Entries from January 2005 ↓

As a general rule, I harbour no ill will toward animals or other living things, provided they do me the common courtesy of staying out of my way and not attempting to eat me. In the past three days however, a torrent of unbridled rage has begun brewing behind my mind. And the subject… is a chicken. Such things have never bothered me before (I am in fact rather fond of chickens of the rubber variety, and also as a source of protein), but Monday night, at 4:10am, one of them crossed the line. Not one of those little, forgivable line crossings either. One that involves very loud crowing noises directly next to my bedroom window during my otherwise peaceful (read: upside-down and sleep-yabbering) slumber. My sole concern and mission in life is now the silencing of this rooster, borne from the ass of the devil itself.

Katy referred to the beast as a cock, but personally I reserve that appellation for the fiend who brought this godforsaken monstrosity within earshot of my sleeping quarters. I found myself becoming more and more agitated, considering assisting in the untimely death of said nearby poultry. Frequent screeches interrupted my dreamy hallucinations of the many and varied unnatural circumstances in which the bird could come to harm. It occurs to me that there are no less than four swords in the house. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is comfy and doesn’t want to get out of bed. After some time, just as suddenly as the noise began, silence. At least, I assume there was silence… I don’t remember there actually being any, but I sure as hell wasn’t falling asleep to the serenading of some battery-farm reject. Four hours of pleasant sleep later and it was at it again, then again at 6am the following morning, plus at least another two sessions before sundown. The ice… is getting thin.

But possessed white-meat aside, things are pretty good. Went to check out Lemony Snicket’s on Tuesday with a good friend and have a coffee, spent half of Australia Day in bed and slugged around for a while before heading into the city on the train to catch the skyworks. I still dig fireworks. Thankfully the fires are under control now as well, so things are safe, the skies are blue again, and the folks at work are a lot less stressed. At least they will be until I hand in my notice tomorrow.

My weekend has been squandered. I’m quite certain that I have accomplished precisely naught, however at least I have done so cheaply. I dueled with my alarm clock a few times, watched Veronica Guerin, went to rehearsal for some play written by a dead guy (I love dead guys), filled up the bike… and that’s about it, sleeping aside. Life in the fast lane baby.

I actually had to make a decision this week, on top of being offered this Dip Ed, I also got letters offering me a pre-apprenticeship course to be a motorcycle mechanic and another offering a place in a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Philosophy. I felt all big and important for a few minutes somewhere in there. But for the moment I’m sticking with the teaching thing, I’m a little fearful of making long-term commitments right now. I like to be able to entertain the delusion that in a given moment I could turn around and fly off to Europe and spend the next several years working in bars, wandering the streets in Prague, lying on the beaches in Nice and spending the nights courting hundreds of pretty French girls (God, I’m a sucker for an accent). So my first order is a shot of education with a teaching chaser. If it doesn’t pan out, there’s no shortage of other things to try, and I’ve never been adverse to trying everything I possibly can.

On the subject of change, it seems my time in this house is drawing to a close. A letter Friday damned us with sixty days notice to vacate the premises. The owner, a Detective, has been transferred back to the city and has the gall to want to live in his own house again. What can you do. So it’s time again to whip out the classifieds and real estate websites, pull a few sick days and go and investigate some potential abodes for habitation.

I get to resign again this week. It ought to be fun. I look forward to it.

You can get the strangest feelings sometimes. I couldn’t find the right bin bags. Half the rows lie empty, and the price tags on the shelf read only in code. Far too big, far too small, just too small, far, far too small. I resign myself and choose a box of cereal as the sale tags demand. Strolling down the aisle my eyes recoil at the brightness of the sweets, temptation waits for every man along the trail of confectionery, but the spirit is strong and the wallet light. I surrender to the tags again, the glass door swinging to a lowly thud as the patron saint of caffeinated beverages blesses me with a smile. A familiar verse rings across the store and I draw toward the source. The speaker discovered, I find myself at bags once more. Again I scour every label with no success, my shopping is done, but my song is not. The familiar face of the Korean store owner appears from the back, merely to see the man who has turned his pet food stand into a pedestal. He grins my way and lifts a brow, wandering back to the freezer. I walk toward the counter, the tops of dog food tins marked upon my pants, a shuffle of change, a petty few steps and I linger on the kerb. The large lady behind the dark glasses drives past and frowns at me. I step onto the tar, sunlight shifts onto my neck. And for half of a moment, I am indestructible.

