Back!

Back from holiday, and although I don't feel like going into detail right now, I'll just say this:

I wish we were already living there. SA just cannot compare.

Officially

I am now (ok as of 17:00) officially on holiday! Only back at work on 10 Aug... WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Jettin' off tomorrow afternoon - catch y'all on the flipside!

Stupid fucking...

inconsequential, insignificant life.

My life is utterly pointless. I don't get what I want, what I ask
for, I can't do anything for myself, I'm like a stupid baby that
should be in creche, forever oblivious to the outside world.

I'm so fucking wussy that I'm all TEARY AND CRYING upset (ok, biting
back the tears and failing, so not really CRYING crying), because of
some fucking short cunt man in a bag/shoe repair shop. Seriously,
what the fuck is wrong with me?

I phoned on Friday last week (when I was told the bag would be ready),
and the lady on the phone said she'll phone me back... she never did.
I phoned on Saturday, and that lady told me it wouldn't be ready,
it'll be ready on Wednesday (today). I phoned earlier, it's ready, so
I went out during the morning to fetch it and pay. I gave it a minor
check in the shop, paid and left. I got back to the office, checked
it more thoroughly and was horrified at their workmanship. Shoddy
stitching in the lining (where they'd had to undo stitching to affix
the new handles), there were glue splotches on the outside of the bag,
the whole thing didn't look wonderful (won't go into absurd detail).
I'd forked out R150 for this, and seeing how they didn't actually
phone me back after promising to (black mark already), I thought 'to
hell with this' and went back to ask for a refund. The man was so
bloody unhelpful, saying they don't do refunds, they will re-do the
work. I said no, I don't have the time (he argues 'but you have the
time to come back here..?') I want a refund so that I can get it done
somewhere else some other time, because this is unacceptable. So HE
starts telling me I'm being unreasonable, they don't do refunds,
they'll re-do it, which I say I don't want, so then he utterly
dismisses me like I'm some child that he doesn't want to speak to
anymore. "I'm sorry, I can't help you if you don't want to be
helped". Why the fuck do this shoddy work, making me pay for it in
the first place? Why should *I* have to come back anyway, why isn't
it done right from the word go, no, he says, they'll redo it, and
deliver it back to me, but other than that they can't help me.

So then this old fart man who is there with his old wife having their
feet measured or something is standing waving some shoe-stick thing at
me telling me that he's had many years in conflict-mediation
experience and I'm being unreasonable. Well fuck you too, you old
cunt. I don't see why their UTTERLY shoddy workmanship, bad work
ethic, dismissive cunt manager/whoever he is should be MY problem a)
*I*'d paid for it b) it should be done RIGHT the FIRST time c) where
the fuck are their standards d) where is their quality control, e) it
was late, f) I had to phone THEM back, g) their price was high but I
was willing to give it a try cos they were recommended by a colleague.

FUCK YOU you arseholes!

So anyway, I have a wussy stupid fucking life, where I am all lame and
unassertive and timid and get all bunged up after an episode like
this, totally disempowered and useless.

WHAT THE FUCK

I'm so dissatisfied with my ENTIRE LIFE!!

Oh but yay, tomorrow's payday at least.

And there are 2 more days until our visas are activated. So that's
ok, I suppose.

FUCK EVERYTHING!!!!!!

Dumb Friday

There are just 5 working days left... if you exclude today because
it's already started, there are just 4. I really cannot wait. We've
pre-packed to a degree: we've realised that with other-G's goodie bag
we'll need to take a checked-in bag, but that's ok, as we'll be able
to take non-handluggage things (like razor, etc) then. I just hope my
flippin' handbag is fixed ASAP, they promised it for Friday past, but
then when I phoned, the lady apologised and said they can have it for
me by Wednesday, as they need to build-up the handles.

Friday I was off sick. Phoned in and left a voicemail, made a
doctor's appointment. The typist then phoned and left a voicemail for
me at 9, saying madam has left a message saying she's 'coming late'*
and they can't get the switchboard open. Lovely. So I phone back to
give instructions, and when the typist asks where I am, I say I'm off
sick and I've left a message...

