It’s been a rough week. Actually, it’s been a rough month, which is partly why there are so few entries for July. My time is divided between a very stressful, tiring job and studying for a French test. I will start with the French test. For any of you out there who don’t already know, the University of Toronto tried to kill me this past year. I won’t go into the whole thing again, but suffice it to say I need to write a French comprehension test for the third time in two weeks in Dublin (which then will be sent back, at my expense, to Toronto). I need to pass this one, otherwise, supposedly I will have to pay another term’s tuition to write it a fourth time in order to get my Masters degree (which I am not doing, so I need to pass this one). After a bit of pressure from my Mom on skype, I decided to get a French tutor to help me prepare and she is fabulous. French-born, she loves living in Dublin and is in no hurry to go back. Where she’d like to go is Mongolia, so she’s adding Mongolian to the languages she knows. When we met up she said that she liked me because she could tell from my facebook profile that I was “a fighter”.
She wants me to translate Emile Zola’s famous article ‘J’accuse’ which charged the French government with conspiracy and anti-Semitism in the conviction of a Jewish military official. So for the past several mornings I have sat in my room, pen in one hand, French-English dictionary in the other, translating Zola. Occasionally it is fun, like when I decipher a figure of speech on my own, but mostly it’s tedious and frustrating and depressing, because after failing twice already it’s hard to believe that the third time will be the charm.
Then there’s the job. Oh boy. I won’t go into it in too much detail, but just when I should be feeling comfortable and confident at the store, I’m feeling exhausted and under pressure. It was so bad the other day that the only way I could make myself feeling better was visualizing quitting, and I have never quit anything. But quitting would put me back out there in the barren desert which is the late-00’s recession, and I can’t keep spending money here if none is coming in, and should I just call it a day and come home, but can I get out of my lease and... thus did I almost have a break down. I couldn’t even skype my parents, them being at the cottage (where I would love to be right now), so the only thing I could do to make myself feel better was eat an entire pizza and watch the brit-com ‘Black Books’.
[Tangent: A brit-com devotee, having been raised on ‘Fawlty Towers’, I’m using this summer as an opportunity to catch up on ones I don’t know. The 1980’s ‘Yes, Minister’, about a twittish MP and his scheming assistant who will do anything to ensure that the status quo never changes, was brilliant. I also really enjoyed ‘Spaced’, the show that launched the whole Simon Peg-Edgar Wright phenomenon. It’s really good if you are in your mid-twenties, working dead end jobs and feeling like a loser. Taking the brit-com into the 21st century is ‘The IT Crowd’, about the nerds who work the computers in the basement of a fancy company, but it has a laugh track, which is unsettling in the post-‘The Office’ era. I’m partial to ‘Black Books’ which is dark and surreal and follows the exploits of a Basil Fawlty-ish bookseller who hates all his customers.]
This morning was shit as well. Tried to sleep in a bit but kept having restless dreams in which E.F. Benson characters were ordering a never-ending selection of Starbucks drinks. Translated a bit of Zola, made myself some TERRIBLE microwavable risotto (Uncle Ben, you led me astray!) and watched my favourite episode of ‘The Golden Girls’, which gave up the idea of having a plot at all and just featured the three main ladies sitting around on a rainy day in the dressing gowns eating cake and telling stories. But even that couldn’t stop me from crying. The tears would come unexpectedly and horribly, bubbling up from my belly and uncontrollable. I think, along with being homesick and hungry, they were about being scared of my next shift and not knowing how it would be.
Of course it was better. It HAD to be (unless, y’know, I had killed a customer). The best part of it came at the very beginning. I came into the back room and my co-worker from Slovakia was there. “I had a terrible day yesterday,” I told her. “Me too!” She cried. “It was an awful, awful day!” She went on to list all the reasons she had a shitty day, some similar to mine, others unique, and that made me feel so much better. Then my co-worker from Mongolia came in. When we started working together I found her a bit cold, but her dry sense of humour had grown on me and I was getting the feeling that she liked me. Although about half of my coworkers are from other countries, nobody else seems to miss their homes (“Do you get homesick ever?” I asked the pretty Polish girl. “No,” she said, smiling.) “How are you?” asked the Mongolian girl. “I’m okay. Was feeling pretty homesick this morning...” “Aww, really?” And then she came over and gave me a hug. It was exactly what I needed. “I miss my Mommy too sometimes,” she said.
So I’m not quitting. But I’m taking things one month, week, day at a time.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Mr. Impossible
I got the travelling itch from my parents. When they were first together they travelled throughout Europe having adventures and when my brother and I were born didn’t let having two little babies stop them. It was much cheaper to travel with young children back then, I think, and they carted us around, having us famously (but only occasionally) sleep in pulled out drawers. I have distant memories of being in Europe when I was very young, but when you are a kid and you’re with your family you are home anywhere and you don’t notice your surroundings in the same way. I do remember what any kid would remember; my own stuff. There was the Raffi and Sharon, Louis and Bram tapes which I can still hear when I imagine driving around the blue-grey French countryside. There were my toys, of course. I remember playing with Muppet Baby paper dolls in a sunny garden, I think on the same day that my late step-granddad got stung by a bee and had to go to the hospital briefly as he was allergic. I remember (how could I not) my Chitatica Banana. She was my Chiquita Banana. She was inflatable and had a matching red hat and skirt. She had hung in the window of some grocery store and I had liked her so much my parents were able to buy her for me (I was spoiled). I just loved her. She came back to Canada with us and eventually she had to be stuffed with cotton in order to keep her figure. But that didn’t stop me from throwing multiple weddings for her and Cat in the Hat. (What could they have had in common, other than distinctive head gear?)
Then there’s the story I like less about the My Little Pony that I stupidly lifted towards the car window, probably to see her mane blow majestically in the wind, only to have her fly out onto the freeway. Spoiled as I was, my Dad made a quick and wise decision: No, we were not stopping for her. Speaking of car windows, I also had a series of Garfields with the sticky little tabs on the limbs, and to this day when my parents are keeping fun of the way little Max behaved in Europe they chant what I allegedly would shout after a long day in the car: “Where is my gite (French word for a rural hotel)?! Where is my GARFIELD!?”
Then, of course, there were books. There were many, but what I remember most distinctly were the Mr. Men books (and there later, more politically-correct Little Miss counterparts). They came out in Europe first and I believed he owned some in French. My favourite, as it went down in family lore, was Mr. Impossible. Maybe because he was inexplicably magic. What’s so interesting about being happy all the time, or having really long arms, when you can do impossible things like jumping over a house? Also, he wore a top hat. Again, a distinctive hat! Might have been a pattern.
