so it's been a while since i've written. It's been even longer since i last worked.
A few days ago i got a call really early in the morning telling me about a job interview the next day and it looked really good and she said she would call me. When she didn't call I called her, only to find that my interview was canceled, which is a shame cause it would have been a great job- working in a nursury, dealing with trees, little baby trees. Maybe she will call me, but with my experience in job searching over here i have learned that when they say they will call you back they will NOT call you back.
There was one funny story that i wanted to write down before I forget. It was doing the broccoli planting. I hope i didn't write it down in here already... It was a conversation we were having at lunch. Here are the characters in this diologue. It should be said that it is really difficult to judge the age of the tasmanians. They always appear alot older than they actually are, perhaps because im used to people who don't spend as much time in the sun, and also because the sun is much stronger down here. But anyways, back to my cast of characters:
A: The boss lady,
B: Another lady, im guessing 30ish,
C: A younger guy, perhaps 27 or something?
ME: the guy writing this, a Canadian, while all other characters are local tasmanians.
This is a really real conversation. It may not be 100% accurate but im trying to type it like how it was.
Here is the scenario: Boss lady cuts herself.
A: yeah, i just cut meself, it's bleedin' pretty bad, but i've worked with me finger broken before and that was worse than this. Havin' a broken finga is much worse then workin' with a cut finga.
C: I've broken nearly every one of me fingers!
B: I've broken this finger, look at that, it doesn't even bend anymore, and it's got this bump now, look at that!
A: I've got the same thing here on this one, me pointer finga.
C: Fingers are nothin'. I've broken me arm twice, and me leg and a couple ribs in a bikin' accident.
B: I've broken so many bones! (she lists the bones she has broken)
A: yeah i was pretty rough with me brotha, back when we was kids. Surprized we didn't kill each otha! When'e was three i'd put in a tire and roll it down the hill this steep. (shows an angle with her arm, about 45 degrees)
ME: whoa...
B: Me brotha got stabbed 23 times and survived. that was a hellofa night for him, it was.
C: That's nothin' i've been stabbed 3 times! once in me side when i was pregnant, and once in me head!
ME: That's pretty crazy, was your baby alright?
C: Yeah, he's alright. I fackin' hated the bastard that did it. The cunt died a few years ago, fackin' drowned when he was pissed, and boy was i glad!
There was more to that conversation, but yeah, i think i got the jist of it down in that diologue. I was wondering how she could survive getting stabbed IN THE HEAD. The moral of the story is: Tasmanians are tough. Through and through. It's true that not all tasmanians are like the ones i've just described but alot of them are, the ones who grew up in the small towns and on the farms.
I don't really have much time to write today. I've spent alot of time looking up hilarious photos of people, or , to be more specific, photos of people with hilarious people in the background.. For anyone curious, my photo site is below, and i'll upload all the hilarious results of my image searching:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/_psm/sets/
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
What's up The Internet, it's your humble servant paul here, writing another update.
What have i been up to? many things, yes, many things.
I've been working some, but not enough because it's been raining. I'm working farming jobs, so not working in heavy rain is a good thing, but still,,, i need the money!
It's cold here, because it's winter. But I can handle it better than the locals, who complain so much even though it isn't even below zero. At work there was a lady who was wearing a black hat, in canada would be called a touk or something, and it said 'KIN FREEZIN on it, which i thought was funny. It was more funny because it wasn't actually freezing. I know it does snow up in the mountains, and i plan to go up to a place called Cradle Mountain sometime soon as i hear it's a world heritage site because of it's good looking scenery. There's also another mountian i'm going to climb called mount Roland. Oh and another thing i want to do, is called W.W.O.O.F ing, which is being a Willing Worker on an Organic Farm, getting to stay someplace beautiful for free and getting free food in exchange for a few hours work; but for that i'd need to save up some money because they don't pay you for the work you do.
But i'll write a bit more on the work i've been doing. With the farm work, im usually making about 18$ an hour. Which is sweet, and more sweet right now , is my setup at the backpackers residence where i clean the kitchen at night, and two nights of that is one night of free rent. And 1 week of rent is 113$, so let me calculate how much it costs for me to stay there.... about 10$ a night, which isn't bad because i have my own room, and it's a hosptal room because the place is an old hospital they rennovated.
Have i written all i can about broccoli? yeah it's kindof backbreaking, because all it is is bending over and cutting out the broccoli with a paint scraper, then throwing it in a bin carried by the tractor. The tractor can carry 10 of these huge bins at a time, and im sure a better basketball player now that i've thrown so many collys into faraway bins; not without missing the bin, and once they hit the ground they're dirty and no good. We were working in this rich red soil, and one day it was raining and we got it all over our boots and shoes; i didn't notice that i had it on my shoes, and as soon as we got dropped of at our hospital house I quickly went straight to my room so i could get to the laundry before anyone else, but little did know I had tracked mud all the way from the front door, down two long hallways to my room. The manager was really upset and he yelled at me, using kindof funny language like 'HELLS BELLS' and, 'i've had it up to my eyebrows with this mud!' and so fourth,, but while he's yelling at me, at least 3 other people tack even more mud into the place, but noone admits to doing it and everyone blames me because i was the one caught. Eventually i got a little help from one other guy, but i later found out it was two ladies who did it too but they didn't own up because of how mad the manager was. One girl was this german girl, who tracked it all up the stairs and then blamed me , even though i never went upstairs, betch. Perhaps i will go on a digression just to talk about how annoying she was....
. ...ok my first impression of this girl, she's telling a story of how she 'pissed herself laughing' at a girl who fell on her face, and just the way she told it i was like wow that's kindof harsh. Then later, almost at the end of the day, she starts cutting into my row of collys, perhaps because she notices that im about to be run over by the tractor while trying to be a hero cutting out every last one without missing anything,, and i notice her helping me, and i say Thanks, and then she goes, ' JUST KEEP MOVING' in her thick german accent. And a few days later she calls me an idiot because i think the bag around the bin is tied tight enough and she doesn't agree. And she was rude to everyone! and alot of people i worked with would talk about it behind her back; we all thought it was weird how she could be that mean and bossy even though she was the youngest person on the team. damn, she was evil. but anyways... im glad collys is pretty much over.
The farming season this year, i hear, is kindof a strange one. Like, the crop is 5 times what it usually is. Maybe more, because i heard they usually get 800 bins, and this year they got like 4500. Im not sure if this is the result of climate chage, but it seems to benefit the collyflower farmer in tasmania....
