Maybe when, in Neighbours, Harold came back (after being swept out to sea, as I recall) as a total dick because he'd forgotten who he was.
4. What do you want the tag line for the movie about your life to be?
Probably this immortal line from Sabrina Down Under: "He so as mad as a gumtree full of galahs." It's so authentic.
5. What song do you choose for your battle anthem? (What kind of battle you ask? Any at all – be it with swords or word, the choice is yours)
6. What talent do you wish you had that you currently don’t? Would you be willing to give up a present talent in exchange for this one?
I didn't think the stereotype of everyone surfing here would be so true. It would be cool to surf confidently enough so that if you were swept away by a fast current or confronted by a box jellyfish then you'd know what to do - and I'd have something to talk to Australians about. (Even if they don't surf, they paddleboard: stand on a big surfboard and paddle around with oars, I think.) I'd like to be able to surf if it meant not having to learn how to surf (i.e. go through the horror of having to be in the water as a complete incompetent. But as and when I leave Australia it would be something I'd probably never do again so no, I'll keep a hold on my existing skills.
7. Favourite city in the world? Why?
Sydney! Because it is the only Australian city I have been to and therefore I cannot say any other city for fear of breaking my own arbitrary rules.
8. What would be your survival plan for the zombie apocalypse?
A zombie apocalypse would be bad enough in the UK. Australia is deadly enough as it is. I would have no survival plan. Immediate suicide as soon as I heard the news.
9. Who would win in a fight between cavemen and astronauts?
Cavemen. Astronauts would be all shrivelled because space makes your muscles disintegrate. And after years of eating that freeze-dried ice cream they'd probably welcome death's warm grasp. And to make this answer more Australian: HUNTSMEN SPIDERS AM I RIGHT
10. If you could enter and live in a fictional reality/world, which one would it be? Would you do it if it meant you’d never come back to this reality?
AUSTRALIA!!! HAHAHA, nah, turns out this place is real. Who knew. I'm all over returning to the reality of the UK, though.
*If you need help in creating an air of mystery, I'd be happy to help.
Friday 28 February 2014
February 28th, the last day of summer
The last entry I wrote here was almost exclusively about how annoying my job was. At risk of sounding like a broken record, my job is dead annoying.
"When it's busy, help put stuff away, because the waitresses are busy serving, you know? Because it's busy."
Wait, what? Can you run that by me again? It's busy, so... I need to... Wait, why would I need to put stuff away? Why can't she? Oh, right! Because it's busy! So she doesn't have as much time to put stuff away... Hold on, surely if it's busy then I don't have as much time eith-
"I know you're a glove fiend, but look, you're using too many pairs of gloves. You need to reuse them."
What? They're disposable gloves. When you take them off they go inside out. They are designed specifically not to be put back on again. And I'M wasteful? You just throw all the glass bottles in the general wast-
"Don't put this on a wet surface. I don't want it getting wet."
I didn't! That wasn't me! That wa-
"I don't like a dibby dobber."
What?
"Someone who tells tales on someone else."
But I didn't do anything wrong and you're telling me off! This is just as infuriating as it was when I was in primary sch-
"Go and get the newspapers."
Hey, so you didn't actually give me enough money to buy the-
"Don't chop the tomatoes like that. You're squashing them."
I really don't know what that even mea-
"Don't peel the eggs over the bin. Get a bowl. That way if you drop them then they're not lost."
Ok, that makes sense.
"Why are you peeling the carrots over a bowl? Peel them over the bin."
Oh, right, ok, someone just told me not to do that with eggs so I thought I would do the same thing with the ca-
"You're not laying the bacon out on the trays properly. Here, let me do it."
You know, you could just tell me what I did wrong so I'd know for next time rather than wrench all control out of my hands as if I'm completely incompe- oh, well, what do I know. Fuck it.
There is one important lesson that I have learned from both this job and the one I had working for a faceless corporation whose name rhymes with "Schlamazon". It is that if you treat your employees like idiots or drones - basically as people who are completely expendable, who have no choice but to submit to your your broken and/or arbitrary way of doing things, then they are not going to put any effort into the job. They will do the bare minimum, "living for the weekend" because they have immediately clicked that their efforts aren't appreciated. The job is a bit shit and the higher ups seemingly think that by occasionally providing you with free food, you might not notice. (Schlamazon had a bizarre day where they treated us to lots of circular things - Hula Hoops, Polos, cans of Coke - to mark the launch of a new button.)
You might have clicked that the extent to which I'm being patronised at work has led me to stop trying reasonably quickly. Considering I'm currently living on the breadline I was going to ask if I could get more shifts each week, but whenever I'm there I get so frustrated with the way I'm being treated that I tell myself "You know what? No. You can get by without having to grovel to these guys." Trying to convince myself that my poverty is a result of my own self-respect makes me feel slightly better about myself, but reinforces the fact that I'm kind of a dick and I probably need to suck it up and get another job.
In fairness, I was signed up to do a class at the University of Sydney for a couple of months - but then it was cancelled because the teacher was ill. (I told Landlady this, and she said "Well, you know, sometimes they cancel classes because they don't have enough students." I reiterated that that was not the reason, that "medical reasons" were cited, and in fact the class had been fully booked. She looked at me blankly and didn't say anything.) And, in even more fairness, I am potentially going to get some work as a research assistant in the near future. I just don't know how near, because of the time it takes to submit and approve projects. In all honesty I'm just kind of looking forward to the day I can tell the cafe staff I'm unavailable for a shift because I have to go to my other job at the university: my own dickish way of saying I AM NOT A MORON.
Until then, though, I am probably going to continue sitting in my room listening to the same songs on repeat like an autistic child, eating cereal and wondering how many cockroaches there are hiding underneath my bed.
"When it's busy, help put stuff away, because the waitresses are busy serving, you know? Because it's busy."
Wait, what? Can you run that by me again? It's busy, so... I need to... Wait, why would I need to put stuff away? Why can't she? Oh, right! Because it's busy! So she doesn't have as much time to put stuff away... Hold on, surely if it's busy then I don't have as much time eith-
"I know you're a glove fiend, but look, you're using too many pairs of gloves. You need to reuse them."
What? They're disposable gloves. When you take them off they go inside out. They are designed specifically not to be put back on again. And I'M wasteful? You just throw all the glass bottles in the general wast-
"Don't put this on a wet surface. I don't want it getting wet."
I didn't! That wasn't me! That wa-
"I don't like a dibby dobber."
What?
"Someone who tells tales on someone else."
But I didn't do anything wrong and you're telling me off! This is just as infuriating as it was when I was in primary sch-
"Go and get the newspapers."
Hey, so you didn't actually give me enough money to buy the-
"Don't chop the tomatoes like that. You're squashing them."
I really don't know what that even mea-
"Don't peel the eggs over the bin. Get a bowl. That way if you drop them then they're not lost."
Ok, that makes sense.
"Why are you peeling the carrots over a bowl? Peel them over the bin."
Oh, right, ok, someone just told me not to do that with eggs so I thought I would do the same thing with the ca-
"You're not laying the bacon out on the trays properly. Here, let me do it."
You know, you could just tell me what I did wrong so I'd know for next time rather than wrench all control out of my hands as if I'm completely incompe- oh, well, what do I know. Fuck it.
There is one important lesson that I have learned from both this job and the one I had working for a faceless corporation whose name rhymes with "Schlamazon". It is that if you treat your employees like idiots or drones - basically as people who are completely expendable, who have no choice but to submit to your your broken and/or arbitrary way of doing things, then they are not going to put any effort into the job. They will do the bare minimum, "living for the weekend" because they have immediately clicked that their efforts aren't appreciated. The job is a bit shit and the higher ups seemingly think that by occasionally providing you with free food, you might not notice. (Schlamazon had a bizarre day where they treated us to lots of circular things - Hula Hoops, Polos, cans of Coke - to mark the launch of a new button.)
You might have clicked that the extent to which I'm being patronised at work has led me to stop trying reasonably quickly. Considering I'm currently living on the breadline I was going to ask if I could get more shifts each week, but whenever I'm there I get so frustrated with the way I'm being treated that I tell myself "You know what? No. You can get by without having to grovel to these guys." Trying to convince myself that my poverty is a result of my own self-respect makes me feel slightly better about myself, but reinforces the fact that I'm kind of a dick and I probably need to suck it up and get another job.