Although the series has been continued by the original author’s son (and they even have a nifty website with games for each of the current batch of Mr. Men and Little Misses, although Mr. Impossible is absent) I hadn’t thought about them for years until their recent comeback. Mr. Men t-shirts are a huge trend in Dublin right now. Everywhere you go you see Mr. Messy or Little Miss Loudmouth t-shirts of different styles and on all different kinds of people. By coincidence I brought the transgendered Mr. Man t-shirt (he has stubble, hairy legs and high-heels and is named Monsieur Madame) I bought in Paris last year to Dublin and have worn in out and about sometimes. But I decided right away, despite my meagre earnings, that if I came across any Mr. Impossible memorabilia I would have to buy it, just as I had to buy a t-shirt with a giant picture of Garfield clinging onto it in Guelph one year. Problem is, Mr. Impossible has vanished. I vainly search through t-shirts, key chains, book marks... nothing. I will not compromise with a Mr. Bossy or some such nonsense.
Wherever Mr. Impossible is, I hope he’s happy, and stays in touch with the Cat in the Hat and his wife Chiquita.
Then there’s the story I like less about the My Little Pony that I stupidly lifted towards the car window, probably to see her mane blow majestically in the wind, only to have her fly out onto the freeway. Spoiled as I was, my Dad made a quick and wise decision: No, we were not stopping for her. Speaking of car windows, I also had a series of Garfields with the sticky little tabs on the limbs, and to this day when my parents are keeping fun of the way little Max behaved in Europe they chant what I allegedly would shout after a long day in the car: “Where is my gite (French word for a rural hotel)?! Where is my GARFIELD!?”
Then, of course, there were books. There were many, but what I remember most distinctly were the Mr. Men books (and there later, more politically-correct Little Miss counterparts). They came out in Europe first and I believed he owned some in French. My favourite, as it went down in family lore, was Mr. Impossible. Maybe because he was inexplicably magic. What’s so interesting about being happy all the time, or having really long arms, when you can do impossible things like jumping over a house? Also, he wore a top hat. Again, a distinctive hat! Might have been a pattern.
Although the series has been continued by the original author’s son (and they even have a nifty website with games for each of the current batch of Mr. Men and Little Misses, although Mr. Impossible is absent) I hadn’t thought about them for years until their recent comeback. Mr. Men t-shirts are a huge trend in Dublin right now. Everywhere you go you see Mr. Messy or Little Miss Loudmouth t-shirts of different styles and on all different kinds of people. By coincidence I brought the transgendered Mr. Man t-shirt (he has stubble, hairy legs and high-heels and is named Monsieur Madame) I bought in Paris last year to Dublin and have worn in out and about sometimes. But I decided right away, despite my meagre earnings, that if I came across any Mr. Impossible memorabilia I would have to buy it, just as I had to buy a t-shirt with a giant picture of Garfield clinging onto it in Guelph one year. Problem is, Mr. Impossible has vanished. I vainly search through t-shirts, key chains, book marks... nothing. I will not compromise with a Mr. Bossy or some such nonsense.
Wherever Mr. Impossible is, I hope he’s happy, and stays in touch with the Cat in the Hat and his wife Chiquita.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Oxegen
[Note: for those of you keeping track of such things, and may God have mercy on your soul, that is not a typo, but rather the name of an Irish music festival]
I’m not a big music person; I don’t go to concerts; only buy CDs if I’m going to listen to them over and over in the shower or when planning cute lil’ outfits; and I do not base my identity on the bands I like (actually, I knew very few ‘bands’ right now). I have more of an appropriative (rather than appreciative) relationship with music, meaning that I enjoy songs not really for their artistry but for what I can bring to them, like memorizing their lyrics so I can lip synch to them on the dance floor. And yeah, I have pretty tacky tastes. I like classic jazz while cooking and pop and dance for everything else. And it’s gotta be upbeat. My main problem with hipster music is its aching earnestness. They sing love songs as though no one else had ever sang of love before. If I like a song about love, it’s got to be love with several giant quotation marks.
So when I first heard about the Oxegen music festival, assuming it would mostly consist of hipster indie bands I had never heard of, I wasn’t super interested in going. But I did have the weekend off. And I found out that Lady GaGa and Katy Perry were playing, and while I am not huge fans of either, I appreciate that at least some people are taking pop back from dull, over-produced solo efforts from former band lead singers and creating music we can dance to again. Plus, when it came down to it, I thought it would be good to do something really different with my weekend and have a new experience, something I hope I would never forget.
Unfortunately, after I had already bought the ticket online, I came down with a cold. That, combined with the fact that Niamh was the only person I knew there that I could meet up with, caused me to worry quite a lot as the time of departure for the concert approached. The festival was a Naas, which is about an hour outside Dublin, and Dublin city very kindly provided their double-decker buses to take us directly to and from the event. I did have to wander all the way to the North side (on my way I dropped off a thank you card for the woman at a Starbucks who had faxed my CV around the city), and was feeling quite ill when I got to the bus debut. The bus was filled with young people, many of whom were 19, many of whom were already drunk. I planned on reading my Oscar Wilde book for the journey, but the countryside was distracting (it was the first time I had seen any this trip) as was the singing of a group of teenage girls behind me: “POK-POK-POK-POKER FACE!” Also, I remember one of them, over and over again screaming, “I fucking snogged Pete Doherty!” It was like the bus to summer camp, but drunker.
When we exited the bus at the festival grounds it immediately began raining again. Luckily, I as smart this time and brought a hoodie, a rain jacket and an umbrella. I did not bring, for I do not have, a pair of rain boots, and I did not realize that “Wellies” were essential at Oxegen; the place was basically a giant mud pit. Even chichi Lohan-looking girls in neon tops and eye-liner, their hair fashionably unwashed as though they slept on the ground (although at Oxegen, they very well might have) wore rubber boats with their clingy skirts and opaque tights. After trudging through miles of mud to get to the entrance (only to have to trudge back as I missed the place to I was to pick up the tickets), I entered the festival only to discover that they did not provide one with a schedule of the performers, or a map of the grounds. “Great,” I thought, sniffling.
Then for about half an hour I wandered around in a daze, feeling wet and feverish and overwhelmed by the crowds of people, the loud music, the mud. I walked from one end of the grounds to the other to get a feeling for the lay of the land and text messaged Niamh. I finally asked a young woman if she had a schedule, which she did (evidently they were selling them, but I never saw any) and she told me Lady GaGa was about to go on, so I raced to the designated stage. By this point, even though it was still wet and muddy, the song had come out. Lady GaGa emerged from some sort of large white papier marche geometric enclosure in her characteristic wig and booty panties. It was very surreal it see her in broad day light. I think she would be better helped by a night venue, or at least being inside. I think the people immediately around me had some trouble relating to her as well. Her interaction with the audience was a little forced. “If you had told me a year ago that I would be performing in front of [how many people were there that day] I would have told you to fuck off. I used to work so hard to be successful and get famous, but y’know, now that I’m here, I wish you all were famous!” Yeah, sure you do.