Today I get in and the typist gives me a rundown of what went on on
Friday: switchboard only got opened past 9, typist didn't KNOW
receptionist wasn't coming in until about 9 because she hadn't checked
her cellphone for smses. Director was all in a flap because the swb
wasn't opened, hbbm was all in a flap because typist was at swb and I
was away, etc. Apparently he went and ranted at 1 director about
receptionist being 'awol' and he said he doesn't mind when employees
have personal crises they have to sort out. That obviously didn't
satisfy hbbm, because he then went to rant at other director (the one
with empathy/compassion issues) and that guy told accountant to
request receptionist to put in leave for the hours she was away. But,
then when madam DID get to office, she then asked that boss whether
she could be away for a few hours on Tuesday (tomorrow) he said 'sure,
just ask (me) or (typist) to stand in' (no mention of taking the time
off as leave). Lovely.

Just to clarify: * On Thursday I overheard madam phoning to confirm
her 'appointment' at 8:30 on Friday morning, so I knew she wasn't
going to be in. But, being off sick (legitimately) surely trumps
going 'awol' and taking liberties (she didn't ask beforehand). But
anyway, I reckoned/assumed that the time off on Tuesday is for another
interview, and subsequently overheard her phoning someone who she'd
used as reference saying 'if they phone, please give them nice info'
etc. So, perhaps madam has a new job lined up? Then guess who will
most likely become receptionist-cunt in her place?!?!?!? ^.^ ME of
course!!!!!!!!

There are 90 days until I am free. I haven't blogged since finding
out but apparently I am unable to take leave during my notice period,
so I won't be able to skip the goddamned office lunch on my final day.
I'm currently weighing up whether I want to endure it or resign to
end at the end of November... but it's an extra paycheque for 11 days,
as opposed to 21... Dunno. I don't know anything anymore.

Weekend countdown

It's now that time when I can say NEXT WEEKEND! Not this weekend, but the next!

I can't believe... wow... but has time DRAGGED to get there... and
still so long now to wait! This week, and next week probably worse,
is going to be an ordeal!

Friday we watched Star Wars 6... good ending! Then Saturday we
watched no. 1. Totally different hehe. JarJar is so annoying... but
then the ewoks are too (pretend-cute), and somehow I can't take Yoda
seriously... he sounds like Jim Henson... a muppet! And C3P0 is also
silly... he sounds seriously gay and mincy :-P

But regardless of that, it's still fun to watch :-D 2 left! And then
it's Star Trek!

Jesus but this receptionist... she yaks endlessly with her friends, on
the WORK PHONE. And, while she's yakking, the other line rings, she
puts her friend on hold, answers, it's ANOTHER friend who she tells
she'll phone them back, hangs up that call and goes back to her friend
who's holding. LIKE SHUT THE FUCK UPPPPPPPP!!!!!! SHUT UPPPPPPPPPP
SHUT UPPP SHUT UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have under 100 days left... 96 to be exact... NINETY SIX DAYS UNTIL
I'M FREE OF THIS FUCKING MORBID, DEPRESSING, SOUL DESTROYING DUMP...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

9 WORKING DAYS TIL OUR HOLIDAY!

Saturday G and I went on our rounds, he collected his new drivers
license, bought a new wallet, I dropped my handbag in to be repaired
(should be back on Friday)...

Sunday we went to other-G's parents' place for lunch (picked up Sis
first), they had a problem with Skype which G fixed and we got to
video-chat to other-G :-D then we had yum snacks out in their
garden... soaking up the sun and chatting a lot... then a very
delicious lunch... apparently their 'usual' Sunday lunch. After
wonderful pudding his mom brought a parcel of stuff she'd like us to
take to other-G... a couple of warm, winter tops for eg. And some
JELLY TOTS!!! X-D We're going to try shuffle our luggage around so
we can fit stuff in, but we'll have to see how we manage.

Then on route to dropping Sis off we popped in at Te's... her aunt who
has been here on holiday from Aus is leaving 3 days before we're
flying... she swapped some notes with us! Was so lekker to see Te
again, it really had been too long since seeing her last. Weird how
time flies. Oh and we met Shadow, their big, boisterous black boy
Labrador! He's such a sweetie, totally opposite to Phoebe in regards
to size, colour and speed of movement (Phoebe is like a bullet, racing
around). When we got to Sis to pick her up earlier she had still been
busy in the bathroom and couldn't open for us so we rattled the front
doorhandle and heard an answering SNIFFFFFFFF SNIFF SNIFF
SNIFFFFFFFFFF through the door-frame and a tock-tock-tock-tock sound
of Phoebe's tail knocking the skirting board in the doorway!