In fairness, I was signed up to do a class at the University of Sydney for a couple of months - but then it was cancelled because the teacher was ill. (I told Landlady this, and she said "Well, you know, sometimes they cancel classes because they don't have enough students." I reiterated that that was not the reason, that "medical reasons" were cited, and in fact the class had been fully booked. She looked at me blankly and didn't say anything.) And, in even more fairness, I am potentially going to get some work as a research assistant in the near future. I just don't know how near, because of the time it takes to submit and approve projects. In all honesty I'm just kind of looking forward to the day I can tell the cafe staff I'm unavailable for a shift because I have to go to my other job at the university: my own dickish way of saying I AM NOT A MORON.
Until then, though, I am probably going to continue sitting in my room listening to the same songs on repeat like an autistic child, eating cereal and wondering how many cockroaches there are hiding underneath my bed.
Thursday 20 February 2014
Mo money, mo problems
I got the job in the cafe. It's one of those places that does genuinely nice coffee and plays stuff like Franz Ferdinand, The Smiths and, of course, Wham! on the stereo. This is my third job washing dishes and as such I thought I had it down, but there's always something to remind me that I am the newbie who doesn't know how things work yet.
On my first trial shift my boss gave me the lowdown on the sink, the detergent and the sponges (sorry for all the jargon). I seemed to have picked everything up fine, but then she threw a curveball later when she asked where the water around the sink had come from. I gave it a moment's thought, and said half-jokingly "it was probably me?". She looked at me and said "was it you?" and I was stuck. Yes? The water on the floor by the sink was probably the result of me washing dishes with water at the sink. She nodded and said "ok". Hold on, what? Did I just admit to doing something wrong?
She took me by surprise again yesterday during my second real shift (because somehow, despite my faux pas with the splashing, they hired me anyway) when I was wiping a mark off a mug after it had come out of the dishwasher. It is worth pointing out that the dishwasher isn't really a dishwasher - it's one of those glass washers which rinses everything with scalding hot water, so you have to wash stuff first and then put it through. Indeed, "wash it before it goes through", she said. "Not after." What did she think I was doing? Did she really just suggest I'd been rinsing stuff and then washing it?
I wouldn't say it came across as patronising because usually I have no idea why the question is being asked. When I feel patronised, it's because I'm being told to do something as if I'm an idiot. With these questions, I'm always bewildered, because I don't understand the motivation behind asking it. But then she ruins that sense of mystery and confusion by telling me how to wipe down a surface and I wonder if maybe I do just come across as an idiot. After all, I did manage to cut my thumb when I was shelling an egg. (That came back to bite me when I had to juice half a litre's worth of lemons by hand, because - oh yeah! - lemon juice in a little cut stings.)*
The positive about working in a cafe like the one I do is that I get free things. I invariably get a coffee at the beginning of my shift (one of those ones that's so strong you have to space out the sips) and a free sandwich for lunch (with fancy things like walnuts or falafel or poached chicken in them) and usually a leftover "treat" at the end. Yesterday I got a muffin, but one of the baristas got two slices of chocolate orange tart that looked amazing. I was, naturally, excessively jealous to the point of vitriolic hatred, but I guess I just have to make them all love me so that I get the best treats one day.
As it stands, then, I will continue in my part-time, minimum wage job, in a bid to wangle really good treats from my colleagues. Unfortunately it puts me in a position where I don't really have the money to do much other than live. I'm trying to put money aside each week so I can travel with good buddy Jenny when she comes to Oz in August, so after saving and the whole "paying my rent" thing, there isn't much money left - but equally I don't know what I would do with any money I did have because I still don't really know anyone. My boss has asked a few times if I've been to any of the local pubs yet, so if any of you want to take bets on how long it takes me to crack and go drinking by myself, do feel free.
Still, extensive use of The Internet suggests to me that I'm not the first graduate who left university and went through a series of minimum wage jobs that were far below his skill set. If all else fails I'll surely make it as one of those Tortured Artist Bloggers On The Internet.
*I asked the chef if she had any tips on how to juice the lemons most efficiently. "Squeeze 'em," she said.
On my first trial shift my boss gave me the lowdown on the sink, the detergent and the sponges (sorry for all the jargon). I seemed to have picked everything up fine, but then she threw a curveball later when she asked where the water around the sink had come from. I gave it a moment's thought, and said half-jokingly "it was probably me?". She looked at me and said "was it you?" and I was stuck. Yes? The water on the floor by the sink was probably the result of me washing dishes with water at the sink. She nodded and said "ok". Hold on, what? Did I just admit to doing something wrong?
She took me by surprise again yesterday during my second real shift (because somehow, despite my faux pas with the splashing, they hired me anyway) when I was wiping a mark off a mug after it had come out of the dishwasher. It is worth pointing out that the dishwasher isn't really a dishwasher - it's one of those glass washers which rinses everything with scalding hot water, so you have to wash stuff first and then put it through. Indeed, "wash it before it goes through", she said. "Not after." What did she think I was doing? Did she really just suggest I'd been rinsing stuff and then washing it?
I wouldn't say it came across as patronising because usually I have no idea why the question is being asked. When I feel patronised, it's because I'm being told to do something as if I'm an idiot. With these questions, I'm always bewildered, because I don't understand the motivation behind asking it. But then she ruins that sense of mystery and confusion by telling me how to wipe down a surface and I wonder if maybe I do just come across as an idiot. After all, I did manage to cut my thumb when I was shelling an egg. (That came back to bite me when I had to juice half a litre's worth of lemons by hand, because - oh yeah! - lemon juice in a little cut stings.)*
The positive about working in a cafe like the one I do is that I get free things. I invariably get a coffee at the beginning of my shift (one of those ones that's so strong you have to space out the sips) and a free sandwich for lunch (with fancy things like walnuts or falafel or poached chicken in them) and usually a leftover "treat" at the end. Yesterday I got a muffin, but one of the baristas got two slices of chocolate orange tart that looked amazing. I was, naturally, excessively jealous to the point of vitriolic hatred, but I guess I just have to make them all love me so that I get the best treats one day.
As it stands, then, I will continue in my part-time, minimum wage job, in a bid to wangle really good treats from my colleagues. Unfortunately it puts me in a position where I don't really have the money to do much other than live. I'm trying to put money aside each week so I can travel with good buddy Jenny when she comes to Oz in August, so after saving and the whole "paying my rent" thing, there isn't much money left - but equally I don't know what I would do with any money I did have because I still don't really know anyone. My boss has asked a few times if I've been to any of the local pubs yet, so if any of you want to take bets on how long it takes me to crack and go drinking by myself, do feel free.
Still, extensive use of The Internet suggests to me that I'm not the first graduate who left university and went through a series of minimum wage jobs that were far below his skill set. If all else fails I'll surely make it as one of those Tortured Artist Bloggers On The Internet.
*I asked the chef if she had any tips on how to juice the lemons most efficiently. "Squeeze 'em," she said.
Monday 10 February 2014
My landlady, the bint
If you're a friend of mine on Facebook then I imagine the most you could possibly have picked up about my landlady is that she's got a photo of herself below a hologram of Jesus in the living room, and has a fridge magnet of a scantily clad lady in Amsterdam's red light district next to a picture of Jesus with the caption "JESUS, I trust you!":
She isn't one of those rabidly devout religious folk you sometimes meet who talk about Jesus and try to convert you. The only time she talked about religion with me wasn't actually really about religion at all. In fact, I didn't really understand the story, but it went something like this:
Landlady was in France. One of her nephews lives in Italy. I don't know why Landlady was in France rather than Itality, but she had a flight from an airport in France to Rome. Landlady was meant to meet a friend of a friend who was going to take her to the airport, but she didn't. (I don't know why.) Landlady was therefore in France with no way of getting to the airport. Landlady doesn't speak French. Landlady eventually got to the airport after confusing taxi drivers and various locals and shopkeeps, but the flight was cancelled, with the next one only available two days later.
There was then a bit of the story that I glazed over at, or perhaps it just didn't really make sense: Landlady was at the airport, or a train station, or a bus stop. (I'm reasonably sure it was one of the three.) Landlady approached a well-dressed man and asked him if he spoke English. He said he spoke a little bit. At some point Landlady found out that he was a priest from the Vatican. He might have told her this, and no, I don't know how he would have proved it, but this is what she told me.
The priest helped Landlady get to Rome. I really don't know what the sequence of events was. I don't think she could possibly have flown if there was no scheduled flight, but equally I don't remember her saying she got a train. Let's just assume it was some kind of Vatican Voodoo. Regardless, she was in Rome. And the next bit of the story I remember is "and then I saw the Pope!"
