I went out on Sat for lunch with B and Y and had a great time in the heat, drank lots of cold drinks, ate too much food, and purchased a new lunch bag which I have decorated (thanks to target) Here’s a pic of my new lunch box.

Today when I went out again for lunch with the rest of the group, Oh and now everyone is talking again to eachother, seems like they got over all the petty fights and stuff, everyone was talking about their houses, how they are doing things up. Some of them are onto their second properties.. I was sitting there thinking.. hmm I have nothing to say in this conversation.

As I was talking over this with mum later on in the evening, (yes my 3rd outing this weekend) I realised that I don’t want to be tied down if I want to travel more, which I will be.

I have all the paperbits and pieces now for my passport applications. Now I just have to save up some money and get them done. Seems like I am running out of cash. *sigh*

This is such an old.. anachronistic term.. and yet so apt for the man who owns my unit.. and I am his tenant. I feel at this point that I should look up thanks to wikipedia etc the following history regarding landlords and tenants.

A leasehold estate is an ownership interest in land in which a lessee or a tenant holds real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord.

History

The common law of landlord-tenant relations developed in the United Kingdom over hundreds of years, and still retains many archaic terms and principles derived from a time when relationships governing the use of land were centered on the promotion of a feudal agrarian society. Various forms of leasehold estates exist, or have existed in the past. Ancient forms no longer used include socage and burgage. There are four modern leasehold estates - the tenancy for years, the periodic tenancy, the tenancy at will, and the tenancy at sufference.

Today I was notified about my request for an airconditioner to be installed and they offered me a 1HP aircon @ an additional $16 p/w or a 1.5 HP for $20 p/w. That’s pretty pricey for a unit where I think he’s not looking at the negative gearing aspect. He can write alot of improvements off to tax I think.

I want comfort, but let’s face it. It’s near the end of summer, we’ve not had such crappy weather that I hate living in here, but I do want to stay here another year. Perhaps I should agree and also state, that I want a rent freeze for at least 18 months. He put the rent up $5 per week in December because he felt that the value of the property had gone up. Fucker. I don’t plan on being in Oz for that long anyways.. another year and I think I’ll go find work in the UK and live there for a while. I’ll send my counter offer tomorrow.

I have some new picture’s that I took tonight. I’ll just show one here.

Have I commented that the neighbour downstairs has once again set his stupid alarm clock to 2.25am to wake up when he’s not home? I am not able to sleep right now, but a week of putting up with his stereo alarm clock going off at 2am for the last 3 weeks on Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and slightly later (around 4ish) on thursdays and now today at 2.25am, and HE’S NOT HOME (did i mention that before)? I think I need to write a bitchy email.

This is the one sentence I can now say in swedish and understand what it means, and for it to sound ok. It’s one of those things like.. “she sells sea shells on the sea shore” Since I am going to go to Roskilde (DK), Oslo (Norway) and I have a place to stay in sweden, i feel I should brush up on some scandanavian languages, and as danish sounds like a cat being strangled, I’ll stick with swedish.

I have looked at easyjet for cheap tickets to Copenhagen from the UK, and found they are like $60AUD return. I thought when I was talking to friends they were joking -seems as though they weren’t. I think my trip might end up being alot cheaper than I thought originally if this is the case. All I need to do is sort out accomodation with family friends for whilst I am in London. If I find that I run out of things to do in the scandanavian countries, I could swing back to London, and then do some exploring further I really need to work my ass off however to get those savings into my account so I have enough spending money.

Workwise, I have been working on that development plan and now on my second page of things I want to achieve. I spoke to one of the managers today and showed her my list, and her comment to me was, that she didn’t want me to do too much. I can see it from her point of view, but I have actually done alot of the stuff on the development plan, and just added some things extra to get a better view on how to coach customer care staff better after spending time in a couple of departments and seeing what we can do better to cut down on work for other depts, and reduce call handling times.

i’m not sure that the TL I have is the best person for me, however on the other hand, it will ensure that I learn what I need to learn and help the both of us achieve what we need to for the team we work for.

And that topic means, Gustav grilled the pig at dawn. Not sure why he did, but there we have it, Swedes are odd.

Most people at my work have some kind of career development plan. I’ve had some chats about my development goals, but nothing in writing. Rather than rely on other people to develop my skills for me, I’ve gone and done things myself to learn how the call centre works. It’s very interesting to see the dynamics, and the higher up the foodchain you are, or the more friends in high places you have, the more you see/hear.
My new teamleader has decided she’s going to be proactive with my career development. and I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, so I do as she requests. I have an old template of her career development plan, and have added some ticks and crosses on some skills I need to develop. I think it’s a good idea and am glad that I have something I guess to work for/on/with.

