And so it begins and ends...
And so it goes with endings and new beginnings: I finished my last day of work (much to the cries of "don't go" and "we only just got to know you..") and had an 8 hour late-night shift of crazy or just plain fussy customers. The thing I love and hate about retail work is that the people are so very strange. You get the normal customers who are nice, say hello back, and are happy amusing themselves (and hopefully actually buy something), but then there are the difficult ones who insist you show them every single product in the store, let them try it on, then say they are just looking and take off with not even a "thanks" or "cheers", leaving you to put everything back while trying to serve the other customers who just walked in. I guess that is what I am paid to do, but I am also paid to ask you how you are and say hello. It amuses me to no end when I say a friendly "Hi, how are you going?" and they bark back with a "I'm just looking!" and look scared and scandalised, thinking I am about to attack them with some sort of pushy door-to-door salesman routine. I don't actually care how their day has been, and I don't care if they are happy just looking, but to keep my job and earn my $13 an hour, I have to ask these things! So please, don't take it out on us poor sales staff...just humour us both and say a quick "Hi" and we will generally leave you alone : )
Before work I decided to do a thorough clean-up of the vital areas of the house... bathroom/toilet/laundry/kitchen... I must have mopped, scrubbed, sprayed, and wiped almost all surfaces and I am pleased with what I achieved, considering I'm the only female in the house and if I didn't do it, no one would! All my subtle "man, this place is dirty" hinting wasn't working, and besides, everyone was busy finishing off school stuff so I don't really blame them. I do enjoy a good clean up once in a while (don't let my mother hear that! I had been stubbornly refusing to clean my room for years at home!) and lets hope the boys don't mess it up before we move out! I am also conveniently avoiding my suitcase, which stands in the spare room almost mocking me. Generally I don't start packing my suitcase until the day before I leave. My theory is that I am going to need or want something that I have already packed, so there is not much point riffling through my freshly folded and strategically placed belongings until I find that one pair of undies that match with the skirt I just have to wear one more time before we leave... too much hassle and repacking is required, so I'd rather do it last minute. I do however get a bit organised and separate the "absolutely not gonna wear before I leave" clothes and get those ready. So unlike my mum, who has been packed and ready to go for almost a week before her flight to come here, I must not have inherited the anal-organised gene.
And so having fortunately and unfortunately at the same time, missed the screening of my Term 4 Film project (because of work and cleaning) I was given a polite congratulations by some of the other students this morning at the last school meeting on this, the very last day of school (THANK GOD FOR THAT!). I am not sad to leave, and I still feel like I was jipped out of a lot of money/time/sanity this year, but I can thank them for uniting me with the French-man. I am still at least, grateful for that.
So now that school is officially finished today, we have a end-of-term BBQ (or what these Kiwis claim is a BBQ) and then me and the French-man (the French-man and I?) can go to my favourite place in Auckland and relax, trying to soak up as much as we can before we go. When we both have a free afternoon, we love nothing but to leave the cardboard house we inhabit and go to the local Starbucks in Takapuna to have an "Iced Mocha, no cream, with skim milk" for me, and usually a "Mocha frappacino, no cream" for the French-man. We sit and read, and I attempt to write something down in my little notebook. During the year, I was writing screenplays, but now having finished my projects, I'm on to fiction. I need motivation to do it, and thankfully I feel an afternoon at Starbucks does it for me. I have to admit, that although I dislike Auckland with a passion (if you hadn't have guessed), I will be missing Takapuna - the beach, the shopping street, the bookshops, the cafes and restaurants, the general atmosphere of it. If you do make it to Auckland, do try to visit this cool little part of the North Shore. It's certainly not fancy but it's the only place that I have admitted to actually missing once we are gone. Starbucks isn't my favourite tasting coffee, but their cafes are cool to sit in and since there is no Gloria Jean's in Takapuna, we simply forego coffee yumminess for cool surroundings...a small sacrifice.
