The best laid plans..

Since two days ago, my plan was to be fully packed and in bed by two at the latest. Ad told me about the awesome in-flight entertainment that I didn't want to miss by sleeping so I figured enough of this insomnia crap, let's bring in the big guns (sleeping pill). I also wanted to be fully packed before I went to bed because I didn't want to risk the catastrophe that was last July's 30-minute-frantic-packing-job. Oh, but how I will cry if I forget my driver's license again.

Of course, it's now 4.01 am, I've been up since four am, I'm running on 2 hour and 10 minutes worth of sleep and I have done squat on the packing front. On the bright side, I managed to drop in on my friend's birthday party and finally finished the full 3.2 kms walk around Princes Park with the additional bonus of gossip, mindless chatter and sarcasm all around. Jesus Christ.. talk about plans gone awry.

I realized that I should be packing but today has been an interesting day of sorts and I want to pen it down before I forget. Firstly, I went to church, 4th time in my life, and didn't fall asleep during the three hour service, time ever, I should add. It was interesting to say the least. I have been meeting and talking with a couple of missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) for a couple of weeks now and I finally went to a service yesterday. Thoughts: It wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be. I would go into specifics about how I met the missionaries but while I may be actively wasting my time, I also realize that I don't have that much active time to waste. That made no sense, but let's just move on m'kay?

Then while doing some Christmas shopping for friends, I bumped into a classmate from high school. Don't you just hate the awkward pause that follows after a person yells out your name and your mind is pulling nothing but blanks? To add insult to the injury, we were in the same class for two friggin' years and were relatively friendly. In my defense,it's not like I had forgotten her completely. Our eyes met and did the weird sizing up/recognition thing before she finally went, "Karen?" Oh, the embarassment that followed after a long pause and too many false starts. And this made me wonder; are peoples memories just better than mine or have I not changed at all since primary school? And if I haven't changed does that mean I have the look of a nine year old or did I look nineteen when I was nine?

And finally, the birthday party. I had initially declined going, using packing as an excuse, but after threats of physical and privacy abuse, I caved and attended the party. It was fun and definitely good to see the birthday girl bursting with happiness.


That's her on the right. Yeah, she is pretty hot.

After the party I finally took a ride on the back of Jim's scooter, and can I just say that riding a motorbike is fucking exhilarating? Too righteous. On the way back, Neil wanted to see me drive his car. Kids, one year without touching the wheel and guess who's still got some mad skillz?? Yeah, holla at your girl!

What choo mean I can't pull that off? Is it because I ain't black? Oh, you racist pig!

I'm losing concentration but I just need to type this one last thing. The Assistant Manager at my Maccas store just recently implemented a new change in the holiday roster. The new rule is that if you're away for more than two months, you need to hand in your uniform and basically reapply for the same position after you've gotten back. Now, we've put up with a lot of crap from management, mostly cost-saving measures, but this is a new low. I only heard about it from my friend, Steph, who although has been working there for two years, apparently isn't worth Macca's loyalty. This is total bull because Steph is one of our best and most reliable workers. If this is the steps our store is doing to combat the high turnover rate, this isn't the way to go about it. After chatting with her, she admits that she couldn't be arsed reapplying for the job after she gets back from Indonesia, which leads to Macca's losing a valuable crew member. The people who are going away for long periods are usually international students on their summer break. They're good workers and have usually been there a while. How is it fair to punish them for using their holiday to visit the family instead of grovelling at Macca's? How is that going to encourage any job loyalty among the workers? What the fuck kind of management material are they reading??

I write this now to remind myself about how angry I was when I first heard it. Tomorrow I'm going to the store to talk to the Assistant Manager and tell her what I think about this new rule. Granted of course that I wake up in time. At this rate, there will be a frantic rush again of the 'OMG-my-plane-leaves-in-an-hour-and-I-just-woke-up!!!' kind.

Photography project pictures for today







Head on over to my Flickr page for more party and project pictures.