Man I can't WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!! This week.......... it's so
dull!!!!!!!!!! This woman... this PLACE is driving me bonkers!!!

Reflection

I've been 'meditating' on my diary again - there are:

5 months (plus another 2 weeks which are not 'working weeks' so they
don't count),

exactly 22 weeks,

20 working weeks,

exactly 154 days,

exactly 97 working days

left until I am FREE!!!!!!!

14 days (10 working days) left until it's HOLIDAY TIME!!

I really CANNOT WAIT!!

8 months until we move...

I read the latest Fair Lady magazine last night - there's an article
there about being a 'workplace zombie', and it lists symptoms, causes,
suggestions, etc... and I am SO a workplace zombie. But, sadly,
there's nothing I can do about it except wait it out.

On Wednesday I took a sick day. I just called in sick. It was the
best thing I've done in ages. I really need a break from being an
autopilot drone, it's just getting me down. Things generally are
dull, everything's dull and same-old. I'm just not fulfilled now...
and don't know what to do about it. Need a break.

I think I'm getting a cold... I went to bed last night with a
gross-scratchyish throat, this morning it was a bit worse but it's
worn off a bit. It's coming back though. Yay. Rather this
weekend/coming week than closer to the holiday!

Yes, yes, I have already pre-planned how I'm going to pack for the
trip. I know there are still 2 weeks to go, but I'm so fucking bored
here that it gave me some 'escape' doing it. I've made lists of what
goes into which of our bags.

I'm taking a backpack and a handbag. I'll keep the NB stuff in the
handbag, so that during the flight it can stay with me while the
backpack (for my own stuff apart from clothes) gets put into the
overhead locker. The handbag can easily be stowed under the chair
during takeoff/landing and it can be shoved into my backpack when
traipsing through the airport or while travelling elsewhere. G's
going to take a togbag into which his stuff and all our clothes will
be packed. We aren't taking any luggage to be checked in as we don't
have time in between flights AND we're flying on 4 different airlines
on this trip and don't want to bother with the risk of a
logistics-failure.

Anyway, it's lunch now and despite not feeling like eating anything, I
should if I want to avoid feeling bleh later.

New home :D

Anyone looking for me now will have to ask me where I's at! Buahahahaha!

My Kfm mug

Struttin' its stuff, with a foamy Nescafe cappuccino!

Fun photos for today!

First up: a pic of where I am with Wedding Blessing.



It's slow going.

Second up is a pic of the 2 SA-flag-themed scarves I bought, and my Kfm vuvuzela.



The SA-flag scarf I want to keep as more ornamental/for special occasions, the stripy one I want to actually wear. I got G one of the stripy ones as well cos they're so funky and he's not so fond of the prickly-picnicblanket-wool scarf he has.

The vuvuzela came with a Kfm Breakfast mug which I bought about a month ago and just haven't had the chance to fetch (yah yah, there ARE only 2 matches left of the SWC and I only get my vuvu NOW! At least I can go crazy with it on the weekend *huff*). Thankfully there's an architect that our messenger regularly visits which is virtually next door there, so he fetched it for me! The mug is currently 'afk', sitting at the sink waiting for a wash. My camera batteries died as I took the Wedding Blessing pic so here's a pic of a Breakfast mug (taken from Kfm's website where you can send in pics of your breakfast mug in exotic places):



I must admit that I'm looking forward to something quite strange to do with finishing work at the end of the year: bringing my work-mug home and giving it a good thorough scrub! It's a cute brown grainy-coloured mug with 3 owls on the outside (no pic at hand to upload), and I noticed a while back that the brown grainy-colour on the inside had 'grown'. It was, in fact, a tea stain. I did give it a scrub at work, which improved things, but it's not quite right yet. So, silly as it seems, it's one thing I'm looking forward to: cleaning off the residue of the office from me and my things!

Our trip is in 22 days. REALLY can't wait! Want to get a '365 recharge' simcard when we're there, so when we do move in March, our numbers will still be valid and we won't have to worry about not having airtime when we arrive (in case of emergency). The only thing we need to organise is travel insurance. Otherwise we're READY!!

