home sweet home

october 7/09

what a day. *sigh* and it isnt over yet. i did start it off with a run on the beach and today i noticed that i am getting stronger at running in the sand. it was great. my state of euphoria didnt last very long as i came back to the hostel. that was due to a lovely phone conversation with a representative of my bank back in canada.

i needed to sort out why my bank card hasnt been working for the past couple week so i made the call. the guy on the other end informed me that, yes, my card had been frozen due to some irregular activity related to potential fraud. joy. the only way i could fix this was to apparently go to a BMO ATM machine and change the pin #. i kindly reminded him that because i am in australia and have no intentions of hoping on the next plane home - i dont exactly have ability to get to a BMO ATM machine. its not as if i have inspector gadget arms or anything. i wish.

i asked if there was another option of unfreezing my account such as changing my pin # over the phone. the guy at the other end refused to open his mind. he wouldnt budge. i dont know what he thought. its not as if ive got a palm tree over here shaking out $100 bills every 5 seconds that i would have no pressing need to access my funds from canada. its not as if i have income over here yet. its not as if i even have an australian bank account. okay - i DO have that - but i dont have the card yet. i mean, even if i DID fly back to canada to change the stupid pin # - the money id have to use for the plane ticket is in the account that is frozen. so i dont know what the guy thought. maybe he doesnt travel much. or maybe hes made of money. or maybe lifes little issues such as these never pass through his little brain for him to come up with another brilliant idea of how he could help me. instead he got all aggitated at me that i could be asking about my options.

i hung up feeling completely baffled and frustrated. a few minutes later i decided to call again and try my luck with another "customer service representative." the next guy heard my speal and responded in giving me the same line that the last guy gave me. so i explained again. I AM IN AUSTRALIA. I CANT ACCESS ANY BMO-RELATED ATM MACHINE. I NEED THE MONEY ON MY CARD. sheesh. it was like trying to talk to those automated telephone people that ask you to speak your request into the phone and yet they never seem to understand what it is that you are talking and you end up yelling one-worded answers into the mouthpiece as though you have spontaneously been promoted to seargant among the next up-and-coming army of phones. right.

i finally got through to this second guy. he hooked my account through my credit card and sent another debit card to my address back in canada. which is precisely what they should have done in the first place. the whole thing was a royal pain in the butt if you ask me.

my day continued with that theme as i moved on to try and look for a place to live more longterm. for those who have never been here or dont know, bondi is a suburb of sydney that is fairly pricey due to its location being right on the beach. as a person goes inland, the price for accommodation lowers. pretty simple and straightforward. the issue im coming across is trying to find a house share property. these properties are places where a handful - sometimes up to 10-12 - people can share for cheaper. what they neglect to mention fully is the condition of which these 10-12 people are living in. generally rooms are crammed with 2-3 cots so multiple people to share. and even then each person is paying generally more than a one-bedroom apartment in a primary location of calgary. AND its not even as though these places are upkept and clean. i have yet to see one that doesnt have me immediately worried about bedbugs or cockroaches. gross.

so today, as it were, i went to check out a place at coogee beach that is a couple beaches down from bondi and said to be cheaper. an hour later (and me thinking theres no possible way ill be able to commute to work from there) i made it. the guy showed me the room and then stated the price in the ad was for if i was willing to share the small room. if i wanted it to myself id be looking at $220 - PER WEEK. i can only imagine what the landlords make in this city. that $220 didnt consider that there would be 2-3 other people living in that same appartment and be paying close what i was paying. and the place was STILL a dump. go figure.

the hunt continues....


october 8/09

yet another chilly day in what is supposed to be paradise. today i woke up with the wind pounding on the window, my eye mask covering only one eye as if i were subconciously trying to make a new pirate fad and my earplugs were nowhere to be found (i found one bright green foamy ball on the other side of the room later on - the 2nd one never to be found again). i was not looking forward to today.

still without housing and my only job as a barista was garanteed so long as i complete the barista training certificate on saturday - i was dreading going to another interview on this frigid day. yes - i may be in sydney - but it was frigid. as it were, there was nothing else TO do but go to my interview - i had spent hours on the computer yesterday searching for affordable housing with no success. so i rolled my butt out of bed and made my way to the train station (20 min walk) in order to get to the city. somehow i ended up purchasing 2 train tickets, costing me over $13 and with no refund option at the machine, i was left wishing i had a twin i could send to the interview and then i could do something more fun such as check out all the cool shops on george street. unfortunately, my other half didnt magically appear so i was left holding 2 tickets for the train and hoping that the interview would make it worth the ridiculous price.