Probably the best thing about Lady GaGa, besides all the male spectators who were sort of dressed like her, was a guy walking around with a sign that read “Lady GaGa was a dirty camel toe!” which got big laughs from everyone (I don’t think the Lady herself saw it). But when she sang ‘Just Dance’ almost everybody around me got into it and did what the song instructed.
Then Niamh texted me saying she was at the Lady GaGa performance and asking where we should meet. I said at the closest T-shirt stand, so when her ladyship was finished both Niamh and I ran around the T-shirt stand, yelling into our mobiles “I’m here! What?! Where are you? What?!” until we ran straight into each other. She gave me a big hug. “This,” she said proudly. “Is Oxegen! I will introduce you to my friends. As a young man, whose name I can’t remember, performed on the stage where GaGa had just been, Niamh introduced to her group of hardcore Oxegen-ians. “This is Max!” “Oh, are you going to write about us on your website?!” “You called Niamh a fag hag,” one of them announced loudly. “She is not a fag hag; she is a PUBLIC VAGINA!” Then PUBLIC VAGINA was screamed a lot. It may have been an inside joke.
Before I could decline, Niamh was dragging me off to buy drinks (“Because you are cold sober, Max, and I am shit faced!”) and talking me into buying two overpriced beers (“While we’re here. I’ll get two as well.”) Somehow, Niamh walked away with one, but I had two giant plastic cups of Heineken which I drank very quickly as we watched the next performer.
So I got drunk. But not drunk enough that when we were walking towards the Katy Perry venue, and some boys were wrestling in the mud and Niamh wanted to join (“Yes. Yes! It’ll be FUN.”) to not try and stop her. But she ended up in the mud anyway.
Katy Perry was probably the most fun. She brought a lot of props with her, like an inflatable strawberry and giant chap stick, and was wearing the pink leopard print body-legging much derided by the gofugyourself girls. She was much better at connecting with the crowd than GaGa. “Hey Ireland! I hear you guys are crazy! I just in Scotland and...” There were a few scattered boos for Scotland. “Hey! You guys are friends, be nice! You have the same proportion of gingers!” Then she added, “I can say that, I have a ginger in my family.” She sang ‘Waking up in Vegas’ and ‘Hot N’ Cold’ (my favourite) and the audience was mostly really into it. Of course, it was Oxegen, so there was still shenanigans: a giant inflatable phallus appeared and bobbed around the crowd. “What?” Katy yelled, responding to something someone said in the audience. “No, I’m not going to sit on it! You people ARE crazy!” Then she confiscated the giant phallus, but replaced it with her strawberry, although she brought it back out for a later song and writhed with it a bit. She finished with ‘I Kissed A Girl’ (natch) but halfway through the song the rain came back, but we all didn’t care and kept singing and dancing. Instead of hiding beneath the canopy of her stage, Katy came out and sang close to the audience and got soaked too, her mascara streaming down her face. When she was finished, I wanted to hear more from her, but it was probably for the best, as those were all the songs of hers I knew.
Niamh and David went back to the camp side to dry off and tidy up, and I found a fish and chip stand and ate my greasy dinner ravenously as I watched the passing concert goers slip around on the mud despite their Wellies.
I’m not a big music person; I don’t go to concerts; only buy CDs if I’m going to listen to them over and over in the shower or when planning cute lil’ outfits; and I do not base my identity on the bands I like (actually, I knew very few ‘bands’ right now). I have more of an appropriative (rather than appreciative) relationship with music, meaning that I enjoy songs not really for their artistry but for what I can bring to them, like memorizing their lyrics so I can lip synch to them on the dance floor. And yeah, I have pretty tacky tastes. I like classic jazz while cooking and pop and dance for everything else. And it’s gotta be upbeat. My main problem with hipster music is its aching earnestness. They sing love songs as though no one else had ever sang of love before. If I like a song about love, it’s got to be love with several giant quotation marks.
So when I first heard about the Oxegen music festival, assuming it would mostly consist of hipster indie bands I had never heard of, I wasn’t super interested in going. But I did have the weekend off. And I found out that Lady GaGa and Katy Perry were playing, and while I am not huge fans of either, I appreciate that at least some people are taking pop back from dull, over-produced solo efforts from former band lead singers and creating music we can dance to again. Plus, when it came down to it, I thought it would be good to do something really different with my weekend and have a new experience, something I hope I would never forget.
Unfortunately, after I had already bought the ticket online, I came down with a cold. That, combined with the fact that Niamh was the only person I knew there that I could meet up with, caused me to worry quite a lot as the time of departure for the concert approached. The festival was a Naas, which is about an hour outside Dublin, and Dublin city very kindly provided their double-decker buses to take us directly to and from the event. I did have to wander all the way to the North side (on my way I dropped off a thank you card for the woman at a Starbucks who had faxed my CV around the city), and was feeling quite ill when I got to the bus debut. The bus was filled with young people, many of whom were 19, many of whom were already drunk. I planned on reading my Oscar Wilde book for the journey, but the countryside was distracting (it was the first time I had seen any this trip) as was the singing of a group of teenage girls behind me: “POK-POK-POK-POKER FACE!” Also, I remember one of them, over and over again screaming, “I fucking snogged Pete Doherty!” It was like the bus to summer camp, but drunker.
When we exited the bus at the festival grounds it immediately began raining again. Luckily, I as smart this time and brought a hoodie, a rain jacket and an umbrella. I did not bring, for I do not have, a pair of rain boots, and I did not realize that “Wellies” were essential at Oxegen; the place was basically a giant mud pit. Even chichi Lohan-looking girls in neon tops and eye-liner, their hair fashionably unwashed as though they slept on the ground (although at Oxegen, they very well might have) wore rubber boats with their clingy skirts and opaque tights. After trudging through miles of mud to get to the entrance (only to have to trudge back as I missed the place to I was to pick up the tickets), I entered the festival only to discover that they did not provide one with a schedule of the performers, or a map of the grounds. “Great,” I thought, sniffling.
