may 15, 2009.
it has been a few days since last posting, i apologize for delay, but i’m sure none of you minded. 
for more than 4 months of being addressless, i am now staying in a flat at hobson st., auckland city 1010. waiting for the shuttlebus for 40 eye-groggy minutes at 4am every f&cking end of work day is horrendous that i moved in the city as soon as possible. searching at trademe the first and cheapest rent in the city centre, without checking much and ignoring all the fussiness, and so, missing out internet connection. i got my own room now, which i could say is rougly the same size as my room back home or even smaller. it’s a small, gray, neat, sub 10 squaremeters enclosure with a no-lock sliding door. almost windowless, apart from a small framed opening, where i hang my towel anyway for the purpose of both drying the thing, and keeping the light out.
the bed is not the most comfortable bed there is, as despite being quite new, it’s hard. there are 2 thin pillows that come by, one is black and the other is white. and as it’s getting colder and colder, the duvet proved to be more than useful for not having any kind of heating except from hot water at the tap, which we even have to pay for as a seperate service. i’m paying $100 a week, plus the power and water heating which comes monthly. i share this 3-bedroom flat with 2 argentinians, who with just about more than a million possible names in the world, happen to share the namesake Nico. they are on working holiday, and will be moving out by mid-june, so my stay here is really not for too long, or if i could find other people to replace them, and renew the contract.
today is my restday from work, a day break after 4 consecutive dayshifts of hard labor starting last monday. i will have to work again tomorrow morning, and my roster for next week is work on monday, wednesday, thursday, friday, and saturday. 2 of which are nightshifts again. my first 2 weeks at work were all nightshift from 7.30 in the evening til 4 in the morning, and during those time i literally lived in the dark. i finish work and walk a 3-minute distance to the flat at a sunless hour. sleeping all day until around 6ish in the evening to get ready for work, when at that time, the sun has just finished its performance. so at the beginning of this week seeing the light again was both exhilirating and uneasy. bright lights seem to chase in a championship race that ends in the middle of my iris. i could almost see the light rays on the reflection it made in passing cars, roofs, and billboards, it was painful. it’s really funny how a person takes things for granted. i am used to the daylight, so i lived my life contemptously knowing it will be there every single day i wake up and open my eyes. but things are different, and you only fully realize them just when they get you.
the work as a waitstaff is getting better and worse. they rotate the assignments around that i had 3 shifts of food serving, and the rest is just working at the tables and the enormous filthy plates and soup bowls. maybe i’ll know the cashier job in a few weeks, or probably floater (no, this is not a job that involves levitation as it sounds) whose responsible for ordering food back in the kitchen. working during the daytime is a lot better for me, as first, i’m not really ready and prepared to become a vampire. i feel sick working graveyard shifts, and i just spend the rest of my day in bed, which with the current condition i am in right now, is not a very wise thing to do. second, it is less busy during the day, and that means less work, less garbage, less messy plates and disgusting bowls, but more boring idle time. and so in order to kill time, and i know people who work in graveyard time knows about this, the number one rule is to never look at the clock. oddly for a casino, skycity’s casino proudly presents the current time of the day to its patrons. in the area of my work, i have a glance of an analogue wall clock (i never wear a watch these days), and at the main gaming area are 2 digital time display boastfully in red led. do not, in any case despite the strong urge, look at the time. well, you could, of course, to check for your break, but do not look too often. the theory here, which is an inverse relationship, is that the more you look at the time, the slower it goes. this is plausibly true, trust me.
therefore, in a desperate but effective way to kill time, i’ve naturally developed an extra-sensitive sense of observation in my working environment. first, the deli tables are divided into 2 main sections: the noodle bar section, where they eat noodles; and the deli bar section, where they eat deli (aka crossbreed food of fastfood and restaurant). normally, one table waitstaff works on each side, 2 staff each during busy hours. the seats and tables are ingeniously color-coded to green for the deli section, and red for the noodle bar. counting the chairs, there are 77 red-colored seats, which can be summarized as follows:
- 5 x tables seats for 2 person, giving 10 seats
- 8 x tables seats for 4 person, giving 32 seats
- 2 single-sided long bar with 8 high chairs, giving 16 seats
- a double-sided long bar with a total of 18 high chairs on both sides
- a lonely table seating a person.
the stats on the green side (deli), which totals to 70 chairs, is below:
- 9 x tables seats for 4 person, giving 36 seats
- a single-sided long bar with 7 high chair seats
- another single-sided long bar with 9 high chair seats
- a double-sided long bar with a total of 18 high chairs on both sides
from time to time, i keep on checking if any of the chairs went missing, or has been disturbed by some stupid customers who rearranged the tables and seats to fit them, and then leave the premises without putting them back as before.
it is not for certain if the recession or the excessive sight of crappy noodles is driving jeremy mad.