After a few days off, i decided to call up some number i got from a friend about a job, and they agree to pick me up the next day. It's picking a vegetable they call Sweeds, which is actually a turnip in canada (or as the tasmanians often call it, CANADIA). Turnip picking was a brutal job, but it was kindof fun, for the one day that i worked it. It isn't paid by the hour, but they give you 55$ per half ton bin. A half ton is a huge amount of Sweeds, but i hear some people can do 3, 4, or 5 bins a day. They give you a sharp knife, which they deduct from your pay, and some smaller buckets to fill up before dumping them in the bin. I only finished 1 bin that day, but i guess my strategy wasn't very good, and maybe if i gave it a chance i could have been getting 3 bins in a day, but i couldn't do it because i felt it was too rough on my wrists. I wasn't going about the job right because most people were filling their buckets till they overflowed and get someone to help them carry them over to the bins, while i would fill them half way and carry myself. I might have noticed if i was working next to the locals who have been doing this job for years, but instead, i chose a part of the 'paddock' (aka field) where i could pick along the fence next to a field full of cows. Perhaps if i had not been next to the cows i would not have been so distracted and i could have worked more and made more money, but, i was so amused by being next to the cows that i spent alot of my time paying attention to them and not working. At first the cows walked over, and were just kindof checking me out, staring at me. Like 20 or 40 cows! Sometimes some of them would get bored and leave , but usually there were alot of cows just 2 meters away from me! so close i could smell their stink. I thought it was cool, that they were so interested in me, and perhaps they enjoyed my whistling or beat boxing. Later i found out they were more interested in the sweeds, and when i got a small one i would toss it over and they would all fight over who got to eat it. Yes it was an amusing day next to the cows. After a day of not working hard and not making much money, i decided it wasn't worth my sore wrists and back, so that's that. No more sweeds.
Broccoli planting. This past week I didn't have work, and so i fell into a schedual of going to bed very late, staying up reading. I'll write about the books i've been reading next. But yeah, i go to bed on thursday at 4am after finishing 2 books, and i was nice and comfortably sleeping at 7 when i get a call asking me to come into work because they really need somebody. Now, usually i know ahead of time if im going to work so that i know to go to bed early, but yeah even though i was extremly tired i still went to work that day and did some broccoli work. Basically, i just walked behind this tractor that 3 people were sitting on feeding little plants into the planter, and my job was to make sure there were no gaps and that all the little plants were covered with soil properly because if they aren't they would die overnight. It was an easy job, walking around kicking dirt on plants that weren't covered right. No problem, and maybe there's lots more where that came from.
One thing that is getting annoying, is gettting my stuff stolen. I had a huge load of my laundry stolen off the line, including all my warm clothes. But now that i've been in devenport, it's my food that i need to be careful with. There seems to be a food theif staying with us, and with only about 12 people staying there, i have my suspects. It seems that everyone is getting food stolen from them, although some people could be just saying that so they would not be suspected themselves. There is this one guy that says up really late into the night, and maybe i suspect him because he wears a black leather jacket. He's a cool guy, nice to me, and he often says 'Dead Set!' which i think is funny, but im not sure about him. He says that he lost his sugar, but im like, why would someone steal only your sugar and not your milk bread and other stuff that other people seem to be complaining about. A few nights ago, the film The Fugitive, with harrison ford, was on tv, and that made me think how leather jacket dude (i forget his name) is in fact a fugitive himself, hiding out in tasmania, avoiding the law, no money and stealing food... but im not sure. Not yet. Anyways, it's really really annoying to have someone stealing your food. SO ANNOYING. I made this really good stuff with Tempeh (soybeans) and curry, making enough so i could eat it for a few days, and the next morning i find it's gone! GRRR. oh well, no use crying over stolen food...
It's now saturday, i've been at the internet cafe for a while. I bought a new 2GB USB MP3 player and i've downloaded some music and interesting lectures. I'm kindof tired of typing so i'll say goodbye for now, untill next time
What have i been up to? many things, yes, many things.
I've been working some, but not enough because it's been raining. I'm working farming jobs, so not working in heavy rain is a good thing, but still,,, i need the money!
It's cold here, because it's winter. But I can handle it better than the locals, who complain so much even though it isn't even below zero. At work there was a lady who was wearing a black hat, in canada would be called a touk or something, and it said 'KIN FREEZIN on it, which i thought was funny. It was more funny because it wasn't actually freezing. I know it does snow up in the mountains, and i plan to go up to a place called Cradle Mountain sometime soon as i hear it's a world heritage site because of it's good looking scenery. There's also another mountian i'm going to climb called mount Roland. Oh and another thing i want to do, is called W.W.O.O.F ing, which is being a Willing Worker on an Organic Farm, getting to stay someplace beautiful for free and getting free food in exchange for a few hours work; but for that i'd need to save up some money because they don't pay you for the work you do.
But i'll write a bit more on the work i've been doing. With the farm work, im usually making about 18$ an hour. Which is sweet, and more sweet right now , is my setup at the backpackers residence where i clean the kitchen at night, and two nights of that is one night of free rent. And 1 week of rent is 113$, so let me calculate how much it costs for me to stay there.... about 10$ a night, which isn't bad because i have my own room, and it's a hosptal room because the place is an old hospital they rennovated.
Have i written all i can about broccoli? yeah it's kindof backbreaking, because all it is is bending over and cutting out the broccoli with a paint scraper, then throwing it in a bin carried by the tractor. The tractor can carry 10 of these huge bins at a time, and im sure a better basketball player now that i've thrown so many collys into faraway bins; not without missing the bin, and once they hit the ground they're dirty and no good. We were working in this rich red soil, and one day it was raining and we got it all over our boots and shoes; i didn't notice that i had it on my shoes, and as soon as we got dropped of at our hospital house I quickly went straight to my room so i could get to the laundry before anyone else, but little did know I had tracked mud all the way from the front door, down two long hallways to my room. The manager was really upset and he yelled at me, using kindof funny language like 'HELLS BELLS' and, 'i've had it up to my eyebrows with this mud!' and so fourth,, but while he's yelling at me, at least 3 other people tack even more mud into the place, but noone admits to doing it and everyone blames me because i was the one caught. Eventually i got a little help from one other guy, but i later found out it was two ladies who did it too but they didn't own up because of how mad the manager was. One girl was this german girl, who tracked it all up the stairs and then blamed me , even though i never went upstairs, betch. Perhaps i will go on a digression just to talk about how annoying she was....
