Daily Prompt – August Blues

As a kid, were you happy or anxious about going back to school? Now that you’re older, how has your attitude toward the end of the summer evolved?

For us here in ‘Straya, the end of August is just that, the end of another month. Oh and the end of winter!

Daily Prompt: Unexpected

Unexpectedly, you lose your job. (Or a loved one. Or something or someone important to you.) What do you do next?

I’ve actually already had this experience before.

Twice!

But, perhaps we should talk about the first time.

It was the year I moved to Melbourne. I had moved down here to study dance full time. Previously I felt like the big fish in a very, very, small pond. When I went to dance school, I was actually more like the very, very small, slightly retarded fish in a giant fucking ocean.

But soon enough, I found my feet and came out of my shell and worked my arse off and no longer felt like the small retarded fish any more.

Then I got injured.

I injured my spine in a pas de deux class, and without going into detail was told I had to stop dancing, or I’d end up with severe spinal issues for life, and possibly end up in a wheelchair.

So I had a couple of weeks off, and spent most of that time pretty much like this:

wondering what the fuck I was going to do with my life. All I have done is dance. All I know is dance. I didn’t go to uni because I wanted to dance. I hadn’t had a job, because DANCE! And now, all I had was a giant fucking question mark following me around 24hrs a day!

I spent the rest of the term working at the school. I sewed costumes, and supervised rehearsals for the end of year concert and when I wasn’t doing that, I worked downstairs in the office instead. Then one day, on my day off, I get a voicemail from them telling me that I didn’t need to come in tomorrow, they’d given my shift to another staff member. And that they wouldn’t be giving me any more shifts. They refused to give me any explanation as to why, and then stopped returning my calls.

I had just gotten fired.

Via a voicemail.

ON MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY!!

However, when I left them a voicemail expressing my severe disappointment in their management and how unprofessionally they had conducted themselves, I began to make references to unfair dismissal and legal action. Funnily enough, they called me straight back and explained that due to my birthday, I would be entitled to a pay rise as well as other entitlements, and they financially couldn’t afford to keep me on as a casual. I then told them exactly what I thought about them and their school and their dodgy business practices and that they should be more cautious in how they conduct business, and manage their finances, because multiple goverment authorities could easily have them shut down…

…and we’d hate for that to happen, wouldn’t we!!

Surprisingly, I ended up getting my last pay, and a ‘bonus’, and a glowing letter or recommendation for future employers.

 

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/daily-prompt-unexpected/

Dec 5 – 10min Timer

Set a timer for 10 minutes and try to write your whole daily post.  Now go back and give yourself 5 more minutes to write about how you felt working under such a tight deadline.

um… what?

So, I always find these posts perhaps one of the most challenging. Write my whole daily post?? WRITE ABOUT WHAT, THOUGH?? You haven’t given me a topic to write about, and that’s the tough part.

When I’ve got a prompt to write about something specific, that’s fine. I can just focus my thoughts on that and just start tap, tap, tapping away on my keyboard, but when faced with something SO OPEN like this, it’s hard. I’m actually not sure why. I could quite easily crap on and on about, literally, anything, but I have nothing to focus on. No direction in which to go. Considering that the daily prompts are my daily posts, it should really give me an actual prompt, as well as the time challenge.

*checks the clock* 5:44min left. Ugh.

I really do wish I was at home today instead. The weather is quite bleak and cold and overcast. Great start to what is supposed to be our Summer. Instead, we’ve had more rain and cold weather, than sunshine and warmth. Stupid weather. It’s all messed up. I wish I was at home, in bed, in my onesie (it’s a Giraffe, by the way!) either watching all the cartoons waiting for me on my MacBook Pro, and / or writing on my blog, or developing ideas and prompts for another writing venture that I have in the back of my mind.

Or maybe I would just be sleeping instead. Or maybe reading – I do have a number of books I want to start reading. I really should read more.

…I’m so time poor.

The fact that I usually have to write these posts when I’m at work really says a lot. I know I shouldn’t be doing it, but I don’t have time otherwise. I really just need an hour or so each day to set aside, just to focus on writing. It’ll be great once the year is over and I’m finally on holidays, because then I can actually dedicate some proper time to the task, and not have to stress about hurrying through it, just to get it finished and out of the way.

*1min 46 seconds remain*

I want cake. I’m so hungry. It’s lunch time for me now, and the last thing I want to be having is tinned tuna. No thanks. It’s cold and miserable outside. I need something warm like a Tom Yum Soup, or some noodles, or a burrito. OOOHHH BURRITO!!

