The struggle is real

Hate is a strong word.

I don't hate a lot of things.

But I do hate job hunting!

"You don't have enough experience"
"Sorry you have too much experience"

ARGHHH

On my return from home, I have spent an awful lot of time searching for work.  I reapplied for my old job again (just fewer hours) in the hopes that by this time I would be working and earning money.

But seeing as they had over 100 people apply for the job its taking longer than expected.

There has been so many jobs that I have applied for, and I'm just not hearing anything back.

UNTIL....

I received an email from my old job asking me to come in for an assessment centre.  Lucinda got an email as well so we were on our way!

We got there and was given a post-it note.  Our first task.  Put it behind your back and rip it into an animal in 20 seconds and then explain yourself.  Note I did the worst giraffe I have ever seen in my life and couldn't help but noticed my old managers trying not to laugh at how sad and pathetic it looked.

We then got split into groups, got given a list of 6 people with little bios.  One girl was pretty and loved flower arranging.  One was a mother of young children but was having an affair.  A man who was curing rabies but had indecently exposed himself in front of children... TWICE!  You know, the norm.  We were told that these people were trapped in a cave and it was up to us to decided who to save and who was going to die as there wasn't enough time to save them all.

Our final task was to split into different groups and come up with a marketing idea for easter.  There is no budget, be creative and GO!

All these things I can do, I just happened to be put into groups with a loud mouth who tried not to let anyone else speak, a girl who could barely speak English, and a guy who didn't speak at all.

I'm convinced it was my old managers way of having a bit of fun with me "let's make things interesting for Sam"

I must not have done too bad as I received a call a few days later asking to come back for an interview and some shadowing.  Lucinda also got called back so it was exciting all around.

The day had arrived, I met up with Lucinda the night before and tried to explain everything to her.  So we went in, got given a snazzy uniform and got put on position.  It was a nice feeling being back and was getting hugs from my old work mates.  I also had to help a new staff member as it was only his second day and he didn't know what he was doing.  "Thank god you're here Sam, cos I wouldn't have a clue"  Oh bless.

So after a great catchup with my friends (oh and a bit of work as well) I had my interview.

"You left this job Sam, so why should we hire you back?"

CRAP

I tried my best to explain myself, and answered the questions the best that I could without being cocky because I know all the procedures and the people.

I left the interview unsure.  When I left, my old managers told me that I would always have a job if i wanted it, but I didn't want to go into the whole process thinking that.  That would make me over confident and I could of lost it for myself.

Lucindas interview went well from what she told me, so now all we had to do was wait.

Fast forward a few more days and I have a slight panic attack at the private number flashing on my phone screen.  I answer it and BOOM!  I am officially employed again!  I start next week and the best thing is, Lucinda got the job as well.

This will be the 4th job that we have work together at.

These poor people wont know what hit them.

Prepare for an Aussie invasion!

Aussie Out
xo

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Scones!

So as lent is upon us, and Charlotte has decided to give up chocolate.  I am trying to be kind and bake thing that do not have chocolate in it.

This weeks baking mission : Scones.

A super simple recipe that can go wrong so easily.

You will need :

3 cups of self raising flour

1 cup of heavy cream

1 cup of lemonaid

Put the flour in a bowl and  make a well in the middle.  Add the cream and the lemonaid and using a flat knife, make cutting motions in the mixture until completely combined.  If the mixture is still sticky, add more flour.

Lightly dust a working bench with some more flour and transfer your mixture.  Then knead your dough for a few minutes.  Then roll it out so it is roughly a centimetre thick.

You can either cut it into squares or using a round cutter, into circles.

Pre heat oven 220 Celsius 

Bake 10-12 minutes

Add jam and cream for the top.

A tip for scones the next day, cut in two, put on some nutella and put back together, and heat for 10 seconds in the microwave.  It tastes like dreams coming true.

Enjoy

Aussie Out

xo

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A piercing tale

You know how when you are drunk and you come up with great ideas with your friends?

It never ends well.

The mammoth peer pressure I felt,  on that day was beyond anything I've ever felt before.  I don't regret it, but I wouldn't be bothered if I didn't have it.

So one night when my friends and I were all all the vodka in Sydney, we thought it would be a great idea for us all to get piercings the next day.  Having a crippling fear of needles, I only agreed as I was so drunk somebody could of told me I was going in for trans-gender surgery the next day and I would of thought it a brilliant plan.

When I woke up the next day, I did remember the plan but hoped that everyone else would of forgotten.

I was not so lucky.

So with full acceptance that I was going to have another hole in my body, and that if that hole was anywhere near my face, my mother would kill me, we all went to Newtown in Sydney (which is kinda the place to go for piercings and tattoos and made a booking.

One of my friends got dermals in his arm.

Another a lip ring.

When I told them all I wanted was my second holes done, my friends were not impressed.  I agreed to go a little more daring and agreed to the top part of my ear.

I don't know how it happened.  I could of still been drunk from the night before, but I made the appointment to get my tragus pierced.

My other friends went in first as I slowly freaked out in the waiting room.  They came out one by one with tales of how cranky the guy doing it was.

