Before I begin: I promised my friend Davies he would get a “shout out” in my blog. He was quite angry with me when he read it and realized he had not been mentioned. I have been a terrible friend in promising him an “I Heart Davies” shirt and I misplaced his shirt in the thousands of piles of clothing that took over my living room the night I packed. We grabbed coffee the other day and caught up. One of my favorite things about Davies is that I never get sick of hugging him. He’s massive, and if you’ve seen or hugged me, I’m quite small. My other favorite thing is that HE never gets sick of my feeble attempts to beat him up. I have a terrible case of “little woman syndrome” and I think I’m much tougher than I am. Our physical altercations, when we jokingly have them, consist of him pulling my sweatshirt hood over my head so that it covers my eyes, and holding me at a far enough distance with one arm while I ferociously swing at nothing. Davies, if you’re reading this, you’re a bully.
Ah yes, back to school shopping. I never thought that back to school shopping would be the same as when I was actually in school myself. Today I must have looked like I was in preschool again, or at least shopping for a preschooler. The other day at the high school I was told I will have my very own desk. This was very exciting to me. I spent kindergarten through senior year of college hating desks, but now that I am not going to be forced to sit at it, I’m thrilled. However, I don’t know what to put in/on my desk, so I just started putting everything in my cart: Markers, high lighters, pencils, pens, rulers…what do I need a ruler for, I’m an English teacher? I drew the limit when I realized I had matching pink binders, pink notebooks, pink folders, and yes even pink post it notes. I don’t even like pink. I traded it all in for an accordion folder and three notebooks, one for each class. This entire decision making process took me about an hour. I’ve never been so stressed out by school supplies, but I was having “daymares” of getting to the high school Monday and not being organized and prepared. I suppose the professional way of going about this is not by showing up with pink everything and looking like pink power ranger. I’m a young teacher, and I’ve been mistaken for a student before. The last thing I need is anything else to assist in looking younger than I do. I adjusted.
Today I woke up at 8, skyped with my boyfriend for about an hour, and then played the guitar for 3 hours before realizing I was running massively late for lunch with a friend from Melbourne who was visiting Newcastle for a few days. The next bus was not to arrive for another hour so I took a 20 dollar taxi into The Junction where we were meeting for lunch. I called the taxi half way to the bus stop when I realized I would not make the bus, and asked the taxi service to have the taxi meet me at the bus stop. What I did not realize was how quickly the taxi would arrive. I turned the corner just in time to see the white and red taxi pulling away from the bus stop. Momentarily I contemplated chasing after the taxi in slow motion while reaching out and yelling “NOOOOOOOO”, but I spared myself a bit of dignity and called the service again. Of course I was connected to the same person who booked my first taxi, who laughed at me over the phone.
My taxi arrived AGAIN after 10 minutes and I hopped in. I only had about 10 dollars in cash but I had my debit card on me so it wouldn’t be a problem (YES, that IS foreshadowing). My taxi driver was older, and from what I understood, which was very little, he was a nice man. The taxi driver had the thickest accent I have ever heard. Keep in mind by now I am quite familiar with the Australian accent. I live with Lachy and his entire family, and all of my friends here are Australian. I don’t know where the hell this man was from but I could not make out a word. Even when he tried to clarify where I had asked him to take me, I couldn’t understand if he was repeating the correct location, and I was unsure exactly where The Junction was. It had been a year since I’d last been there so even if he was taking me to timbuck two I wouldn’t have known. He tried to make small talk with me the whole way and my responses were a sad but polite combination of “ooh yeah?” “Oh really?” and “Oh that’s cool.”
My friend called me when I was about 5 minutes away and I told her I was not sure where I was. My Australian phone is LOUD and OLD. My mom has called me a few times and she has to practically whisper when she talks to me because I don’t know how to turn the volume down. Actually, the phone is such an old model they don’t even make it anymore and I’m not even sure if volume is an option. My friend kept asking me if the taxi driver took a wrong turn and if he knew where he was going. Of course the taxi driver could hear all of this so he began answering her questions to me in an aggravated voice. I sat in the cab as my friend asked “DOES HE KNOW WHERE HE’S GOING?” and the taxi driver responded “kajshdiaiwoihaskdppowq, shell station.” Shell station was the part of the sentence I actually understood, but he sounded irritated, so I took that to mean he knew where he was going, and he was offended.
When we finally reached the Junction the ticker read 20 dollars. I handed him my debt card and it was declined. I will never be successful at using any type of money card overseas. I had a 10 dollar note (a note is what we could call a bill), and 9 dollars and 90 cents in change, which I handed to the taxi driver, and embarrassingly hopped out of the vehicle before he could count that I was off by 10 cents. Luckily, my friend was running toward me by the time I made the sidewalk so I had no time to turn around and see if he was shaking his fist angrily at me while slanderously yelling in my direction. I probably would not have understood him anyway.
Tonight is a school night.
~Carley B
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