Actually, tomorrow is Burrito Friday. Crazy Cat Lady and I usually have Burrito Friday each week, although we’ve missed it the past couple of weeks because either I’ve been away, or she’s been away. But damn they are so tasty!

Hmmm… now I really want a burrito 😦

I should actually go for a walk and get something filling and hot and yummy. I really seem to have my mind set on getting a Tom Yum Soup… or maybe a Laksa? Who cares, really? I’m just hungry. I want to eat EVERYTHING. Crazy Cat Lady is suggesting a baked potato, or as we refer to them, berked perderder. Ermahgerd. Hmmm… I wonder if that’s a meme? I’m sure I saw it somewhere??

*google image search: berked perderder*

…ta-daaaaa!! One of my favourite memes ever.

*PHEW* Well, now that’s over, how do I feel about the time constraint? Well, now that I glance back over it, I’m actually surprised at how much I can achieve in 10mins when I’m writing, essentially, about nothing. Having the 10mins timer is actually a good thing, because it means there’s no time to fuck around. No time for distract… ooh, new emails… ooh… FB notifications…

It’s good because it forces you to get it done. Perhaps I should apply this kind of thing to all my future posts. Give myself a 15min timer to do all the typing and then if I want to add some pics, allow myself 5 mins to jazz it up a bit.

Daily Prompt: Come Fly with Me

Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

I’m not entirely sure where it began, but ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been quite independent. I recall that during my childhood,  I was always out doing something. Down the park with some of the other kids in the town that I grew up in, or over a friends place. Curfew was sunset. Unless I was staying over for dinner. Back then we lived in this tiny little town with about 100 people in the town. I only had twenty-something kinds in my primary school which was K-6, so when I say I grew up country, I mean I FUCKING GREW UP COUNTRY, like C O U N T R Y ! ! ! ! 

We’re talking, country as in, everybody else lived out on farms. 70%+ of the families that lived in the town were all related.

…I’ll just leave you to think about that last bit for a little bit. 

I don’t want to say that they were the kissing cousins kind of people… but… oh wait, no, that’s EXACTLY what I’m saying.

Maybe I should start this again??

Hi, when I was a kid, we lived in a tiny country town that was full of inbred rednecks. A town where if you were a boy, you played football, and if you were a girl, you played netball. If you played neither, there was something wrong with you.

Wow. Okay, so this could quite EASILY turn into a major therapy series of blog posts… but we’ll save that for later. Maybe next month I’ll start my own daily post challenge – 30 days explaining why my childhood lead to me being so damaged? *lol*

what the fuck am I meant to be writing about again?? Oh yes, travel. Right, where was I going with this…?? That’s right…

My sense of independence… Yes, so, as a kid I was always out and about. Over at a friends place; down at the dam catching yabbies; riding around the dirt hills at the tip on our BMX’s… then that progressed to going on longer rides… I wonder where that dirt road goes?? I remember one ride I went on led me down all these dirt roads and paddock lanes until I arrived at a sealed road, and for a good 5 minutes, didn’t actually know where I was. Also, this was before we had mobile phones, so I couldn’t exactly call somebody and say ‘Oh hi, mum. Um, listen, I’m somewhere where I don’t know where I am. Can you pick me up?’

Nope. Sorry.

Turns out I was three-quarters of the way to the next town. Sigh. I was tired and exhausted, and now, I had to ride home. 

This was gonna take a while.

In high-school I had a couple of moments where I would think, ‘fuck this. I can’t do this right now’ (meaning school… meaning being bullied) So I’d pack a bag, call a relative in Sydney and tell them I’m catching the midnight train, and I’ll be at their place for breakfast. Then I’d spend my time heading off to do dance classes around the place and forget about all the turmoil awaiting me when I return home.

Up until 2012, I’d never left the country. The most distant place I’d travelled to was Brisbane. Then last year Hulk and I went to New Zealand. He’d never travelled overseas either, so it was a first for us. An exciting adventure, which actually turned out to be somewhat of an anti-climax. Although we travelled to NZ, we only stayed in Auckland and didn’t actually travel.

This year we did the exact same thing. Yes, it was another trip to NZ, but no adventure. Unfortunately it was full of drama, and politics, and it actually kind of ruined the fun of going to NZ for me. It’s just a shame that the people who all-but destroyed my spirit over there were all people that I know.

Thanks guys, you pack of shunts.

And guess what, there’s talk of another trip over there in a couple of months, but ideally, we’d like to head over to Fiji, or the Cook Islands or something like that. Somewhere nice and realxing… white sand, crystal clear ocean… paradise… and then on the way home, go via AKL again. Fingers crossed it’s another soul-destroying experience. *lol* Too many selfish, childish frenemies.

 

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/daily-prompt-travels-2/