This will just be another boring blog about the aftermath of the Boxing Day Tsunami. No.
I think we have seen and heard enough of that. I am not going to write how bad I felt about the disaster. I am not going to ask people to help out in whatever way they can to relieve the victims. All I ask is for all of us in the world to spend a moment to reflect on our life, and then say a simple prayer for those who have just entered the after-life.
Now, shall we celebrate New Year? Yes, definitely. Even when we are greiving the lost of innocent lives, we shall celebrate the New Year. Am I cold-blooded? No. Am I emotionless? No. Do I not care about the victims? No. If I do not care about them, I would not have written this blog.
Have a look around you, do you think the people around geniunely care about what happened? Do they really feel the grief the survivors are sufferring from? Yes, maybe they show their concern, but never with a full heart. Go on the streets and ask any of them to just contribute one unit of their currency towards the Tsunami appeal, how many positive response would you get out of a 100? Go to schools to ask for volunteers to go help clean up the mess, how many of them would put their hands up, voluntarily? And if they did, will their parents agree? Come to think of it, volunteers should not even be 'asked' to help, if they really have the heart. The reason of all the above scenarios? Simple, life goes on. No matter how bad the situation is, we have to carry on with our life. Therefore, we need to celebrate the New Year.
However, while we were out there enjoying the fireworks, please spend a moment to reflect on our life in the past year. Also, say a prayer for those affected by the disaster, regardless of your religion, because it is the thoughts that count. Please cherish your loved ones, your relatives, your friends, your colleagues and the entire population in the world. Never do anyone any harm, may it be physical harm or harsh words, as you will never know if you have the chance to amend the mistake you have made. Cos we never know when our time is up.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Friday, December 24, 2004
Boring Life thru the Blog of a Bored Shopkeeper
One more week to go before I leave the position as a bored shopkeeper. After being in the place for almost 4 years, at an average of 4 days a week, I began to feel sentimental about leaving the boring place. Before I forget the feeling of being a bored shopkeeper, I should somehow write this down so that in later days of my life when I look back, I shall recall how I have spent these boring 4 years working as a shopkeeper.
Let us start with morning shifts, I have not had morning shifts for almost a year now. It will be around 7:25am when I arrive at the shop. Sometimes crates of milk will already be waiting at the door when the delivery guy happen to turn up at quarter past seven. Sometimes the newspapers and magazines will arrive before I do. I can still recall being late on a few occasions, having slept-in after I switched off the alarm clock. Once I unlock the doors and disable the alarm, I am off to a busy morning. I have to check the newspapers/magazines delivery, put some aside for the regular customers, and stack them on the shelves for display. Immediately after that, I have to put the milk into the fridge. During summertime, I have to put the milk first before dealing with the newspapers/magazines. Then I will have to put the signage and flags out and prepare the tills for the shop to start business. Most of the time, a few customers will have already came in and have gotten their newspaper/milk/ciggies/lottery tickets. When I have finally settled down, the clock will show the time of 8:15am. This is the time I begin to have my breakfast, some muesli bar and milk from the shop. Also, reading the newspaper so that I can prepare myself to gossip with the regular customers. By this time, the dry-cleaners will come in to pick up the clothes and to drop-in those already done. Nine to five office workers will also come in to get their travel Met cards and newspaper for something to read on the go.
On Wednesday mornings, the garbage guy will come in after collecting the trash and cardboards, and we will give him a free Quick Pick for the Saturday draw.
Before long, morning tea time is here. Office workers start to swarm the shop for some tit-bits, confectionaries, ciggarettes etc. Once things seem to have settled down, it is noon again. Again, people come in to get whatever they need to carry them through the rest of the boring day. In a blink of an eye, I am nearing the end of my shift. Before I leave the shop, I have to fill in the drinks in the fridge so that it will not be empty at the end of the day.
What happens on the afternoon shift? When I come in to the shop, the first thing I have to do is to mop the floor. After that I will have to fill in the drinks, if it have not been done so. Then I will have an frentic hour serving the customers coming in for their lunch time ciggie/tit-bit break. Shall the day fall on a lottery jackpot day, I will be so busy that I lose count of time. Soon, it will be the five-o-clock rush hour. People seem to appear from nowhere and the shop is sometimes filled with people, only for a single person - me - to serve them. Luckily I am quick enough not to cause a congestion to the queue in the shop. When it is almost time, I will update the lottery numbers boards. I will also have to fill in the drinks, the ciggarettes, and do whatever need to be done. Before I close the shop, I will also have to count the money and the scratchies. After that, I have to collect the signage and flags, do the orders for the milk, put the leftover newspapers to a place for return, arm the alarm and lock the shop.