i arrived at the location windblown and bleary-eyed. i felt completely unprepared for the interview. i had forgotten my resume back at the hostel. it turned out to be a group interview and i felt completely underdressed. then - instead of being interviewed for a customer service representative as i thought it was for (you know, sit behind a desk and answer phones all day) it turned out i was being interviewed to do face-2-face interactions with people in order to sell/promote the company and encourage people to come aboard through donations. i think. its all very fuzzy to me. they said something about raising money to support humanitarian/environmental non-for-profit organizations and then they lost me as my mind started ranting to itself inside my head.

for one - this was obviously a company of some sort that prided itself over profiting from charitable donations. so where was this money coming from? and how is it that people can make so much money off of this when the need for the money is so desperately (and understandably) needed for what these charities and organizations do?? how is this fair? how could i possibly take a job in a place that would support such a corporate way of thinking? but i did. i was curious. i wanted to know more about how it all worked.

but they didnt really tell us. they just asked a bunch of generic questions in the group interview and then sent us all home relatively confused about what we had actually applied to do. apparently those "fit" for the position would be called later in the day.

as it were, i ended up meeting 3 other ladies who were in the same position as me - had just come to sydney and were looking for both a job and a place to live. the catch being that we all wanted to live next to the beach. we decided we'd put our heads together and find a house to rent, rather than continue to look for separate rooms as we had all experienced what they had looked like. at least with renting a whole house we would know who was being a part of it and we could start from fresh as the place would have to be cleaned prior.

so i went back to my hostel and checked out online - immediately finding a place that had 4 bedrooms and was considerably affordable. i contacted all the girls. one backed out - she didnt really want to move right away. so i kept looking for places and found a 2-bedroom. i went to check it out, met zelda - a south african woman in the same situation as me and these new-found friends i knew. i recruited her as our new fourth. the 2-bedroom place sucked. it was more like a hole-in-the-wall with a fridge and toilet. joy. so the 4-bedroom place continued as planned. i got back to the hostel and another girl backed out. we were back down to 3 -- me, ashley and zelda.

later on i ran out of phone minutes and had to recharge it. the catch being that the phone company doesnt accept foreign credit cards. joy. so then i had to set up my new australian debit/credit card online so that i could add minutes to my phone. i had just gotten my new card today. i went to register my online account and i couldnt do it. it wouldnt accept the password. that meant i had to call THEM to get it sorted out. but i didnt have minutes on my phone. all i could do was laugh.

so i ended up running down the street to the convenience store to get a phone voucher to charge my phone to call the bank to set up the bank account. whew.

i FINALLY got everything all sorted out and then i got a call saying i got accepted for a second interview with the company i have no idea really what they do. yippee. i think...


october 9/09

so now i have 2 jobs. i went back for a second interview at the place i knew nothing about and found out theyre a marketing company hired by charity organizations to help attract in people that will support the charity through donations. so all those booths seen in malls, at major events and so on that are advertizing for organizations such as oxfam, amnesty international and unicef - THATS the job i got. oh yeah - i DID get hired. sweetness.

and through all this learning i stand corrected about my issue with people getting paid so high for that type of work. as it turns out, the pay is only a fraction of what the charity/organization is getting for the promotion we do for them. it only makes sense for it to be commission based - as why should a non-for-profit organization be expected to pay us if we are not bringing in the donations they so desperately need? they would only end up losing money. its all about the bigger picture i guess.

my question then comes down to: if all these marketing schemes are so cost-effective for non-profit organizations and the marketing schemes are bringing in so many donations from the public - why is it that it is so rare to hear about positive changes going on in the world? when was the last tiem manyone heard that the rates of poverty, disease, abuse and hunger had gone down? has there being significant change or is there always simply some new problem to fix? i suppose that is what i am about to find out.

so i got that job. and dont ask me what the company is called because i have plain forgotten. i also have the job at ninos (i know i previously wrote: nicos, but its not - its ninos) - i have to do the barista training tomorrow. should be interesting.

now all i need is a place to call home....