bitchfest

i cleaned the nastiest toilet i've encountered so far today. for some reason, i was outraged. it was like that shit-stain was a personal attack against me. that guest just wanted to crap all over my morning. in a strange coincidence there were cookie crumbs all around the toilet. who eats cookies in the bathroom?

i clean rooms for eight hours every day. i can literally feel my brain shrinking for lack of use. and after all this physically demanding work, i still can't afford to do the things i want to do in queenstown. i'm starting to rethink why i came here. i didn't come to new zealand to settle and this feels like settling. i came here to live differently than i was in texas. it seems like i'm stagnating here without any real goal or direction. the whole point of my having a job is to be able to fund the activities that are specifically new zealand. i can't bungi-jump at home, i can't go to milford sound...

at the same time, i don't want to jump the gun and go home just because things aren't working out the way i want them to. i'm already here, it will be much harder to come back than to go home...but right now that's all i want to do. i want to celebrate halloween in texas. nobody gets it here. i am the only one dressed up, mostly as an act of defiance because i'm fed up with new zealand. i'm tired of paying $5 for milk. i'm tired of $13 hamburgers. i'm tired of not being able to get a TACO when i want one, which is pretty much every second of every day.

so tonight i'm going out with my friends and i'll head home early because i have to be at work at 7am to scrub some more toilets. then i'll try to find a place to live that doesn't require me to hike up a mountain to get to it.

i miss texas and my friends and family. this homesickness is harder to shake than i thought it would be.

this person is employed

mission monotanous

davide was a venetian. "venice is a city in northern italy, not a beach in california."
why thank you, davide. i won't tell you that i know this because i spent a week there only because i'm trying to kiss your ass.

my first mistake was showing up early. because of this i got to vacuum an entire ballroom, which took two hours. my second mistake was not taking a break on my own and getting to the free dinner after it was cold. oh well, it was still free.

then the function started and i carried trays of canapes to drunk aussies for the next six hours. the aussies like their fried fish and their beer. they are not big fans of the vegetable fritatta. they also want to know if you take drink orders and would just keep the beer coming.

the entertainment for the evening (besides the aussies themselves) was two guys in white suits singing classic cheese. at one point one of them was in an elvis suit. there was also a classic rock band that played long enough to let the executives show off their best dance moves.

after the function ended, we spend three hours cleaning up. i did get to drink a couple of glasses of wine with the other workers afterwards. i also got some chocolate mousse. score!

this post will self-destruct in 5..4..3..2..

my job search has gone better than i expected, given that i just signed up with the temp agency yesterday and received a text message for a job this morning.

"it's a 5pm start. millenium hotel. ask for davide at reception. wear ALL BLACK."

it all feels a bit like mission impossible. "this is your assignment, should you choose to accept it..."

fingers crossed that davide has a fake french accent.

i've met more germans here than kiwis.

i'm ready to settle down and see how the natives live. two months on the road has shown me in great detail how young backpackers live. (go,go, go, drink, drink, go.) i can't keep up with that lifestyle. i'd like to have a bit of a routine. routines give you the chance to meet people in a comfortable setting with a sense of normalcy that everything on the kiwi bus lacks. a regular income would also give me the chance to find a place of my own, or even just a room of my own.

the lack of personal space in hostels has made me realize how much of an only-child i really am. being alone becomes a necessity for me. going out every night and spending every second of every day with other people starts to get really draining around day four. time and space to myself is like a reset button i can press that makes me a more like-able person to be around and helps me appreciate the people i'm with.

for instance: right now, i'm sitting at the dining room table and a guy just came up to use the hostel's computer. he types so loudly, he sounds like he's trying to punish the keyboard. i want to rip his hands off. this is just another example of why i need my personal space; it reduces the violent thoughts in my head.

smells like texas

it's nice to be missed, comforting even, but knowing that people miss me makes me realize how many people i do miss. and it's not just people, it's smells, food, the feeling that familiar places give me that i didn't notice until now that i'm constantly in different and unfamiliar settings. i miss that feeling of "aaahhhh" i get when i walk in the door to my house and it smells like me. i don't think i even smell like me anymore. all this weird laundry detergent and strange air has probably altered my scent a fair bit. hopefully my cat will recognize me when i get home.

hostels never have a comforting scent. this is probably due to the fact that most backpackers don't bathe as often as they should. i've never felt unsafe in a hostel, but there is something unsettling about sleeping underneath and next to strangers crammed in like sardines on squeaky bunk-beds. i was surprised to learn how many people talk in their sleep. i can only hope that i'm not one of them. who knows what kind of incriminating things my subconscious would come up with.