On Tuesdays, I have to put the trash in front of the shop, usually a few boxes of cardboxes filled with paper waste. There is also a rubbish bin too. The orders for any stuffs related to the lottery business have to be done on the same day too. On Thursdays, the Powerball day, I have to also remove the soon-out-of-date magazines and to write them down on a list to return them. This day will be the most tiring day, but thankfully, I will usually have the next two days off, so it is not that bad after all.
There are a few characters in the shop that I will hardly forget.
First of all, Eddie. Or Edmund Ellis. A French descendant who used to have depression and have sliced his wrist for a couple of times. He used to come in to the shop at 6pm to clean the floor, do the papers and prepare the milk. About a year ago, he stopped coming to the shop. He told me he was looking for a job in the city because if he did not, Centrelink will cut his pension or whatsoever. I think someone must have told him something bad and scared the shit out of him that he never showed up in the shop since I last saw him about four or six months ago. Well, he was not officially employed in our shop, just helping out in exchange for some money in return.
Next one will have to be Phillip. He is Greek if I am not mistaken. He always come in a buy scratchies. Starts off with $1 scratchies and sometimes with a $2 one as well. If he wins, he will be so happy and said that I give him luck and he is lucky. If he does not win, he will keep playing until he wins something. When he is on a losing streak, he will keep mumbling that he is stupid and should have stopped, yet he is still pulling the notes from his wallet for more scratchies. Once he lost almost 30 over bucks until his wallet is empty. Against my 'professional ethic', I actually told him to stop playing, yet he is just sometimes too stubborn. He has two sons who are our regular customers too, one with the name that sounds like Korn (never asked about the spelling). Phillip plays Keno and Tatts 2 everyday too.
Peter Brockman, a car salesperson, is our regular too. We keep papers for him everyday. He usually get his lottery tickets around 6pm, sometimes with a packet or two of Dunhills and some milk. Another Peter will be Mr Craven, a well-known Australian writer who have articles published on The Age quite often. I have also once came across a book of him. Another Peter Mansu is the son of the owner of the shop the business is leasing.
Theo always come in to get drugs/fags, which is actually referring to Stuvy ciggarettes. Anne, an Estonian, who plays Crossword scratchies, is not an easy character to deal with if you do not know her well. There is also this lady who recently bought a puppy that will purchase stuffs from the shop and ask for a hundred dollars cash out every time.
Bill, a weird character, who has curly hairs and wear expensive looking clothings, always come in or phone in to buy Tatts 2. Nick Stas, a customer that I slightly dislike, who have difficulties in speaking properly, have his Tatts Card number written down behind the counter that I can now recall from memory!
There is also this aboroginal couple who always (few times a day to be exact) come in to change their coins into notes. They are professional beggars, living off allowance from the government, with the 'pocket-money' they earn from strangers and passers-by. Who says it does not pay to ask? This 'phenomenon' can get me started off in another entry which I might or might not blog. What are their earnings a day? Let me see, $50-$60? Sometimes even more.
Obviously there are other regular customers that I have known over the period of 4 years I worked in the shop which I would not be able to write them all here. May they all live happily and well after I have left the shop, and hopefully they will remember me somehow.
I have lived this sometimes boring life day in day out for the whole year since graduating. Thankfully I am heading towards a new direction with new challenges waiting ahead. Even though I have mixed emotions leaving the shop, I am sure the memories I have gathered throughout the years will be with me for the rest of my life.
Let us start with morning shifts, I have not had morning shifts for almost a year now. It will be around 7:25am when I arrive at the shop. Sometimes crates of milk will already be waiting at the door when the delivery guy happen to turn up at quarter past seven. Sometimes the newspapers and magazines will arrive before I do. I can still recall being late on a few occasions, having slept-in after I switched off the alarm clock. Once I unlock the doors and disable the alarm, I am off to a busy morning. I have to check the newspapers/magazines delivery, put some aside for the regular customers, and stack them on the shelves for display. Immediately after that, I have to put the milk into the fridge. During summertime, I have to put the milk first before dealing with the newspapers/magazines. Then I will have to put the signage and flags out and prepare the tills for the shop to start business. Most of the time, a few customers will have already came in and have gotten their newspaper/milk/ciggies/lottery tickets. When I have finally settled down, the clock will show the time of 8:15am. This is the time I begin to have my breakfast, some muesli bar and milk from the shop. Also, reading the newspaper so that I can prepare myself to gossip with the regular customers. By this time, the dry-cleaners will come in to pick up the clothes and to drop-in those already done. Nine to five office workers will also come in to get their travel Met cards and newspaper for something to read on the go.
On Wednesday mornings, the garbage guy will come in after collecting the trash and cardboards, and we will give him a free Quick Pick for the Saturday draw.