This is part of my broader problem with Landlady: she doesn't talk to you, she talks at you, and that means that you don't engage with anything she says, making it really hard to keep track of a conversation. But she doesn't engage with anything I say either. A few days ago, I asked her how to turn the oven on because it was turned off at the mains and I couldn't work out where that was.* She asked me what it was I wanted to cook; it was just a frozen pizza. She decided I should use her pizza maker, and then took the pizza and did it herself. But this was a pizza maker, and I didn't want to make a pizza. I had one. She had taken it from me. The pizza maker is basically a hot plate, so the dough got hot and the top was still frozen. Cue the uncomfortable conversation of "I think your pizza's done!"; "It isn't - it's still frozen on top..."; "oh... are you sure?"
How could I not be sure about that?
So I put it in for longer and sat and listened to something or other she was talking about - most of her stories about her recent trip to Europe were about the different hotels she stayed in - and when it was eventually ready and I was actually eating, she started asking me questions. For fuck's sake, Landlady, now?
I still don't know how to turn the oven on.
I am generally pretty annoyed with Landlady because I feel like she mislead me when we spoke before I moved in. I asked if you got a lot of spiders and creepy-crawlies here, to which she said no, not here. A few days after I moved in she says the suburb attracts cockroaches. She said before I moved in that she kept herself to herself and spent most of her time upstairs. My experience is that if I'm in the kitchen she will stop watching TV and come and talk at me for the entire time I'm there.
"Are you having soup?"
"Yeah."
"It smells nice."
"Yeah, it's goo-"
"Is it from a tin?"
"Yeah."
"Oh well. It still smells nice! It smells nice. Sit in the other seat!"
"I'm okay here, it-"
"The cricket's on, you can watch the cricket!"
"I've never watched crick-"
"Don't you like cricket? You can see the cricket."
"I wouldn't understand it."
"You don't like cricket?"
"I don't like cricket."
[Landlady sits and watches me eat soup (which smells nice, even though it's from a tin) while explaining cricket]
I WANT TO EAT SOUP IN SILENCE
Her latest trick is hiding all the cutlery. I genuinely have no idea where she's put it. What was formerly the cutlery drawer has nothing in it. The cynic in me wonders if it's a ploy to make me talk to her, because I'll have to ask where it all is eventually.
The thing that is most infuriating about living with Landlady is her complete lack of understanding of jobs. Landlady ran her own restaurant here for a number of decades, so I don't imagine her experience of getting a job is much like mine. I have been spending every day sending out applications for jobs that employers don't even bother replying to, such is the disinterest in hiring people on my visa. Landlady suggests I become a bank teller. That is a terrible suggestion. "You should look at working in a bank. Who knows, you might be able to get work as a teller or something. You should sign up to an agency. They might be able to get you work in a bank."
My visa doesn't let me work for one employer for more than six months. Why would a bank ever hire me? Why would they want to train tellers when they know they'd get nothing out of their investment? Of course, I don't say that to Landlady. I say, "maybe... I'm just looking for anything I can get at the moment."
"You should go to restaurants around here. You should get a job, earn some pocket money while you're here." This is infuriating, because I genuinely don't know what else she thinks I would be doing. Of course I need a job. I have told her that I am trying to find work. It's all I do. And it's not for "pocket money" - it's to cover all my costs of living, you know, like employed people have to.
In fact, I had a trial shift today working in a kitchen of a small cafe. They were the only people to respond to me out of the billion** applications I sent out, and while I didn't aspire to get paid for washing dishes for a third time in my life, it's work. It is a massive twenty minute bus ride away though, so Landlady's response was "oh - you should try and get a job locally - it would save you the costs of travel. Why don't you work in a café here?"
Why DON'T I work in a café a minute's walk away? It seems so obvious now! I should have just gotten a job there. My mistake.
I hate Landlady.
*I'm pretty sure you wouldn't know either - the light switch for the kitchen isn't even in the kitchen. What stupid kind of house is this?
**approximate figure
She isn't one of those rabidly devout religious folk you sometimes meet who talk about Jesus and try to convert you. The only time she talked about religion with me wasn't actually really about religion at all. In fact, I didn't really understand the story, but it went something like this:
Landlady was in France. One of her nephews lives in Italy. I don't know why Landlady was in France rather than Itality, but she had a flight from an airport in France to Rome. Landlady was meant to meet a friend of a friend who was going to take her to the airport, but she didn't. (I don't know why.) Landlady was therefore in France with no way of getting to the airport. Landlady doesn't speak French. Landlady eventually got to the airport after confusing taxi drivers and various locals and shopkeeps, but the flight was cancelled, with the next one only available two days later.
There was then a bit of the story that I glazed over at, or perhaps it just didn't really make sense: Landlady was at the airport, or a train station, or a bus stop. (I'm reasonably sure it was one of the three.) Landlady approached a well-dressed man and asked him if he spoke English. He said he spoke a little bit. At some point Landlady found out that he was a priest from the Vatican. He might have told her this, and no, I don't know how he would have proved it, but this is what she told me.
The priest helped Landlady get to Rome. I really don't know what the sequence of events was. I don't think she could possibly have flown if there was no scheduled flight, but equally I don't remember her saying she got a train. Let's just assume it was some kind of Vatican Voodoo. Regardless, she was in Rome. And the next bit of the story I remember is "and then I saw the Pope!"
This is part of my broader problem with Landlady: she doesn't talk to you, she talks at you, and that means that you don't engage with anything she says, making it really hard to keep track of a conversation. But she doesn't engage with anything I say either. A few days ago, I asked her how to turn the oven on because it was turned off at the mains and I couldn't work out where that was.* She asked me what it was I wanted to cook; it was just a frozen pizza. She decided I should use her pizza maker, and then took the pizza and did it herself. But this was a pizza maker, and I didn't want to make a pizza. I had one. She had taken it from me. The pizza maker is basically a hot plate, so the dough got hot and the top was still frozen. Cue the uncomfortable conversation of "I think your pizza's done!"; "It isn't - it's still frozen on top..."; "oh... are you sure?"
How could I not be sure about that?
So I put it in for longer and sat and listened to something or other she was talking about - most of her stories about her recent trip to Europe were about the different hotels she stayed in - and when it was eventually ready and I was actually eating, she started asking me questions. For fuck's sake, Landlady, now?
I still don't know how to turn the oven on.
I am generally pretty annoyed with Landlady because I feel like she mislead me when we spoke before I moved in. I asked if you got a lot of spiders and creepy-crawlies here, to which she said no, not here. A few days after I moved in she says the suburb attracts cockroaches. She said before I moved in that she kept herself to herself and spent most of her time upstairs. My experience is that if I'm in the kitchen she will stop watching TV and come and talk at me for the entire time I'm there.
"Are you having soup?"
"Yeah."
"It smells nice."
"Yeah, it's goo-"
"Is it from a tin?"
"Yeah."
"Oh well. It still smells nice! It smells nice. Sit in the other seat!"
"I'm okay here, it-"
"The cricket's on, you can watch the cricket!"
"I've never watched crick-"
"Don't you like cricket? You can see the cricket."
"I wouldn't understand it."
"You don't like cricket?"
"I don't like cricket."
[Landlady sits and watches me eat soup (which smells nice, even though it's from a tin) while explaining cricket]
I WANT TO EAT SOUP IN SILENCE
Her latest trick is hiding all the cutlery. I genuinely have no idea where she's put it. What was formerly the cutlery drawer has nothing in it. The cynic in me wonders if it's a ploy to make me talk to her, because I'll have to ask where it all is eventually.
The thing that is most infuriating about living with Landlady is her complete lack of understanding of jobs. Landlady ran her own restaurant here for a number of decades, so I don't imagine her experience of getting a job is much like mine. I have been spending every day sending out applications for jobs that employers don't even bother replying to, such is the disinterest in hiring people on my visa. Landlady suggests I become a bank teller. That is a terrible suggestion. "You should look at working in a bank. Who knows, you might be able to get work as a teller or something. You should sign up to an agency. They might be able to get you work in a bank."
My visa doesn't let me work for one employer for more than six months. Why would a bank ever hire me? Why would they want to train tellers when they know they'd get nothing out of their investment? Of course, I don't say that to Landlady. I say, "maybe... I'm just looking for anything I can get at the moment."