Work has been a bit dumb lately. A whole new switchboard/phone system has been installed, and it's... not really different from the old one. The only real improvement that I can vouch for is that the cord from the handset to the switchboard doesn't crackle and cut out anymore. And it's easier for individual extensions' voicemail/diverts to be set up and cancelled. Everyone was SO annoying when the technician was busy installing it, with a million questions and complaints. Like, people, stfu and GIVE THE MAN A BREAK! He's *NOT FINISHED*!! Chances are, the 'issue' you are wanting to yell about is a temporary consequence of having 2 completely separate phone systems going at one time! But anyway, it seems to be settling down now... (touch wood).

Netherlands beat Uruguay in the semi final (YEEHAAA), and Spain beat Germany. Germany has played madly in all their matches, but I have to be honest and say that I had a gut feeling all that day that Spain would be the winners... no I'm not making it up and also no, I hadn't heard of THAT octopus until AFTER the match :P The match on Sunday is going to be interesting - GO ORANGE!!

Tomorrow is Friday, thankfully! We don't have anything hectic planned for this weekend which means SLEEPING LATE! Woohoo!! Oh and chores... but they don't take longggg. Hope the weather rocks too. Yay sleeping late!

Contemplation

We leave soon for our holiday.

SWC is nearly over, it ends on Sunday, then life will hopefully return to normal. There are titters about xenophobic attacks, etc, which I hope are exaggerated.

I'm so uninspired lately. Life is really so meaningless lately, what with waiting for Aus etc, can't really *do* anything. Can't get out of the rut. Just waiting things out. It's not very fun really.

We need to buy a new microwave soon. Ours died probably a month ago. It hasn't been a major disruption for us, the thing we miss most is the kitchen-timer function. Its predecessor was the same make, just approximately 3 years older, this one was a few months over 2 years old. Don't think we're going to buy LG again. Strange how you can make do without something.

SWC LOLzors

HAHA it's been quite fun actually, watching some of the SWC games, and now it's down to Uruguay vs Netherlands and Germany vs Spain. I hope Netherlands and Germany win, so that when they play it's the Deutsch vs the Dutch!

Thought for the day

If you really put a small value upon yourself,

rest assured that the world will not raise your price.

(Author unknown)

Folding drawings

One of the 2 people here who are on contract has resigned, her last
day is Wednesday next week. That leaves just 16 of us (excluding
not-my-dept boss and his people). Weirdman is the only one (that the
typist knows of) left of the non-permanent staff. So, we *might* be
whittled down to 15... I'm just hoping that they don't do a whole
reshuffle until nearer to our leaving time, if at all. If they do
retrench me I would get a 'package' which probably wouldn't be much
but would at least be something, but I don't want to wait and see
whether it happens... end of December it is!

At the moment I'm folding drawings. One of the jobs has nearly been
completed, so I have hundreds of drawings to fold. It makes a change
from sitting here twiddling my thumbs, but I still feel as if I'm
sitting in a waiting room for an eternity. I'm surviving though, and
I at least have other things to keep me awake, like my iPod, and the
knowledge that we're busy making things happen - organising forex,
etc. Really not long now til our trip! And it seems that apart from
activating our bank account and buying simcards, we don't have
anything we *have* to do, so we can just relax and see the area!
We've hired a car and we're planning on driving around seeing what
different suburbs are like. It's not a long holiday but it's still
TOO exciting.

I've been slowly working on the Wedding Blessing, it's coming along
nicely. Hope I can finish it before we move! Want to get it framed,
almost as a 'seal' on our life here: one last cross-stitch framed
(matching the other 3), the rest to be done in Aus.

Mmm choc cake. It's a colleague's birthday so he brought cake. And
some soccer-ball-theme foil-wrapped chocolate balls! Mmmm!

24 weeks

6 months until I'm free... 24 working weeks until I am FREE!!!!!! I
can't wait. 6 weeks til our trip, which I also can't wait for!! 9
months left in SA. Hbbm is away until 28th, and 1 of the 2 directors
is away until 5 July - YIPPEE!!

