Week 20 - Up-skilling & Sunburning

Thursday #21 – This Thursday’s early wakeup call was a bit of a shock to the system.  Having moved house to be closer to uni; I found myself back at my old digs after Wednesday night’s futsal and once again waking up ridiculously early to spend 90 minutes on a bus rather than 10.  When I got to uni it was time to learn some new and exciting techniques and then practise them on The Italian.  Together we mastered (or at least got a signature to say we fluked it once) the following techniques: removing a foreign body from the eye (though admittedly that was done on a bull’s eye with a contact lens and cling wrap over the top, not on each other), pressure patching, measuring how much our eyes bulge out, sphygmomanometry (at which point The Not Much Older Than Me Supervisor suggested we were perhaps forgetting to breathe as our resting heart rates were ridiculously high), testing for colour blindness and taking photos of the back of the eye.  The Oh So Cool Salesman had M-Dizzle cracking up when he suggested that the camera flash would need to be turned down to take photos of my eye, in his words “now as soon as you see red hair, turn the flash right down”.

The Italian, M-Dizzle, The Greek Jesus and I headed down to Coogee beach in our lunch break to grab some food (all of us), have a swim (The Greek Jesus), get a tan (The Italian) and get stupidly sunburnt (me and M-Dizzle).  There was some disappointment as M-Dizzle gee’d herself up for a McOz and then accidentally ordered a Big Mac but all was well when The Italian offered up the pickle from her cheeseburger.  There were laughs all round when we realised The Greek Jesus and I had dressed in matching clothes and we gave each other props for the other's stylish white top and blue and white striped shorts/skirt combo.  With classes done and bright red backs heating up, it was time for the O-week optometry barbecue.  The Oh So Cool Salesman was funding the event and while not his biggest fan, I am yet to do my grocery shopping so was more than happy to indulge in some free beer and snags.

The BBQ provided a great opportunity for M-Dizzle to make jokes at my expense and in the process make other students who we’ve never met before, feel rather awkward and embarrassed.  As a guy wandered up to introduce himself and offer some assistance, The 4^th Year clarified that we were not in fact lost 1^st years but were instead in our 5^th and final year of uni.  He tried to make up for this with a “yeah I thought you looked older and more experienced”, at which point M-Dizzle turned to me to announce “did you hear that – he just called you a slut”.  We laughed it up and the poor kid went bright red as M-Dizzle’s interpretation was obviously not what he had intended.

A couple of sausage sandwiches and some strange beer later we headed home.  Not an overly exciting Thursday but as far as a uni day goes it wasn’t too bad.  There were no free movies but there was free food so I can’t complain too much.

Week 19 - Adjusting & Unpacking

Thursday #20 – I woke up this Thursday for only the 3^rd time ever in my new house.  I’d moved on Saturday and had had my fair share of dramas since then.  With one shower out of action, the 3 of us upstairs (The Blonde Giant, The Computer Nerd and myself) all get to share M-Dizzle and The Hippy Engineer’s ensuite with them, which I’m pretty sure they’re stoked about.  Add to that having to flick the safety switch twice to get power back (2 out of 3 nights I’ve been there we’ve lost power – awesome start) and crashing mum’s car on Sunday and my new digs were not looking so rosy.  So I woke up early this Thursday, my one day off, to wait for a guy to come and set up our phone line in the hopes that one day we will eventually have internet.  We’re not really any closer to having internet but I did have some excitement in my day when The Tiler managed to lock me out of my own house while he was inside.  I’m trying to convince myself that a tradie locking out the people who live in the house while he’s roaming around inside isn’t nearly as dodgy as it sounds.

I did some unpacking and tried to work out how to deal with the feral curtains I had been given.  It’s times like these I wish I could sew and suddenly that sewing course that Legally Blonde and Legs 11 were talking up on the weekend is looking like a good idea.  I paid a visit to The Italian (who works just down the road from my new pad) and she informed me that she’d just been chatting to a guy when he told her he’d just been released from prison hours earlier.  When I suggested it wasn’t her that was attracting the weirdoes but instead the suburb, she tried to reassure me that he wasn’t from my new neighbourhood…that’s just where the prison bus drops off the ex-inmates. Awesome. 

After this much excitement it was time to head back to my old digs to continue living in denial about the fact I’ve actually moved…and eat the food The Marge has bought since I haven’t actually bought myself any yet.  I paid one “last” visit to the famous pie shop around the corner as a farewell gesture to my old neighbourhood.  I say “last” as there’s a fairly decent chance I’ll return but telling myself it was a farewell pie somehow made it seem healthier.  Pie in hand it was time to catch up on some essential viewing – Gossip Girl (you know I love her xoxo) and How I Met Your Mother (which featured a Drunk Train that was eerily reminiscent of my Monorail Party with DTM).

