Unequal weighting

Too much to say. Do I start with the bliz blaz, the Big, the sad?

BLIZ BLAZ

- Have been out to dinner 3 out of the last 4 evenings.
Friday: with mum's family. 'Cafe Bravo'. My cousin is pregnant with #3, woo! Not so mundane!
Sunday: with DW. The evening felt like a bonus, in that I woke up from a nap in what I thought was the morning, only to discover it was still 'last night'. 'Thai on Parade'.
Monday: with dad's sisters and that side of the family. 'Chopstix'. Turns out my aunt has not only met Oliver Sacks, but she interpreted a speech of his to a deaf audience, and has a whole heap of books about literacy in deaf children and stuff! Awesome resource for my linguistics research right here!

- On the topic of uni, it appears I've been accepted into the Arts Internship Program next semester, as I got an email suggesting that I should 'liase' with this woman after the break about a suitable placement. Yay =)

- Spent a somewhat bizarre evening at the hostel with M, drinking on the balcony in between my night and morning shift. He stayed over, sharing my room, and at some point in the night I *thought* he was being funny and trying to steal my bed (I had the double). Kicked him out, perhaps twice, half-asleep and unamused. Except, in the morning it appeared that that never happened, and either I was dreaming or he was bed-stealing in his sleep. So yeah. Fun times!

- Despite my late night at the hostel and the fact that I was woken up far too early by cricket and footy club guys returning from town, my 6 am trouble-shooting skills weren't bad. The white sheet on the stairs that was smeared with an ominous shade of brown was dumped in the washing machine with the kitchen rags and a large extra cup of detergent. The screeching lift alarm was fixed through skilful jabbing of the broken emergency button. The door to the disaster-zone bathroom was closed and marked with a closed sign. Ok, I didn't say I 'fixed' everything, but the people who I saved from venturing into that bathroom will never know what I did for them. Try not to have more alcohol than your digestive system can handle, folks.

- My soft touch with the disabled lift came in handy later in the day too. Wayne was decked out in a rain coat and wide brimmed hat and was running around with trolley-loads full of crates of bottles for recycling (that run-on sentence was totally a literary technique so you could appreciate the atmosphere). He called me from the bottom of the stairs where he was jabbing unsuccessfully at the once-again whining lift. "See if you can fix it! This lady's tried to operate it herself!"
I go down there and this blonde dazed-looking woman is standing there, all like "oh! sorry..." She has these two MASSIVE suitcases. She starts blathering about how she thought she could just use the lift, and as Wayne is heaving her suitcases onto the platorm (which I have now fixed and assembled for use, with the KEY that you need) she mentions that her boyfriend got "dragged off by the police" and that's why she's been "kicked out of the hotel room" and hence why she has so much luggage. "I don't know much about backpacker places," she says, still kind of vaguely. I then suddenly notice that she is seriously pregnant. "I'm having the baby in a week," she says, rubbing her belly. "Its a shame cos he'll probably still be in jail, my boyfriend, you know. Has to be in at least a week or something."
I nod and do 'oh? mmm.' noises as I slowly take the lift up stairs. Two guys come in and grin at me. "Can we ride on that?"
"Only if you want to go at this speed!" I say.
The woman tags along behind me. "You know, they really dragged him off. Was a bit scary, like. I hope the baby doesn't come early. I couldn't have it while I'm here. Yeah, hope he doesn't come early."
Me too, love!

