I went surfing yesterday! I took the whole day off, nobody
responds to job enquiries on the weekend anyway. And I’ve been having trouble
balancing the work/play lifestyle here. If I spend the whole day in the library
applying for jobs, then I feel guilty about not really enjoying my time here.
Like why come to Australia if you’re not going to do Australian things? Especially
since I’m in a hostel and a lot of backpackers are there just having fun, going
on day trips and drinking.
But then if I go out or spend all day on a beach, then I
feel guilty because I don’t have an income and if I burn through all my money
too fast… Well I dunno what I’ll do. So I’m just trying to find a healthy
balance and it can be hard sometimes.
But I went surfing.
This guy Rob picked me up in a jumbly old surfer van. Like
the one you picture when I say surfer van. And Rob was the perfect stereotype
of an Australian surfer dude. He had long strangly blonde hair and was so
chilled out. You ever meet someone who’s seemed to have made all the right
choices for themselves in life? I’ve only met a few. Rob was one of those
dudes. We ended up being decent friends by the end of the day. Wolfmother was
involved.
I’m a decent beginner surfer now. Some of the other students
thought I was with the teachers. I like surfing and once I’m established I’d like
to get a board and surf on the reg, I’m semi aquatic anyway. I also like the
lifestyle. They just set up camp and grilled and surfed all day long.
Speaking of grilling, this vegetarianism thing isn’t killing
it. I’ll give it another week or two, but it’s not really that fun. I don’t
feel any different, it isn’t cheaper, I don’t really feel like I’m making an
impact. As one guy said at the bar “Why be vegetarian, sheep are just
concentrated grass?”
My reasoning is just that it’s more efficient for me to eat
the grass than for a cow to eat the grass then me eat the cow. I just like efficiency.
Like a lot. I’m constantly evaluating decisions and the pros and cons of
things. “I genuinely enjoy figuring out where to get my lunch, because it makes
me compare food prices, food quality, wait times, travel distance, and a myriad
of other factors for me to find the optimal solution. And every day these
factors are different!”
That’s me quoting me. I put that in a few of my cover
letters cuz I think it sounds good and makes me seem informal yet smart and
analytical. Which I think describes me pretty well.
I’ve applied for over 17 jobs, while here in Sydney. I try
to do at least one a day. Every day I get up, eat some cereal and walk to the
library for faster internet. I walk through the botanical gardens on the way
and it’s gorgeous. Like it’s an outdoor Phipps for free. I pass a harbor on the
way with a bunch of boats. And I get sweaty cuz it’s like 75 all the time.
Then I sit down and try to find a job that I like. I’ve
applied as a business analyst, a technical consultant, a salesman, a product
manager, a financial services… guy, a web developer, a digital marketer… a
bunch of stuff around business and tech. And they’re all graduate positions.
Maybe a little above my qualifications but not above my skill set. I haven’t
tried for something like waiter or barista or laborer or farm hand yet. I’ll do
that when I’m closer to broke. I want a career job and one that can hopefully sponsor
me somewhere down the line.
I ran out of floss today. I’m kinda mad I ran out of floss
before I found an apartment. But there wasn’t a lot of floss, so I guess it was
the floss’s fault and not mine.
Rob plays guitar and sings, we
bonded over Wolfmother and Zep and sang in the front of the car while the other
surfers slept on the way back to the city. Maybe they didn’t sleep. We were
loud. He plays digierdoo too, and backpacked from Argentina through South
America to LA with his girlfriend of 5 years. They recently broke up. He asked
what I was doing tonight and I said “I dunno” and then he didn’t ask me if I
wanted to join him. Cmon! Don’t you hate when guys do that ladies? Now I know.
Now I know.
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I’m making a few
friends. But they leave pretty quickly due to hostel life. But there’s a few
core hostel people at the Blue Parrot and I think I’m a part of it now. I’m not
shy but I do think I’m socially viscous. It takes a bit for me to get moving.
Ellie was an English girl traveling the world. We spent a
day together on a walking tour and went to some beaches. I probs spent the most
time with her. Then there’s a few guys at the hostel. Danier, works there and
was in a pretty prestigious position in Chicago as child counselor at a school
but when he saw it was his last year to go on this visa, he decided to give it
all up for a year and go. Axl is like a former French model with a jaw
line that could smash your head in if he
turned around too quickly. There’s a guy named Bronco who works in the Blue
Mountains a few days a week. There’s two girls from Britain. One’s got a real
thick accent and I can’t catch a lot of what she says. A potato with a jacket
is a baked potato or something. Cuz the aluminum foil is their jacket. Cute.
Her accent entertains Nikolai, who’s a Viking. Ait or Aid or A or something is
a British software salesman who was here on holiday. He’s smart and fun.
Sometimes I say Australian things or with an accent. But I
think I did that before I came here. Like cool or yea with a slide. Mostly being
around all these other accents has me clinging pretty hard to the American one.
There are only a few Americans here. Lots of Brits. They say no, with an “r”
like noooooooorrr.