An interesting Thursday as I tried to adjust to a new home and pretend I wasn’t really half the snob M-Dizzle thinks I am…all while wanting desperately to get back to the Northern Beaches.  Not overly eventful but some important lessons learned, especially when it comes to home safety – do not lock the bottom part of the door as we don’t have a key to it (thank you to The Tiler for this unintentional lesson) but do lock the top part as prisoners get off the bus at the end of our street (thank you to The Italian for this gem)!

Week 18 - Working & Booking

Thursday #19 – the day was not off to a good start when my phone went off at 1am to inform me I was on holidays.  If I was in fact on holidays I could probably overlook this annoying feature of my calendar that I was previously unaware of; but since I had to be at work in 7 hours time I did not appreciate the wake up call.  Having considered a Thai rendezvous with DTM in February, I had long ago requested 10 days off work before going back to uni.  When it became clear to me that these travel plans would not be eventuating I decided to still have my time off work to have a break before embarking on 5^th year uni.  A week or 2 ago I decided to reconsider my plans to travel and in doing so informed work that I was back on board as I would need some funding for my trip.

Work was rather monotonous this Thursday as last week’s stationery packs had to be paid for so I spent 8 hours manually entering in credit card numbers and making phone calls to parents who had either written their details illegibly, given me the wrong expiration date, not given me an expiration date, had their 10 year old write the details in thick red marker so that all the numbers merge into one or in one case had their credit card cancelled after someone walked into their house and stole their wallet.  Sounds a bit strange but if it’s not true I’m still giving that mum points for creativity, it was better than the other excuses of “oh it’s my husband’s card I don’t know the number” or “I just paid some bills, can you wait 'til Tuesday to put the payment through?”

After another riveting day at the office it was home and onto the computer to book some flights.  After going round in circles with DTM for 2 weeks about whether or not I join him in Barbados I decided to just bloody book the flight before either of us changed our mind.  Thanks to some tricky rules about airport security and having to provide accommodation details before being able to book flights to America, I almost booked 2 flights to NYC.  Well by “almost” I mean I did and had to make a panicked call to Qantas to clarify that I would not be on 2 separate flights on the same day to New York and could she please cancel the second booking.  Oops.

With that sorted, my bank then phoned to double check that I was responsible for the charges (I suspect late night Caribbean Airlines charges in US dollars are perhaps a bit suspicious) and I assured “Amanda” that I was and she became one of the first people to hear about my holiday plans…well not so much hear about my plans as just be aware that I was paying for someone to fly to Barbados and back.  I realised how badly I needed a holiday when a flight purchase rings alarm bells with my bank who suspect there must be fraud at play.

After informing DTM of the day’s developments he raised 2 concerns – 1: had I already booked because if not he would happily put it on his credit card so that I can pay him back and he can reap the frequent flyer rewards (so thoughtful) and 2: would I be happy to spend my days sitting in an inflatable pool drinking alcohol and watching cricket?  I assured him that if I was in an inflatable pool, drinking in Barbados I couldn’t care less what I was watching, and rejected his suggestion that I may need to brush up on the rules before heading over.  I told him I was pretty sure I could follow cricket – someone bowls, someone bats and occasionally they run. Got it. Now bring on the pool and booze.

A boring start to the day but a very promising end!  A lot more money changed hands than would have done on a Thursday with free movies but I’m fairly confident that the 50ish hours of flights I’ve just booked will involve some sort of “free” movies so it’s a win all round.  I have my suspicions that the dent in my bank account could lead to some boring Thursdays in the future though.

Week 17 - Bagging & Catching Up

Thursday #18 – when midnight struck and this Thursday officially kicked off I was talking to DTM and going round and round in circles in the process.  It was not an ideal start to the day as we spent about 90 minutes discussing the same thing which really could have been covered in 5 minutes – despite both ultimately wanting the same thing it would seem one of us was insistent on being “responsible” which could also be described as being a party pooper.  While it was nice chatting for so long it was not the best way to kick off my Thursday without free movies as when he phoned on Wednesday night I was quite excited about potential travel plans and when we hung up in the wee hours of Thursday I was decidedly less excited.  After saying our goodbyes I managed to get in a few hours of sleep before having to head into work.

Work this week was particularly hectic (or “totes heccas” as The Gym Junkie repeatedly told me) and as anyone in the stationery business can tell you; this is not uncommon when the kids go back to school.  For me; this week, and indeed this Thursday, involved hanging out in the garage at work and packing multiple bags of stationery for book lists to be delivered to schools.  This is one of the two weeks of the year where I abandon my cushy desk job and get into the warehouse side of things at work and worse yet, occasionally, the customer service side of things.  They are my most dreaded weeks of the year.

After work it was time to head out with The Worker for some dinner.  Some Thai food, a bottle of sav and 3 hours of catching up on goss and a great night was had by all.  We weren’t too sure where summer had disappeared to as we tried our best to avoid the rain in Manly but after a successful bus trip (in which I managed to stay awake this time) I was home and ready to head to bed.  A shaky start to this Thursday but a good ending as I got all up to date on The Worker’s life and we reminisced on our early days at The Newsagency 10 years ago. Good times.