: : The Cartoon that is My Life : :
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
I get this Dilbert cartoon strip mailed to my Inbox daily. I remember working in the MC back in Ausl and Andy used to be absolutely wetting himself laughing at the Dilbert website - either that or playing Yahoo Brick Builder! ;P Anyways, I never really got Dilbert but now every day I feel like I am living the strip -
I remember this quote, I think from Asimov's I, Robot; and I will be paraphrasing now, but it went something like "If it makes you crazy to think you are the last sane person on the planet, then I must be really crazy"
Work makes me feel like this!
Well I must be off, just received my latest Dilbert strip!
11/17/2004 09:21:00 AM ::
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: : Good Result : :
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
So we had a database migration for my application the other day. I.S. did all they could to screw us around (infact, did not even schedule the job) but after much arse-ing around, it is sorted and my application is running faster than ever! You probably don't give a toss about all of this part, but let me put it in nother way-
I am in a position of providing a service, and my customers are very, very happy, estatic even.
After months of fighting with I.S. I am able to say - "Up Yours - its a database load issue, your problem, not my problem, not an application issue!"
More free reign to take my project where I want...
I haven't had this much satisfaction from my work since the AIESEC days. I had almost forgotten what this buzz feels like. Of course I have been fielding an onslaught of emails today from I.S. trying to stir the pot, but I ain't biting. I am too chuffed.
Don't know how much of this makes sense to you, but know this much - a great few days at work and I am happy right now!
Cheers.
11/16/2004 05:49:00 PM ::
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: : Sandgropers day out : :
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Way back in January (only just realised this whole year has passed by in a blur - I had Keru and Kezza, two lovely lasses from Perth staying with me off and on for a month in Paris.
Well, bless her cotton socks to coin a phrase, Kezza wrote a story about her adventure - and sent it to me. Now I am going to post it below but please be advised:
1. Much artistic/creative license has been taken and the story is a micture of fact and fiction - namely, I did NOT have "the runs" as quoted numerous times in the text.
2. I did not have any cash. I did eat potatoes a lot but this was reflective of my 200€ per month disposable income. Maxed out credit back home meant that I did not even have a buffer zone of borrowed cash - I was dirt poor.
3. The rest is pretty close to how it was living in gay paris....
And so, I proudly present: Kezza!
"Yo BRETTO !
Its long lost kezza here! Seeing how you doin!?!
Ive tried to msg you, to post to you on .net- come back to us and tell us all about your faci experience, about your life- everything!
In fact, i been thinking about you lately and I've written a little something for an creative writing unit that I am doing as part of my English major in my other degree *cough cough Arts*, but its been pretty fun and ive
re-lived some of the great times.
Just ignore any imbellishments or events that didn't really happen- it all adds to the effect- dont you think?!
I hope you dont mind my class of 20 having a copy of this story either- lets just say that you are a bit of a hero in their eyes now!!
Toilet Paper, Train Rides and Twisties:
Tales from the Throne in Paris
By Kerry Ann Hill,2004
Dedicated to:
Brett Hofman
Sorry to have imposed Brettles, but it was worth it’s weight in rough leather…
Keru Wong
Sorry for being such a lunatic at times, happy 19th birthday (I never got to buy you your present), and thankyou for putting up with my spontaneity…
I frantically line the cracked toilet seat with layers of peach toilet paper. Brett’s got the runs at the moment and I from what I recall, the diarrhea virus is highly contagious. Look, I'm no risk taker. Layers and layers of two euros fifty papier du toilette later, I relax, knowing that I've potentially saved myself hours on the toilet.
Call me crazy but I savoured my bathroom times like this during my trip to France. Brett's apartment had the most quintessentially Parisian view straight out the toilet window. Looking over the clusters of gabled roofs and ash stained terracotta chimney pots, the breath taking view was complete with the Eiffel Tower perched in the not so far distance. The view was even more spectacular at night, with the legendary tower shimmering for fifteen minutes on every hour of darkness, like those silvery lamée sequined disco dresses you saw your mum wear back in the 80’s.
It is mid February and it’s bloody freezing. The toilet seat was positively glacial, despite my layering efforts. Minutes pass and the seat begins to warm slowly and I vacantly stare at the checkered black and white floor below my feet. Has Brett ever mopped the damn thing? I don’t even think he owns a mop, let alone a decent bed or crockery set. He sleeps in a corner in the living room on a mattress cum barrel kind of contraption. At least I think it’s a barrel- both the mattress and the long cylinder are covered by a doona that he brought from Perth. Brett reckons it stops him from rolling off the mattress and waking up the twist-pile carpet in his mouth. His crockery collection is equally as interesting. Last night we ate our dinner straight out of rusted saucepans complete with either melted or missing handles.