. ...ok my first impression of this girl, she's telling a story of how she 'pissed herself laughing' at a girl who fell on her face, and just the way she told it i was like wow that's kindof harsh. Then later, almost at the end of the day, she starts cutting into my row of collys, perhaps because she notices that im about to be run over by the tractor while trying to be a hero cutting out every last one without missing anything,, and i notice her helping me, and i say Thanks, and then she goes, ' JUST KEEP MOVING' in her thick german accent. And a few days later she calls me an idiot because i think the bag around the bin is tied tight enough and she doesn't agree. And she was rude to everyone! and alot of people i worked with would talk about it behind her back; we all thought it was weird how she could be that mean and bossy even though she was the youngest person on the team. damn, she was evil. but anyways... im glad collys is pretty much over.
The farming season this year, i hear, is kindof a strange one. Like, the crop is 5 times what it usually is. Maybe more, because i heard they usually get 800 bins, and this year they got like 4500. Im not sure if this is the result of climate chage, but it seems to benefit the collyflower farmer in tasmania....
After a few days off, i decided to call up some number i got from a friend about a job, and they agree to pick me up the next day. It's picking a vegetable they call Sweeds, which is actually a turnip in canada (or as the tasmanians often call it, CANADIA). Turnip picking was a brutal job, but it was kindof fun, for the one day that i worked it. It isn't paid by the hour, but they give you 55$ per half ton bin. A half ton is a huge amount of Sweeds, but i hear some people can do 3, 4, or 5 bins a day. They give you a sharp knife, which they deduct from your pay, and some smaller buckets to fill up before dumping them in the bin. I only finished 1 bin that day, but i guess my strategy wasn't very good, and maybe if i gave it a chance i could have been getting 3 bins in a day, but i couldn't do it because i felt it was too rough on my wrists. I wasn't going about the job right because most people were filling their buckets till they overflowed and get someone to help them carry them over to the bins, while i would fill them half way and carry myself. I might have noticed if i was working next to the locals who have been doing this job for years, but instead, i chose a part of the 'paddock' (aka field) where i could pick along the fence next to a field full of cows. Perhaps if i had not been next to the cows i would not have been so distracted and i could have worked more and made more money, but, i was so amused by being next to the cows that i spent alot of my time paying attention to them and not working. At first the cows walked over, and were just kindof checking me out, staring at me. Like 20 or 40 cows! Sometimes some of them would get bored and leave , but usually there were alot of cows just 2 meters away from me! so close i could smell their stink. I thought it was cool, that they were so interested in me, and perhaps they enjoyed my whistling or beat boxing. Later i found out they were more interested in the sweeds, and when i got a small one i would toss it over and they would all fight over who got to eat it. Yes it was an amusing day next to the cows. After a day of not working hard and not making much money, i decided it wasn't worth my sore wrists and back, so that's that. No more sweeds.
Broccoli planting. This past week I didn't have work, and so i fell into a schedual of going to bed very late, staying up reading. I'll write about the books i've been reading next. But yeah, i go to bed on thursday at 4am after finishing 2 books, and i was nice and comfortably sleeping at 7 when i get a call asking me to come into work because they really need somebody. Now, usually i know ahead of time if im going to work so that i know to go to bed early, but yeah even though i was extremly tired i still went to work that day and did some broccoli work. Basically, i just walked behind this tractor that 3 people were sitting on feeding little plants into the planter, and my job was to make sure there were no gaps and that all the little plants were covered with soil properly because if they aren't they would die overnight. It was an easy job, walking around kicking dirt on plants that weren't covered right. No problem, and maybe there's lots more where that came from.
One thing that is getting annoying, is gettting my stuff stolen. I had a huge load of my laundry stolen off the line, including all my warm clothes. But now that i've been in devenport, it's my food that i need to be careful with. There seems to be a food theif staying with us, and with only about 12 people staying there, i have my suspects. It seems that everyone is getting food stolen from them, although some people could be just saying that so they would not be suspected themselves. There is this one guy that says up really late into the night, and maybe i suspect him because he wears a black leather jacket. He's a cool guy, nice to me, and he often says 'Dead Set!' which i think is funny, but im not sure about him. He says that he lost his sugar, but im like, why would someone steal only your sugar and not your milk bread and other stuff that other people seem to be complaining about. A few nights ago, the film The Fugitive, with harrison ford, was on tv, and that made me think how leather jacket dude (i forget his name) is in fact a fugitive himself, hiding out in tasmania, avoiding the law, no money and stealing food... but im not sure. Not yet. Anyways, it's really really annoying to have someone stealing your food. SO ANNOYING. I made this really good stuff with Tempeh (soybeans) and curry, making enough so i could eat it for a few days, and the next morning i find it's gone! GRRR. oh well, no use crying over stolen food...
It's now saturday, i've been at the internet cafe for a while. I bought a new 2GB USB MP3 player and i've downloaded some music and interesting lectures. I'm kindof tired of typing so i'll say goodbye for now, untill next time
Saturday, July 12, 2008
This post was written over a week or so, saved as a draft in my email because i didn't get too much time on the internet to write all i wanted to write.
So i'm now in davenport. much has happened and i've not got much time to write.
So i'm now in davenport. much has happened and i've not got much time to write.
The reason i left Launceston was because i couldn't find a job, despite much searching and applying. Many places said they'd call me back, including various jobs as a pruner of grape vines, a job picking gum tree nuts off the old growth forest floor, a takeaway shop (greasy food and sammiches), Taxi driver, Cafe staff, and delivery driver of dominoes pizza. Many of these places said they would call me back and then didn't. Finally I found a job planting onions, which i wrote about in my last post a bit, and then that ended and i moved to davenport to do collyflower picking. I'll write about that a bit later...