Before long, morning tea time is here. Office workers start to swarm the shop for some tit-bits, confectionaries, ciggarettes etc. Once things seem to have settled down, it is noon again. Again, people come in to get whatever they need to carry them through the rest of the boring day. In a blink of an eye, I am nearing the end of my shift. Before I leave the shop, I have to fill in the drinks in the fridge so that it will not be empty at the end of the day.
What happens on the afternoon shift? When I come in to the shop, the first thing I have to do is to mop the floor. After that I will have to fill in the drinks, if it have not been done so. Then I will have an frentic hour serving the customers coming in for their lunch time ciggie/tit-bit break. Shall the day fall on a lottery jackpot day, I will be so busy that I lose count of time. Soon, it will be the five-o-clock rush hour. People seem to appear from nowhere and the shop is sometimes filled with people, only for a single person - me - to serve them. Luckily I am quick enough not to cause a congestion to the queue in the shop. When it is almost time, I will update the lottery numbers boards. I will also have to fill in the drinks, the ciggarettes, and do whatever need to be done. Before I close the shop, I will also have to count the money and the scratchies. After that, I have to collect the signage and flags, do the orders for the milk, put the leftover newspapers to a place for return, arm the alarm and lock the shop.
On Tuesdays, I have to put the trash in front of the shop, usually a few boxes of cardboxes filled with paper waste. There is also a rubbish bin too. The orders for any stuffs related to the lottery business have to be done on the same day too. On Thursdays, the Powerball day, I have to also remove the soon-out-of-date magazines and to write them down on a list to return them. This day will be the most tiring day, but thankfully, I will usually have the next two days off, so it is not that bad after all.
There are a few characters in the shop that I will hardly forget.
First of all, Eddie. Or Edmund Ellis. A French descendant who used to have depression and have sliced his wrist for a couple of times. He used to come in to the shop at 6pm to clean the floor, do the papers and prepare the milk. About a year ago, he stopped coming to the shop. He told me he was looking for a job in the city because if he did not, Centrelink will cut his pension or whatsoever. I think someone must have told him something bad and scared the shit out of him that he never showed up in the shop since I last saw him about four or six months ago. Well, he was not officially employed in our shop, just helping out in exchange for some money in return.
Next one will have to be Phillip. He is Greek if I am not mistaken. He always come in a buy scratchies. Starts off with $1 scratchies and sometimes with a $2 one as well. If he wins, he will be so happy and said that I give him luck and he is lucky. If he does not win, he will keep playing until he wins something. When he is on a losing streak, he will keep mumbling that he is stupid and should have stopped, yet he is still pulling the notes from his wallet for more scratchies. Once he lost almost 30 over bucks until his wallet is empty. Against my 'professional ethic', I actually told him to stop playing, yet he is just sometimes too stubborn. He has two sons who are our regular customers too, one with the name that sounds like Korn (never asked about the spelling). Phillip plays Keno and Tatts 2 everyday too.
Peter Brockman, a car salesperson, is our regular too. We keep papers for him everyday. He usually get his lottery tickets around 6pm, sometimes with a packet or two of Dunhills and some milk. Another Peter will be Mr Craven, a well-known Australian writer who have articles published on The Age quite often. I have also once came across a book of him. Another Peter Mansu is the son of the owner of the shop the business is leasing.
Theo always come in to get drugs/fags, which is actually referring to Stuvy ciggarettes. Anne, an Estonian, who plays Crossword scratchies, is not an easy character to deal with if you do not know her well. There is also this lady who recently bought a puppy that will purchase stuffs from the shop and ask for a hundred dollars cash out every time.
Bill, a weird character, who has curly hairs and wear expensive looking clothings, always come in or phone in to buy Tatts 2. Nick Stas, a customer that I slightly dislike, who have difficulties in speaking properly, have his Tatts Card number written down behind the counter that I can now recall from memory!
There is also this aboroginal couple who always (few times a day to be exact) come in to change their coins into notes. They are professional beggars, living off allowance from the government, with the 'pocket-money' they earn from strangers and passers-by. Who says it does not pay to ask? This 'phenomenon' can get me started off in another entry which I might or might not blog. What are their earnings a day? Let me see, $50-$60? Sometimes even more.
Obviously there are other regular customers that I have known over the period of 4 years I worked in the shop which I would not be able to write them all here. May they all live happily and well after I have left the shop, and hopefully they will remember me somehow.
I have lived this sometimes boring life day in day out for the whole year since graduating. Thankfully I am heading towards a new direction with new challenges waiting ahead. Even though I have mixed emotions leaving the shop, I am sure the memories I have gathered throughout the years will be with me for the rest of my life.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Bored with the Boring Boredom
Have you had the same feeling that I have been experiencing the past few days? Living boringly in boredom? Living a repetitious life? Longing for some excitement yet nothing is happenning?