"You should go to restaurants around here. You should get a job, earn some pocket money while you're here." This is infuriating, because I genuinely don't know what else she thinks I would be doing. Of course I need a job. I have told her that I am trying to find work. It's all I do. And it's not for "pocket money" - it's to cover all my costs of living, you know, like employed people have to.
In fact, I had a trial shift today working in a kitchen of a small cafe. They were the only people to respond to me out of the billion** applications I sent out, and while I didn't aspire to get paid for washing dishes for a third time in my life, it's work. It is a massive twenty minute bus ride away though, so Landlady's response was "oh - you should try and get a job locally - it would save you the costs of travel. Why don't you work in a café here?"
Why DON'T I work in a café a minute's walk away? It seems so obvious now! I should have just gotten a job there. My mistake.
I hate Landlady.
*I'm pretty sure you wouldn't know either - the light switch for the kitchen isn't even in the kitchen. What stupid kind of house is this?
**approximate figure
Saturday 1 February 2014
Observations
I should point out that, while I write this, there are a couple of men across the road from me having a couple of "brewskis" and listening to Guns 'n' Roses.
1. The flip flop run is everywhere
When you wear flip flops, you can't really lift your feet properly because your flip flops will fall off. So when you run with flip flops on, you try to build as much speed as you can without really lifting your knees. The onlooker will know that you're only running weird because of your shoes (just like the onlooker of an Olympic walking race knows they have to move in that hilarious way) but it doesn't stop it being funny. Because everyone wears flip flops here, you get to see the funny flip flop run all the time because people are always running for the bus.
2. Australian buses don't give a shit about their timetables
Bus timetables can be shit universally, but I've noticed it to the nth degree here. About a week ago I went to catch the bus to meet Rachael and Henry at the IMAX in town (where I finally saw Gravity in 3D, good innit?). The bus was scheduled at 8:10pm. I got there at 5 past to see the bus driving away. The next one was meant to be at 8:20, with another at 8:40. One appeared at about 8:35, and god only knows which bus that was actually meant to be. Similarly, when I tried to catch the bus from Rachael's to go back home - buses are at 5 past and 25 to the hour - a bus appeared at 25 past. In sum: who cares when the bus is? Go to the bus stop whenever you like. This is Australia - what are you doing on the bus? You should be on the beach, you dick.
3. They got rid of pennies
I love Australia for this. It was about a week until I said to Ronan "hey, have you ever gotten a penny?". We then carried out a scientific evaluation and found that, when we had a total that ended in .48, it got rounded up to .50. The lower numbers also get rounded down. If you ever shop online then they don't round it; it's only when you're dealing in cash. Ultimately it means that the smallest coins you get are worth 5 cents and that's brilliant. When I go back to the UK I'm going to spit on all the pennies I see. "A penny? THIS IS STUPID - you'd never get this in Australia, where I used to live."
4. They got rid of locks on bathroom doors
I am non-plussed about this. I should point out that there are locks in public bathrooms and hostels and the like, but if you're in a house or a flat or a hotel room, then there just doesn't ever appear to be a lock on the bathroom door. I've never been in a situation where someone has walked in on me - I guess people usually assume the bathroom's being used if the door is shut - but what's the harm in having a lock? All it does is prevent embarrassment. No lock means the potential for someone seeing you pooing. Is that what Australians are into?
5. They don't have Netflix
What am I going to do when I run out of Sabrina episodes to watch on YouTube?
6. They do have exotic birds in place of boring ones
Apart from pigeons and seagulls. They are here, and they are every bit as boring as they are in the UK. But Australian crows are black and white. And you get cockatoos all over the place, the big white ones with some yellow plumage. They have a really awful shrieking cry which is really grating but they do still look nice. Same with the little green parrots you see in the park, and the white ibises which are everywhere. They have weird long hooked beaks and look a bit extra-terrestrial (and Wikipedia informs me they smell pretty bad, but I haven't sniffed one yet).
7. Sometimes train doors don't open by themselves
Which means that you're standing there waiting, because you don't want to force them open, until an Australian opens them for you and you realise "oh! I had to open that door". Of course, Rachael, Henry and Ronan will all stand behind you and not say anything, and then when the Australian opens it they'll go "oh, you didn't know you had to open the door?" as if they knew the whole time but didn't want to intervene. Thanks.
8. They say dates weird sometimes
I've noticed that in adverts, people doing voiceovers will sometimes say a date like "Feb 8" literally just as you see it - feb eight. I assume that writing the date like that started to save time, and that you wouldn't actually say it. You'd say the whole thing. Apparently they just decided to save even more time here by saying the shortened version too.
9. Golden Gaytimes are big in Australia
A Golden Gaytime is a toffee ice cream that seems to be pretty popular here. Because it was Australia Day recently, there were - and are - a lot of adverts encouraging people to "have a Golden Gaytime on Australia Day"; the internet informs me that they've taken this approach a few times, represented by their 80s slogan "it's hard to have a Gaytime on your own". (Though I am inclined to disagree.)
10. Australia Day is a bit of a thorny issue culturally, and you can sense that, but it's a good excuse for an excellent fireworks display
As you can see here.
1. The flip flop run is everywhere
When you wear flip flops, you can't really lift your feet properly because your flip flops will fall off. So when you run with flip flops on, you try to build as much speed as you can without really lifting your knees. The onlooker will know that you're only running weird because of your shoes (just like the onlooker of an Olympic walking race knows they have to move in that hilarious way) but it doesn't stop it being funny. Because everyone wears flip flops here, you get to see the funny flip flop run all the time because people are always running for the bus.
2. Australian buses don't give a shit about their timetables
Bus timetables can be shit universally, but I've noticed it to the nth degree here. About a week ago I went to catch the bus to meet Rachael and Henry at the IMAX in town (where I finally saw Gravity in 3D, good innit?). The bus was scheduled at 8:10pm. I got there at 5 past to see the bus driving away. The next one was meant to be at 8:20, with another at 8:40. One appeared at about 8:35, and god only knows which bus that was actually meant to be. Similarly, when I tried to catch the bus from Rachael's to go back home - buses are at 5 past and 25 to the hour - a bus appeared at 25 past. In sum: who cares when the bus is? Go to the bus stop whenever you like. This is Australia - what are you doing on the bus? You should be on the beach, you dick.
3. They got rid of pennies
I love Australia for this. It was about a week until I said to Ronan "hey, have you ever gotten a penny?". We then carried out a scientific evaluation and found that, when we had a total that ended in .48, it got rounded up to .50. The lower numbers also get rounded down. If you ever shop online then they don't round it; it's only when you're dealing in cash. Ultimately it means that the smallest coins you get are worth 5 cents and that's brilliant. When I go back to the UK I'm going to spit on all the pennies I see. "A penny? THIS IS STUPID - you'd never get this in Australia, where I used to live."
4. They got rid of locks on bathroom doors
I am non-plussed about this. I should point out that there are locks in public bathrooms and hostels and the like, but if you're in a house or a flat or a hotel room, then there just doesn't ever appear to be a lock on the bathroom door. I've never been in a situation where someone has walked in on me - I guess people usually assume the bathroom's being used if the door is shut - but what's the harm in having a lock? All it does is prevent embarrassment. No lock means the potential for someone seeing you pooing. Is that what Australians are into?
5. They don't have Netflix
What am I going to do when I run out of Sabrina episodes to watch on YouTube?
6. They do have exotic birds in place of boring ones
Apart from pigeons and seagulls. They are here, and they are every bit as boring as they are in the UK. But Australian crows are black and white. And you get cockatoos all over the place, the big white ones with some yellow plumage. They have a really awful shrieking cry which is really grating but they do still look nice. Same with the little green parrots you see in the park, and the white ibises which are everywhere. They have weird long hooked beaks and look a bit extra-terrestrial (and Wikipedia informs me they smell pretty bad, but I haven't sniffed one yet).
7. Sometimes train doors don't open by themselves
Which means that you're standing there waiting, because you don't want to force them open, until an Australian opens them for you and you realise "oh! I had to open that door". Of course, Rachael, Henry and Ronan will all stand behind you and not say anything, and then when the Australian opens it they'll go "oh, you didn't know you had to open the door?" as if they knew the whole time but didn't want to intervene. Thanks.