Then for about half an hour I wandered around in a daze, feeling wet and feverish and overwhelmed by the crowds of people, the loud music, the mud. I walked from one end of the grounds to the other to get a feeling for the lay of the land and text messaged Niamh. I finally asked a young woman if she had a schedule, which she did (evidently they were selling them, but I never saw any) and she told me Lady GaGa was about to go on, so I raced to the designated stage. By this point, even though it was still wet and muddy, the song had come out. Lady GaGa emerged from some sort of large white papier marche geometric enclosure in her characteristic wig and booty panties. It was very surreal it see her in broad day light. I think she would be better helped by a night venue, or at least being inside. I think the people immediately around me had some trouble relating to her as well. Her interaction with the audience was a little forced. “If you had told me a year ago that I would be performing in front of [how many people were there that day] I would have told you to fuck off. I used to work so hard to be successful and get famous, but y’know, now that I’m here, I wish you all were famous!” Yeah, sure you do.
Probably the best thing about Lady GaGa, besides all the male spectators who were sort of dressed like her, was a guy walking around with a sign that read “Lady GaGa was a dirty camel toe!” which got big laughs from everyone (I don’t think the Lady herself saw it). But when she sang ‘Just Dance’ almost everybody around me got into it and did what the song instructed.
Then Niamh texted me saying she was at the Lady GaGa performance and asking where we should meet. I said at the closest T-shirt stand, so when her ladyship was finished both Niamh and I ran around the T-shirt stand, yelling into our mobiles “I’m here! What?! Where are you? What?!” until we ran straight into each other. She gave me a big hug. “This,” she said proudly. “Is Oxegen! I will introduce you to my friends. As a young man, whose name I can’t remember, performed on the stage where GaGa had just been, Niamh introduced to her group of hardcore Oxegen-ians. “This is Max!” “Oh, are you going to write about us on your website?!” “You called Niamh a fag hag,” one of them announced loudly. “She is not a fag hag; she is a PUBLIC VAGINA!” Then PUBLIC VAGINA was screamed a lot. It may have been an inside joke.
Before I could decline, Niamh was dragging me off to buy drinks (“Because you are cold sober, Max, and I am shit faced!”) and talking me into buying two overpriced beers (“While we’re here. I’ll get two as well.”) Somehow, Niamh walked away with one, but I had two giant plastic cups of Heineken which I drank very quickly as we watched the next performer.
So I got drunk. But not drunk enough that when we were walking towards the Katy Perry venue, and some boys were wrestling in the mud and Niamh wanted to join (“Yes. Yes! It’ll be FUN.”) to not try and stop her. But she ended up in the mud anyway.
Katy Perry was probably the most fun. She brought a lot of props with her, like an inflatable strawberry and giant chap stick, and was wearing the pink leopard print body-legging much derided by the gofugyourself girls. She was much better at connecting with the crowd than GaGa. “Hey Ireland! I hear you guys are crazy! I just in Scotland and...” There were a few scattered boos for Scotland. “Hey! You guys are friends, be nice! You have the same proportion of gingers!” Then she added, “I can say that, I have a ginger in my family.” She sang ‘Waking up in Vegas’ and ‘Hot N’ Cold’ (my favourite) and the audience was mostly really into it. Of course, it was Oxegen, so there was still shenanigans: a giant inflatable phallus appeared and bobbed around the crowd. “What?” Katy yelled, responding to something someone said in the audience. “No, I’m not going to sit on it! You people ARE crazy!” Then she confiscated the giant phallus, but replaced it with her strawberry, although she brought it back out for a later song and writhed with it a bit. She finished with ‘I Kissed A Girl’ (natch) but halfway through the song the rain came back, but we all didn’t care and kept singing and dancing. Instead of hiding beneath the canopy of her stage, Katy came out and sang close to the audience and got soaked too, her mascara streaming down her face. When she was finished, I wanted to hear more from her, but it was probably for the best, as those were all the songs of hers I knew.
Niamh and David went back to the camp side to dry off and tidy up, and I found a fish and chip stand and ate my greasy dinner ravenously as I watched the passing concert goers slip around on the mud despite their Wellies.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Thoughts after One Month
One month ago I stumbled off the bus from the airport outside of Trinity College, having to schlep my two heavy bags all the way across Dame street to my hostel. I was jet-lagged and exhausted, overwhelmed by what I had just done (arrived, to stay, in a new country, alone) and filled with worry about finding a job and apartment (in the short term) and liking the city and whether I made the right decision (in the long term). That first day I went to St. Stephen’s Green, saw Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, ate a whole pizza myself and ended the day listening to the lilting accents of Dubliners as I quietly sipped my Guinness. Looking back, the first week was probably the worst over all, what with a lot of confusion and dread and not getting the spot in the house I wanted. I cried a bit in public parks.
But look at us a month later. With an apartment in a lovely village that is both walking distance from city centre and four Luas stops away from the mall in which I found a job, things worked out pretty nicely. Of course, appliances sometimes don’t work. A couple times this week I came home from a long shift at Starbag to my French room mate Cyril informing me that the shower was clogged, or actually, more like asking me if I knew what was wrong with it. After eight hours of unclogging sinks of Splenda packets and bloated fruitcake cranberries that NOBODY SEEMS TO EAT can you guess who was not in the mood to deal with any more drains? But because of him getting on Tim’s back when I didn’t care enough we’ve gotten some stuff around here fixed.
And I’m still getting used to the job. Today started out well with them teaching me till while there were not many customers. But as things picked up in the later afternoon, I found myself sharing the bar with one of my shift supervisors who I must say definitely has that Irish sense of humour. When we completely missed a young woman’s frappuccino, and then when I finally made it but made it incorrectly, he says to me, “There’s a difference between missing a drink and idiocy. Come on!” And smiled. Then I think he made a couple jokes to other people about the “supposed store” I used to work out.
I wanted to tell him, “Y’know, it’s very difficult moving to a new country. And it’s difficult being on your own. And it’s difficult getting used to a new store in a new country, and all new people who have their routines already set, which your own experiences might not gel with right away... I think, all things considered, I’m doing pretty well...” And that is probably when I’d tear up a bit. (Yes, I envisaged spontaneously tearing up in my run-through). But instead, when I had a chance, I discussed it with my other supervisor and she agreed with me that it was “just an Irish thing” and to not take it seriously and that I was doing a great job. And then things slowed down a bit, but when they picked up again at the end of the day and I made a couple mistakes calling drinks (either people were changing their orders, or I couldn’t understand their accents, or both), but that first shift supervisor was much easier on me. Then we all bonded while frantically cleaning before close. The best part of the day was finally getting to chat with customers and remember that I am in an actual foreign country with interesting people. And people always seem to become friendlier when you just simply ask them “And how was your day?”