As is the status quo, my weekend again consisted of catching up on sleep, followed by skipping sleep, going for a ride and then cursing all things when I got up at 6am on Monday morning. It’s par for the course at the moment. I also went to the first rehearsal for another play, this time with the Western Suburbs something or other Theatre something something, I think. Anyhow, it was good fun and was the reason I didn’t sleep any later than noon on Saturday.

But the real kicker was what I got to do this afternoon, which was accept an offer.

I am going to give up my air-conditioned, free coffee, white-collar, decent-waged and pleasant job, and quit. Again.

I am also doing so in order to go back to spending my days being a full-time Uni bum. Again.

Not to mention that I’m not sure if this is the smartest thing to do right now, but to hell with it, I’ll be damned if I don’t plan on trying something until I know whether it’s my thing or not. Again.

So in seven weeks time I’m going back to Uni to do a post-grad Dip Ed. If there was any time to pray in earnest for future generations, it would be now. I’m going to be a high school teacher. This will, of course, involve me going from the single white male, high disposable income bracket, to the penniless student eating noodles out of a hat bracket, but I still find myself looking forward to it. This has in no way been unassisted by the ridiculous political subterfuge currently going on at my workplace. I was umm-ing and ahh-ing somewhat when I got my Uni offer, considering it is one thing, going back to Uni, being poor and giving up trashloads of disposable income is another.

Coincidentally, not a week later, my boss’s boss (henceforth referred to as the wicked witch of the west) started playing silly buggers with the staff. She ‘let go’ the other guy who did the same job as me on the helpdesk, who, while no Voltaire for conversation (then again, Voltaire was French, so that might’ve involved a conversational dilemma as well…), was a good guy and didn’t bother me. He was then replaced by an assistant from purchasing for two weeks (who sat there looking at Final Fantasy wallpapers and talking on msn for 2 weeks), before another guy was hired on the sly by the witch. A guy who, coincidentally used to do my (cool) boss’s job, who, coincidentally keeps having meetings with the witch, coincidentally doesn’t have a job title or description and quite obviously has been brought on by the witch so that when the cool boss’s contract expires in February, she can let it lapse and slip this guy into his position in the bat of an eyelid because he’s already employed here.

This bothers me for two reasons, the first is that it means the friendly boss who gets things done loses his job because he disagrees with the witch on some issues. Secondly, it means the guy sitting behind me where there is normally someone on the helpdesk, is doing no helpdesk work and is instead doing some weird covert bollocks for the witch, meaning my workload is about half as much over again.

I hate it when people blog about there jobs. Mine included. Gah.

So aside from the miserable three days at work between Christmas and New Years, the past two weeks have been wonderful. I spent my Christmas down South staying with my folks, eating like a total glutton, playing with the dog and just hanging around with my parents and family. It’d have to have been one of the most enjoyable Christmases I can remember, certainly the best since I got to the age where my mother no longer had to constantly shout at me to stay out of the dirt and make sure I didn’t get any knives or things that would burn. After a lot of flummoxing, some frustration and a lot of wallet-lightening, I also ended up getting presents for everyone that I was pretty happy with, not having to resort to ye olde last minute box of chocolates solution, and what’s more, everyone appreciated them. The weather on Christmas night was absolutely nuts though. It’d been about 35 degrees for three days, and then late evening when it was still pretty warm outside, after seeing some lightning storms on the horizon, the rain came in… and then hail. Big fatass hail as well, grape sized suckers, definitely big enough to garner regular ow’s when shifting your motorcycle into the shed to protect it from the crazy ice falling rom the sky.

My new years eve was terribly quiet and uninspired, but nice and comfy. I just sat at home, buggered around, and after the calendar ticked over, watched some sci-fi with Glen. Oh, I also spent an awfully long time blowing up a giant kiddie pool, the reason behind which was the party we were having the next day. The pool was, of course, a stroke of genius, and the whole event went off in a very groovy fashion. Also, for those who were present and flashed regularly, your blindness was not in vain and there is much evidence of the days schindig and shenanigans right here.

And for now, I shall retire to bed, only to enjoy another marvellous day without work tomorrow. Public holidays. Gotta love ‘em.

Edit: Almost forgot… *HUGE* thanks to Tasha for bringing along momentous loads of bakery-style goodness. Also thanks to Nathan for the lamingtons, Simon for the sausages and everybody for bringing drinks and just coming along