8. They say dates weird sometimes
I've noticed that in adverts, people doing voiceovers will sometimes say a date like "Feb 8" literally just as you see it - feb eight. I assume that writing the date like that started to save time, and that you wouldn't actually say it. You'd say the whole thing. Apparently they just decided to save even more time here by saying the shortened version too.
9. Golden Gaytimes are big in Australia
A Golden Gaytime is a toffee ice cream that seems to be pretty popular here. Because it was Australia Day recently, there were - and are - a lot of adverts encouraging people to "have a Golden Gaytime on Australia Day"; the internet informs me that they've taken this approach a few times, represented by their 80s slogan "it's hard to have a Gaytime on your own". (Though I am inclined to disagree.)
10. Australia Day is a bit of a thorny issue culturally, and you can sense that, but it's a good excuse for an excellent fireworks display
As you can see here.
Tuesday 28 January 2014
Living an average dream
There is at least one cockroach in my room.
I am not living with the abusive French lady. I am instead living with a very nice Sri Lankan lady. But one thing she didn't warn me about before I moved in a few days ago was that the suburb - Balmain - attracts cockroaches, and even though she keeps the house very clean, they have a tendency to get in and around the place. I know that cockroaches aren't dangerous, and I know that they, like most creepy crawlies, don't really bother people - but they are gross, and I don't really know what to do about them. There was a big one in my room earlier and I asked my landlady what to do, and she marched around with some spray before asking me "are you afraid of them?" I said I wasn't, because I didn't want to look like a wuss, but she just laughed and left the spray with me. "The big ones, they fly."
It is a nice house. And my landlady is nice, although she's one of those people who talks and talks and talks while somehow leaving nothing much to respond to. You're sitting there listening to her, nodding, feeling like you should add something, but there's really not much to add, so you end up saying inane rather than insightful things. "Yeah, you don't want to be like your parents, but then inevitably, you are!" I interject, nervously, and unnecessarily. The reason that came up is because the other tenant here is an alcoholic who is failing to deal with a recent breakup. He apparently blames his drinking in part on his mother, because she always drank a lot.
My landlady told me that this other tenant has been falling over a great deal because he always drinks to excess - and that a week or two ago he got clipped by a bus when he was trying to cross the road. Still, he went to Bali yesterday because it's his fiftieth birthday and it had been organised for months, despite the fact he is obviously quite bruised, and did I mention that he's going with a few friends as well as the ex-wife? Yeah, well, they'd organised it BEFORE the breakup, so of course she's still going. Sometimes he spends the night at her house and apparently she sometimes comes here, so it sounds more like one of those breakups that isn't really a breakup to me. I am assured that he is very nice - "harmless", even - and I'm sure he is. He seemed pleasant enough the one time I met him when he came back from a night of heavy drinking. He had, naturally, just fallen over, so I left him to "take some Valium and have an early night". (Landlady and I discussed the whole "mixing alcohol and Valium" thing and concluded it's not really something we can stop a fifty-year-old man we don't know especially well from doing.)
Rachael's flat is in Freshwater, which takes about an hour and a half for me to get to on various buses. I went there today, and we went to the beach, which is only a few minutes' walk from hers. I saw lifeguards shouting at swimmers, but Rachael said that when she saw them before they were just talking to sexy ladies in bikinis. Perhaps saving their lives by stopping them from going in the water in the first place.
Freshwater is close to the hilariously-named suburb of Manly. You may have seen a couple of Manly photos if you follow me on Instagram. Unfortunately, though, two of my favourite Manly things that I have read about - namely Manly Fun Pier and Manly Dance - have proved impossible to find. Still, whenever I trek to Rachael's flat I have to stop at "Manly Services" - small mercies.
As for what I'm doing with my time at the moment: I'm applying for jobs. It's even more soul-destroying than it would usually be at home because a lot of adverts stipulate "no working holiday visas" or "Australian locals only" or, in one case, "Asians preferred" - but I imagine something will come my way in the end. I really hope it does, not least because it will allow me to live on a diet that doesn't consist almost exclusively of Weet-Bix (yes, no "a" in Australia), fruit, and pasta. (I say "almost" exclusively because I did buy some Coke the other day.)
I could just stay in the house with the cockroaches and the drunk and the loquacious landlady, and watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch on YouTube.
...I'm already on season 2.
Harvey: Lots of famous people were editors of their school newspaper!
Sabrina: Really? Like who?
Harvey: I dunno... Charlemagne?
I am not living with the abusive French lady. I am instead living with a very nice Sri Lankan lady. But one thing she didn't warn me about before I moved in a few days ago was that the suburb - Balmain - attracts cockroaches, and even though she keeps the house very clean, they have a tendency to get in and around the place. I know that cockroaches aren't dangerous, and I know that they, like most creepy crawlies, don't really bother people - but they are gross, and I don't really know what to do about them. There was a big one in my room earlier and I asked my landlady what to do, and she marched around with some spray before asking me "are you afraid of them?" I said I wasn't, because I didn't want to look like a wuss, but she just laughed and left the spray with me. "The big ones, they fly."
It is a nice house. And my landlady is nice, although she's one of those people who talks and talks and talks while somehow leaving nothing much to respond to. You're sitting there listening to her, nodding, feeling like you should add something, but there's really not much to add, so you end up saying inane rather than insightful things. "Yeah, you don't want to be like your parents, but then inevitably, you are!" I interject, nervously, and unnecessarily. The reason that came up is because the other tenant here is an alcoholic who is failing to deal with a recent breakup. He apparently blames his drinking in part on his mother, because she always drank a lot.
My landlady told me that this other tenant has been falling over a great deal because he always drinks to excess - and that a week or two ago he got clipped by a bus when he was trying to cross the road. Still, he went to Bali yesterday because it's his fiftieth birthday and it had been organised for months, despite the fact he is obviously quite bruised, and did I mention that he's going with a few friends as well as the ex-wife? Yeah, well, they'd organised it BEFORE the breakup, so of course she's still going. Sometimes he spends the night at her house and apparently she sometimes comes here, so it sounds more like one of those breakups that isn't really a breakup to me. I am assured that he is very nice - "harmless", even - and I'm sure he is. He seemed pleasant enough the one time I met him when he came back from a night of heavy drinking. He had, naturally, just fallen over, so I left him to "take some Valium and have an early night". (Landlady and I discussed the whole "mixing alcohol and Valium" thing and concluded it's not really something we can stop a fifty-year-old man we don't know especially well from doing.)
Rachael's flat is in Freshwater, which takes about an hour and a half for me to get to on various buses. I went there today, and we went to the beach, which is only a few minutes' walk from hers. I saw lifeguards shouting at swimmers, but Rachael said that when she saw them before they were just talking to sexy ladies in bikinis. Perhaps saving their lives by stopping them from going in the water in the first place.
Freshwater is close to the hilariously-named suburb of Manly. You may have seen a couple of Manly photos if you follow me on Instagram. Unfortunately, though, two of my favourite Manly things that I have read about - namely Manly Fun Pier and Manly Dance - have proved impossible to find. Still, whenever I trek to Rachael's flat I have to stop at "Manly Services" - small mercies.
As for what I'm doing with my time at the moment: I'm applying for jobs. It's even more soul-destroying than it would usually be at home because a lot of adverts stipulate "no working holiday visas" or "Australian locals only" or, in one case, "Asians preferred" - but I imagine something will come my way in the end. I really hope it does, not least because it will allow me to live on a diet that doesn't consist almost exclusively of Weet-Bix (yes, no "a" in Australia), fruit, and pasta. (I say "almost" exclusively because I did buy some Coke the other day.)
I could just stay in the house with the cockroaches and the drunk and the loquacious landlady, and watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch on YouTube.
...I'm already on season 2.
Harvey: Lots of famous people were editors of their school newspaper!
Sabrina: Really? Like who?
Harvey: I dunno... Charlemagne?
Monday 20 January 2014
Shining tumbling water
I saw another huntsman
spider. It was hiding in between the cushion and the frame of the sofa, and
although it clearly just wanted to stay in that space and not bother anyone,
that is obviously not allowed because big spiders do not have that kind of
freedom. Big spiders should be outside. I’m all for human/spider segregation. I
don’t want them in my schools or my swimming pools. I want them out.
I saw this spider in
Katoomba, a picturesque town in the Blue Mountains. It’s probably the most
touristy one because it’s the one closest to the Three Sisters, three towers of
rock - they probably have a grander geological term - that are known to the
layman as “pretty rad”.