But i'll write a bit about my last days in launceston. I moved back into the Launceston backpackers, a nice place that has a piano and some nice people staying there. I stayed there before during the summer and it was crazy full of people, and it was nice to be there during the quiet season. I met alot of canadians too, including a group of students doing volunteer work (although i do'nt think they were required to work all that hard, because they told me they did tree planting, and said they planted about the same number of trees in a week that i did in one day). A couple of things really do annoy me about backpackers: one thing is getting my stuff stolen- i've had my sweet little tape player with the speaker on the side stolen, and one day i had most of my laundry stolen off the line which was a terrible loss- i lost all my sweaters, or, as the australians call them, 'Jumpers'. Also, it was all too easy to lose food. This one time during the summer months i put my bag of groceries that i bought into a box in the fridge, because it was the only free space there, and later, after all the groceries disappeared, i found out that this was the FREE box, only it didn't have a sign on it telling me that it was the FREE box. i might have written about that in here before, but it still annoys me because there should be some warning to someone who might mistakenly put his groceries in the free box by accident, perhaps a sign that says FREE would have worked... and there's always the possiblity of getting your food stolen, because i can't watch my stuff all the time... and another annoying thing is how i always get my food covered in crap from other peoples food on the higher shelves in the fridge- like my bag will be full of some sticky mystery liquid, milk, or blood from some nasty meat. GROSS. There are some nice people though, and the thing about traveling is you'll always meet new people.
So now im in Davenport, working the collies. I'm staying in this backpackers that used to be a hospital or something, and because it's the off season, there aren't many people staying there, and i have my own room, which is great. There aren't alot of people here which is nice, and there is a comfortable common room with a fire place and sweet tv satellite. One annoying thing, i've noticed it alot but especially here, is pee on the toilet seat! i guess some people never learn.
Last night was friday and i went out after a friend gave me some vodka here. There was a girl i wasn't all that attracted to who was kindof being friendly with me; i think she's a really cool girl and everything but we're much too different for it to work i think, and she swears so much! The tasmanians swear alot generally, and she's not as bad as some that i've met. One word that i find harsh is the word CUNT, but locals here don't seem to mind it, and they tend to use it in speech often. Perhaps i'll write a bit more about speech differences at the bottom, as i have been doing in earlier posts. I've been doing alot of reading as well, and have read just under 20 books since i got here, and i have a pile waiting to be read as well - the libraries here are great, and i've been taking advantage of their books as well as their internets.
Last night was friday and i went out after a friend gave me some vodka here. There was a girl i wasn't all that attracted to who was kindof being friendly with me; i think she's a really cool girl and everything but we're much too different for it to work i think, and she swears so much! The tasmanians swear alot generally, and she's not as bad as some that i've met. One word that i find harsh is the word CUNT, but locals here don't seem to mind it, and they tend to use it in speech often. Perhaps i'll write a bit more about speech differences at the bottom, as i have been doing in earlier posts. I've been doing alot of reading as well, and have read just under 20 books since i got here, and i have a pile waiting to be read as well - the libraries here are great, and i've been taking advantage of their books as well as their internets.
One time i was in this takeaway shop and i saw what i thought was Cosmopolitan magazine, or Cosmo, the womans magazine. I thought i'd take a look at it, because sometimes i like to read those types of magazines; even though i don't like to be seen reading them, i feel like i'm spying on women by reading their trashy mags. anyways,, it wasn't cosmo, it was Cosmetic surgury magazine, a thick glossy magazine devoted to plastic surgury with really nasty before and after pictures. It's something i've never seen before, i wonder if they have it in canada.
I'm sure most people know of the Tasmanian devil, but maybe not everyone knows it's giong extinct. It's kindof gross how it happens, but i guess the tassie devil is a kindof gross animal in the way it lives. See, the tasmanian devils eat other dead animals, and when they're eating a corpse of a wallaby or kangaroo or whatever it is, they fight and bit over the corpse biting each other. But the thing is, this biting and fighting over food causes the spread of an infectious disease, or, it's like a mouth cancer.
I've also noticed some differences in names- i can't remember where this came from, but there was a man/ woman couple named MIF (the woman) and HAMISH (the man); apparently Hamish is a common name for a guy. weird eh? I also might have written about these two guys i met, named ASHLEY and COOKIE; in canada, ashley is a girls name, but i guess it's more of a guys name here, and cookie i thought was a weird name but apparently it's only a nickname- at the the time i thought, 'it's weird how australians name their kids 'COOKIE'.
There's something about australian speech; it's not that they're lazy when they're talking... or maybe they are talking in kindof a lazy way, but it's not like there's anything wrong with it i guess, it's just different. Like, when a word ends in A, like the word area, or australia, an australian would say the word as if it ended in an ER, like AIRYER, or AUSTRALIER,,, and to oppose this, if a word ends with ER, like the words worker, eater, killer, filler, ,, those words would be said, WORKA,EATA, KILLA, FILLA, or whatever. i think that's a strange difference. Also, if someone says the word NO, they actually say NOY, like as if they were saying soy, like the soybean kind of soy. I had a bunch more examples but my hands are cold and my time on the internet is up....
Sunday, June 29, 2008
As usual, i have little time to type. Not enough to type everything but still i feel i should get something down.
typing is much faster for me than writing, i can get my memories down before they're gone.
anyways, im here at the internet lounge for a couple hours - i can afford it now. I've been working and i got another loan / gift from the parents. For a long time i didnt have work but now I've been enjoying onion planting. It was a pretty good job while it lasted, got a weeks worth in, and i can go down to cavenport to cut collyfolower, if i want. I was working with cool people, and we were lying on this mattress on a rig being towed by a tractor, and with onions in front of us we planted the onion in a row dug out by the tractor, root down was the goal and we had someone behind the tractor checking to make sure that we planted ROOT DOWN. (anyone who knows the beasties will get the joke HOW I GONNA PLANT IT, GONNA PLANT IT ROOT DOWN, but noone i worked with did,) It was a boring job and sometimes i would change the words of pop songs to fit in with onion planting. Such as this one sung to the tune of We are the Champions
--WEEEE are the planters of the onions,,
DAH, ,, DAH,,
and weee'll keep on planting, till the end of the row
DAH DAH DAHHHH,
then we'lll plant another one,
AND THEN WE:LL PLANT ANOTHER ONE
no time for slow hands,
cause we plant the un-yans,
..... IN THE FIELD!!!!
...And there were a few more that i can't think of now. It was pretty sweet getting paid 110$ for 6.5 hours of work. I should get another sweet paycheck soon enough... perhaps tomorrow.
OH there is one thing i would like to talk about, perhaps i will call it a series of unfortunate events. I'm sure i've touched upon the subject here in this BLAHG; my getting a small appartment, then losing my job and being unable to pay for the appartment.