Okay, just a couple thoughts about Dublin, and then I should go to bed. I went to this quaint little museum on Merrion Square (the Georgian neighbourhood that Oscar Wilde grew up in) which is a house they’ve restored to how it appeared circa 1800. When you’re inside being taken through the cook’s quarter’s in the basement, the elegant if small dining and sitting rooms with Neoclassical fixtures, and then the cosy nursery in the attic (I remember reading an article about a British designer who said that, if you’re looking for traditional British comfort, turn to the children’s quarters rather than the cold grown ups’), you can begin to picture yourself in Old Dublin. During my tour I tried to do this despite the presence of the fellow tourists, a group of middle-age women from Oklahoma who were characteristically friendly but attempted to relate everything we saw to their modern day lives (“More stairs?! Can you imagine how many times they had to walk up and down these? No wonder they didn’t need to worry about their weight!”)
I’m not a big Joyce devotee, but, despite the fact that many old buildings and whole streets survive in Dublin, it is easy to feel as though you’d like to just glimpse Old Dublin. The rainy, stony city with cobbled streets, in which all the houses looked the same and the only restaurants were pubs and the only public buildings were churches. It’s very romantic to think about. Dublin is a city that was shaped by booms and busts almost throughout its whole history (the grand Georgian period of the late 18th and early 19th century fizzled out when England dissolved the Irish parliament and many of the aristocracy up and left for London). Now I have arrived as yet another boom turns to bust, and no one really knows where it will lead. They say new building had essentially stopped. How much longer will people want four euro cups of coffee? Of course, realistically, I am hopelessly postmodern and I would not want to live in the Dublin of the 19th century. The things that are jarring against the old grey buildings are the very things that make this city liveable for someone like myself: Indian restaurants, vintage T-shirt shops and gay bars. These things are now just as ‘Dublin’, if not authentically more so, than Leopold Bloom, Molly Malone and fish and chips. And I guess, the longer I stay here (and I’m really considering staying the whole year), the more influence the city will have on me, and me on it.
But look at us a month later. With an apartment in a lovely village that is both walking distance from city centre and four Luas stops away from the mall in which I found a job, things worked out pretty nicely. Of course, appliances sometimes don’t work. A couple times this week I came home from a long shift at Starbag to my French room mate Cyril informing me that the shower was clogged, or actually, more like asking me if I knew what was wrong with it. After eight hours of unclogging sinks of Splenda packets and bloated fruitcake cranberries that NOBODY SEEMS TO EAT can you guess who was not in the mood to deal with any more drains? But because of him getting on Tim’s back when I didn’t care enough we’ve gotten some stuff around here fixed.
And I’m still getting used to the job. Today started out well with them teaching me till while there were not many customers. But as things picked up in the later afternoon, I found myself sharing the bar with one of my shift supervisors who I must say definitely has that Irish sense of humour. When we completely missed a young woman’s frappuccino, and then when I finally made it but made it incorrectly, he says to me, “There’s a difference between missing a drink and idiocy. Come on!” And smiled. Then I think he made a couple jokes to other people about the “supposed store” I used to work out.
I wanted to tell him, “Y’know, it’s very difficult moving to a new country. And it’s difficult being on your own. And it’s difficult getting used to a new store in a new country, and all new people who have their routines already set, which your own experiences might not gel with right away... I think, all things considered, I’m doing pretty well...” And that is probably when I’d tear up a bit. (Yes, I envisaged spontaneously tearing up in my run-through). But instead, when I had a chance, I discussed it with my other supervisor and she agreed with me that it was “just an Irish thing” and to not take it seriously and that I was doing a great job. And then things slowed down a bit, but when they picked up again at the end of the day and I made a couple mistakes calling drinks (either people were changing their orders, or I couldn’t understand their accents, or both), but that first shift supervisor was much easier on me. Then we all bonded while frantically cleaning before close. The best part of the day was finally getting to chat with customers and remember that I am in an actual foreign country with interesting people. And people always seem to become friendlier when you just simply ask them “And how was your day?”
Okay, just a couple thoughts about Dublin, and then I should go to bed. I went to this quaint little museum on Merrion Square (the Georgian neighbourhood that Oscar Wilde grew up in) which is a house they’ve restored to how it appeared circa 1800. When you’re inside being taken through the cook’s quarter’s in the basement, the elegant if small dining and sitting rooms with Neoclassical fixtures, and then the cosy nursery in the attic (I remember reading an article about a British designer who said that, if you’re looking for traditional British comfort, turn to the children’s quarters rather than the cold grown ups’), you can begin to picture yourself in Old Dublin. During my tour I tried to do this despite the presence of the fellow tourists, a group of middle-age women from Oklahoma who were characteristically friendly but attempted to relate everything we saw to their modern day lives (“More stairs?! Can you imagine how many times they had to walk up and down these? No wonder they didn’t need to worry about their weight!”)
I’m not a big Joyce devotee, but, despite the fact that many old buildings and whole streets survive in Dublin, it is easy to feel as though you’d like to just glimpse Old Dublin. The rainy, stony city with cobbled streets, in which all the houses looked the same and the only restaurants were pubs and the only public buildings were churches. It’s very romantic to think about. Dublin is a city that was shaped by booms and busts almost throughout its whole history (the grand Georgian period of the late 18th and early 19th century fizzled out when England dissolved the Irish parliament and many of the aristocracy up and left for London). Now I have arrived as yet another boom turns to bust, and no one really knows where it will lead. They say new building had essentially stopped. How much longer will people want four euro cups of coffee? Of course, realistically, I am hopelessly postmodern and I would not want to live in the Dublin of the 19th century. The things that are jarring against the old grey buildings are the very things that make this city liveable for someone like myself: Indian restaurants, vintage T-shirt shops and gay bars. These things are now just as ‘Dublin’, if not authentically more so, than Leopold Bloom, Molly Malone and fish and chips. And I guess, the longer I stay here (and I’m really considering staying the whole year), the more influence the city will have on me, and me on it.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
George II
I wasn’t going to go out on Friday night, as I was still exhausted from my first two shifts at the new job and had another one on Saturday, but my new friend Rachel text messaged me before I went to the movies that she’d be at The George and I just couldn’t down an invitation from a new friend, even though I had been at The George the night before. [Nothing much had happened, but I did talk to this largish, heavy fellow who claimed to know all the provinces in Canada, put ironically left off the list two of the provinces with the largest Irish diasporas, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Also, he went on and on about Michael Jackson and I finally had to ask, “Were you a teenager of the ‘80s? Like, was he the big thing for you as a kid?” and he said, “Not really, cause I was born in 1986.” WHY DID EVERYONE GET YOUNGER THAN ME?!]
