1. Grocery shopping. So at my favorite local grocer here in the heart of Melbourne, I've found some very annoying patterns. One of them is that nobody who works in the store has any idea where things are. The last three times I have asked where an item was, I found it on my own and went on my way as they wandered through the aisles trying to show it to me. I have a feeling they turnover employees faster than Taco Bell, or else the employees only work like once a month so understandably don't really know their store whatsoever. The other thing is that if you don't go through the self check-out, it is not only a slower process to have someone scan and bag your items but they give you as many bags as possible with the groceries you buy. It's bad enough they don't even offer paper bags, but instead of trying to conserve some of the endless stacks of plastic (and therefore our world's resources) they have lying behind the counter, they put a maximum of three or four items in each one. My checker-outer today had no idea what I meant when I kindly asked her to consolidate.
2. Basketball. I was lucky enough to find a rec basketball team that I've been playing with the last couple weeks. It's been very fun considering how little I was getting to play bball here. However, on Sunday, we played and I admit we lost to a team of old men. I take full accountability for our loss and they did play much better team basketball than us. But, it was a joke. By the end of the game we had just three players left on the court who hadn't fouled out. Next time we play a team of 40 and 50 year olds, I am going to request a referee of a neutral age. Our 50 year old official just couldn't bare to see his peers engaged in a contact sport against us youngsters and the game quickly switched to a netball-esque match where both boxing out and posting up was questionable. Blocking shots was right out.
3. Strangers and the USA. After a night out at a nearby, multistory club called Cookie, a couple of girls we have known for months left just after us to head home. A complete stranger and his friend began to talk to them outside and upon learning they were American, quickly brought up 9/11 and how it was an inside job and that whole conspiracy theory. Are you kidding me? The first thing you're gonna bring up to a Yank when you meet drunk on the street is 9/11, one of the biggest tragedies in modern history? Then to go on about how Bush and his boys were behind it and all that crap (I'm not defending George W. but still) is ridiculous. Like who are you and what did you do with the arguably normal soul that hopefully used to inhabit your physical being? Woulda been like going up to Prince Paris after Troy gets thrashed and burned and being like, "Hey, I know you guys are blaming the Greeks but we all know who really built that horse." Of course, back then Poseidon would have then swept that a-hole away in a tidal wave, that is if Zeus didn't toss a lightning bolt through his head first. But who knows, maybe that dude's taxi driver robbed him on the way home or he got hit by a bicyclist or something.
4. Final exams. Yeah everyone hates finals; I don't need to get at that. But, here at the University of Melbourne, they came up with this brilliant system of sending us to the fairgrounds or some shit for our finals. Apparently they don't have room for all the finals on campus (even though they had room for all the classes on campus all semester...) and have to ship us out to God-knows-where to take finals in groups. So, now as I sit down to take my plant biodiversity final I'll be with a mix of a few other classes taking their own respective finals. I'll probably end up next to some metaphysics genius who will look deep into my mind to try to cheat on his exam and finding nothing but crassulacean acid metabolism and creeping rhizomes.
Haha entertaining. 9/11 thing is ridiculous, but I'm not surprised. Good luck on your finals!
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