SWC has started... Friday last week was phenomenal! Our office closed
at 13:00, which is a FIRST in the 6+ years I've been here. I wore
jeans and takkies with my Bafana shirt over my top. Out of about 20
of us there were only 9 of us at work that day, and only the typist
and I wore our Bafana shirts. One of the other dept ladies wore an SA
tshirt, and HBBM wore an Italy shirt. To add to the holiday-feeling,
the typist organised 'eats' for us: a soccer-themed paperplate with a
soccer-ball-pattern foil-wrapped chocolate ball, a packet of "Simba
Soccerballs" chips and a green+yellow iced cupcake with an SA flag
poked into it (the cupcake was DELICIOUS!!). All in all it was a
rather festive day and the vibe in the CBD was incredible, so
infectious it was hard to do any work at all because everyone was
blowing their vuvuzelas and hooting. And the weather couldn't have
been better!

We left at 13:00 and headed over to G's parents to watch the opening
ceremony and the opening match between Bafana Bafana vx Mexico. The
ceremony was nice (a bit short!), and the opening match was fun to
watch... pity it was only a draw, but at least not a loss! We had
supper at G's parents and headed quietly home afterwards - the roads
were quiet, but we passed 2 accidents which were probably a foretaste
of the chaos that would descend after the night-match in CT.

Monday, on the other hand, was a disaster. It was the Italy vs
Paraguay game, in CT at 20:30. The office *didn't* close early, and
everyone was already heading over to the stadium at 17:00. The
weather was dreadful and traffic was MAD! It took G over an hour to
get to me, which is usually a 5/10mins drive. While I was standing
outside waiting for him, not only did it rain on me, it hailed as well
- yippee!!! Luckily I'd packed my umbrella, but it was flippin'
FREEZING and I felt like an iceblock when he finally picked me up.
Tonight there's another 20:30 match but I'm walking downtown to his
office so we can escape the CBD without having to cross it.

Wednesday was a public holiday and the 2nd Bafana match, which they
lost terribly to Uruguay - 3:0. We play France next, and unless we
get an incredible score, I think we're out of this tournament.

This blogpost seems very soccer-oriented, which is typical of
everything nowadays, but I do want to point out that I am still not
happy that the SWC is HERE. I'm enjoying the vibe, enjoying watching
the games, which I would be doing anyway were it hosted in another
country, but I'm not enjoying SWC 2010 in SA. SA is not ready for it,
and we're going to suffer once the tournament is over and reality
floods back. We're in for tough times and it should have been
avoided.

In happy news, G's dad has got a job! After a stressful age sans
employment, he's landed himself an interesting-sounding job and starts
1 July. What better gift could there be for Father's Day? :-D

I can't believe we have only 9 months left here. It isn't time yet to
start closing things up, but at least with the SABC account it was a
good call to do in January - it took them FOUR MONTHS to cancel our TV
license! Way to go, people! At least that's DONE, and we must now
just wait to start closing the rest of the accounts/ending
subscriptions. For now, still, I'm trying to focus only on the
holiday, and all we have to do is open bank accounts before we go.
Then, once we are there, RELAAAAAXXXXXXXXX!!!! Enjoy touching down in
what is to be our new home country. It's incredible... I can't wait
to be in that plane, flying over Aus, looking out the window at 'our'
new land. It was indescribably moving looking down at Adelaide when
we went in Nov 08, thinking that this was one day in the future going
to be our home, but now it's FOR REAL!!

9 months though - an eternity, and yet so short. So much to do in
that time. At least the last 3 months we'll both be more or less free
with no work-day to hog most of the waking hours. Can't wait til I'm
free!!

For now, my happiness is that it is Friday. A chilly one but a Friday
nonetheless!

Progress!

Thought for the day

A lack of planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on mine.

Are you ready?!

On Tuesday we went to see the Masters of Rock concert... Wishbone Ash,
Uriah Heep and Deep Purple, in a 4.5hr session of pure ROCK! It was
brilliant, the bands had fun, Uriah Heep's singer seemed to be having
a complete ball! There were loads of solos from everyone and of
*course* Deep Purple played 'Smoke on the Water'. So awesome! There
really are so many hard-core grand-daddies of rock out there, the
crowd was made up of a good proportion of older guys with leather
boots, long ponytail and denim/leather jacket.

