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Month: May 2009

  • May 9, 2009

    I need to take a chill pill

    Or at least that’s the conclusion I’ve reached.

    What’s that saying: God give me the grace to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to do both?

    Last night BF and I had a major clash. Well, I don’t know what to call it. It wasn’t a fight. I can’t fight. I don’t do fights. Well, I do in the sense that I sometimes get snippy and short, like last night, and snap at him. But that was just the beginning.

    I’ve been under heaps of stress, mainly financial, plus all the house issues – no hot water, getting the windows fixed (THREE TIMES now glaziers have been meant to come and it hasn’t happened! Apparently the guy today came but left because he thought no one was home – he’s returning on Monday. Neither BF or I are home, so we have to rely on our flatmates for this), the car, and now our toilet flush is broken. I swear. When does it end???

    Then it all kind of blew up.

    I know I’ve been neglecting BF, and just trying to keep us fed, clothed, paying our bills and ticking along. I realise that the last few months haven’t been easy on BF either, but I haven’t really tried to get him to talk about it or anything.

    I’ve been unable to really see past myself and all our immediate practical problems. I knew I was being selfish, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

    I think I’m much more “male” in that sense. I can’t voice my feelings, I get confused about what they are, I don’t like talking about them.

    He really made me realise how absorbed I’ve become with personal finance and money, and not in a good way. Although I’m not quite in agreement with his sentiment (“Even if I knew we’d be living out of a car when we’re 60, I wouldn’t care as long as we’re together”) I think he’s right. I need to back off.

    Maybe if we’re more on track by the end of year, we can still go on a short holiday. If we could manage to pay for say 80% in cash and knew we could pay the rest off quickly, maybe that wouldn’t be the end of the world.

    Every cell in my body is screaming NOOOO! But it’s true, I need more balance. BF pointed out I never spend anything on myself.  No, it would not be the end of the world if I went into a little debt this year because it’s my last year as a student. And it may yet happen whether I like it or not. And, as a student with good credit, I can get interest free overdrafts.It’s not that I am opposed to debt; I’m opposed to bad, stupid debt. But it’s about finding balance, and if debt is necessary, ensuring it is at a serviceable level. That’s what I need to get into his head, especially given the economy.

  • May 7, 2009

    Derailed

    It really hit me this week that my end of year holiday plans are falling down around me.

    Sure, I could go without BF, and no, nothing was set in stone (place, dates, ANYTHING…it was just a shadowy plan taking shape in my mind) but that really doesn’t appeal.

    I just wouldn’t enjoy it as much, and I would feel terrible leaving him behind.

    So it’s a bit of a shambles really. Our budget is down to the bare bones with no room for saving. And to take this even further, what about my big OE? The plan was we’d go after we’re both qualified. Except that will be another three years now. And teachers need two years, provisionally registered, before they can attain full registration.

    And apparently yes, primary teachers are in shortage but many teachers are new grads without full licences, which means more work on the schools’ part to support them during their two years. So maybe it won’t be such a cinch to find a job right away.

    Sigh. I feel like I have nothing good to report lately. All my life updates are just full of negativity.

  • May 7, 2009

    Job titles

    I must say I’m definitely learning a lot about the jobs that make the world go round! It’s amazing how little I actually know about fields like law, engineering and business.

    I seriously spent the majority of this weekend glued to my laptop. What was I doing, you might ask? Well, catching up on email, news, Google Reader, researching a couple of story possibilities, and of course looking through job sites for BF.

    I still see so many job titles which I still don’t really understand.

    For example:

    Learning and development consultant
    Systems analyst / business analyst
    Account director
    Research associate
    Procurement specialist
    Compliance manager

    And yet, sometimes job titles don’t really tell you anything about a position. Some are straight forward – sales assistant, receptionist, publicist, accountant. Then you get roles like communications manager, relationship manager, account manager….in fact, there seem to be so many “Manager” type jobs these days, some of which aren’t managerial in the sense that you manage staff below you, but often external relationships.

    That’s a service and knowledge economy for you, I guess.

  • May 6, 2009

    I’ve been doing a lot of mystery shopping lately. I wasn’t sure what I was going to put that towards, but then I remembered that our contents insurance is due this week….so I will pay that on my Visa ($84) and pay it off when I am reimbursed at the end of the month. I’ll definitely be able to cover that because I did six bus surveys yesterday; I travelled out to Wesley to take photos for a story I’m working on. Then I had some free time and did a few more random ones around town. Off peak buses are so much more punctual! And often the drivers are much nicer.

    The bus companies must spend a lot on mystery shopping. Sometimes they do over 200 in a month, and assuming the mystery shopping company takes a 50% cut on each survey, that would be $4000 a month on surveying customer satisfaction!

    And yet, another mystery shopping company I’m with also conducts surveys for the bus companies – they used to pay fairly well, but have cut their bus payments in half or more. Now the gimmick is getting “free rides” rather than actually getting paid to ride.

  • May 6, 2009

    Do you eat round a dining table?

    walnut_dining_table

    It’s been a long time since I lived in a place which had a dining table. Our old apartment literally had no spare room for such a thing, and although we have a huge kitchen now, we don’t have a table in it to eat off. I remember in one of my old flats we squished a dining table and chairs into the area just off by the front door, but I still hardly ever used it.

    So generally we eat on the couch, or most of the time, in our room. I don’t like this arrangement, because a) when we eat on the bed, we inevitably splatter something ont the duvet or the sheet. or b) when we eat on the floor by the TV, something always gets on the carpet! The other night, I had had enough when BF got some curry on the carpet – the turmeric seriously digs its heels in and creates an eerie fluorescent glowing stain. So I brought in a huge tea towel to act as a picnic mat for us. Clever, huh? If only I’d thought of that AGES ago…..