Finally it was my turn.

Everyone wanted to come in and watch me which the guy was fine with.  He marked me up and then told me to lie down.  I started freaking out and told him that I was terrified of needles.  His reply.

"Well close your F**kin eyes then"

Oh God!

A tight squeeze from my friends hand, a comforting word from another friend, and a sharp needle bursting through my skin and I was done.

What I didn't think through was the inability to sleep on my right side.  Not being able to listen to music on the way to work with my headphones... ohh and the crazy infection that I got.

The infection got sad bad at one point that the skin started growing over the back of the piercing.  However after drenching it in saline solution every couple of hours it did heal, as I was determined to have this piercing as I had suffered for it.

Fast forward a couple of years later and I want to change the jewel into something prettier than a silver ball.  I was having some trouble changing it so went into another piercing place so they could do it.

"Who did this for you?"

The lovely tatted up guy asked as he was changing the jewel.

"I only ask because whoever did it, did it wrong.  It's too far in.  Did it get super infected?"

OH MY GOD!

I knew that guy was an a-hole.

I told him about my experience and he knew straight away who the guy was as he had quite a bad reputation in the piercing and tattoo community.  Something I would of liked to be told at the time.

I still have my tragus pierced.  Half because I feel cool and hip, the other half is because it looks ugly and I have a stupid hole in my ear.

Moral of the story, don't go out drinking with my friends, you will end up with piercings (and tattoos - but thats for a later post)

Aussie Out

xo

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Shower Madness

So as all of my housemates should know by now, I find it almost impossible to shower without music.

I've had this strange little habit for a while.  My Mum got so annoyed at me at one point for having a huge extension cable running from my room to the bathroom just so I could listen to the spice girls in the shower that she brought me a shower radio for Christmas one year.  It was shaped like a penguin and was glorious.

I digress.

So every time I have a shower, I load my spotify app and choose a genre in which I would enjoy getting clean to.

With my current obsession being what it is lately, my shower time has been very 50s.

I call it the shower shuffle (because I just push shuffle - lets keep it clean <------ BAD PUN!)

Anyway there is a 50s tune called Duke Of Earl - Gene Chandler  that came on during my latest shower shuffle.

Now any 20+ year old Aussie would be familiar with a 90s commercial for shampoo in Australia.  Set to the tune of this 50s classic.  So what else could I do but recreate the commercial.




It wasn't a pretty sight.

Things to look out for in the video.

A woman making very suggestive hand gestures to a shampoo bottle
Some killer 90's hairstyles
Glorious bathroom dancing
Amazing hair flicking

Oh god I need help!

Aussie Out
xo

Please note : No shampoo bottles were harmed in the making of this blog post!

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The Aussie Traveler Cliché

Job hunting sucks.

Having to leave my job that I had to be able to go home for Christmas, I was stuck with the horribly annoying task of having to find a new job upon my return to London.

So it was only natural for me to then partake in the great Australian tradition of pub work.

I applied to work at a local pub that I had never stepped stepped into - I was a shoe-in.

What a surprise when my phone rang a couple of days later, asking me to come in for a trial.

I have never worked in a pub before.  I have however, spent a great deal of my life drinking in them, so with no confidence what so ever, and a killer hangover from all the cheap wine I had consumed the night before, #yolo, I walked in and hoped for the best.

I figured I wasn't off to the best start when I almost fell down the stairs to the cellar to leave my stuff.  Not an exaggeration by the way.  I have a habit of falling down the stairs, but i'll save that gem of a story for another time.

So once I got back up to the bar, I let the guy know the great news. 

I KNOW NOTHING!

The poor guy tried to explain everything to me.  But with the rugby playing, the pub was loud and busy, so I was kind of left to get on with it.

"Can I get an an Amstel with a top"

"Can I get a Fosters with lime"

"1 cappuccino please"

Oh My God!

So I quickly learnt that any time someone orders something with a top, it means add lemonade.

Add lime cordial to the fosters, not an actual lime!

And anyone who orders coffee in a bar can go to hell!

I spent an awful lot of my trial not knowing what to do.  How to pour a pint correctly.  And for the love of God, what glass do I use.

I did start getting the hang of it.  I totally poured a pint of Guinness like a boss!

I don't know why I didn't clue in that people would be drunk at a pub.  That's where I met Marco.  He was staring at me while I was behind the bar, so I checked that he had been served which he had been.  But then he quickly asked me if I would hang out with him at his house after my shift.

Let me just paint you guys a picture of Marco.  He had long greasy curly hair, round purple tinted sunglasses on- INSIDE - and a sleazy disposition.  Sort yourself out Marco.

So you can understand why I tried to be as nice as I could by making an excuse and walking away.

What I didn't realise was that he was sticking around in the pub and as I finished my trial ( it went alright by the end of it, so we shall have to see) Marco followed me out of the pub and started following me.

So I called Charlotte as we were planning to meet up.  However as I stopped walking, Marco stopped walking.  So there was no way of telling her "Yes I know we are 10 minutes away from each other but I think I am going to get raped" in any code that wouldn't be obvious.

So as I hung up the phone, he started talking to me again.