On this I should say that things were going pretty well at first. A small 1 bedroom appartment was a welcome change after spending two months or so living in 6 or 8 bed dorm rooms with a lot of other stinky snoring people. But my problem is getting up in the morning- i found it difficult, especially after coming home after a long day of tree planting, going to bed without dinner because i was too tired to make it, and then hitting the snooze alarm the next morning, thus sealing my fate and losing my job. Yeah i can't help it, I'm a dreamer, sometimes i like the dream world so much better than this one... what happened was, i was a little late for work, and i ended up missing the ride out to the tree fields. About 5 days later, i got a text message from my boss telling me that i'd lost the job.
And now the plot thickens. A friend, cookie, who set me up with the place, came over one morning asking if he could buy the single mattress in the appartment. I told him he couldn't buy it but that he could use it, so i drove it over to his place with him, under the conditions that in the future he would have to return the bed. So he ended up giving me 100 dollars for the bed, which i accepted because i didn't have any money at the time. My plan was that I would pay him back once i had a job, because at the time I didn't have enough money to pay rent. I do'nt feel like talking about this too much longer, but long story short, i had trouble paying rent, and i was getting a phone calls from Ella on my cell phone but it didn't have any money on it so i wasn't getting her calls, and then Ella calls cookie and asks what's up with paul have you seen him, and cookie is like, yeah he sold me the bed a while ago, and ellas like what the fuck is he doing selling you MY bed. This was on a friday, and i spent the whole day hanging around the library waiting for an email money transfer to come through ( it never did come through) and i needed to pay rent, and now ella is freaking out thinking im a theif, and she calls her dad who comes to the appartment and sits in his car all day waiting for me to arrive. So im at the library when i get a call on the cell phone that works, and its cookie and he's upset and not making much sense but he tells me that shits fucked and everyone is pissed because they didn't know how to get ahold of me, and they're going to call the police because i sold ellas bed, and her dad is waiting outside the appartment for me. That totally sucked. So when i get back to the place, the angry dad is there; i assume it can all be explained, but he doesn't listen to anything i have to say- he doesn't even shake my hand when we met, which is understandable because he'd been waiting outside my place for a long time waiting for me to arrive. Anyways, i'll finish up this by saying it was a mistake to get the appartment, i have trouble holding a steady job, and my parents are great for sending me money when i run out.
i've got a point form list of a bunch of other stuffs i'd like to talk about but im going to have to stop this now cause thinking about that appartment has got me annoyed. GRR
typing is much faster for me than writing, i can get my memories down before they're gone.
anyways, im here at the internet lounge for a couple hours - i can afford it now. I've been working and i got another loan / gift from the parents. For a long time i didnt have work but now I've been enjoying onion planting. It was a pretty good job while it lasted, got a weeks worth in, and i can go down to cavenport to cut collyfolower, if i want. I was working with cool people, and we were lying on this mattress on a rig being towed by a tractor, and with onions in front of us we planted the onion in a row dug out by the tractor, root down was the goal and we had someone behind the tractor checking to make sure that we planted ROOT DOWN. (anyone who knows the beasties will get the joke HOW I GONNA PLANT IT, GONNA PLANT IT ROOT DOWN, but noone i worked with did,) It was a boring job and sometimes i would change the words of pop songs to fit in with onion planting. Such as this one sung to the tune of We are the Champions
--WEEEE are the planters of the onions,,
DAH, ,, DAH,,
and weee'll keep on planting, till the end of the row
DAH DAH DAHHHH,
then we'lll plant another one,
AND THEN WE:LL PLANT ANOTHER ONE
no time for slow hands,
cause we plant the un-yans,
..... IN THE FIELD!!!!
...And there were a few more that i can't think of now. It was pretty sweet getting paid 110$ for 6.5 hours of work. I should get another sweet paycheck soon enough... perhaps tomorrow.
OH there is one thing i would like to talk about, perhaps i will call it a series of unfortunate events. I'm sure i've touched upon the subject here in this BLAHG; my getting a small appartment, then losing my job and being unable to pay for the appartment.
On this I should say that things were going pretty well at first. A small 1 bedroom appartment was a welcome change after spending two months or so living in 6 or 8 bed dorm rooms with a lot of other stinky snoring people. But my problem is getting up in the morning- i found it difficult, especially after coming home after a long day of tree planting, going to bed without dinner because i was too tired to make it, and then hitting the snooze alarm the next morning, thus sealing my fate and losing my job. Yeah i can't help it, I'm a dreamer, sometimes i like the dream world so much better than this one... what happened was, i was a little late for work, and i ended up missing the ride out to the tree fields. About 5 days later, i got a text message from my boss telling me that i'd lost the job.
And now the plot thickens. A friend, cookie, who set me up with the place, came over one morning asking if he could buy the single mattress in the appartment. I told him he couldn't buy it but that he could use it, so i drove it over to his place with him, under the conditions that in the future he would have to return the bed. So he ended up giving me 100 dollars for the bed, which i accepted because i didn't have any money at the time. My plan was that I would pay him back once i had a job, because at the time I didn't have enough money to pay rent. I do'nt feel like talking about this too much longer, but long story short, i had trouble paying rent, and i was getting a phone calls from Ella on my cell phone but it didn't have any money on it so i wasn't getting her calls, and then Ella calls cookie and asks what's up with paul have you seen him, and cookie is like, yeah he sold me the bed a while ago, and ellas like what the fuck is he doing selling you MY bed. This was on a friday, and i spent the whole day hanging around the library waiting for an email money transfer to come through ( it never did come through) and i needed to pay rent, and now ella is freaking out thinking im a theif, and she calls her dad who comes to the appartment and sits in his car all day waiting for me to arrive. So im at the library when i get a call on the cell phone that works, and its cookie and he's upset and not making much sense but he tells me that shits fucked and everyone is pissed because they didn't know how to get ahold of me, and they're going to call the police because i sold ellas bed, and her dad is waiting outside the appartment for me. That totally sucked. So when i get back to the place, the angry dad is there; i assume it can all be explained, but he doesn't listen to anything i have to say- he doesn't even shake my hand when we met, which is understandable because he'd been waiting outside my place for a long time waiting for me to arrive. Anyways, i'll finish up this by saying it was a mistake to get the appartment, i have trouble holding a steady job, and my parents are great for sending me money when i run out.
i've got a point form list of a bunch of other stuffs i'd like to talk about but im going to have to stop this now cause thinking about that appartment has got me annoyed. GRR
Saturday, May 31, 2008
i've been having trouble finding work, and even considering returning to canada, thinking it would be better for me to go to school and get a trade so i could make money easier as a piano technician making 80 dollars an hour and enjoying what i do, how much better is that than wasting time not working and trying not to spend money while looking for a job and not finding one but i guess not looking hard enough but why would i want to stay here anyways when there are so many other places i could go to find work. what should i do?? I'm thinking i'll move down south to hobart; i still have much to see in tasmania.
