I'm alive, I swear.

Holy jeez…it has been freaking forever since I posted anything.  I was flat out in the last month and a half of uni and had no time for anything work work and school. :(   Lesson learned: I need to work on managing my time when it comes to uni work!

Okay, so where I left of….

My first day flying solos, as Jason Derulo would say, went really well. There were a few struggles at first (namely learning how to poach an egg) but I have persevered and am now an egg poaching queen…at least I think so. I actually don’t like poached eggs (thanks to the Denver Zoo for ruining runny egg yolk for me) but they sure look pretty! So that’s about all there is to say about the brekky gig. I am still doing it, though thanks to my inability to wake up on two occasions, I may vote myself off the island for this job.  The first time I overslept it was only by an hour, but the second time I overslept I didn't wake up until an hour after my shift would have ended...whoops.  It's just too hard to get up that early during the semester.  It stuffs up my sleeping cycle for the rest of the week, and seeing as uni is my main priority, that's not a good thing.

So you might be asking yourself “what are you going to do for work without the brekkie job, Jamie?!” And I am here to tell you to fret not…for in the same week as my last posting I managed to pick up 2 more jobs. Working at a coffee shop/restaurant (and by that I mean being their dish bitch. You just wait, I will get into this job more in a minute) called Angelinas in the shopping centre by my house as well as doing reception at the Dalrymple, the hotel I do brekkie for. I went from 0 to 3 jobs within a week and a half, and that week and a half happened to coincide with the start of uni hell. Again, poor planning on my part. Live and learn.

Alright, as promised, I will now inform you of my other jobs. I had turned my resume into Angelinas  a week before I got the brekkie job and the owner had expressed interest with my history at starbucks.  Right on.  It took her awhile to get back to me and by the time she did I already had the brekkie one, which was alright because she was willing to pay me cash (so I wouldn't go over my allowed visa hours). Tax free? Yes please. I was actually really excited about this job and was really looking forward to getting out of the house and meeting some new people.  However, that excitement faded quickly after a few days of working. You know that foreign person that gets stuck with the crappy jobs, the one you feel bad for?....umm, well that’s me. (side note: my bank account lists me as a migrant. I don’t really like that. haha.) I literally do dishes all day. All fricken day.  Well, I guess that's a lie, sometime the people up front making coffee and sandwiches bark at me to clear tables...so I step away from the steamy sink for a minute to clean up people's leftover food.  Now I realize I have no right to complain because I get payed 18/hr to zone out and do dishes, that’s not my problem with the job. I have always gotten sick pleasure in doing dishes, and at first I thought this might turn out okay. My problem falls in how they treat me. The other dish bitches are all high schooler, so they clump me in that group and treat me like I know absolutely nothing. I cannot even begin to explain how much that irks me. They talk to me like I am an idiot who can't write my name….and little do they know that not only can I wash a dish, I have managed a food shop before. Bitches. Anyway, on top of thinking I know nothing, they expect SO much of us poor dish bitches. I’ll be elbow deep in dishes and someone up front screams “tables’ which mean I have to drop everything I am doing to go clear a mug off the table. And, when I’m walking by with buckets filled with dirty dishes they literally hold a dish in my face and expect me to take it. The owner of the shop is the worst, she'll be sitting down 2 meters away from the sink and when she's done eating she'll say my name and expect me to stop what I am doing to go pick up her plate.  And no "thank you" is expressed.  Whatever, I am in school getting a degree to do things with my life, while they will all stay there and push around dish bitches for the rest of their lives.  Pathetic if you ask me.  

I still have this job, but I'm hoping for not much longer.  The hardest thing to let go about this job is the cash pay and weekends off.  Once the semester starts back up I want to be able to have weekends free for spontaneous trips and getaways, and working at Angelina allows that.  But I'm not sure it's worth it.  I fear that in a few weeks I may reach my limit and tell them how I really feel....and throw a glass at a few individuals.  She originally had planned to train me on food up front (and claimed that my current position was a way to learn the ropes of the operation), but has since hired 3 new people up front while I stay back with the soapy bubbles.  Cheers....

Okay, I am going to stop talking about that job because there's no need to hear anymore of my dramatic whining.  On to the last job.  So, within the week of starting at the coffee shop the office lady from the Dalrymple rang me to see if I would be interested in doing reception work two nights a week.  I hopped on board hoping that with this job I would be able to quit Angelinas.  But after a few weeks of all 3 jobs I decided to keep all three so that I would have ample work over break and would hopefully be able to save up some dolla dolla bills.  I reallly enjoyed reception.  It was quiet, required some brain power, and allowed to me to talk to people.  Also, on some of the slow nights I could get some homework done! :)  Unfortunately, just last week, the hotel was re-rostered from the main company in Brissy and my position was cut. :(  Such a bummer...it was the one job I actually liked!  Oh well, such is life.

Uni starts back up again in two weeks and I am seriously contemplating quitting my other 2 so I can have some time to do something fun over my break.  The lady who does brekkie full time has been in the states for the past month and I have been working at 5am EVERYDAY since the last week of exams.  Its actually better to do it this many days as opposed to 2 days/wk because I can reset my sleep schedule....but that also means I have been going to bed at 8pm every night over my winter holiday.  How exciting.

I'm jumping ahead.  So, as you gathered from my last paragraph, I am on break...which means I finished my first semester of my program!!! Woooooooooo!  It was a rough home stretch, but I did it.  I won't bore you with the details of my exact papers and projects, but lets just say I wrote a lot in May and June. (And if you know me well you know that is not my favorite thing...nor is it something I excel at.)  Once the writing was done it was time to study study study for exams, which are generally worth 50% of the semester mark.  Yeeks.  But, now that all is said and done, I am happy to report that it all worked out in the end...for the grades I have gotten back at least.  I managed to get two D's (distinction) and one HD (high distinction), which equals two A's and an A+.  :)  I am thrilled with those results!  I am still waiting on one more class and I know it wont be as good, but I am still so happy with the other 3.  

Alright, so other than work and uni what else happened in the last 2 months?  Sadly not that much.  I know I can be a bit dramatic and exaggerate some things, but I am dead serious when I say there were a few weeks where I literally did nothing but go to uni, then work, then straight home to my computer to work on study.  With the 3 jobs there was one week I worked 42 hours on top of classes....wayyyy too much.  Again, live and learn.  

Here are a few things that I have done since the last post:

Went to another rugby game- this one was against the Melbourne Storm, which was the team that was found cheating the salary system this year resulting in the loss of their premierships.  I'm still learning the basics of rugby, but I really enjoy it!  It's weird to go to a professional game and have it seem more like a high school game.  The stadium is quite small compared to the pro teams in the US.  Still a great time thought! 

Some high school friends that were backpacking through Oz stopped by Townsville, which was great.  Always fun to have some visitors!  The week they came was the week I started at Angelinas and reception, as well as the week my 40% coral reef geomorphology essay was due...so unfortunately I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked to.  We did make it to town for cheap Tuesday so I could show them the Townsville nightlife. :)

Went up to Mt. Stewart during the day, which was beautiful!  It's cool to see it at night, but during the day you can see all the hills inland as well as islands in the distance...way cool! 

Looking inland

Looking towards the coast with Magnetic Island on the right and Palm Island towards the left.