THE BIG

It's almost embarrassing to read back how in every entry I've got a new plan for travel/life. But this one, this new thing is kind of the Real Deal, the Tell Everyone, the Apply-Before-Wednesday thing.
University exchange, to Germany.
I know. It had always been an option before. A few people had asked me if I'd thought about it, and I'd always said, oh well I've done something similar before. It's a lot of money. If I'm going to go overseas, I'd prefer to do more solid *travel*.
But then... I started to remember how it felt to be swimming in language. To be dissolved in it. How it felt to not understand, until the world slowly took shape in words and phrases around me. I remembered how big that high school exchange felt, and felt suddenly nostalgic for the intensity of feeling that was involved. Here I'd been with my world maps, lazily allocating 3 months of a year here, 6 months there. Those TWO MONTHS were pretty huge to me.
And then... I started browsing the Adelaide Abroad web pages, and researching partner institutions. I went to an information session. And there, I got: "You want to go to Germany? Awesome! The Baden-Wuerttemberg government might just give you a stack of money they call a 'scholarship' for no reason! But, catch is, you have to apply now! Second catch is, you might not find out that you get it until you're already on exchange! So, you wanna do it?"

I think I do. I'm sure I do. I wanna do it.

THE SAD

Well... there's no good way to say this. She was the mum of the girls that my sister and I grew up with, the girls who were the same age as us and epitomised everything primary school. The mum that carpooled for netball matches and helped E and I with our compering notes for The Festival of Music. The one who'd sit for a cup of coffee in our kitchen after dropping one of us home, who'd refer politely to using 'the facilities' before she left. The one who'd watch 'her boys' in a Crows match, who'd feed us Dunk-a-Roos after school, who once gave 13-year-old E and I a warning about boys and was a little taken aback when I chirped some comment about 'remembering to keep your knickers on!'

Back then, we were lucky, we were wholesome and whole, we didn't comprehend that it could be otherwise. E and I and our other mate were once the 'biggies', trotting together after school to the kindy where we'd pick up our sisters, the 'littlies.' She was one of the mums who made up the picture. She was one of our kind. She died, and her two girls are now girls whose mum has died. While our mum, our lovely healthy wonderful mum, just celebrated her birthday. It could have been us. I don't see E regularly anymore, though our sisters, those 'littlies', are still good buddies, in their last year of high school at different schools. I just wish those girls and their dad well on the most basic level. I can't believe their mum, their mum who was once very solidly alive and well, isn't here anymore. I can't imagine how they feel.

At this point in time...

The pace of life changes at this time of year. At first your body drag with the effort, unused to the speed. Before you know it you're buzzing and recharged. Then, just as quickly, overwhelmed.



I thought I'd give a brief wrap up of the State of Stuff.



WORK



Mad March. The month that swings me wildly between feelings of love and exasperation for my job. The best feeling is that of a hostel that's booked to the brim full of guests, who are all out enjoying themselves... elsewhere. Slightly less enjoyable: relentless demands of guests when I just want to close and get out of there, vomit stains on the wall and carpet when I walk in the next morning, personality clashes in too-full dorms, drunken Irish guys who insist on shouting the words along to 'Little Lion Man' at 6:30 am, fielding complaints about why the night staff didn't answer the phone, teetering on the wrong side of the how-full-is-full tightrope. Human error becomes critical. Got a voucher for tonight that we booked for Friday next week instead? Told us yesterday that you wanted to extend your accommodation, yet somehow nobody got around to making a note on the system? Oops! How do you feel about sleeping on the street tonight?

And things can only get more exciting: it's not even Clipsal time yet!

However, its invigorating in a way too, especially when you get it right. Carrying the baby upstairs for the stressed-out mum as she wrangles the four-year-old and his scooter. Hearing someone who'd presented at the counter with bed bug bites gratefully thanking you for your help after you breezily move guests from the room, wash all the linen and do the rest of her laundry for free, lend her the heavy-duty bug spray for her bag and call the pest control services. Realising that something like that would have once caused you stress, but now you take it in stride. Having someone say to you, after a long morning dealing with guests who were unhappy about the noise last night, interpersed with nagging from the guys whose iPod you confiscated to get rid of the noise (can't win!), "I just want to thank whoever it was that finally got those guys to shut up!" and being able to have a laugh with someone about it. Helping exceptionally friendly and appreciative Canadian guys with bookings, tours and directions around the city. Passing on the complaint about 'dripping mouldy food' to Victor - When he began to go off his nut about how it was just the fridge leaking, I successfully avoided hearing him rant by changing the tack to, "I know Wayne doesn't want to fix the leaks, but maybe you could move your bag to the bottom shelf - then nobody can blame you! Just trying to look out for you!" He sort of chuckled then, and was like "Ah, I understand. Complaint number fifty eh! I'm keeping a list!"