I am trying to recall when was the last time I had fun. My memory failed me. Perhaps it is time to upgrade my memory from 512MB to 1GB, or perhaps it was the speed. Or should I try DDR2? My mind seems to be drifting away, not giving me the right information I am trying to acquire. Is this the effect of boredom?
Last night, same time. I was sitting in front of the computer, constantly clicking on the MSN window and the ICQ window, hoping to see some friends online. Bad luck, they are all offline. What would they be doing? Out having fun, of course! It is a Saturday night! What am I doing at home? All alone? Staring at the screen, waiting for some miracle to happen. Yet nothing happened.
The best way to beat boredom is to dream. Yeah, right. The first thing we have to do is to fall asleep. I can't. Tried that for almost an hour. I am still very awake. Eventually, I came back to the terminal again. Luckily friends started popping up on ICQ. But they were gone before long. I never got the chance to even greet, not to mention starting a conversation. People seems to be occupied with meaningful things. Unlike me. I have done nothing meaningful. Even when I have lists of tasks to complete. Even when I am running out of time, I am not doing anything useful. God help me.
When you have a restless mind, you cannot put yourself to do anything. I have a restless soul, I am wasting life. Ever wondered why God created us? No, He created us not because He is bored, but because He wanted us to experience boredom and thus begin to create excitement to beat boredom. It is a Test from God. We will commit sins if we avoid taking this Test and beating it. Firstly, a sin called Sloth. If we thought that we do not need to take this Test, then we have commited the Vanity sin. If we see other people who have beaten boredom and we have not, we might commit the Envy and Anger sins. If we have eventually passed the Test yet we are not satisfied, the sin is called Greed. However, if we tried to cheat, doing it the Devil's way, we are very likely to succumb to the sins of Gluttony and Lust. How many sins have I committed so far?
To start off with, I skipped the service today. I thought that will not beat my boredom. Vanity. I felt hungry even when I am stuffing my mouth full of macadamia cookies. Gluttony. I look at people who has got job in their chosen profession yet I am still a shop assistant doing labour work, I felt envious. Envy. And I am angry with myself for being such a failure. Anger. Yet I did not take any action to increase my chance to get professionally employed. Sloth. Even when my lifestyle is quite luxurious, I still yearn for more. Greed. And Lust, I will keep that to myself.
I have not begun to take the Test, yet I have already committed the seven deadly sins. I am really bored with this boring boredom. Help~~
I am trying to recall when was the last time I had fun. My memory failed me. Perhaps it is time to upgrade my memory from 512MB to 1GB, or perhaps it was the speed. Or should I try DDR2? My mind seems to be drifting away, not giving me the right information I am trying to acquire. Is this the effect of boredom?
Last night, same time. I was sitting in front of the computer, constantly clicking on the MSN window and the ICQ window, hoping to see some friends online. Bad luck, they are all offline. What would they be doing? Out having fun, of course! It is a Saturday night! What am I doing at home? All alone? Staring at the screen, waiting for some miracle to happen. Yet nothing happened.
The best way to beat boredom is to dream. Yeah, right. The first thing we have to do is to fall asleep. I can't. Tried that for almost an hour. I am still very awake. Eventually, I came back to the terminal again. Luckily friends started popping up on ICQ. But they were gone before long. I never got the chance to even greet, not to mention starting a conversation. People seems to be occupied with meaningful things. Unlike me. I have done nothing meaningful. Even when I have lists of tasks to complete. Even when I am running out of time, I am not doing anything useful. God help me.
When you have a restless mind, you cannot put yourself to do anything. I have a restless soul, I am wasting life. Ever wondered why God created us? No, He created us not because He is bored, but because He wanted us to experience boredom and thus begin to create excitement to beat boredom. It is a Test from God. We will commit sins if we avoid taking this Test and beating it. Firstly, a sin called Sloth. If we thought that we do not need to take this Test, then we have commited the Vanity sin. If we see other people who have beaten boredom and we have not, we might commit the Envy and Anger sins. If we have eventually passed the Test yet we are not satisfied, the sin is called Greed. However, if we tried to cheat, doing it the Devil's way, we are very likely to succumb to the sins of Gluttony and Lust. How many sins have I committed so far?
To start off with, I skipped the service today. I thought that will not beat my boredom. Vanity. I felt hungry even when I am stuffing my mouth full of macadamia cookies. Gluttony. I look at people who has got job in their chosen profession yet I am still a shop assistant doing labour work, I felt envious. Envy. And I am angry with myself for being such a failure. Anger. Yet I did not take any action to increase my chance to get professionally employed. Sloth. Even when my lifestyle is quite luxurious, I still yearn for more. Greed. And Lust, I will keep that to myself.
I have not begun to take the Test, yet I have already committed the seven deadly sins. I am really bored with this boring boredom. Help~~
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