It’s about two hours west of central Sydney by train,
and is usually not as hot as central Sydney. Of course, when we went, it was as
hot as central Sydney. This mini heatwave meant we hiked around in temperatures
in the high thirties and although I know I will garner no sympathy from those
of you in the northern hemisphere, I did get my comeuppance.
My blood is incredibly
delicious. This isn’t the kind of thing they tell you when you give blood (the
only thing I learned the one time I did that several years ago is that they ask
women “have you ever had sex with a man who’s had sex with another man?” which
they presumably usually have to answer with “I don’t think so…?”). I realised
that my blood was delicious when I went to California in 2011, and went hiking
with a Californian. She didn’t know that mosquitoes came out at that time of
year – they’d never bothered her when she’d hiked there before – but I came out
with 55 bites on my left leg alone. My curse has not lifted since. I have bites
on my legs and feet and arms and neck and elbows and wrists. (Thankfully –
though somewhat backhanded-complimentedly – insects don’t seem to like my
face.) So we hiked and I got bitten and I sweated out most of the water in my
body and I saw a big spider. Great fun, but I am currently very itchy; that
kind of directionless itchiness that you know you shouldn’t solve with
scratching, so you rub your bites against the duvet or something because at
least you’re not scratching the bites with your fingernails that way. That kind
of directionless itchiness that, if I were a dog, I’d solve by dragging my bum
across the floor.
On the way back from
Katoomba I ended up sitting opposite a nice Australian lady on the train who
lived in Lithgow, further out in the bush, who regaled me with tales of how she
has to check the kids’ beds and sandpit for the presence of redback spiders,
stupid spiders that, of course, are very poisonous. (Michaela, one of the
Aussie contingent at my Christmas job, said that they used to get them on the
tables and chairs in her primary school, and they just had to tell the teacher
so that they’d get rid of them. The most dangerous thing I remember seeing at
primary school was a battery that had been sitting in the sun which we all dared
each other to touch. It was hot, but I don’t think it bit any of us.)
(Incidentally, I’ve
got the TV on. In award-nominated Puberty Blues, one girl said to her mum “I do
hate you! And I’ll hate you forever!” Later one of her friends ate a guy’s pie
and he got angry and kicked her but she didn’t defend her. Right now her dad
appears to have grounded her – at least I think that’s what he means when he
says she’s “gated” for a month.)
Now I’m in Sydney I am
back to seeing the kinds of people that only big cities have to offer. I was at
the bus stop earlier, on the phone to Rachael, when some frantic vagabond
yelled at me “WHEN IS THE NEXT 144?!”. I said I didn’t know, but he said “BUT
THE TIMETABLE IS RIGHT THERE SO TELL ME, WHEN IS THE NEXT 144?!”. I told him
but Rachael thought I was talking to her, but I couldn’t really explain that I
was next to a mental who was getting steadily more angry at me for not being
able to read a type of timetable that I’ve never had to read before.
In addition to the
classic “unhinged man on the street” kind of mental, I also met a mental at a
viewing of a house. Rachael couldn’t come because she was caught up at a
different one, so I had the pleasure of doing this one on my own. I said to the
French lady who owned it that I said I’d take some pictures for Rachael, but
she said there was no point because all the photos were on the advert and she
was renovating anyway. She then told me that she didn’t really want two friends
moving in because they’d probably just hang out with each other rather than
her. When she asked what work we wanted to pursue, I said rather vaguely that I
wanted to pursue something in education and she took this to mean that the area
was probably inconvenient for me, I think based purely on the fact that she
couldn’t think of a place nearby where I might want to work. “Obviously that
doesn’t mean that I’d say no if you were interested in living here…” she said,
convincingly. She recommended I live in Redfern which, from what I can tell
from what every single person in Sydney
thinks, is perhaps the worst suburb in Sydney. I’m not sure I was her kind
of person.
Then we went downstairs
and we saw the cat that sometimes comes and eats food in her kitchen, but it
was on the table so she whacked it with an empty water bottle.
Fuck her.
Saturday 18 January 2014
Emu jerky
I’ve been reading Down
Under by Bill Bryson, in which he talks about how ridiculous Australia is. Did
you know they had a prime minister who was walking along the beach one day and
got swallowed up by the waves, and was never heard from again? That happened to
their head of state, and yet nobody – outwith Australia, at least – seems to
really know about it.
Nobody seems to really
know anything about Australia. Or at least not as much as I feel like we
should, considering it’s really not that different from the UK in many ways.
It’s like a weird parallel dimension. A lot of the TV broadcast by the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation is just BBC stuff (Midsomer Murders seems
to be on most hours of the day), but it’s good to know that the TV we always
knew Australians really watched –
Neighbours and Home and Away – is also on all the time.
Other classic
Australian telly includes the heavily trailed “Puberty Blues”, in which a
teenager appears to be troubled by things, and one breakfast show which breaks
up all that tiring sad news stuff with clips of cute animals from a vault
apparently unknown to the newscasters. It adds an unsettling air of mystery to
proceedings, like they’re being forced to improvise by some deus ex machina
character for absolutely no reason other than to test their ability to cope
under pressure. They never do very well. “I’m not sure whose golden retriever
puppies these are,” muses the anchor, “but they sure do love playing with ice
blocks.”
There’s a lot that I
don’t understand about Australia, but is familiar enough to be comforting.
“Bam! And the dirt is gone.” Almost. “How you going?” the Australians say. (I’m
used to this, as I worked with a massive Australian contingent at my last job,
but it’s still novel. I’m going… well?) I’m even confused by the book I’m
reading, the one I said was called Down Under. After discussing it with Rachael
we realised that we’re reading the same thing, but her book is called In a
Sunburned Country. Why?!
There are some things
about Australia that were pleasant surprises for me when I got here, like how
Sydney has the largest IMAX cinema in the world. It doesn’t seem the obvious
place, because it’s not even a particularly densely populated city, but I
enjoyed watching Catching Fire in a half empty cinema. Most surprising, though,
is probably the fact that there is a Spiegeltent in Hyde Park in central Sydney
– I worked in one almost identical to it in Edinburgh a number of weeks ago,
and one of the shows I staffed is performing here too. “Give me work!” I’ll
say. “I’m pretty sure we know the same people! Do you want to see how good I am
at holding a fire blanket?”
And then I won’t be
jobless and homeless any longer.
Monday 13 January 2014
Poison and spiders
I had to fill out one of those cards
declaring why you were visiting Australia, how long you were there for, where
you were staying, and whether you’d brought lots of food and soil and wood with
you. I had muddy boots and a small wooden tortoise with me (because I packed
the essentials), but when customs asked me about it they thought on it for all
of a second before deciding that “it’s fine mate”, and sent me on my merry way.
I had intended to meet Ronan when I
arrived, but because I unexpectedly ended up arriving from Melbourne rather
than Delhi, I came in through a domestic arrivals gate, which is not where he
expected me to arrive. My first twenty minutes or so in Sydney were therefore
made up of aimlessly wandering around a terminal in a tired, manic frame of
mind completely inadequate to my goal of finding another tired, manic
foreigner. (For those who don’t know, I’ve moved to Australia with Rachael, but
our friend Ronan is holidaying with us for the first few weeks, as is Henry,
Rachael’s boyfriend.)
Ronan was there somewhere, though, which
was a good start, as we were – and are – sharing a hostel room. (Rachael and
Henry are in a different part of town because they hate us.*) We got a bus into
the city, but we didn’t know where we were getting off, so we had a stab in the
dark. We got off in the right area, but then duly failed to read any maps
correctly (despite the fact we are both able to use compasses and hike without
getting lost and, usually, can read maps). We got lost. By this point I was
feeling exceptionally unwell and was very grateful when a passing taxi driver
revelled in our idiocy and gave us a lift.
Turns out the hostel was only a kilometre
away from where we’d ended up and, had we taken a different turn earlier, we
would have gotten there in mere minutes. Ha ha ha! Fuck off.
I passed out almost immediately, although
Ronan found it in himself to sleep for an hour and then go for a walk to try
and get familiar with the area. When I woke up, he was back in the room, and
said “you didn’t tell me there was a massive spider in the bathroom”. I
laughed, because he was being ridiculous. “No, seriously.” I frowned, and
interrogated him because he was probably being a dirty liar, but then I looked
in the bathroom and saw that there was indeed a big fuckoff spider curled up over
the door. I speculated that it was a huntsman, based only on YouTube videos I’d
watched to terrify myself before I came here. I didn’t really want to rely on
that expertise when assessing how dangerous it was. (Huntsman bites aren’t
dangerous, but they hurt. Huntsmen also run incredibly quickly because they
don’t spin webs, instead chasing their prey down.) It could have been a
huntsman, or it could have been a more dangerous spider, or a snake, or a shark
(which it probably was because it was in the bathroom, where the water is). I’m
a foreigner and I don’t want to take any chances.
