Day 40 - To the Moon with a Brass Monkey!

Filler Pic

May 18th, 2015

Still sick, I skip the gym today and make a light breakfast. Videos on youtube are too enticing. I get sucked in for a couple hours before I buckle down and get to work applying/calling up on jobs that i have applied to. My god, they don’t seem to like this very much. They seem to think I’m calling for questions on the position, which are all clearly listed on the website. They then seem to take the enthusiasm/hunger as an annoyance and rebuff me back to the standard application process. Really? You don’t want someone who actually wants the position enough to follow up? Alright, then.

The recruitment agency called up and said I had to figure out this “superannuation” shit, yet they don’t really give me a clear reason as to why it’s necessary or what exactly it is. It seems like a number of places have talked about this, and the best answer I could get was from outsourcing the question to Eloise. What I gathered from what she said is that it’s like the retirement plan here where you can choose your own and the deals that it includes. Since I’m a foreigner, it doesn’t make sense to do anything with the premiums (income protection, life insurance) so I should go for the lowest. I get this back when I leave the country, whatever's left of it.

How does this start...

Eloise invited me to grab a drink since she was in the area, which I accept. Being cooped up in the house for two days straight was enough. I drop off my payment forms at The Grid; they still haven’t given me another shift, and I had intended to give them my next one. She had just come from the Brass Monkey and didn’t want to go there again, so The Moon it is! It’s 5:30, and the place is closed until 6, BUT they do have a pizza deal on. We hang out at The Naked Grape, but never get served. Works for me; I didn’t actually want to get anything from there and they didn’t bother to ever come over. They gave us weird looks like we were doing something wrong, but never said anything. Hey, if you want your customers to do a specific behaviour and they’re clearly not doing it, then say something. Dumbies.

Canadien Roxane, Audrey, French Xavier, Pierre

The Moon was nice, and this time they didn’t require us to pay upfront or give ID. I watched Eloise eat a plate of vegan nachos (how boring; no cheese) while I ate my meat-and-cheese-covered pizza. So bad, but so good. We talked about politics and other such things. One discovery I had was that the Goon containers - I think the bags in particular - were invented in Australia. She informed me that the rumoured origin of the word “goon” that Kiwi Haydon had told me long ago (Aboriginal word for ‘Pillow’) is actually a racist joke. Oh. Damn it. I didn’t mean it that way, and I supposed I’ll add a note onto the post so that it’s known, but I won’t be taking it down. (Note: I just went through all of my posts and can't find where I wrote that.. so either I missed it, or I never put it up. Ah well, I'll put it here to warn anyone not to believe that rumoured origin)

That'll teach you!

The Canadien successfully sold their van, though they haven’t actually got the cash in hand yet. They planned to have a quiet night out tonight and were trying to coordinate. Eloise and I walked around town while they sorted their plans out. They meet us by the State Library, and Eloise excuses herself because she has an early appointment the next day.

French Xavier, Pierre, Canadien Audrey, Rox, and I go around looking for bar options, but the Brass Monkey seems to be the only worthwhile one open tonight. I message Thor to see what he’s doing, which is apparently at the bar “The Game” (they literally have games around, I’m told). He agrees to meet with us, and we find a place to sit in a quieter part of the club, doing what we can to turn on the space heaters they have in that area. He meets with us and is openly saying how intoxicated he is due to getting free drinks at The Game for an hour an a half. 5 pints of cider. 1.5 hours. Hey, can’t go too wrong there if you’re just a little shorter than me and the God of Thunder. He came to say hi/bye to the Canadiens, and headed off back to The Game.

We finished our drinks, made conversation about silly things, and called it a night around midnight. I walked home and made myself a fried white cheddar and ham pita. I’m really running out of food right now, but this was delicious.