I have a car now, had it for a few weeks now, it's pretty good but im living so close to down town anyways i can easily walk anywhere. but yeah no job thing is making me think i should move on - i couldn't cut it as a tree planter, or, well, i was late for the 6.30am meeting in the parking lot of the grocery store and the rest of the guys went to work without me.. And i lost the job! it's not like i didn't try to make it, i just missed them. my reason for getting the appartment was to work for a while saving money before i can travel more and that's still my plan but i now need to start over. Maybe i can someday get to the mainland and work in some resort somewhere or restauraunt or feild picking vegetables or packing pumpkins into boxes or some other seasonal farm labor that a backpacker can easily get. unfortuntetly for me, it's hard to get work in tassie right now, but like i said, there might be a job working in some takeaway shop.
Tonight i was driving on the 2 lane highway through the bush, and i almost hit a kangarooo, i had to break real fast, the brakes squeeled, and the kangy jumped off a little scared. he's one of the lucky ones. The roads here are littered with dead marsupials; and i could often see their glowing eyes in the bushes on the side of the road.
Its saturday night so i might make my way down to the downtown where it should be getting interesting considering its past midnight. Can't spend any money but i feel ok about that, i just feel different enough already being a quiet one in a group of loud tasmanians on the drink. Should be fun though, maybe i'll set up in the mall, a street for pedestrians full of stores and benches, and watch for pretty girls asking me about canada and fights between drunk guys being like, ya lookin at me mate? yeah ? whydo'ntcha comeover heren' say that eh? eh?? arggg. There's no late night food except for greese, but i do have a good salad mixture with marinated tofus back at me place should fuel me up after a day without eating much.
Last night was fun. I hit up a bunch of bars but didn't drink anything cause i drove in to town. I later was annoyed at driving in because someone decided to let the air out of my tires, all four of them, like they unscrewed them and let the air out with their finger or something, because when i tried to drive on the highway i really noticed when it wouldn't go above 50 km an hour. That was rude, but anyways, the bars were ok, saw some music that was also ok, was hanging out with rasta who is fun to be around, he's really keen on starting a band with me but i dunno if it will take off because he's so much of a stoner and as much as i like it i'm trying to lay off it a bit and, as much as music and weed seem to go well together it's not always an improvement on your skills when you want to do something like organize what two or more people are going to play, and as much as i like listening to reggae im sometimes not sure i can stick around here to play in a reggae band when i should be traveling or , i dunno, be in a different type of environment than that, like i've been doing alot of reading but when i do hang out with nayah and eli or whoever else it is that's over at their really nice and comfortable house full of interesting things i know im going to be getting high with them which is a burst of energy but also a downer in a way because later i'll feel tired or lazy and in no mood to read or go out or make any real decisions although definitly coming up with good ideas yet not putting them into ACTION. like now im going to take action and go out, find some food maybe or just eat my salad at home, go downtown find some fun because tomorrow i'll hopefully be working in hobart.
also there's something called Footy that seems to be everywhere, all over tv and news, all australians love it, it's their national sport, but there's alot of it i think is weird and different and annoying, the players are very violent with one another and also very affectionate with each other to the point when i'm laughing at them rubbing each others stomaches or patting butts. Oh there's another thing on tv, a trend where there's alot of shows that have young teenage girls who are really badly behaved and then they're kicked back into shape, like there's one with a group of british girls go to the mountains to camp out as punishment for their drugs and stealing and drinking and smoking and swearing and being badasses, and the shows are so full of drama and fighting and hilarious scenes of teen girls who are usually hotties just getting into crazy situations and untimately becoming better people through tough no nonsense authority figures who are in this one i've been describing- the mountain bootcamp show, but theres another show called Ladette to lady that's usually pretty funny, but in a way it seems like they're always putting the girls in situations where the old british teacher ladys are like ok we're going to leave now and you can drink wine but don't drink to much because that would mean that you aren't a lady, and then the ladys do end up getting real drunk and get filmed doing crazy shit like fighting or throwing food or flashing the camera or yelling or hitting on random dudes in a pub. but it's set in this fancy mannor house estate place that's really huge and they go through weird tv reality show situations and at the end of the episode one of them gets kicked out. And yeah, more waste of time on tv but i'm sitting in my appartment watching because i don't have much else going for me here, it just sucks i agreed to keep this appartment. There was an annoying situation that i might write about later but not now, involving the appartment, but i tired of type, it's now 1am!!!!!!!
I have a car now, had it for a few weeks now, it's pretty good but im living so close to down town anyways i can easily walk anywhere. but yeah no job thing is making me think i should move on - i couldn't cut it as a tree planter, or, well, i was late for the 6.30am meeting in the parking lot of the grocery store and the rest of the guys went to work without me.. And i lost the job! it's not like i didn't try to make it, i just missed them. my reason for getting the appartment was to work for a while saving money before i can travel more and that's still my plan but i now need to start over. Maybe i can someday get to the mainland and work in some resort somewhere or restauraunt or feild picking vegetables or packing pumpkins into boxes or some other seasonal farm labor that a backpacker can easily get. unfortuntetly for me, it's hard to get work in tassie right now, but like i said, there might be a job working in some takeaway shop.
Tonight i was driving on the 2 lane highway through the bush, and i almost hit a kangarooo, i had to break real fast, the brakes squeeled, and the kangy jumped off a little scared. he's one of the lucky ones. The roads here are littered with dead marsupials; and i could often see their glowing eyes in the bushes on the side of the road.