Right now, he’s asleep, knocked out by a strong dose of anti-diarrhea tablets. Poor bloke. He’s obviously not going to make it to the office today but he’ll be right. He’s got me and our friend Keru to take care of him. He’d been living on his own for about eight months, working in finance for the international non-government organisation that we all worked for. He scored the post out in Paris after running the finances at both the state and national offices back at home like a stingy old man.
So Keru and I came here almost five weeks ago to find the poor guy a bit bored, lonesome and homesick. Could ya bring me blades? he desperately asked before I left Perth. And some Twisties he said. Tough-and-Rough-as-Guts Brett was undone like a zipper- he begged us for those Twisties. It’s funny what living away from home does to you.
Suddenly there’s a mad thumping at the door. Kerry I Need to Go!
Right. I grab the roll and fumble for some paper, making like buggery to get off the john. Pleeeeease Kerry! he begs. I flush and dash out and he clamours past me, clutching his belly and slamming the door behind him.
Eating From the Pot
Phil\ippe (3rd from Right) the Strapping Young ManSo much for taking preventative measures, I realise, Brett’s fingers must have been all over the toilet roll like a rash. I wash my hands until they become pink and sore. I really don’t want the runs to ruin this trip.
* * *
Tuesday was market day. We trip along the brown cobblestones that mark the way along the icy canal until we reached the fruit and veg market. The scent of freshly roasted chestnuts greeted us so we bought a paper cup full from an Algerian fellow who carries a steel bin of hot coals cooking the nuts as he walks. Vehement smelling sacks of fresh coriander and spices, jars of ginger and chilli pickled veggies, as well as hand woven baskets spilling over with orange split peas and red lima beans conjures a colourful display of sensual aromas and tastes. The market was a swarming hub of cultures, people, sights and sounds. I imagined that we’re in Northern Africa, Israel, India and China- this market was anywhere but the clichéd Paris you see on the television.
We carefully selected two shiny purplish eggplants, a handful of juicy lychees, a bagful of potatoes, three ripe tomatoes and a bundle of cos lettuce. This is luxury, Brett mentioned, normally I only get a sack of potatoes. The ever-stingy Brett hadn’t changed, even though he was earning a modest amount, he insisted on living on a shoestring budget.
We returned to the office so Keru can check her email. I sat down in the tearoom with a bloke called Arnaud (pronounced Arn-o) who helped me practice my pronunciation. Tomorrow we would leave for Lille to stay at a friend’s farmhouse and it was time to put our French speaking skills into action. No more wussing out like we did here in Paris.
* * *
Brett, Keru and I managed to score a ride with Philippe. He was the twenty-nine year old brother of our friend Elizabeth, who worked with Brett. The thing was, Philippe looked like he was sixty! We didn’t expect to be greeted by a well-dressed gentleman in a hounds-tooth sports jacket complete with suspenders and brown trousers with a rapidly receding hairline. Poor little bugger, remarked Brett.
The farmhouse belonged to their parents, which had been in the family for almost four hundred years. Four hundred years! We couldn’t wait to check it out. We especially couldn’t wait for the party – Elizabeth was holding a cabaret soirée that evening.
We arrived in Lille in a matter of three hours. I honestly expected a ten hour journey so I had readied myself with a backpack full of lollies, magazines and novels. I soon learned that in France, a trip to the countryside is only a short car-ride or TGV train journey away.
The farmhouse was exquisite. It was located twenty minutes from village of Lille (which was a fancy city if you ask me!). The brown-bricked house was smattered with crawling vines and covered with powdery snow on the roof top. The rooms had low doorways (much to giant Brett’s dismay) and were extremely dark, decked out with sixteenth century positively Lion-The-Witch-and-The-Wardrobe style
The Strangely Artistic Creations
Getting Started in the Telephone Boxgothic looking mahogany furniture. Apparently their ancestors had purchased the furniture from an extremely wealthy Count who lived in some châteaux- like a fairy tale! The gardens were even more breathtaking; there was an absolutely picturesque lake lined with weeping willows, complete with a deteriorating iron bridge and ducks.
After the impressive tour, Elizabeth rounded us up to meet her old high school mates. We entered the dining room to meet a team of guys playing poker and eating spaghetti. So, you are Australian! exclaimed one guy. You don’t look Australian!
I sighed, tired of these kinds of remarks and patiently attempted to explain in French that my father is Australian and my mother is from the Philippines. Keru copped it too- both her parents are from Malaysia, yet she was born and raised in Perth. Somehow it didn’t bug her so much.