For all Victor's "quirks", I'm actually quite fond of him these days. It'll be a bit sad when we do finally seek the help of the Catholic church to find him more appropriate accommodation. Perhaps because Victor's such a pain when he's in a cranky mood, I find him strangely enjoyable when he's in a good mood. Lurking at the corners, he sees everything that goes on at the front desk, and is the only guest who I can tell really *sympathises* with the staff sometimes. An eyeroll at a tedious guest here, a request followed by a generous "-when you not busy," there.

"You here tomorrow?" he often asks, brusquely, peering through his lens-less glasses. If I say yes or no he responds with a nod or a sympathetic smile as required. Then he swings his bag over his shoulder and lifts one arm in goodbye. "See you next time!" He hobbles off to wherever it is that he goes, his ankles poking out at the bottom of never-washed jeans as he disappears down the stairs.

Last weekend was WOMAD, which stereotypically attracts the best kind of guest: those who are friendly, laid-back and somehow 'clean', jokes about dirty hippies aside. Clean in a way that old men, bogans and drunks aren't. Although there are still a few of those around.

Speaking of old men: Some well-dressed, grey haired gentleman booked into rm 23 before I started my afternoon shift yesterday. No worries. A little later, in my peripheral vision I see this person near the entrance to reception with unnaturally wide, drawn-on pink lips, broad shoulders, a tight dress and garish eye-make-up. Ok, someone who looks like a drag queen. Being Fringe time, there are a lot of interesting characters around, and because I am a dork I'm thinking "don't stare!" and preparing myself to not do a double-take when I see this person front-on (this is all within a split second). All guests are welcome, right? So I chirp, "Hello!" and give the drag queen a big welcoming smile. She/he sort of gives a faint eye-brow raise of recognition and scurries past reception. Looks like she's following - oh, looks like she's following the old man. Ah. Well. Isn't it nice when you find two unlikely friends like that.


Sometime later the man presents his room key to reception. Oh, he's checking out! He doesn't need the room for the night after all. Isn't it nice when something else just comes up! Meanwhile, his "friend" slips out the door. I ask him to return his linen, as is standard procedure. He puts up a fuss. "It's all there!" he says, meaning its all in the room. Yes, well if I'm going to have to touch those sheets I'm not bloody well making a trip upstairs to get them. You can bring your own semen-encrusted sheets down here, boy. Of course I don't say this. "Oh, that's strange that it wasn't mentioned when you checked in!" I say cheerfully, with an air of polite disbelief. "You actually need to return them to get your deposit back!" He grumbles some more then goes to get them. I guess when you're in a position to choose a backpacker's hostel as your den of hooker love, the lure of $10 is strong.


UNI


Looking like a good semester. Constitutional law, Lingustics (Language Learning), German and English (Modernisms). Lots of work but its all kind of different. I'm kind of planning to finish my Arts degree at the end of this year (well, by the end of summer school) so that if I want to, say, teach English in Japan then I meet the contract requirements.


LIFE

What else? H and S are back from India. H might be getting a job at the hostel which would be fun I think! I had a good chat with DW the other day about going overseas - I hadn't wanted to bring it up in case it caused problems before it had to, but I'm glad I did. He basically shot down a couple of my ideas (care work, outdoor kids' camps) and although I don't have to listen to his advice, I do value his opinion... and it also kind of helped me, because I wanted to make some decisions rather than try to 'do it all'. He was quite keen on the idea of teaching in Japan (i to i do contracts from anywhere between 2 and 12 months) and was even like, "I'll come visit you if you do that." Naw.