I also had to talk about myself in 3rd person. Only cool or daggy people do that, so I’ll say that I am cool. So I have adjusted the statement slightly about WHY I am doing the development plan, but I’ll be honest. I don’t know what I want to do. I never have. This is the first workplace I have been in where I am happy, I love the work that I do, and I have achieved a long cherished goal of working for a full service Telco. Now I am here, what can I do? What kind of career path is there? What can I achieve? I’ll figure it out eventually.
That’s about all I will post about work in any detail

I had an encounter tonight with a woman who was obviously not herself. She stumbled up to the bus stop where I had parked my ass and was talking to a co-worker of mine as we waited for our buses. She kinda looked like she was on some kind of drug and she slurred that she wanted to go to the casino and which bus took her there.

I told her to get on the same bus as me, and I’d tell her where to get off so she could get to the casino. My friend rolled her eyes at me and got up to get her bus. As the doors closed behind her, the weird glassy eyed chick started talking. I wasn’t really paying attention as I was staring off into the darkness wishing she’d go away and leave me alone. But somewhere in her mutterings she said that she didn’t want to go alone to the Casino, she had a friend there but wanted company, and if i didn’t mind.. if she paid for my food and drink, did I want to go with her?

What the?!
“Uhh no thanks.” I don’t like going to the casino, it’s a bit of a dive these days. Lost of sleazy old men or poor desperate fuckers sitting in front of the only legal slot machines in the state staring at the pretty lights as they feed the slots.

Oh - why? and here am I thinking, shit, another 10 minutes of sitting next to this freak. I mentioned something about finishing work not too long ago and wanting to go eat, and sleep. (I had beef and noodles tonight.. mmm). She went quiet and then really started me wondering what she was on when she said that she really wanted some pepper spray and wasn’t this a creepy place to be.

The bus arrived, I was on it so fast and sat on a seat and ensured that no one was going to sit next to me (ie HER) and she just sat up the front, and sang to herself till she got off the bus.

This brought back memories of a kid that lived upstairs from me when my parents lived in a 2 Br flat when we first moved to Perth. Her mum always used to have fights with her partner and frequently we could hear her screaming “help help he’s killing me” and then some old biddy would call the cops, and they would arrive and by the time they were there, she’d be like “no no nothing happened”. This kid came up to me once when I was unlocking the front door after school, and she gave me $10 in change and asked me to be her friend.

I took the money inside and when mum got home, showed her the money on the table. Mum told me to take the money back, to never accept money from anyone, and not to talk to that girl again. I felt bad, I went upstairs and knocked on the door and asked to speak to the girl. She came outside and I gave her back the money, and told her that my mum doesn’t want me to talk to you. She took the money back and started crying. Fuck I felt bad.

They moved out a few weeks later. I never thought about that girl again until tonight. I could have sat there and said nothing when it was obvious she wasn’t going know that the casino was moving past. So I moved across to where she was sitting, and told her the casino was the next stop and to press the button. She nodded, pressed the button and stumbled off into the darkness at the next stop. I felt bad tonight too.

Getting to know Lori

I decided to self tag from David’s blog. I think I need to affirm some of my likes and other bits and pieces.

Four jobs you have had:

1. Clerk typist
2. Administration Officer
3. Personal Assistant
4. Quality Improvement Officer

Four movies you could watch over and over:

1. Fifth Element
2. Starship Troopers
3. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
4. Anything with Clint Eastwood

Four places you’ve lived:

1. Port Hedland
2. Katanning
3. Narrogin
4. Perth

Four television shows you love to watch:

1. CSI, all of them
2. Law n Order, All of them
3. Babylon 5
4. Dr Who

Four places you’ve been on vacation:

1. Rottnest
2. Adelaide
3. Albany
4. Denmark (no overseas yet)

Four of your favourite foods:

1. Green Curry Chicken
2. Mi Goreng
3. DimSum
4. Beef Stroganof

Four places you’d rather be right now:

1. In airconditioning
2. In europe
3. Big Cinema with one seat and all you can drink
4. In transit to the UK

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Whirlpool
2. News.com.au
3. Staypuff
4. Gmail

Four bloggers you are tagging:

None. You choose, you’re all special.

I now am the proud owner of a return flight to London

I have booked for June, returning in July.

I am so excited, I can hardly speak.

I booked my annual leave at work. Damn. I am happy.

I like my therapeutic cleaning.

After venting on X’s blog a bit, and talking to one of his friends.. I went shopping then came back and cleaned the balcony.