Anyways, I went to see ‘Gigantic’ mostly because I am a devotee of Zooey Deschanel because of ‘Almost Famous’ but we don’t see much of her. It was the first movie I saw at the Irish Film Institute that I could’ve done without. And I don’t want to go on a rant here, but I will outline a couple of complaints. [Spoiler alert, sort of]. First of all, the title is unexplained. And, despite dramatic intentions, the movie plays itself as a comedy, but without many jokes. And had a weird obsession with showing stomach-turning bodily-stuff (one barfs on camera, another has to pull a bullet out of his leg, there’s a group masturbation scene and John Goodman spits out from his mouth a brain tumour...YEAH). Then there’s the mildly offensive fact of a movie about the problems of rich white people features both casually racist language (is it making fun of racism, or not?) as well as racial stereotypes, like the repressed Asian businessman and the flirtatious black co-worker. I also have a problem with romances in which the two leads go out on two almost-dates and speak as though it’s a relationship that can be “all screwed up” by someone not showing up for a dinner, but all worked out by showing up for another dinner. Does the writer/director know how young people date at all? Also, if I see another movie (‘Juno’, ‘Smart People’) in which a baby arriving at the very end is supposed to clear up everything and make everyone happy. This is really where we’re at in 2009? Enough of this stupid Bristol Palin bullshit.
Okay. My night at The George. I found Rachel with her friend Elaine and we started drinking. I didn’t want to drink too much as I had to work the next day, which she was having none of. Rachel is a very good person to go to gay bars with because, as a bisexual, she is a girl, part of the queer community AND can discuss the hotness of men with you. She had the hots for this punky looking guy (“I’d do ‘em!”) while I got a crush on this guy who was sort of hanging out with him: acting awkward and awkwardly dressed to match, he had dark curly hair and looked a bit like that dreamboat Steve Zahn from some season of ‘Survivor’. Anyways, we made eye contact a number of times and I was trying to work up the bravery to talk to him. While we were standing outside in the smoking area Rachel began harassing me about going over and starting a conversation with him. “I don’t do that!” “Come on! Do it! It’s easy! Come on!” I kept hesitating, so finally she said, “Alright, I’m going to do it for you!” And she wandered over to him. Elaine and I began talking and pretended to not look over. “Oh, this is going to end horribly,” I said. “He’s going to have a boyfriend, or be completely not interested or something else...” Rachel wandered back. “He’s straight. He’s just here because of a birthday party for the one I liked. Yeah, totally straight.”
I wish it ended there.
Much later, after we had danced a bit, the girls had gone to the restroom and I was left outside watching over Rachel’s drink. A young woman came up to be to set her drink down and offered me a cigarette. “No thanks,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you have a lovely Irish face.” She looked a bit like Emma Watson, but obviously younger and very pretty. “Tanks, it is an Irish face.” We got to talking about what she had done that evening, and what I was doing in Dublin, until I saw the curly-haired guy sneaking up behind her. Now, I had not had a conversation (thank God!) but I knew he probably knew who I was, and I could think of no reason why he was approaching us now. “Excuse me,” he said to the young woman, whose name I forget, that I was chatting with. “I think you’re name’s Rachel, I was chatting with you before...” (Oh God.) “Um...” “...You were telling me about your friend Max, who wanted to chat with me...” “...” Before total disaster happened, I interrupted. “Um, this isn’t Rachel. This is a girl I just met. You didn’t talk to her. Rachel is in the rest room. This is her drink.” (For some reason, I felt the need to explain everything I could.) “Oh, okay. I’m Avery. I was just wondering if I could use that connection and get a cigarette.” The young woman who was not Rachel complied. Then we all started chatting to get rid of the tension. It turns out the two of them both worked in movies or TV or something, but some reference I made to the Irish Film Institute fell flat, and I suddenly realized that Avery, the shrewd straight man that he was, might be trying to pick up my new friend, but before I could politely exit, the girl said SHE had to go. I was not about to be left with a straight man (why’d they even let him in anyway!?) who I had twice been embarrassed in front of in one evening all by myself, so I explained that Rachel’s drink needed to be returned to her, and I had to seek her out. Second most humiliating thing to happen to me at a Dublin gay bar.
But that was not the end of the night. The girls and I ended up dancing again, and then I lost track of them in all the people and the smoke machine smoke, and I ended up dancing by myself with a handful of very randy couples all around me. Sure, I was a little jealous. It’s nice to be made-out with on the dance floor occasionally. Then this older gentleman (I’m guessing maybe... 37, but it’s hard to say) reached out his hand for me to lift him up onto the stage with me. And then an older woman did the same thing and I thought, a tad bitchily, ‘Is this my job now? Will I be tipped?’ but next thing I knew the older guy was dancing with me. ‘I’m going to let this happen,’ I thought. It was fun... for a little while. But after only about five minutes he began to venture with his hands further and further south. And this was not traditional over-the-clothing touching. He attempted to both go under the clothing AND unzip my pants. Shocked, I just kept literally pulling his hands up and away, but he was persisted. Honestly, my thoughts were less on being molested and more of the ‘I am not about to be kicked out of the bar for this drunken fool’s lecherousness!’ It turned out his was drunker than I thought, because at one point he grabbed me and the two of us almost toppled off the stage together and I gave him a little slap on the arm.
So after I lost him, I realized I would not find the girls again, so I headed home. Partly down George street a young lad approached me on the street. Now because ‘Gigantic’ had a subplot about a homeless man who had a violent and completely unexplained vendetta against Paul Dano, my first thought was ‘Oh my, he’s gonna kill me’. Then, because I had my cell out, I thought he was just going to ask to use my phone. But as he started to walk beside me he asks, “Where’re ye from?” “Canada.” “Canada! What’s... what’s the capital of Canada there?” “Ottawa.” “Is it now? Yes. I don’t know what I would’ve said... Montenegro or something... well, have a good night!” And he was gone.
And that’s not even the end of the stories from that night! Walking past The Bleeding Horse pub, I got in the middle of these group of four young people (three girls and a guy) and began laughing at two of them as they weaved some drunken scenario about waking up in dirt. “Oh, this was ill-thought out! I slept in soil!” It reminded me of the way my friends and I talk and I started giggling. The two girls in front of me turned around and asked if I was laughing at them. Before I knew it I was explaining once again what I was doing in Dublin and was being invited to go get “chippys” with them. I wasn’t even hungry, but they seemed so friendly and funny and I have been dreaming for weeks of going out for greasy food with friends after a night at the bar, I had to say yes. Turned out two of them lived near Ranelagh so we walked home together. It was a pretty nice way to end the evening.