On a 'negative' vein, though, the sound at the venue was at times too
loud - so that it affected your ability to hear all of the song's
music/sounds. G and I both noticed it at Kelly Clarkson's concert -
the sound was so loud that you could hardly hear her singing
sometimes, and at this concert you could also barely hear the singers
at times. Another 'gripe' was the cameraman/camera co-ordinator whose
footage is beamed onto the screens at the sides. The dude just DID
NOT KNOW when to focus on which band members. Steve Morse was ripping
up the hall with a mean solo, and the cameraman was focused onto the
drummer who was just filling in with a standard background beat... and
only after half a minute of solo from Steve Morse did the cameraman
realise that the lights were beamed onto someone for a *reason* and
whip his camera around onto the right person. It wasn't just a once
off occasion - you can check the News24 'clip' from both the Kelly
Clarkson concert and see how she just disappears out of the frame for
a bit... is the cameraman too busy with Mxit or something?

But anyway! It was a once in a lifetime, awesome experience.

Other than the concert and being so tired (still, today) after getting
to bed only past 1am on Wed morning, there isn't really any news...
Work has been superdull, I've been learning more/same of the typist's
job, actually doing some of the things now... and GUESS WHAT!!
They're also dull!! It's pure data-entry. Jissie this place really
is a rave! I have 40 working days left til our HOLIDAY!!!!!!!!!!
Can't wait.

I am (for now) decided about finishing up at this place at the end of
Dec. January just does not appeal to me one bit. At this rate, there
are +-2 months til our holiday, then +-2 months til our next holiday,
then 1.5 months til I'm FREE!!!! Really can't believe how little time
we have left here... 300 days to be exact (yes I counted)... +-10
months, 10 months to do everything, finish up our life here, wrap
everything up and move. Hectic. Just really mindblowing. I can't
wait to get started!

There are 7 days left til SWC starts. Chaos for an entire month.
Can't wait... at least Hbbm's away for a week + a half!

Completely and utterly uninspired

I have been so uninspired lately... I'm not sure why. Work has been SO inSANEly dull... Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week I was receptionist. It's actually preferable being the receptionist for a full day, as I don't miss her. First thing Monday morning when she was back, she spent 50mins yakking on the phone to her friends. It gets a bit... dunno... just that you get sick of this almost incessant babbling away (regardless of language, but in her case it's Xhosa), almost all day. I know work is quiet, but work is quiet because there's no work coming in = spending the company's money yakking to FRIENDS isn't a great idea. But regardless, it doesn't change the fact that it's so boring.

Today most of my day was spent learning the typists job - certificates. It's a special program that's only loaded on her PC (I think), so I have to go up to her desk to do it. She's got shoulder problems, and is considering (or might *have* to) going for a shoulder op. Which means me being her, for 3 weeks (she said it takes that long to recover completely). I'm really not looking forward to it.

Just in 'idle' chatting with her, I read between the lines that if I were to resign to end at the end of December, I more than likely wouldn't get a bonus - i.e. they'd decide not to seeing as I'd be leaving, regardless of the fact that I'd worked the full 12 months and *should* get one. The way this year is with work coming in though, I'm not sure that any of us is likely to get any bonus. But anyway, I'm seriously (yes I always say that) thinking of finishing up at the end of this year. Fuck the bonus (to put it bluntly) I just can't take an extra month. We're thinking of leaving at the end of March, so we'd both need time to prepare.

My mind is in such a flipping annoying rut of thinking about things, not being able to do anything... and rethinking and rethinking and going in circles. It's not really fun. And despite work being SO DAMN DULL, I am *at work* for a full 8 hours, so when I get home in the evening I'm tired, which pisses me off because in the evening hours when I COULD BE DOING FUN THINGS, I'm *tired*.

Blegh. Nothing more to add really. I've been stitching... but because of the abovementioned tiredness plus a good dose of uninspiration, it's going slowly.

Here's a sexy man to keep you entertained while I try stitch at least a little bit:

First blog since they messed with the server

Woot, work has been KILLER dull, and to make it worse, they've done
something to the server, so MSN is now blocked, as is Gmail and
Hotmail in Firefox, so I'm battling with IE8. Sucks ass. At least I
can chat in hotmail in IE... not ideal but it's at least keeping me
sane. There are 52 working days left.

Saturday was G's birthday, and the weather was PERFECT! Since my bday
(which was on a weekday),I'd been holding thumbs that his birthday
would be sunny and fine, because you can go up the cablecar for free
on your birthday. Usually, even on the most spectacularly sunny say,
it's windy and icy up there, but Saturday it was hardly even breezy.
It was still a bit chilly, but it was stunning. Of course I took
videos!

