Robyn’s Secret Passage

I’m still liking my new job, but something happened this morning that made me glad that I have the next four days off.

Today is rubbish collection day. Because I live on a main road, the rubbish is collected very early in the morning, to beat the morning rush hour traffic. The rubbish truck usually gets here around 6am and the truck noises usually wake me up.

This morning I sort of half woke up. I was lying in bed listening to the truck noises, trying to figure out what was happening. My first attempt at a logical analysis of the noise was to conclude that it was sound effect important to the plot, and that I would have to make a caption describing the sound.

Then I properly woke up, was disgusted with myself, put some earplugs in, and went back to sleep.

I’ve just done two days of training for my new job. It’s actually been really fun.

The company is pretty big, and it seems really well run. My last job was for a big corporation, so there are things like health insurance deals, gym membership rebates and 10% off at a local liquor outlet. There was even a mini packet of M&Ms in my welcome pack.

I’m very impressed with the staff cafeteria. It has a really good selection of food. Actually, I’m going to digress here and tell a story.

At my old-old job, there was just a kitchen and a vending machine. One day at a staff meeting the general manager got really excited and shared his plans for an amazing new cafeteria with us. He was going to build a proper kitchen and have chefs cooking up juicy steaks. Everyone got excited for about five minutes before we realised it was never going to happen, and it never did.

So far I’ve had two really good sandwiches. I think the prices are slightly subsidised so that it’s marginally cheaper than going to a cafe. And the really good news is that the cafeteria is open late so that I can get dinner from there.

The job itself is very cool. I’m currently obsessed with it and think about it when I’m not at work. It basically involves writing captions (a.k.a subtitles) for TV shows. It is almost a perfect job for me. Other people can not understand the appeal of sitting at a computer with headphones and writing down everything that everyone in a soap says, but for me it just feels right. Rockin’.

It’s excellent to have found a job where I don’t feel out of my depth or bored or tense. I knew taking typing in the fifth form would have a good use.

If I drink the water at my parents’ house I throw up. There’s something in the air that makes me sneeze all the time. And as a special Easter treat, this year I got hives or similar from an as yet unknown allergy.

I saw Mamma Mia tonight for my mother’s birthday. Despite its surface naffness, it’s a very fun musical. There are a few moments where it seems like two people on stage reciting Abba lyrics, but most of the time the songs are worked into the plot (or is the plot worked into the songs?) so it flows. One cool thing is that the programme lists the songs, but only in alphabetical order, so part of the fun is guessing just how “I do, I do, I do, I do, I do” will be worked into the plot. Then at the end all the oldies get up off their seats and jig about.

Watching Mamma Mia made me wish I could dance. Like, properly dance. Do cool things in time to music without losing balance or looking like a dumb arse. This is obviously a sign that I should take dancing lessons, though in this case I think I will ignore my Irish heritage and eschew Riverdance-style stuff.

Very conveniently, Ryan was having birthday drinks in the bar right next to the Civic, so I went there and joined in the merriment. Actually, the merriment consisted of Ryan handing out his self-made anti-tract to the screaming preachers handing out their “You’re going to Hell!” pamphlets. Then he was doing a shot of tequila and licked the salt off his hairy forearm.

When I was driving home tonight I was stopped at some traffic lights when I happened a naked man at a window adjusting the window’s blinds. Oddly enough, the lights went green but none of the cars in the line went so I got to, er, perv at him for two cycles of traffic lights.

In other news, I now have a job. It’s only part time, but it’s still a job. I start on Wednesday and will end up working when NZ Idol is on. This is sucks, because it will mean I’m actually going to have to make the effort and figure out how to program my VCR. But on the bright side, the job fits my criteria of a) not directly involving the internet and/or a call centre, b) involving writing and c) being fun and interesting (I think).

ITEM: Last night I went to the recording of tomorrow’s NZ Idol show. It was really fun. As I expected, much of the audience behaviour is directed. There’s a floor manager waving her arms around to cue people to clap and not clap, and people are encouraged to applaud bits in the middle of a song that impress. At the beginning of the evening I was in a detached and cynical mode, but as the show went on, I found myself absorbed by the talent on display. It’s true that seeing the show live is so much more impressive than watching it on TV. I can also reveal that the carpark at South Pacific Pictures has signs pretending it’s the Shortland Street carpark. And also, Idol Dave’s wife was sporting a Louis Vuitton handbag, which is a perfect example of entry-level bling.

ITEM: I grew up with a prejudice against organic food. It was some how silly and frivolous to want blemished, rotting, expensive, yet chemical free food, when the excellence of modern chemical science could provide us with perfect-looking food with a longer shelf life. But now, when I think about it, it seems odd to prefer food that’s full of chemicals/pesticides/etc over food that doesn’t have it. And what does shelf life matter when there’s a fruit and vege shop just down the road?

ITEM: As much as I dislike the concept of the flat white coffee, I fear I may have to switch to flat whites in some cafes to avoid the ridiculously oversized latte bowls that remain common in certain cafes in this fair nation. The day that latte bowls and inch-high cappuccino foam dies out in this country, I shall be filled with gladness.

ITEM: I watched a bit of a hip-hop show on Maori Television tonight. Things were going really well until they switched from speaking Te Reo to English. Suddenly the three presenters stopped being cool Maori hip-hop TV show presenters to sounding like a bunch of 12-year-olds trying to act like hardcore gangsta rappers. It was painful to watch, so I changed channels.

ITEM: I’ve spent this week being high on paint fumes. The building my flat is in has been painted, including a particularly hardcore enamel paint on the window frames. Sadly the paint job has also seen the cover-up of the badly-drawn penis that appeared overnight a couple of years ago, and was later partially obscured by a thin layer of paint. It’s also meant that my backdoor has gone from white (and dull) to black (and sexy, if backdoors can be considered sexy, in a non bum-sex-euphemism way). Excuse me while I attempt to restore some brain cells.