Brett tried to explain to me that they didn’t really get half-castes out in the country. You are a novelty, a real charm to them, he explained. Crikey.
After introductions, Philippe dropped us off at the train station. We wanted to get smashed so we took a train into the village to get booze. Before we know it, we are in Lille- dubbed the 2004 Cultural Capital of Europe. There was an amazing festival happening and the streets were buzzing with theatrical acts, parades and strangely artistic creations. I felt like we were in a movie- there were so many exciting things to see and do, but we were on a mission.
One of the best things about France is how cheap the alcohol is. We found the supermarché and headed straight to the beverage isle; we were in heaven! Shelf after shelf, row after row and crate after crate of cheap yet top quality drinks beckon us like a bunch of seedy blokes to the skimpies. Like typical Australians, we were drinking to get plastered that evening. None of that socially acceptable wine sipping shit. We settled on a bottle of mango-infused Bacardi (which you cannot get at home!), apple schnapps and some bourbon mixers. An icy chill blanketed the early night air in so we made our way back to the train station, eager to get dressed for the party.
Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the station closest to the farmhouse and proceeded to call Philippe. Time passed and there was no answer. Naturally, we began to get a bit pissed off and desperate. We have to get started, Brett announced, there is no time to waste. Feeling the bite of the frost, we huddled together into the phone booth, trying to call Philippe whilst taking swigs of the Bacardi to keep us warm.
Eventually, a group of people in cabaret clothing rocked up at the station- coincidently friends of Brett. Apparently Philippe had arranged earlier in the day to pick them up from here at this time. Rescued! Philippe arrived two minutes later and the lot of us crammed into the cobalt grey Mini Cooper.
It was unanimous that Keru and I were the smallest so we got the pleasure of sprawling ourselves across the five other poor souls in the back seat. The Mini, in its’ over packed glory reeled along the country road like a reluctant pregnant blowfish. Soon, we drove into an evening of swing dancing, shapeless silky negligees, pearl strings, dangly feather boas and dapper men in suits. Elizabeth had outdone herself with the cabaret
Silky Negligees and Dapper Men
Enjoying a Lullaby With Pierresoiree. Before I knew it, with a dozen shots of Bacardi later, I’d passed out in my party frock and pearls in a medieval mahogany bed upstairs and was crooned to sleep by a French lullaby sung by a young fellow dressed in drag named Pierre.
* * *
The next day we returned to Paris. Hauling my bags of dirty clothing to the laundry mat midmorning, a brand new BMW motorbike slid across the path in front of me. Verglas. Black Ice. Unlike the fatal nature of what lurks below the surface around an iceberg, black ice was astoundingly more sinister- you couldn’t see it at all. At below zero temperatures, a thin layer of water from melted snowflakes or the lightest rainfall would freeze over the bitchumen surface without you even knowing. It proved particularly dangerous for motorcycle riders- accidents caused by the verglas were notorious on the roads of Paris. Beautiful, shiny machines, motorcycles and their riders would fall victim to this disastrous winter phenomenon like a thoroughbred and it’s jockey in a horrific fall in a horse race. The bikes’ high gloss body would meet its match with the ground from even the slightest slip.
Horizontally, the black bike’s leather-clad rider was caught under the beast. I ditched my bags and leapt to the assistance of the rider- desperately trying to heave the damn machine off the woman. She remained calm- neither a whimper nor a yelp- and when I managed to pull the bike from on top of her, she thanked me and went on her way. Odd. I retrieved my hastily thrown bags which had burst open; the clothing was damp and slightly soiled by the flow of drain water along the curb. At home, I reckon I would have been hailed a national hero. It would have been on every news channel, but here, I soon saw it happen everyday.
But everyday in France was coming to an end. As I sit in Brett’s apartment, gazing out at the dusty sky, over the pigeon poo-clad roofs and chimney pots from the safety of the harshly cold plastic toilet seat, I feel a pang in my stomach. It wasn’t the dodgy Algerian food we ate last night, nor the diarrhea virus I was now suffering from but pangs of remorse and regret that my contact with the beauty of this country would soon be through a text book back at university. I would have to soon return to complete my studies in French about the history of feminism, the migration of the French to North America and the plight of the Africans from Morocco. As interesting and insightful these subjects would be, I knew that I had had a taste of what the culture and the people were really like and I would be forever enriched through my experiences, no matter how hard I studied. But like the peach coloured toilet paper, my life was only a quarter of the way through the roll. It was a fat and chunky roll with triple layers for extra comfort and I knew that everything I have learnt in the last six weeks would give me the padding and comfort to get by in my degree and in my life, back at home.