Sat afternoon we went to G's parents for tea+cake. Sunday we popped
in for KFC with Mom+Sis.

We're still battling with SABC. The assholes. G got an sms (on his
birthday!) to call some upcountry number, with his TV license number
as reference. So I phoned SABC yesterday to find out wtf is going on,
the callcentremonkey says "it's been handed over to (lawyers' name)".
Gee, thanks, fuckers, for handing us over to lawyers WHEN YOUR OWN
FUCKING CANCELLATIONS DEPARTMENT HASN'T EVEN DONE IT'S GODDAMN JOB
YET!! Four MONTHS, and it hasn't been cancelled yet. THEY'RE sitting
on it, but have the CHEEK to hand his details to lawyers. This story
to be continued!

Work is so dull. I really keep saying that in my blogposts, but it
really never changes. Even the typist hasn't really got any work to
do. I'm going to see how things go towards the end of the year, if
it's still quiet etc, maybe I can just resign to end Dec... I could do
with the time off in Jan/Feb/March to catch up a lot of things!

87

There are 87 days left til our holiday!

Yesterday, whole day, and Monday, half day, I was receptionist.  I always dread it, but in reality find it far more tolerable than standing-in for her while she's HERE.  It irritates me immensely to have to stand in while she goes on walkabout.  But if she's absent, I can get on with it and 'be receptionist' for the day.

I've been stitching a bit, I want to finish the 'wooden frame' section of the design, as it's a natural 'frame' of the design itself.  Everything else can then be stitched within it, and with reference to it, so it'll be easier to work. 

I haven't been sitting down daily to stitch lately, somehow my mind is very 'busy' with thoughts about Aus, which I suppose is only to be expected as, like with the wedding, there are so many things to plan and prepare and do, which can only really be done in the month or 2 before the actual event.  So, I'm eager for the time to fly past so we can get going!  And make moves!  But... I wish the time could be longer, so that we could fit things in before we leave.  It's winter now, or almost winter, or late-autumn, etc blabla, essentially the weather has changed, so I feel that we won't have enough time to go on our sightseeing ventures to catch things on video.

I have a feeling it's going to be hard... stressful, when the time comes, to actually LEAVE.  On the one hand, it won't be MUCH of a change because, living in town, we don't see much of anyone ANYWAY, and we'll still be able to chat to the people we chat with already.  On the other hand, we won't be able to just pop in for tea at G's parents, or hang out at Mom+Sis, or bump into friends at the shops, or whatever.  Thankfully we'll still be able to phone and SMS and chat online though, which we do now.

Then of course, there's the leaving behind of an entire country.  A frame of reference.  Everything we know.  The value of our money, buying power, how things are done, how not to do things, how to avoid things, how to get things, where to do things, when to do things, the list can go on.  I'm really looking forward to the freedom though.  Not financial freedom, as I doubt we'll be stinking rich any time soon, but just the freedom to GO FOR A GODDAMN WALK in the evenings!!  To take a leisurely bike ride, to sit on a bench in a park without feeling anxious that someone might approach you with a knife.  To buy KFC without being worried that the streetkids will cause trouble.  I know that sanity and self-preservation would be required ANYwhere in the world, but just the constant anxiety of 'who is that... what was that (sound/shadow), what are they doing?'.  Also, I'm looking forward to the freedom of paying taxes and GETTING SOMETHING BACK.  Not stupid soccer stadiums, not luxury cars for MPs, STREETLIGHTS and PUBLIC TRANSPORT!  Road maintenance!  Water supply!  Getting your money's worth, paying your share but CONTRIBUTING, not being ripped off.

Ok this has turned into a very contemplative blogpost, but I'm back at my own desk today and I have, so far, got nothing to do.  I COULD go check the guy's filing, but don't feel like it RIGHT now.  Will check in a moment.

Right now I wish I could be at home, spending the entire day stitching.  Somehow this Xstitch isn't as 'gripping' as any of the 3 horses, I guess because it's a 'design' as opposed to a 'character'.  But it's still fun.  Simple, clearly defined colours, instead of blended colours.  The colour I'm working with now is a cheerful yellow.  Once I'm done with this colour I'll post a picture.

I want to go home now........!  And stitch!!