Hidden in a Whisper: July 2007

Sunday, July 29, 2007

FYI #7 Window Washers

Everyday around noon at the busy intersection of Ulster street and Mill street, there are a couple of Maori guys who walk around with water bottles filled with water and window brushes/squeegees. At red lights they go around washing peoples' car windows for free. Okay. That's nice. But just imagine a big tough looking guy, running from car to car and throwing water at a window, then squeegeeing the windows so hard that the car shakes. Or a big tough looking guy chasing a car down by squirting a line of water on the back window of a car whilst being several meters away, kind of to make the car stop, then running to the front of the car and doing the normal back and forth window wash, while inside a frail looking blonde cringes in her seat, hoping for this terrifying moment to end? I witnessed this the other day, while I was taking the bus to work. I about died in my seat from lack of oxygen because I was laughing so hard and trying to hold it in. This women in the car thought she was in real danger, and from the outside it looked funny.

Anywho, I always wondered why they washed the windows. Well, on Saturday, Tiana and I had a chance to find out when we were stopped at a red light and one of the guys came to wash our window. Tiana rolled down her window and asked why they did the window washing. The guy said that it was to keep him and his mates off the streets and to keep them busy so they don't get into any trouble. I don't know if they were doing a city service kinda thing, or doing this with a community group or even on their own, but I do know that we had the cleanest windows...

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Sick and Tired

I'm sick. It's like a bad head cold that just leaves me feeling weak and stuffy, accompanied with a fever. I still had to go to work. Mon-Wed is Stocktake at K-mart. It's important. Any other day I would have called in sick. Thankfully I had a bit of meds here from when I was sick back in May, so I am feeling better.

I don't like my job. Retail is not my biggest interest in jobs, but when I worked at Barnes & Noble, I had more passion for what we were selling...books. And everyone working there did too. Barnes and Noble had more care about customer service. I went through training specifically for that. At K-mart, no one really wants to be there, things are more sloppy, and expectations of customer service are way down. They keep wanting me to work the main cashiering place when others don't really have to. It's probably because I actually acknowledge the customer being there and give them proper greeting. And even this week when I'm supposed to be doing stocktake, I still have to work the cashier area for a bit. Apparently two of my managers were fighting over what I should be doing this week, cashiering or stocktake. There were two schedules that said two different things. One said I work 9am-6pm which is what I usually do, and the other said I work 1pm to 10pm. I didn't realize I was so special. Aparently stocktake won. Fine.

But on Monday at the end of my late 10pm shift, they said that Tuesday may go untill 11pm because we were behind from last year. But they said they'd see how the earlier stocktake shift went. Well, on Tuesday, at 10pm I told them that I needed to go. They were a little annoyed. One guy asked me why I didn't tell him yesterday when he asked. All this time I was waiting for them to let us know how the first shift was going so I would know if I needed to bother at all, or if we were going to get off at the scheduled time. There was another worker who thought this too, so I know it wasn't just me. I was pretty annoyed that they were upset with me. It's already bad enough that I work 9 long hours for this with only a 30min dinner break, and I do this all while being sick, but then to be told that I need to work more hours? I don't think so. The schedule says 1pm to 10pm and that's what I agreed on when I was asked. Also, Tiana picks me up from work and she has to work early in the morning, so I can't be staying later. Needless to say, I am pursuing other interests and will only be keeping this job at K-mart only until another is found. Hopefully I can leave it in a few weeks because I am about to BREAK!

Tiana and I are really stressed and tired. We're not going to do full time jobs anymore. We haven't had time to do anything. We work, then sleep, work, then sleep. We didn't come to New Zealand to do that. We have a working holiday visa, but the holiday part seems to be missing. And in Sept, my mum's coming, so yeah. And yes, I said mum. Our jobs wouldn't go for us having 2 weeks off, so at the next job, we just have to tell them upfront.

So there, I'm sick and tired. You get it? Hehe. he. hmm....

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Or What? Was I supposed to write before this?

Besides watching South African Taxi drivers goofing off at work, all cramming into one car to talk whilst they were waiting for customers, and watching a fire drill evacuation of K-mart and the surrounding stores in the K-mart mini mall; besides hugging a giant L&P drink bottle, and spelunking through dark and daring caves; besides eating at Hell's pizza kitchen and watching a unique multimedia church baptism; besides sliced lamb and kumara lunch at a cafe and fireworks at the Rugby stadium for an All Blacks (NZ) vs. Canada game; besides visiting New World, Woolworths, Foodtown, Countdown, New Save, and Pak 'N Save grocery stores and irritating car trouble, besides moving into a beautiful French Couple's home while they're away for 5 weeks and moving out of the dirty little flat that we called home for two months....

Or what? Was supposed to write before today? It was a busy time!

Highlights:

I have a job. I work at K-mart?! I hate it. So there. But it is a job.

18ups Bible study has been great. We're studying the book of Daniel. Yesterday, though, Benedict (a 22 girl from France) gave her testimony. It's awesome to share testimonies with people all around the world.

Tiana and I are almost completely moved out of our flat. We have until Friday. We have moved into a nice house in Pukete Hamilton (north from where we were before). I love it here, but as with staying at any place temporarily, I don't feel completely at home here. We are watching the house for a French couple from church and their two little girls who have flown to France for five weeks. But it is comfortable here.

We did eat at Hell's pizza kitchen last night, before we went to Bible Study. Interesting. I believe we got the "Gluttony" pizza which would be the equivalent of a "works" pizza. It was good and they seemed to have a oil base instead of tomato sauce. It's more like a gourmet pizza place, but the titles of the pizzas were all types of sins. The good thing is that I'm not superstitious. It's not serious. It's just pizza. No lightening strikes here.

This past Sunday was a baptism of two guys we know and and a girl name "Cara (like me_" whom I just met at Bible study yesterday. They had interview the 4 people who were baptized on camera where they gave their testimonies, and all family members and friends were able to stand up front to watch the baptism more closely and the meaning of it was explained and testimonials of the people baptized were given and there was a lot of prayer time. Many of the family members or friends who showed up were not Christians so it was an amazing witnessing time. Afterwords we had lunch together; hot carved meat (beef and ham) sandwiches and and potluck desserts. It was a good time of fellowship.

We visited a few weeks ago, Mount Pirongia. For those who have heard about my previous trips here will recognize it as the forest mountain that I climbed with the team in 2005. It was a life changing experience. Tiana and I didn't have time to climb it, but it was nice just to drive to some of the area mountains that surround Hamilton in a gorgeous backdrop.

Two weekends ago, Tiana and I visited the Coromandel peninsula. We didn't actually make it to the town of coromandel, but we stopped at many places and went through some caves and mine shafts and native New Zealand bush. It was great!

Well, lot's more has happened but I'm tired of writing. Here's some pictures for ya!