Anyways, I went to see ‘Gigantic’ mostly because I am a devotee of Zooey Deschanel because of ‘Almost Famous’ but we don’t see much of her. It was the first movie I saw at the Irish Film Institute that I could’ve done without. And I don’t want to go on a rant here, but I will outline a couple of complaints. [Spoiler alert, sort of]. First of all, the title is unexplained. And, despite dramatic intentions, the movie plays itself as a comedy, but without many jokes. And had a weird obsession with showing stomach-turning bodily-stuff (one barfs on camera, another has to pull a bullet out of his leg, there’s a group masturbation scene and John Goodman spits out from his mouth a brain tumour...YEAH). Then there’s the mildly offensive fact of a movie about the problems of rich white people features both casually racist language (is it making fun of racism, or not?) as well as racial stereotypes, like the repressed Asian businessman and the flirtatious black co-worker. I also have a problem with romances in which the two leads go out on two almost-dates and speak as though it’s a relationship that can be “all screwed up” by someone not showing up for a dinner, but all worked out by showing up for another dinner. Does the writer/director know how young people date at all? Also, if I see another movie (‘Juno’, ‘Smart People’) in which a baby arriving at the very end is supposed to clear up everything and make everyone happy. This is really where we’re at in 2009? Enough of this stupid Bristol Palin bullshit.
Okay. My night at The George. I found Rachel with her friend Elaine and we started drinking. I didn’t want to drink too much as I had to work the next day, which she was having none of. Rachel is a very good person to go to gay bars with because, as a bisexual, she is a girl, part of the queer community AND can discuss the hotness of men with you. She had the hots for this punky looking guy (“I’d do ‘em!”) while I got a crush on this guy who was sort of hanging out with him: acting awkward and awkwardly dressed to match, he had dark curly hair and looked a bit like that dreamboat Steve Zahn from some season of ‘Survivor’. Anyways, we made eye contact a number of times and I was trying to work up the bravery to talk to him. While we were standing outside in the smoking area Rachel began harassing me about going over and starting a conversation with him. “I don’t do that!” “Come on! Do it! It’s easy! Come on!” I kept hesitating, so finally she said, “Alright, I’m going to do it for you!” And she wandered over to him. Elaine and I began talking and pretended to not look over. “Oh, this is going to end horribly,” I said. “He’s going to have a boyfriend, or be completely not interested or something else...” Rachel wandered back. “He’s straight. He’s just here because of a birthday party for the one I liked. Yeah, totally straight.”
I wish it ended there.
Much later, after we had danced a bit, the girls had gone to the restroom and I was left outside watching over Rachel’s drink. A young woman came up to be to set her drink down and offered me a cigarette. “No thanks,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you have a lovely Irish face.” She looked a bit like Emma Watson, but obviously younger and very pretty. “Tanks, it is an Irish face.” We got to talking about what she had done that evening, and what I was doing in Dublin, until I saw the curly-haired guy sneaking up behind her. Now, I had not had a conversation (thank God!) but I knew he probably knew who I was, and I could think of no reason why he was approaching us now. “Excuse me,” he said to the young woman, whose name I forget, that I was chatting with. “I think you’re name’s Rachel, I was chatting with you before...” (Oh God.) “Um...” “...You were telling me about your friend Max, who wanted to chat with me...” “...” Before total disaster happened, I interrupted. “Um, this isn’t Rachel. This is a girl I just met. You didn’t talk to her. Rachel is in the rest room. This is her drink.” (For some reason, I felt the need to explain everything I could.) “Oh, okay. I’m Avery. I was just wondering if I could use that connection and get a cigarette.” The young woman who was not Rachel complied. Then we all started chatting to get rid of the tension. It turns out the two of them both worked in movies or TV or something, but some reference I made to the Irish Film Institute fell flat, and I suddenly realized that Avery, the shrewd straight man that he was, might be trying to pick up my new friend, but before I could politely exit, the girl said SHE had to go. I was not about to be left with a straight man (why’d they even let him in anyway!?) who I had twice been embarrassed in front of in one evening all by myself, so I explained that Rachel’s drink needed to be returned to her, and I had to seek her out. Second most humiliating thing to happen to me at a Dublin gay bar.
But that was not the end of the night. The girls and I ended up dancing again, and then I lost track of them in all the people and the smoke machine smoke, and I ended up dancing by myself with a handful of very randy couples all around me. Sure, I was a little jealous. It’s nice to be made-out with on the dance floor occasionally. Then this older gentleman (I’m guessing maybe... 37, but it’s hard to say) reached out his hand for me to lift him up onto the stage with me. And then an older woman did the same thing and I thought, a tad bitchily, ‘Is this my job now? Will I be tipped?’ but next thing I knew the older guy was dancing with me. ‘I’m going to let this happen,’ I thought. It was fun... for a little while. But after only about five minutes he began to venture with his hands further and further south. And this was not traditional over-the-clothing touching. He attempted to both go under the clothing AND unzip my pants. Shocked, I just kept literally pulling his hands up and away, but he was persisted. Honestly, my thoughts were less on being molested and more of the ‘I am not about to be kicked out of the bar for this drunken fool’s lecherousness!’ It turned out his was drunker than I thought, because at one point he grabbed me and the two of us almost toppled off the stage together and I gave him a little slap on the arm.
So after I lost him, I realized I would not find the girls again, so I headed home. Partly down George street a young lad approached me on the street. Now because ‘Gigantic’ had a subplot about a homeless man who had a violent and completely unexplained vendetta against Paul Dano, my first thought was ‘Oh my, he’s gonna kill me’. Then, because I had my cell out, I thought he was just going to ask to use my phone. But as he started to walk beside me he asks, “Where’re ye from?” “Canada.” “Canada! What’s... what’s the capital of Canada there?” “Ottawa.” “Is it now? Yes. I don’t know what I would’ve said... Montenegro or something... well, have a good night!” And he was gone.
And that’s not even the end of the stories from that night! Walking past The Bleeding Horse pub, I got in the middle of these group of four young people (three girls and a guy) and began laughing at two of them as they weaved some drunken scenario about waking up in dirt. “Oh, this was ill-thought out! I slept in soil!” It reminded me of the way my friends and I talk and I started giggling. The two girls in front of me turned around and asked if I was laughing at them. Before I knew it I was explaining once again what I was doing in Dublin and was being invited to go get “chippys” with them. I wasn’t even hungry, but they seemed so friendly and funny and I have been dreaming for weeks of going out for greasy food with friends after a night at the bar, I had to say yes. Turned out two of them lived near Ranelagh so we walked home together. It was a pretty nice way to end the evening.