The worst thing about this bathroom shark
was that it didn’t really do anything when you were using the toilet or the
sink, but as soon as you showered it started extending its legs and wiggling
its mandibles. If it WAS a huntsman, then the one thing I knew for sure was
that it could run over to me so quickly that there would be nothing I could do.
(The layout of the bathroom is such that the shower takes up one side of the room.
You are shut in at that end, but there is a gap of about a foot above the door
where deadly creatures could easily run in and join you.) Ronan helpfully
informed me that when he clapped, the spider stopped moving, but that wasn’t
especially comforting because both of us know that clapping is not a widely
used defence in the animal kingdom – for good reason. Our studies of biology
have not gone completely to waste. But, we did both leave the hostel later that
day, both having successfully (and independently) showered, albeit in abject
fear a couple of metres away from the huntsman bathroom shark.
We attempted to meet up with Rachael and
Henry, but because of internet access proving to be frequently costly and
difficult to access, by the time we got to where they said they were, they’d
gone. We caught a bus home, weighing up the pros and cons of the spider still
being where we’d left it. As I’m a rational human being, I didn’t ever want to
be near it, especially not when I was asleep. On the flipside, if it had
disappeared, I was going to assume it was burrowed under my duvet and was going
to bite me on the bum because spiders are creeps.
Naturally, the spider was nowhere to be
seen. We went round hitting everything to see if a spider emerged, but ultimately
forced ourselves to conclude that it had gone out of the window. I was
horrified because I didn’t know the window had been open. Ronan explained that
it was open before we checked in, which is probably why there was a spider
inside.** I have henceforth decreed that no window is ever opened because I
know I don’t have a deathwish.
It was that night that my stomach decided
that it was especially unhappy, I think due to one of the in-flight meals. I
soldiered on, because I’m in Australia, and this would be a really inconvenient
time to be ill, so I logically decided not to be ill. The next day we tried to
find Rachael and Henry – unfortunately wandering into the wrong hotel, leading
to a comedic thread of messages (“we’re in the lobby but we can’t see you…?”;
“oh, no, please don’t go to that room, we’re not in there!”). A couple of train
rides later we found the two of them, Rachael being ill too, Australia
presumably trying to reject us both. This was the first time I’d seen the
person I’d be living in Australia with since November, so it was comforting to
know she still existed and that Ronan hadn’t been keeping up an elaborate ruse
to protect my feelings/destroy me out of hatred.
Rachael being a broken shell of a woman,
Ronan and I cheerfully left the responsibility of dealing with her to Henry,
and went to Darling Harbour on the ferry. We met up with Ronan’s holidaying
cousin, and later Rachael and Henry mustered up the wellness to join us. I then
spent my time watching them eat dinner while my self-important innards loudly
asserted themselves as unhappy, regularly rearranging themselves for no obvious
reason.
My innards’ game of squelchy Tetris
continued the day after, the day that Ronan and I wandered around outside the
Opera House and the botanic gardens. Again, we met up with Rachael and Henry,
but I died at about half three and went back to the hostel. Determined to
absorb Aussie culture, I watched Horrible Histories, Sabrina the Teenage Witch
and Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, flushing myself with water and
Powerade because I guess I was probably losing electrolytes because food
poisoning is kind of like a sport.
I think I’m better today.
*Neither of them provided this as the
reason, but as a reader of MY blog, you are subject to MY whims.
**Rachael later said that she asked Henry
what he would do if there was a spider in their room. Henry said “well, I would
complain to reception”, like the hotel had ignored their booking for a
spider-free room.
Saturday 11 January 2014
In which I recount how Air India failed to do any good for my emotional wellbeing
The first leg in my vile journey to Australia was a flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow. The flight was at 9:10am, but of course because Blairgowrie isn't conveniently close to anything much it meant that I got up at 5am to do the last of my packing before leaving at 6 to check in in plenty of time. That was probably the last time I'd ever be in that house. The last time I would be in that house would be when I was sleep deprived, terrified and sad. Bye house!
So I went to Edinburgh airport with Mum and Dad, and I met Ali there, and we all had some coffee, and then we all said our goodbyes and I went through security but I was suspicious so they frisked me (but any frisking I undergo could never be as uncomfortable as the time I was frisked in California and halfway through the guy went "wait, how old are you?" and I said "nineteen..." and he said "oh good!" and continued). And then I met Bee at Heathrow, and we had breakfast and hot chocolates that were made by a trainee so were basically mugs of cream and then I said my goodbyes and went through security and my bags were suspicious so they used that security wand on my stuff and my stuff was fine and at least I wasn't frisked by a paedophile.
My flight from Heathrow had a stopover at Delhi, and the first flight was full of terrifying idiots. For one thing, who smokes in the aeroplane toilet? I always thought that the whole "don't smoke on an aeroplane" thing went without saying, but when a man smoked in the toilet and all the stewards told him off he was all "hey what, why is it a problem, back off". But at least he didn't have to get carried to the back of the plane by two stewards like some other guy, and I'm happy he didn't come and sit next to me like this other drunken maniac who kept telling me "I'm a lyrical terrorist! I'm going to kill you! Hahaha! I'm joking! But I'm not. Sheeeiit!"
That guy left in due course, but immediately forgot where he was and where he'd put any of his stuff so when a guy pointed to his bag in the seat next to me he was elated and gave me a hug. "Thanks man! You're such a good guy!" I am a good guy. Please leave me alone. He did, but the toddler in front of me started standing on the armrest and staring at me and shouting nonsense because if there's anything my past work with kids has told me it's that they don't tend to make any sense until the age of about 9 or 10. Coincidentally I was trying to read The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris at the time, in which Sedaris reminisces about being an elf, and how kids are enthusiastic and parents are annoying, and I was relating to it because I was an elf, and wishing I was more like Sedaris because I'd clearly made a start (except I'll try not to do that thing he did of becoming a meth addict) and why wouldn't this child leave me alone and just keep giving his toys to the other alcoholic, the one sitting across the aisle from me? He had already accepted the toddler's offering of his tractor-covered wellies. They sat poking out of the pocket in front of him for the rest of the flight.
And isn't it polite etiquette to not speak to someone when they've got headphones in? That's not to say that I don't want to speak to anyone when I've got headphones in - but I'd want to be friends with the person who spoke to me. If sleep deprived me is on the verge of tears watching Pacific Rim (Maoko's flashback is emotional) then leave me alone yeah? If sleep deprived me is on the verge of tears watching Elysium, or I Am Sam, or Hugo, or Home Alone 2 (they forgot about him AGAIN?) then LEAVE ME ALONE YEAH?
And furthermore, Air India, people joke that you would serve curry for every meal. With that ridiculous stereotype in mind, the one I tried to defend you from, why do you serve curry for every meal? Curry for breakfast is sick. (It also made me sick, but I'll regale you with my food poisoning diaries later.)
I eventually got to Delhi and had an 8 hour layover, so I found a corner where I could sort of fall asleep but at the cost of doing my neck in, and then when it actually got to boarding, my flight number was due to go to Melbourne, not Sydney, and whenever I asked anyone about it they said vaguely "just wait 5 minutes" or "yeah it goes to Sydney" without explaining why it said Melbourne, not Sydney (they are two different cities). Eventually when I got on the plane one of the stewards said that it would go to Sydney afterwards, but I only really felt comfortable when I heard a girl sitting behind me talking about how she was going to Sydney and why was she on this flight? She duly became my Plane Friend because WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE GOING?
The 11 and a half hour flight to Melbourne was a pain because we got too much curry and the girl sitting next to me put our shared armrest up and kept jabbing me with her elbows. The only communication between us was when she pointed at something on my meal and declared it "Swedish!" (even though it definitely wasn't) and when I asked her if she'd let me out so I could go to the toilet and she didn't get out of her seat so I ended up towering over her in my efforts to get past her, which was surely exceedingly uncomfortable for the both of us. She left at Melbourne though, whereas I got off the plane with Plane Friend, went through security, and then got back on exactly the same seat on the same plane for our hour-long trip to Sydney. And by this point, I didn't really want a fourth flight because I wanted to die.