Its saturday night so i might make my way down to the downtown where it should be getting interesting considering its past midnight. Can't spend any money but i feel ok about that, i just feel different enough already being a quiet one in a group of loud tasmanians on the drink. Should be fun though, maybe i'll set up in the mall, a street for pedestrians full of stores and benches, and watch for pretty girls asking me about canada and fights between drunk guys being like, ya lookin at me mate? yeah ? whydo'ntcha comeover heren' say that eh? eh?? arggg. There's no late night food except for greese, but i do have a good salad mixture with marinated tofus back at me place should fuel me up after a day without eating much.
Last night was fun. I hit up a bunch of bars but didn't drink anything cause i drove in to town. I later was annoyed at driving in because someone decided to let the air out of my tires, all four of them, like they unscrewed them and let the air out with their finger or something, because when i tried to drive on the highway i really noticed when it wouldn't go above 50 km an hour. That was rude, but anyways, the bars were ok, saw some music that was also ok, was hanging out with rasta who is fun to be around, he's really keen on starting a band with me but i dunno if it will take off because he's so much of a stoner and as much as i like it i'm trying to lay off it a bit and, as much as music and weed seem to go well together it's not always an improvement on your skills when you want to do something like organize what two or more people are going to play, and as much as i like listening to reggae im sometimes not sure i can stick around here to play in a reggae band when i should be traveling or , i dunno, be in a different type of environment than that, like i've been doing alot of reading but when i do hang out with nayah and eli or whoever else it is that's over at their really nice and comfortable house full of interesting things i know im going to be getting high with them which is a burst of energy but also a downer in a way because later i'll feel tired or lazy and in no mood to read or go out or make any real decisions although definitly coming up with good ideas yet not putting them into ACTION. like now im going to take action and go out, find some food maybe or just eat my salad at home, go downtown find some fun because tomorrow i'll hopefully be working in hobart.
also there's something called Footy that seems to be everywhere, all over tv and news, all australians love it, it's their national sport, but there's alot of it i think is weird and different and annoying, the players are very violent with one another and also very affectionate with each other to the point when i'm laughing at them rubbing each others stomaches or patting butts. Oh there's another thing on tv, a trend where there's alot of shows that have young teenage girls who are really badly behaved and then they're kicked back into shape, like there's one with a group of british girls go to the mountains to camp out as punishment for their drugs and stealing and drinking and smoking and swearing and being badasses, and the shows are so full of drama and fighting and hilarious scenes of teen girls who are usually hotties just getting into crazy situations and untimately becoming better people through tough no nonsense authority figures who are in this one i've been describing- the mountain bootcamp show, but theres another show called Ladette to lady that's usually pretty funny, but in a way it seems like they're always putting the girls in situations where the old british teacher ladys are like ok we're going to leave now and you can drink wine but don't drink to much because that would mean that you aren't a lady, and then the ladys do end up getting real drunk and get filmed doing crazy shit like fighting or throwing food or flashing the camera or yelling or hitting on random dudes in a pub. but it's set in this fancy mannor house estate place that's really huge and they go through weird tv reality show situations and at the end of the episode one of them gets kicked out. And yeah, more waste of time on tv but i'm sitting in my appartment watching because i don't have much else going for me here, it just sucks i agreed to keep this appartment. There was an annoying situation that i might write about later but not now, involving the appartment, but i tired of type, it's now 1am!!!!!!!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
hmm it's been a while since i've done a real post so here it is
i can't remember what i talked about in my last post here, i think i just wrote about some weird dreams i had. Well i'm still having weird dreams as usual but i'll try and talk about things giong on in the real world for now. what have i been up to? have i talked about my tree planting yet? maybe a little bit, but i only worked there for 3 days before i missed work that 4th day and i guess lost my job because of it. It was a good 3 days. Interesting conversation and people- i remember a few of the funny things the guys were talking about, and the funny things they did. the whole operation seemed kindof amateur, from the gay jokes over the hand held radios (dusty is a homosexual, repeat, dusty is a homosexual , over) , to the huge fire they would set at the end of each day where they'd burn all the cardboard and plastic from the boxes that used to have trees in them. I remember seeing the guys looking at the 'people' section of the newspaper, which was just a bunch of pictures of people out at clubs or wahtever, and the guys are like, 'yeah i had sex with that one, that one, last weekend i slept in between those two', ,,, yeah come to think of it i have alot of sexual stories from treeplanting. I overheard them talking about how a woman once died for trying to have sex with a horse. i was like what really?? another time they were talking about how when one of them was 16 and at a pub an older lady took him home, and later she was like , how old you think i am, he guessed 28, she was like no higher, he guesses 30, she's like no higher, and finally it is revealed that she is 48. Then this other guy tells the story that one time he was drunk and he met this older lady who was drunk as well, and the lady asks where he's going and guy responds -whereever you're going--- so they go back to her place, which is actually an old folks home, because she's 72 years old, and i guess they make love, and it must have been an ok time because the guy goes back a month or so later to see the lady again (this guy must have been like 30) and he knocks on her door, and the neighbour comes out and tells him that she died. ouch. OH and this is an even weirder story. i'm back at the truck to refill my bucket with trees and i hear a yell, and, i didn't see this, but apparently one of the guys became aroused somehow while sitting and eating lunch, so he unzips, pulls his hardon out and is like, hey , check this out! and the other guys like aww mate that's nasty! Then the other older guy (the guy who got with the older lady) goes to tell a story about how another guy they used to work with pulled the same joke on this other guy who was from scotland, and then he did an impression of the scottish guys reaction to this other guy pulling his dink out. Meanwhile im thinking, weird eh, how tasmanian dudes would pull out their peen just to show other blokes that they got a stiffy. Now that i think of it i know i have a friend who did that once (B.B.) but i still think it's pretty weird anyways, doing that. I guess it's too bad that i didn't last more than 3, because otherwise i'd be laughing or shaking my head at all their crazy treeplanting antics.
What else is going on. It's getting cold out. I have NO money, im so poor it's ridiculis. I've been watching tv a bit, and i think it's sometimes so stupid, for example: ET: Entertainment tonight is still talking about the osmonds, donny and marie osmond, WHO CARES ABOUT THE OSMONDS?? there is a show called cheaters, where a team of Private investigators spies on a spouse and then they go and confront them with upsetting results. I saw a show that's about telling the truth, but what they do is ask terrible questions for money, like are you glad that your mother lives really far away? YES. Do you trust your boyfriend alone with your best friend? NO. Have you ever slept with someone to further your career? NO. OH NO you loose because the polygraph test has found that to be a deceptive answer. sorry. Oh yeah and i saw another one last night that was a bunch of guys together fighting over one girl, and they had to guess which one of the guys was gay- it was an australian show, it was so weird. lots of closeup shots of someone being like, i think cliff is the gay one because he's always doing this or that,, and then they're like, ok you all need to run a race to the clothes line to see who can get the best looking shirt for when you 're alone with the girl, and all the guys are like, i think I"M the one for her and i'm NOT gay.