"What are you doing now"

"What are your plans for tonight"

"I like your hair colour.  Would you say its red?"

"This housemate you are meeting, is she a he or is he a she?"

Thankfully as I got to the station, I saw Charlotte and gave her the OH GOD PLEASE HELP ME eyes.

Marco looked as though he had hit the jackpot now that there was 2 of us.  When Charlotte asked him what his plans were for the night, he replied with "something fun, you girls are going to join me"

Thankfully Charlotte gave us a great excuse about friends coming over so there was no chance of anything "fun" with Marco.  We made a swift get away in the hopes of never having to see him again.

So all in all, I did enjoy working in a pub.  Quite stressful when you don't know what you are doing, but if I get the job, hopefully I can pick it up quickly.  That and try very hard not to become an alcoholic.

Aussie Out

xo

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Dealing with negative people

Two posts in one day?  Read on and see why!

I'd like to think that I'm a nice person.... 95% of the time.  I'm not perfect.  Nobody is.  But would I ever turn to the internet with the purpose of trying to make someone else feel bad?  Never!  Especially without a hilarious meme. Amateurs!

If only the rest of the world could be the same.

I received a comment on a recent post about a guy.  The comment has been deleted as the only negativity on my blog will come from me about my sad sad life choices.  I'm not going to name names or point fingers, but I am going to go through this comment, and nitpick at it until I get bored.

So here we go... dealing with negativity the Sam way!

"You really don't do yourself any favours, what with your clothes than are covered with dog hair, awful accent, and when you open your mouth you show more gum than a hubba bubba factory. course he's not interested as you are "too awesome" LOL "

Ok kids, lets break it down!

1. My clothes are covered in dog hair

I LOVE dogs.  Anybody who knows me, knows that is no secret.  I have dog PJS (more than 1 pair actually) and my favourite mug is my jack russell dog mug that I got for Christmas from Charlotte.  The main reason I moved into my house that I live in now, was because they had a dog.  HAD!  This dog moved out back in September last year.  So if I am covered with dog hair, I'm annoyed cos I don't even get the fun of playing with and cuddling with any dogs.

Do you have any other animals though Sam?  I do.  What a silly mistake this person has made.  I live with 2 rabbits aswell.  They live outside and I have nothing to do with them.  Nope not rabbit hair.  I've got it!  All the hair that all my clothes are apparently covered with must be coming from the 2 cats that I live with.  I mean the cats and I have a mutual disliking of each other so we stay out of each others way, but now I'm convinced that while I'm not at home, they plot against me by opening my door and rubbing themselves against all my clothes.  Charlotte, you must have words with your cats and tell them not to do this anymore.  It makes strangers on the internet upset.  Thanks :)

NEXT

2. My awful accent

Oh how upsetting.  I moved to the other side of the world because I love my accent SO much.  Jokes.  I am well aware by how annoying the Australian accent is, and I shall make no excuses that I don't sound any different to any annoying Aussie.  This is why I surround myself with lovely British, Irish and Scottish accents to make up for my lack of lovely sounds that come out of my mouth.  But I mean, you missed a great opportunity here.  I know you don't know me, but for future insults, I also say some REALLY stupid things with my stupid accent.  Ask my friends, they can tell you!

NEXT

3. I have gums

All the better to hold my teeth in my dear.  But ok I'll give you this one.  Because believe it or not, I have looked at myself in the mirror and know that I have a gummy smile.  Not my favourite feature about myself, but beggars can't be choosers now.  I would also like to point out that I have tiny teeth (and little hands but hey thats off topic).  Doesn't help the gum issue, but it cuts down on the teeth brushing time so who is the real winner here?  I do believe its me, and my healthy teeth (says the dentist anyway.)

However, if any representatives from Hubba Bubba would like to talk to me about me doing some ads for them, feel free to contact me - I do love me some Hubba Bubba!

After I told Charlotte about this comment, she was as shocked as I was that 2 very important things weren't brought up.

I'm short! 5'3.  That's a pretty easy thing to pick on.  And I am also....

GINGER!

But hey if you can find a red head insult that I haven't heard growing up, i'll be impressed.

So well done keyboard warrior, I am now convinced more than ever, that my blog is officially a success!  Enjoy your life, cos I really enjoy my gummy, annoying voiced life.  Now someone find me dog to cuddle!

Aussie Out
xo

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Banana Bread Baking!

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In honour of my very 50s lifestyle, I've been doing a spot of baking!

So armed with some old bananas and a killer 50s soundtrack, it was banana bread a go-go!

Ingredients

140 grams of unsalted butter (at room temp)

140 grams of caster sugar

2 large eggs

140 grams self - raising flour

1 tablespoon of baking powder

2 over ripped bananas (mashed)

Pre-head your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  

Lightly grease your load tin.

Cream the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy, then slowly add the eggs with a little flour.  Fold in the remaining flour, baking powder and bananas. Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle.  

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then move to a wire rack.

The best thing about banana bread other than using up old bananas, is you can toast it, add some butter and its perfect for morning tea ( or a cheeky naughty snack)

Enjoy

Aussie Out

xo

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