But I got to Sydney, life intact, bowels struggling. Look forward to food poisoning tales in the next post. (To avoid disappointment, I don't have any major insights into food poisoning. It will be more about the shitting huge huntsman spider we had in our bathroom, and stuff about Australia and that.)
So I went to Edinburgh airport with Mum and Dad, and I met Ali there, and we all had some coffee, and then we all said our goodbyes and I went through security but I was suspicious so they frisked me (but any frisking I undergo could never be as uncomfortable as the time I was frisked in California and halfway through the guy went "wait, how old are you?" and I said "nineteen..." and he said "oh good!" and continued). And then I met Bee at Heathrow, and we had breakfast and hot chocolates that were made by a trainee so were basically mugs of cream and then I said my goodbyes and went through security and my bags were suspicious so they used that security wand on my stuff and my stuff was fine and at least I wasn't frisked by a paedophile.
My flight from Heathrow had a stopover at Delhi, and the first flight was full of terrifying idiots. For one thing, who smokes in the aeroplane toilet? I always thought that the whole "don't smoke on an aeroplane" thing went without saying, but when a man smoked in the toilet and all the stewards told him off he was all "hey what, why is it a problem, back off". But at least he didn't have to get carried to the back of the plane by two stewards like some other guy, and I'm happy he didn't come and sit next to me like this other drunken maniac who kept telling me "I'm a lyrical terrorist! I'm going to kill you! Hahaha! I'm joking! But I'm not. Sheeeiit!"
That guy left in due course, but immediately forgot where he was and where he'd put any of his stuff so when a guy pointed to his bag in the seat next to me he was elated and gave me a hug. "Thanks man! You're such a good guy!" I am a good guy. Please leave me alone. He did, but the toddler in front of me started standing on the armrest and staring at me and shouting nonsense because if there's anything my past work with kids has told me it's that they don't tend to make any sense until the age of about 9 or 10. Coincidentally I was trying to read The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris at the time, in which Sedaris reminisces about being an elf, and how kids are enthusiastic and parents are annoying, and I was relating to it because I was an elf, and wishing I was more like Sedaris because I'd clearly made a start (except I'll try not to do that thing he did of becoming a meth addict) and why wouldn't this child leave me alone and just keep giving his toys to the other alcoholic, the one sitting across the aisle from me? He had already accepted the toddler's offering of his tractor-covered wellies. They sat poking out of the pocket in front of him for the rest of the flight.
And isn't it polite etiquette to not speak to someone when they've got headphones in? That's not to say that I don't want to speak to anyone when I've got headphones in - but I'd want to be friends with the person who spoke to me. If sleep deprived me is on the verge of tears watching Pacific Rim (Maoko's flashback is emotional) then leave me alone yeah? If sleep deprived me is on the verge of tears watching Elysium, or I Am Sam, or Hugo, or Home Alone 2 (they forgot about him AGAIN?) then LEAVE ME ALONE YEAH?
And furthermore, Air India, people joke that you would serve curry for every meal. With that ridiculous stereotype in mind, the one I tried to defend you from, why do you serve curry for every meal? Curry for breakfast is sick. (It also made me sick, but I'll regale you with my food poisoning diaries later.)
I eventually got to Delhi and had an 8 hour layover, so I found a corner where I could sort of fall asleep but at the cost of doing my neck in, and then when it actually got to boarding, my flight number was due to go to Melbourne, not Sydney, and whenever I asked anyone about it they said vaguely "just wait 5 minutes" or "yeah it goes to Sydney" without explaining why it said Melbourne, not Sydney (they are two different cities). Eventually when I got on the plane one of the stewards said that it would go to Sydney afterwards, but I only really felt comfortable when I heard a girl sitting behind me talking about how she was going to Sydney and why was she on this flight? She duly became my Plane Friend because WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE GOING?
The 11 and a half hour flight to Melbourne was a pain because we got too much curry and the girl sitting next to me put our shared armrest up and kept jabbing me with her elbows. The only communication between us was when she pointed at something on my meal and declared it "Swedish!" (even though it definitely wasn't) and when I asked her if she'd let me out so I could go to the toilet and she didn't get out of her seat so I ended up towering over her in my efforts to get past her, which was surely exceedingly uncomfortable for the both of us. She left at Melbourne though, whereas I got off the plane with Plane Friend, went through security, and then got back on exactly the same seat on the same plane for our hour-long trip to Sydney. And by this point, I didn't really want a fourth flight because I wanted to die.
But I got to Sydney, life intact, bowels struggling. Look forward to food poisoning tales in the next post. (To avoid disappointment, I don't have any major insights into food poisoning. It will be more about the shitting huge huntsman spider we had in our bathroom, and stuff about Australia and that.)
Monday 6 January 2014
12 hours, 12 degrees
3:15pm in Blairgowrie and it's 8ºC. 3:15am in Sydney and it's 20ºC. I still don't own any shorts.
I do now own a suitcase, though. But I haven't put anything in it yet because I've just been spending my time alerting my bank, arguably at the latest possible moment, that I'm off to the other side of the world. I also tried to apply for a new kind of bank account but apparently that's the kind of thing that takes a couple of days to process or something and I probably shouldn't have left it to the day before leaving to try and do that or some shit? Bankers eh, am I right? #brokenbritain
For those of you who might want to maintain some kind of reasonably consistent contact with me, I'm keeping my phone, and so I'll be keeping all the apps I have on it. In other words, I probably don't like you enough to text or phone you from Australia because that will cost a lot of money, but if I'm in a place with wi-fi then you might be lucky enough to get a message or photo or something. At risk of being inundated with adoring internet fans, my username on Twitter and Snapchat is rumrapture, and my username on Instagram is cwwg. (The former is one I made on a gaming forum when I was 14. The latter is a product of latent po-facedness that hit me at 21.)
But whatever I don't care if you add me because I'm going to have loads of amazing fun in Oz yeah?
(Please add me. I want to preempt the inevitable homesickness.)
WHAT WAS THAT I COULDN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE FUN IN THE SUN
I do now own a suitcase, though. But I haven't put anything in it yet because I've just been spending my time alerting my bank, arguably at the latest possible moment, that I'm off to the other side of the world. I also tried to apply for a new kind of bank account but apparently that's the kind of thing that takes a couple of days to process or something and I probably shouldn't have left it to the day before leaving to try and do that or some shit? Bankers eh, am I right? #brokenbritain
For those of you who might want to maintain some kind of reasonably consistent contact with me, I'm keeping my phone, and so I'll be keeping all the apps I have on it. In other words, I probably don't like you enough to text or phone you from Australia because that will cost a lot of money, but if I'm in a place with wi-fi then you might be lucky enough to get a message or photo or something. At risk of being inundated with adoring internet fans, my username on Twitter and Snapchat is rumrapture, and my username on Instagram is cwwg. (The former is one I made on a gaming forum when I was 14. The latter is a product of latent po-facedness that hit me at 21.)
But whatever I don't care if you add me because I'm going to have loads of amazing fun in Oz yeah?
(Please add me. I want to preempt the inevitable homesickness.)
WHAT WAS THAT I COULDN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE FUN IN THE SUN
Sunday 5 January 2014
The last supper
I just had what is probably going to be my last meal with my family in the house I grew up in. (Parents want to sell it. Blairgowrie just isn't cutting it any more.)
It is Saturday night and I leave for Australia on Tuesday morning. Tomorrow I will hopefully be buying a suitcase to put my things in for the trip. I don't own any shorts.
I lost my car keys earlier so I almost didn't even manage to travel from Edinburgh to Blairgowrie (59 miles), never mind Blairgowrie to Sydney (10,473 miles).
I have made my peace with the fact that Australia is a death trap. I simply hope that when sharks try to eat me, my hands remain intact so I can blog about the fact that I've got no legs.
Follow me for hot pix and more.
It is Saturday night and I leave for Australia on Tuesday morning. Tomorrow I will hopefully be buying a suitcase to put my things in for the trip. I don't own any shorts.
I lost my car keys earlier so I almost didn't even manage to travel from Edinburgh to Blairgowrie (59 miles), never mind Blairgowrie to Sydney (10,473 miles).
I have made my peace with the fact that Australia is a death trap. I simply hope that when sharks try to eat me, my hands remain intact so I can blog about the fact that I've got no legs.
Follow me for hot pix and more.
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