Anyways, enough about TV. What the hell am i going to do for money? I'm thinking about working for Forestry Tasmania, picking nuts of the ground which they will later use to plant trees. It seems like a sweet job, walking around in old groth forests picking nuts off the ground and getting 80$ each bag i pick. Could be sweet. But im not sure how much longer i'll be staying here because im seriously considering giong back to london ontario in september and going to school to become a piano technician. Also i'm feeling kindof lonely out here, missing canada, ect
OK well here are some more little facts about tasmania.
There is no tipping, in restauraunts or bars or anywhere. It's kindof cool, because im so used to upset bartenders (karova in monreal especially) who get really upset when i don't tip them. Also there are no taxes, or, there are but you don't have to do the math in your head- the price is what is on the pricetag and that's great!
AND HERE ARE SOME MORE WEIRD AUSTRALIAN TERMS AND SAYINGS:
1 Hit the terbs- this means to get drunk.
2 Meet some sheilas- to meet girls, a sheila is a girl you'd like to meet.
3 Get some tucker- this is to get some food, if you're hungry, you'll get some tucker.
4 Full as a fat ladies sock - this is after you've got your tucker and eaten it, you're full
i can't remember what i talked about in my last post here, i think i just wrote about some weird dreams i had. Well i'm still having weird dreams as usual but i'll try and talk about things giong on in the real world for now. what have i been up to? have i talked about my tree planting yet? maybe a little bit, but i only worked there for 3 days before i missed work that 4th day and i guess lost my job because of it. It was a good 3 days. Interesting conversation and people- i remember a few of the funny things the guys were talking about, and the funny things they did. the whole operation seemed kindof amateur, from the gay jokes over the hand held radios (dusty is a homosexual, repeat, dusty is a homosexual , over) , to the huge fire they would set at the end of each day where they'd burn all the cardboard and plastic from the boxes that used to have trees in them. I remember seeing the guys looking at the 'people' section of the newspaper, which was just a bunch of pictures of people out at clubs or wahtever, and the guys are like, 'yeah i had sex with that one, that one, last weekend i slept in between those two', ,,, yeah come to think of it i have alot of sexual stories from treeplanting. I overheard them talking about how a woman once died for trying to have sex with a horse. i was like what really?? another time they were talking about how when one of them was 16 and at a pub an older lady took him home, and later she was like , how old you think i am, he guessed 28, she was like no higher, he guesses 30, she's like no higher, and finally it is revealed that she is 48. Then this other guy tells the story that one time he was drunk and he met this older lady who was drunk as well, and the lady asks where he's going and guy responds -whereever you're going--- so they go back to her place, which is actually an old folks home, because she's 72 years old, and i guess they make love, and it must have been an ok time because the guy goes back a month or so later to see the lady again (this guy must have been like 30) and he knocks on her door, and the neighbour comes out and tells him that she died. ouch. OH and this is an even weirder story. i'm back at the truck to refill my bucket with trees and i hear a yell, and, i didn't see this, but apparently one of the guys became aroused somehow while sitting and eating lunch, so he unzips, pulls his hardon out and is like, hey , check this out! and the other guys like aww mate that's nasty! Then the other older guy (the guy who got with the older lady) goes to tell a story about how another guy they used to work with pulled the same joke on this other guy who was from scotland, and then he did an impression of the scottish guys reaction to this other guy pulling his dink out. Meanwhile im thinking, weird eh, how tasmanian dudes would pull out their peen just to show other blokes that they got a stiffy. Now that i think of it i know i have a friend who did that once (B.B.) but i still think it's pretty weird anyways, doing that. I guess it's too bad that i didn't last more than 3, because otherwise i'd be laughing or shaking my head at all their crazy treeplanting antics.
What else is going on. It's getting cold out. I have NO money, im so poor it's ridiculis. I've been watching tv a bit, and i think it's sometimes so stupid, for example: ET: Entertainment tonight is still talking about the osmonds, donny and marie osmond, WHO CARES ABOUT THE OSMONDS?? there is a show called cheaters, where a team of Private investigators spies on a spouse and then they go and confront them with upsetting results. I saw a show that's about telling the truth, but what they do is ask terrible questions for money, like are you glad that your mother lives really far away? YES. Do you trust your boyfriend alone with your best friend? NO. Have you ever slept with someone to further your career? NO. OH NO you loose because the polygraph test has found that to be a deceptive answer. sorry. Oh yeah and i saw another one last night that was a bunch of guys together fighting over one girl, and they had to guess which one of the guys was gay- it was an australian show, it was so weird. lots of closeup shots of someone being like, i think cliff is the gay one because he's always doing this or that,, and then they're like, ok you all need to run a race to the clothes line to see who can get the best looking shirt for when you 're alone with the girl, and all the guys are like, i think I"M the one for her and i'm NOT gay.
Anyways, enough about TV. What the hell am i going to do for money? I'm thinking about working for Forestry Tasmania, picking nuts of the ground which they will later use to plant trees. It seems like a sweet job, walking around in old groth forests picking nuts off the ground and getting 80$ each bag i pick. Could be sweet. But im not sure how much longer i'll be staying here because im seriously considering giong back to london ontario in september and going to school to become a piano technician. Also i'm feeling kindof lonely out here, missing canada, ect
OK well here are some more little facts about tasmania.
There is no tipping, in restauraunts or bars or anywhere. It's kindof cool, because im so used to upset bartenders (karova in monreal especially) who get really upset when i don't tip them. Also there are no taxes, or, there are but you don't have to do the math in your head- the price is what is on the pricetag and that's great!
AND HERE ARE SOME MORE WEIRD AUSTRALIAN TERMS AND SAYINGS:
1 Hit the terbs- this means to get drunk.
2 Meet some sheilas- to meet girls, a sheila is a girl you'd like to meet.
3 Get some tucker- this is to get some food, if you're hungry, you'll get some tucker.
4 Full as a fat ladies sock - this is after you've got your tucker and eaten it, you're full
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