Unemployed
Apr. 15th, 2005 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quiregrrlI no longer work at the Cancer Center and that is a happy and beautiful thing indeed!! The last two days have been mostly cruisey, finishing stuff up, cleaning my desk, handing stuff over and so on... there was a farewell morning tea yesterday which was okay, I don't much like being the centre of attention at those things, and get all squirmy with people saying nice things about me in public, so that part was hard but also nice... it's a good feeling when someone you have a lot of respect for gets up and says complimentary things... I said good bye to my boss yesterday because he wasn't in the office today, and that was actually really hard, got all lost for words, and he said more nice things and nearly made me cry... anyhow, I finished up this evening (last one to leave - true to form as always!), cleared my locker, took down all my pictures and "workstation decorations", cleaned my desk, and stuck a big colour picture of the back of my head when it was newly shorn and purple with pink stars on my computer with the text beneath reading "Just in case you miss having someones head to look at here, I thought I'd leave this till the new secretary starts", took in the strange and slightly eerie sight of my very bare and tidy workstation and headed home from Liverpool for the last time... was a bit sad, but it feels good, it feels right and I'm excited about the new job!
Of course, I am now technically unemployed as I still haven't officially been offered the new job, still waiting for my letter of offer, I have nothing in writing, haven't signed anything... it's kind of scary, that possibility that I'll turn up Monday morning and they'll say "oh no, we've changed our mind" ... of course they won't, but yeah... I am not officially employed anywhere right now...
I decided to treat myself with takeaway tonight, and Campsie has a plethora of Asian restaurants (mostly chinese) which I haven't explored as yet, and not knowing anythign about any of them, I decided I would drive down the main strip, find a parking spot and get food from the closest restaurant to where I parked... I paused a little when that turned out to be a chinese restaurant with pretty much no english signage anywhere, but figured I'd be brave... so in I went to a restaurant moderately full and not a single anglo soul in there, the menu was entirely in cantonese with very brief non-descriptive english explanations of dishes (like "chicken in chilli sauce").. so I tried to order, but unfortunately the waitress/hostess person didn't speak English, no problem though, she gave me back my menu and pointed at it, so I pointed out the things I wanted, she wrote them down in Cantonese, we smiled and laughed and bowed and off she went to the kitchen. She came back a few minutes later and stood behind her counter, studying a menu and glancing my way from time to time, eventually coming out to where I was sitting, menu in hand, pointed at the things I ordered and said "how?"... so we had us a mini language lesson with me carefully saying "steamed dumplings" and "chicken in chilli sauce" and her carefully repeating over and over, pausing to get a piece of paper and pen to write down what she was saying (presumably phonetically), I asked her for the cantonese pronunciation so we repeated the process in reverse, but I think perhaps my cantonese sucked because every time I tried to say it she laughed and repeated it even slower, then in shorter fragments!! Eventually got my food and headed home, and I have to say, i will be going back... seriously good food, completely non-anglicised - I asked for chicken in chilli sauce and that's exactly what I got, hooooo boy! Completely different to the usual chinese fare offered in predominantly anglo areas!! Throw in the fun of language lessons and I'm sold! I love living in such a fabulously diverse and truly multicultural area... while we were sharing language skills, we were interrupted by a wedding procession passing down the main street, 4 Harley's leading a convertible with anglo bride and middle-eastern groom (driven by a muslim woman in head-scarf) and then a long stream of jubilantly honking cars of the lowered, chromed, mag wheel, doof stereo system type popular amongst young middle-eastern/italian/greek boys... it was impossible to not smile and it just made me think "THIS is what multiculturalism is about" ... a fat white dyke sitting in a suburban chinese restaurant, laughing and interacting with a young chinese woman in spite of neither of us understanding what the other was saying, watching a procession involving yet another cultural group celebrating the marriage of two individuals from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds... made me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside!
I'm heading off tomorrow morning to help S&T with their unpacking after they moved back to Sydney today, so that's exciting!! Promised them good coffee and bacon & egg rolls from The Post to welcome them home :o) tomorrow afternoon i'm going shopping to buy new clothes for my new job with the lovely generous gift voucher that was my farewell gift from work, and tomorrow night I have big plans for laying on my couch watching trashy chick flicks on DVD... choir rehearsal Sunday arvo and an evening with the lovely C will round out my weekend nicely I think :o)
Of course, I am now technically unemployed as I still haven't officially been offered the new job, still waiting for my letter of offer, I have nothing in writing, haven't signed anything... it's kind of scary, that possibility that I'll turn up Monday morning and they'll say "oh no, we've changed our mind" ... of course they won't, but yeah... I am not officially employed anywhere right now...
I decided to treat myself with takeaway tonight, and Campsie has a plethora of Asian restaurants (mostly chinese) which I haven't explored as yet, and not knowing anythign about any of them, I decided I would drive down the main strip, find a parking spot and get food from the closest restaurant to where I parked... I paused a little when that turned out to be a chinese restaurant with pretty much no english signage anywhere, but figured I'd be brave... so in I went to a restaurant moderately full and not a single anglo soul in there, the menu was entirely in cantonese with very brief non-descriptive english explanations of dishes (like "chicken in chilli sauce").. so I tried to order, but unfortunately the waitress/hostess person didn't speak English, no problem though, she gave me back my menu and pointed at it, so I pointed out the things I wanted, she wrote them down in Cantonese, we smiled and laughed and bowed and off she went to the kitchen. She came back a few minutes later and stood behind her counter, studying a menu and glancing my way from time to time, eventually coming out to where I was sitting, menu in hand, pointed at the things I ordered and said "how?"... so we had us a mini language lesson with me carefully saying "steamed dumplings" and "chicken in chilli sauce" and her carefully repeating over and over, pausing to get a piece of paper and pen to write down what she was saying (presumably phonetically), I asked her for the cantonese pronunciation so we repeated the process in reverse, but I think perhaps my cantonese sucked because every time I tried to say it she laughed and repeated it even slower, then in shorter fragments!! Eventually got my food and headed home, and I have to say, i will be going back... seriously good food, completely non-anglicised - I asked for chicken in chilli sauce and that's exactly what I got, hooooo boy! Completely different to the usual chinese fare offered in predominantly anglo areas!! Throw in the fun of language lessons and I'm sold! I love living in such a fabulously diverse and truly multicultural area... while we were sharing language skills, we were interrupted by a wedding procession passing down the main street, 4 Harley's leading a convertible with anglo bride and middle-eastern groom (driven by a muslim woman in head-scarf) and then a long stream of jubilantly honking cars of the lowered, chromed, mag wheel, doof stereo system type popular amongst young middle-eastern/italian/greek boys... it was impossible to not smile and it just made me think "THIS is what multiculturalism is about" ... a fat white dyke sitting in a suburban chinese restaurant, laughing and interacting with a young chinese woman in spite of neither of us understanding what the other was saying, watching a procession involving yet another cultural group celebrating the marriage of two individuals from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds... made me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside!
I'm heading off tomorrow morning to help S&T with their unpacking after they moved back to Sydney today, so that's exciting!! Promised them good coffee and bacon & egg rolls from The Post to welcome them home :o) tomorrow afternoon i'm going shopping to buy new clothes for my new job with the lovely generous gift voucher that was my farewell gift from work, and tomorrow night I have big plans for laying on my couch watching trashy chick flicks on DVD... choir rehearsal Sunday arvo and an evening with the lovely C will round out my weekend nicely I think :o)