Kerry Hill
11/11/2004 03:03:00 PM ::
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: : Monday Action Item : :
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Don't know if y'all have seen this one before, but it was an email I received a month or two ago, and really sums up how I am feeling about the speed at which things move in the "the office"
11/09/2004 04:45:00 PM ::
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: : Trip to the Mountains : :
Monday, November 08, 2004
Spent the weekend with the aiesec crew in France for a newies seminar - awesome time, and great to see so many newies amped about starting their @ path.
Was hosted by Grenoble, up in the Mountains, Le Collet Allevard (spelling??) where the view was magnificant except for when the fog was soo dense you could not see more than a metre in front of you! And my first taste of the coming winter too! Really cold!
A friend of mine who went to Perth during the euro summer has just come back with many photos of home - really made me feel homesick...
Great parties, many friends new and old (met a french guy who worked for @US and is now doing a masters in Marseille so he has been pulled back into the fold - very cool. Hopefully a reception weekend will happen in Marseille in the future so will get a chance to finally visit!
Next up my mum arrives - haven't seen her since Feb last year, so will be good to meet her again. Plenty of quick weekend trips planned with her, so can expect some more country hopping posts in the coming weeks! Should counter the feelings of missing home too!
Blogging seems to be really taking off now, everyone is doing it - for me this is awesome as it means no more of the emails that start like:
"Hi Brett,
Been a long time and haven't heard from you...I know I have not been mailing much either. How is everything? Are you still in .... What job are you doing ..."
You know this mail ;-P I do find though that I need an extra hour or so everyday now to get work done, check mails and check the blog posts!
So I leave you now to start my Intranet Strategy plan for work (think internal comms plan) as one of my new tasks to do....
11/08/2004 01:24:00 PM ::
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: : Disheartened part 2 - life lessons : :
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
I posted (tried to post) yesterday about the humbling experience that was going to my group meeting (Global Marketing Support - was originally called the Marketing Support team, but the acronym M.S.T was not favoured by those with even the most remote amount of French language under their belt - it is the French acronym for STDs!).
So I had a posting here that I just went back, read and deleted (I wish I was a free spirit who can just post at will with great abandon, but unfortuantely I need to check that I got my story right and clear enough and in this case I didn't.)
Now what will follow will not be all that clear either except to say, life has blessed me with another great smack in the face and rather than bitch about it and get depressed I will offer up the following as my life lessons, however lacking in eloquence it may come across:
I do not say "Well, fuck it then" enough. I think this is an expression greatly undervalued as it the cleansing power it can have. In just three words it expresses the hurt, maybe humilation, th epain or even just the crisis of the minute. It also says, life is like that sometimes, lets not dilly dally around it, what has happened really sucks arse. No denying that. Finally it also says, lets not piss and moan about it any longer. Time to accept what has happened however bad, put it behind us and move on.
So to what has happened, I say, well fuck it then. Now lets move on.
So as to moving on, I have a few instruments that I use for this. They are in no particular order:
A4 Notepad, the type with cubes, not lines (explanation for this coming)
My favourite pen
Theme song
My equal
So starting with my equal - I need to talk to get feedback. I need to talk to sort out my thoughts and understand events as they have transpired. I need to talk to hear how ridiculous I am being. I need to talk to listen to myself. I need to talk. Laura (gf) is all this and more. If I need to talk out my thoughts and come up with a game plan, or need a sympathetic ear or some ego fluffing she is the one I call. I cannot say thanks enough for being there for me yet again baby - I love you!
SO the notepad - the type with squares. I need to get my thoughts on paper and draw links between what has happened and what will come next. Its a visual thing I know, but the squares give me an open framework everytime to plot different links in the A4 picture that is my life. Its also good to doodle ;P but in all seriousness I have this huge pad at my side now every minute of the day to take note of everything whether its my next job task or plotting my career path - I cannot recommend the good ole fashioned paper notepad! Blogging helps me share what is going on in my life, but trusty notepad lets me join dots for myself first.
Favourite pen - see notepad.
Theme song - bit corny but I have a shocking memory. Writing stuff down in my pad helps me track my thoughts, my song takes me back to the mood or feeling I had when I wrote it down. At the moment, Radiohead, Kid A - Everything in its right place is helping me get it sorted.
So I leave you now as I go into a meeting with my boss to see what happens next for me, I take my big pad, Thom's voice in my head and a smirk on my face knowing that I have already affected the next chapter of my life, before my boss even decides what happens next.
Cheers, B.
11/03/2004 01:35:00 PM ::
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