    It’s a far cry from my parents’ house, where we had a rectangular dining table (it extended out both ends) covered in an easy-clean cover. I hesitate to call it a tablecloth, as it was made of a sort of vinyl type material, waterproof, that just wiped clean every night.

    In fact, we do so much differently to how we did things at home. We would never have things like 12 packs of Coke cans. We’d have big, huge 2.25l bottles of fizzy which went flat super fast. We often had ice cream, but only ever ate tiny portions at a time and so a 2l carton lasted forever. We never, EVER had frozen chips, or canned vegetables. But we did often have croissants, raspberry buns or doughnuts for after school snacks, bought from the supermarket. Now the situation is pretty reversed. Tinned tomatoes and corn are cheap, and since discovering freezer chips I’ve never looked back. But bakery goods are way too expensive, and I can’t remember the last time I had a raspbery bun (drool).

    And of course, the days of being served up a big plate of rice and then serving ourselves from a couple of different dishes (usually one meat and one veg) throughout the meal are gone. Now we tend to have one dish meals, or if we have dinners with several components, I put together nice little plates with a bit of everything and we can go back for seconds. But I guess that relates back to not having a dining table and being able to spread out dishes.

  • May 4, 2009

    So much to do. So little time

    Just finished a 2500 word essay. So weird to go from writing minimal, pared down journalese with ‘that’ treated like a swearword, and clean simple sentences with no extra or complicated clauses, to flowery, academic writing.

    I’m trying not to think about everything I have to do over the next month. Originally I was thinking that the two weeks I have after semester ends, but before my internship, I should use to try and get more hours at work.

    But I think that a) I’ll need to work on my shorthand and b) rest up!

    For MC3, I have another essay and an exam.

    Shorthand, another test which I need to pass to graduate.

    PAR, a media law test and a mixed group/individual project.

    Editing and Design, a three page design project plus 1000 word essay, and laying out the newspaper at the end of semester.

    News Reporting, a stats test, and possibly a style and grammar test, I’ve got to get some more photos done, and keep up with at least one finished story a week.

    Whew. I think I’ll take some downtime tomorrow, then get cracking on the weekend. Have to hunt down something local….

  • May 4, 2009

    I do NOT like

    – People who use “rape” and “raping” as a verb to refer to something other than the actual act. IE, “raping your car”. Especially when it comes from a girl. Yeah, double standards at play, but when females throw “rape” around, well, it just seems wrong. If we can’t take rape seriously, how can anyone?

    – Chicks who get drunk and come on to your BF. Once, okay. Twice or more….. well, I’ve tried, and I really want to like you, but this ain’t a friendship and it’s not gonna work. Keep it in your pants.

    – People who lash out and blame others for their own fuckups, and get abusive. Take some responsibility for yourself.

  • May 3, 2009

    Car troubles and badly cut pizza

    Just because I use a coupon……doesn’t mean it’s cool to slack off on cutting up my pizza giving me 5 massive slices and 3 minuscule ones!

    I’m sure pizza places have a secret policy for coupon users – be as sloppy as possible, and make their pizzas smaller than they should be.

    Not that I can complain, seeing as I got a free pizza, and pizza is pizza. dafazios_pizza

    What did freak me out a little was when I gave my order over the phone, and my contact number. And somehow the girl on the other end of the phone knew my name! They must keep all customers’ details on file, like, FOREVER, because the last time I phoned to order pizza was probably over a year ago.

    BF isn’t a big pizza fan, so we hardly ever go to Pizza Hut or Dominos. He likes making his own at home.

    So we went to get in the car to pick them up (yes, I’m too cheap to get food delivered. Done it ONCE, was horrified at the surcharge and refused to ever do it again), and didn’t get out of the driveway.

    BLOODY EFFING CARS.

    Either the clutch or transmission is out. And obviously we can’t even take it to a mechanic, even if it was in the budget.

    nz01008_sm

    This comes as we have about four loads of washing to do, no food in the house, and I have several things to do out and about. Not to mention that we put in $45 of gas, which would have lasted 2, maybe 3 weeks.

    Deja vu…..the last 2-3 times our car’s conked out, it’s done so with a lot of gas in it.

    FML.

  • May 3, 2009

    Picky, picky…

    I was recently given a really nice, stylish black wallet. I even went as far as moving all my stuff over, but once I’d completed the changeover I went right back to my old fat purple wallet with the bow. It wasn’t big enough to fit all my cards in, the layout was weird, and it just didn’t feel right.

    I get the feeling my hunt for my new bag will also be long and arduous. It’s gotta be the right size, and shape. It’s got to be cute. I want two handles, long enough to wear on my shoulder, and preferably rounded with some structure, not soft and floppy. I’d like brown or tan, with a few different pockets for my bits and pieces.

    We also got a new kettle, as our old one stopped working. The new one is strange to me. The button is in a different place and the water level strip is a totally different colour and in a different place.

    I know, I’m strange…but I like to think I’m just set in my ways.

  • May 2, 2009

    I love the Warehouse’s return policy.

    I don’t know so much about their 10c plastic bag charge, but that’s why when I bought a new kettle yesterday I decided to spend 99c on a pretty red reusable canvas bag.

    Then I got home and found our flatmate’s GF already got us another one.

    Luckily the Warehouse lets you return anything within 12 months as long as it’s in a resaleable condition with a receipt.

    They didn’t used to require a receipt at all, but apparently too many people were abusing the system. It’s still way more generous than most retailers though!

    So, no poorer than when I started (minus the red bag). I wonder if I still get to keep my rewards points from the purchase, or do they retract them along with the refund?

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