A Tale of two Shopping Centres
It had been a couple weeks here and I was getting pretty desperate to find work. The only thing I would really draw the line at was being one of those people who hold signs up all day. So I was very thankful to get a call for an interview at a Starbucks at Liffey Valley shopping centre. I really didn’t give a hoot how far out of town it was. That is, until I had to go out there. I live to the South of the city centre, and Liffey Valley is to the direct West. So first I needed to go downtown, and then hop on a double-decker bus that would take about 45 mins to get to the mall. This was my first bus experience, so I giddily climbed up to the section on top and sat right by the front window; big mistake. These buses go fast, and swerve around tight corners, and I swear we hit a branch of a tree at some point, and by the end of the trip I was feeling sea sick. Liffey Valley is a gorgeous and gigantic mall that feels more like an airport. Despite realizing how inconvenient it’d be for me to get there, I gave the interview my all. At the end of it the manager said they were interviewing one other person who actually lived closer than me, but she was pretty certain the shopping centre at Dundrum was hiring too, and that I could get to very quickly on the Luas line. But, she added, I don’t know if this other person will work out, so I’m going to cover my bases first and get back to you.
That very evening, when I was walking down Ranelagh in order to buy a couple essential groceries, I got a call from Jayson from Dundrum shopping mall asking if I’d to come in for a “chat”. Assuming the other manager at gone with the neighbourhood applicant, I readily said yes and appreciated getting an interview at a closer store. The next day I went out to Dundrum, which despite being incorporated into the Dublin suburbs, still has the feeling of a village thanks to the little street you have to walk from the Luas stop which has pubs and charity shops and little brick houses with gardens. The mall itself, at the end of this stretch, comes up rather as a surprise. Jayson is a good guy and asked many of the same questions the Liffey Valley manager asked the day before. At one point I said, “I should come up with a different answer to that than I answered yesterday,” and he said, “You had an interview yesterday?” It turns out Liffey Valley had not called him yet and he had offered me an interview completely on his own (coincidently phoning me the day of my first interview!) No matter, they’d work it out, he said. I finished off the interview and felt pretty confident.
Then the Liffey Valley manager went missing in action, and Jayson, not wanting to step on her toes, didn’t offer me anything until he could reach her. Then it turned out she was waiting for the other person she interviewed to get back to her, but by this point I was favouring Dundrum and didn’t like the feeling of being bounced back and forth. “Do I have any sort of say,” I asked Zara, the assistant manager at Dundrum when she outlined the situation for me, “because your store is a lot easier for me to get to...” Finally, Zara phoned me about coming to do a test run (I forget what it’s actually called, but it’s something they do here in customer service where they see how you are behind the counter for a bit before they offer you a job). So I came in and everything went well (except a pitcher of frappuccino mix was knocked over in the fridge, maybe by me, and we had to mop it all up). Anyways, Zara said I did a good job and I’d hear from them soon, eventually getting a call from her the day of the Pride Parade.
And it’s been a whirlwind ever since. I was hired as a full-time staff member, which means I am guaranteed forty hours a week, which is radically different from scheduling in Canada. Also different though is the pace. In Toronto I must have worked at one of the quietest stores; now I work for one of the busiest in all of Ireland. I never thought about it this way, but starting at a new job is all about surviving a thousand little humiliations. For instance, despite the fact that the dress code is international, they made fun of me for wearing khaki pants instead of black. Worse, on my first day working with the manager Jayson, he said my scruff was a bit thick (“This store is kind of high profile, you see...”) so I offered to go and buy a razor and shaving cream from the pharmacy upstairs, which I hope showed my dedication. They have me mostly doing “cafe” (which is called “bussing” back home, but is so not as big a deal!) which involves going around picking up all the plates, mugs and garbage people leave at their tables. They keep apologizing and saying that I’ll get to do something more interesting soon, but for the time being, while I’m still getting used to the pace of the store and all the little things that are different, I’m quite happy with my little bin of dishes.
That very evening, when I was walking down Ranelagh in order to buy a couple essential groceries, I got a call from Jayson from Dundrum shopping mall asking if I’d to come in for a “chat”. Assuming the other manager at gone with the neighbourhood applicant, I readily said yes and appreciated getting an interview at a closer store. The next day I went out to Dundrum, which despite being incorporated into the Dublin suburbs, still has the feeling of a village thanks to the little street you have to walk from the Luas stop which has pubs and charity shops and little brick houses with gardens. The mall itself, at the end of this stretch, comes up rather as a surprise. Jayson is a good guy and asked many of the same questions the Liffey Valley manager asked the day before. At one point I said, “I should come up with a different answer to that than I answered yesterday,” and he said, “You had an interview yesterday?” It turns out Liffey Valley had not called him yet and he had offered me an interview completely on his own (coincidently phoning me the day of my first interview!) No matter, they’d work it out, he said. I finished off the interview and felt pretty confident.
Then the Liffey Valley manager went missing in action, and Jayson, not wanting to step on her toes, didn’t offer me anything until he could reach her. Then it turned out she was waiting for the other person she interviewed to get back to her, but by this point I was favouring Dundrum and didn’t like the feeling of being bounced back and forth. “Do I have any sort of say,” I asked Zara, the assistant manager at Dundrum when she outlined the situation for me, “because your store is a lot easier for me to get to...” Finally, Zara phoned me about coming to do a test run (I forget what it’s actually called, but it’s something they do here in customer service where they see how you are behind the counter for a bit before they offer you a job). So I came in and everything went well (except a pitcher of frappuccino mix was knocked over in the fridge, maybe by me, and we had to mop it all up). Anyways, Zara said I did a good job and I’d hear from them soon, eventually getting a call from her the day of the Pride Parade.
And it’s been a whirlwind ever since. I was hired as a full-time staff member, which means I am guaranteed forty hours a week, which is radically different from scheduling in Canada. Also different though is the pace. In Toronto I must have worked at one of the quietest stores; now I work for one of the busiest in all of Ireland. I never thought about it this way, but starting at a new job is all about surviving a thousand little humiliations. For instance, despite the fact that the dress code is international, they made fun of me for wearing khaki pants instead of black. Worse, on my first day working with the manager Jayson, he said my scruff was a bit thick (“This store is kind of high profile, you see...”) so I offered to go and buy a razor and shaving cream from the pharmacy upstairs, which I hope showed my dedication. They have me mostly doing “cafe” (which is called “bussing” back home, but is so not as big a deal!) which involves going around picking up all the plates, mugs and garbage people leave at their tables. They keep apologizing and saying that I’ll get to do something more interesting soon, but for the time being, while I’m still getting used to the pace of the store and all the little things that are different, I’m quite happy with my little bin of dishes.
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