February 2005 Archives

So, I'm here. The combo of these nails plus Ian's laptop keyboard may be the only thing preventing me from writing about this place... I have seen so much already today, and we haven't even started on the touristy stuff yet.

London looks very different to SA. I never expected it to be the same, I don't know what I was expecting. I don't want this to be the stereotypical Saffer writes about how cold it is type of thing. Damn, it is pretty cold though, but inside it's actually very warm. The tube system is still a blur to me - sat across from a little kid on the way home from the airport, and envied him, he'll grow up with this knowledge - but I feel pretty confident that I, like the many others, will eventually know what I'm doing and what the pound is actually worth.

Thanks so much to everyone for their sweet wishes at Wa's place the day before we flew. I'm going to make this work, right now this old, old place is brand new to me.

To write a litte more about my transferral to living la vida Anglais, as it were. I'm scared that I won't find a job. Or, I'll find one that I hate and it'll colour very day that I spend in London - grey light outside, grey days of a hateful job, with only the warm light of home at the end of the tunnel.

Working at ABSA, eish... it taught me some things. Life is shite when you have a job that you hate. I worked with some people every day, people who hated their jobs and their lives. It had more to do with the treatment of employees than anything else. On the one hand, if you didn't do extra work and try harder all the time, you were seen as not being a team player. On the other, giving your all often meant neglecting your home life (with reagrds to time spent at work) and the lunches and days off which were due to you. One woman I worked with - her son shot himself a few year back, thereby mentally retarding himself, and she threw herself into work so that she wouldn't be seen to be losing her grip or neglecting the bank. Now, her mother is desperately ill - last stages ill - and this woman feels she can't keep giving and giving and giving to her job.
Customer service is a bitch, too. I have made this informal list of sorts, just in my head, of things I will never do when in a bank, or restaurant, or with any type of frontline personnel. I will never ignore someone when they greet me, or demand that they speak my language when I perfectly understand the other they are speaking, or roll my eyes while my spouse/partner works out how the pin machine works, or belittle a person in front of the whole bank. I will never call a trainee stupid to her face and make her cry. I will keep my bad day to myself. I will not blame my mistakes on someone else or ridicule them, simply because I know they cannot talk back to me.
I saw this every day. The good people, the nice clients; they were few and far between. Some people's mothers did a shitty job.

And how ABSA won 'Best Company to Work For' for two years running is beyond me.

... blog from South Africa. My god, I never thought it would get here so quickly. I'm leaving (on a jet plane la la laaaa) for London on Sunday - bussing it to Cape Town on Friday for a La Med night and Warrenski and Acid's reunion party (too cool for school!) and a last Primi Piatti breakfast with my favourite aunt and uncle.

Saying goodbye to Laurika was hard; I only really realised yesterday, as she left, just how bearable she's made this whole experience. I love hanging with her - just know she'd be a hit with the meskanky crew - but sadly she applied for her visa a few weeks after me, when the UK decided to clamp down on all things foreign, and hers is just taking a little longer. Baby steps - it's going to happen for her, it's just a matter of when.

So. Money converted, bedroom packed (well, almost), favourite meals requested; it's time to move on.

On the less frightening side of things, my sister arrives on Wednesday with hubby and babe in tow, and Friday marks the first birthday of my first nephew. Much cake to be squished!

And on the birthday note, happy 25th Warren! Have a fantastic day, celebrations this weekend! Cake squishing, not so much?

My visa has arrived at OVC in George. Will be fetching it some time next week. Have appointment with prospective Sparky buyer. She sounds trustworthy :)

Golden brown, la la la la! Just went out for dinner with the pa-ren-tal-u-nits and had some wine, so excuse the blather... rinse... REPEAT!

OH MY GOD, I do have to work tomorrow.
With money.
Crap.

Was going to be all "yay, Vern blogged again!" but this whole positive reinforcement thing has run its course, so much so that his posts are more frequent than mine, thesedays! As always, a wothwhile read.

So I know that the Donnie Darko thing has, most likely, stagnated. And that Jake Gyllenhaal has been through WAY too many young hussy starlets for my liking*, so he's off the perve list (that is, until he picks up another tormented young man role and he's SO in there again!) To be sure, Leprechauns, there will be some sort of reworking of the rockit, probably when I sit at home in London, waiting for employment agencies to get back to me and Ian to finish work.

Things are winding up and up, my chest is toitening, toiter and toiter, as the time approaches. Allow me the space to gush, dear friends, because THESE.... ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES.

AND I... HAVE GONE APE WITH THE CAPS.

Enough now. Tarra.

*yes, I'm talking about YOU, Kirsten Dunst.

I had my nails done. Okay, Laurika did my nails - but she's a nail technician by trade, so I think it's safe to say I had them done. Not being the most girly girl out there, this is new. While you're waiting for them to dry, you will be bitten by 20 mosquitos. Typing becomes interesting. I wonder what Ian would think if he saw them... would he lump me into the kugel group or think they were cool?

Yes, I have to think about what he's going to think of me. Of course, as the time flies by (yessir, it's FEBRUARY), I think more and more about him, but knowing he's going to actually see me and be near me in a matter of weeks (not months, WEEKS) is kinda weird. Being back at the bank (see next paragraph, if all goes well) has kept my mind fairly occupied lately, but home time is filled with wondering about how things will be. Some of you rockiteers have been around since the beginning days, and hey presto, it's almost time for that 4 year wait to actually end. From long-distance drollery to close-contact scariness in a couple of weeks. Oh my fucking God.

But, I have yet to recieve my visa, so things aren't cut and dried just yet. Be sure that when they are I'll be quitting at ABSA - they begged me back, on a daily basis, which means I can quit the day before I want to leave - and raring to go rushing forward towards the next step.

Moving in.
My future flatmates have a group email thingy set up, and I have recently joined. As far as I know, 3 of them read rockit. They have crazy laptops and share files and I'm going over without even a phone that works in the UK. Guess I'll have to try to fit in with my extended knowledge of technology. See "group email thingy".

Shalom.