Corpthorne Housekeepers....

Today is my first day working as a housekeeper at Corpthorne Hotel. I ve never worked as a clearner before, what else in a hotel. I am working there with another 3 of my friends. Since this is our first day, we starts at 8.30am. Thus, I had to wake up way earlier than usual...6.15am. According to our previous plan, we wanted to head for the buas at 7.15am. But, we changed the plan to 7.45am. Had some breads before heading to work. We were very lucky as we arrived at the bus stop exactly when the bus arrived. Well, we reached there half an hour earlier. Its ok. Besides, it's our first day. Better early than late. Since we re earlier, we were asked to wait for our supervisor, Lagi. Lagi came and brought us the uniform room and we were given our uniforms. OMG... the uniform was superrrr...... funny and should I say... its ugly! A baggy navy short that with 1 look, u might think its a skirt, and a flowery, short sleeve, blue shirt. It was so funny that we felt like school boys... haha... its ok. we were just housekeepers... on the other hand, the uniform was so comfy that it made us easy to move around and do all the cleaning.

Today is our training. Interesting, unlike Nando's-my previous employer, the system here is much more systematic and logical. We know our tea break time, lunch time, and the things that we are expected to do. We were provided with free food from the cafe. Its just that they dont provide halal meats and stuff. so we can only take vege and fruits. so sad... the rest can eat chickens, cakes, etc. they even served pork and bacon. I did not dare to try anything that looked ambiguos to me. Its ok, healthy diet. haha... good for me, really need a slimming programme right now. We were taught how to make beds, clean toilets, dusting, etc. so basically, i had made a record in my life, today. I had cleaned my first hotel room in my life, which not many people have this same opportunity in theor life. My first entire room cleaned by me was room 317. I had to make 2 beds, wipe windows, dusting, vacuum, and clean the toilet. A bit tired, but its enjoyable and we re not pressured like working in Nando's. Not as tired as Nando's too. But, of course, I cant tell about that. Coz today is only the first day. We only had the chance to clean a few rooms. Wait till they had put their trust on us, just look at how many rooms we ll have to clean.

Yeah, basically that's today's story. We went back at half past 2 and we were starving. Like usual, we cooked instant fried noodles and chat together at the dining hall. Life can be very enjoyable, interesting and sometimes miserable with friends. As usual, friends come and go. They cant be with us all the time. So, just bear with it... Its good to have friends accompanying us abroad, as we dont have families here. So, as now, I m kinda tired. But was thinking of taking a shower, cook dinner and continue with my assignment. urghhh.. hate assignmentsssss!!!!! ciao...

gregariousness of today...

I was reading "FREIRE: education for critical consciousness" last night when suddenly i realised that i slept half way reading it. It was 6am when I woke up realising there was a book lying on my face. It was a fine morning, very cold and peaceful. I grabbed my duvet and decided to continue sleeping. An hour later, i woke up and started to continue reading the book. There is no way i m gonna read those types of books unless there is a great necessity of doing so. I had to read that book for more in-depth understanding of Freire concept of a liberationist teacher. It's for my pedagogy assignment which due on next friday. frankly speaking, I lost track of time, works, myself here. I could not set a new habit here and my time management had totally changed. Maybe it is caused by the differences in time and right now, the daylight is kinda short here. Normally back in Malaysia, I would prefer to stay up till 1 or 2 am. but here, i could not even stay up till 12am. I d be a dead meat by that time. I was not sure of my daily habits, feel like i am loosing my mind here. I felt my mind is shrinking from day to day. My brain is too lazy to work, its as if my cognitive development had stopped on the day i reached here. My assignments... were pieces of junk. useless.. i cant compose even one single good quality piece of work. it is very tiring living in this state of mind actually.

By the way, today is the most packed and tiring day in the week. I guess it is because today is my most productive day in Auckland. I had been engaging with instructional processes (in easier term is teaching-learning process) starting from 8am to 4pm. i was so exhausted. Not physically tired but mentally exhausted. And not to mention, I was again pissed off by my 2 closes friend here. few days earlier...indeed, a week aerlier, they were the ones who encouraged me to enrol in a writing workshop with them. I had agreed to attend the workshop together and the workshop required us to enrol online. just few nights before, they said that they were going to enrol that night. I even asked 1 of them for the web address. i really thought they had registered their names that night. i, on the other hand, totally forgot about it. So, yesterday evening, I decided to check the website for any vacancy in that workshop and luck was on my side that there was a still a place for me to attend it. The workshop was to be held today at 3pm. However, right after class today (11am), they told me that they had not registered yet. And i really thought that they were going to register themselves at that time because i had told them about my enrollment and besides, we dont have any class during that time. We are supposed to be free that time. Dissappointedly, they did not. We had a lecture from 12 to 2pm. And if they are considerable enough and they actually think about this friend of them, they could just dropped by at the computer lab just for a while to check for the availability of the workshop. But it seemed to me that it never occured to them that it was important to keep your words. I was so damn pissed off at that time. I actually check for the availability of that workshop for them an dtext them just to let them know. But they just did not care about it. So, at the end, I had to attend the workshop alone. So the moral of the story here, you dont have to care about your friends' feelings when they tried to convince to join them doing something. If you think that something is worth your time, then go for it. so that, even if you were left behind at the end of the day, you would still earn somthing. As for me, the workshop was quite a sleeping pill as whatever input provided was just a redundancy of what i d learnt back in my hometown. But its ok. Looking at the bright side, at least it was a good refreshment for me.

After coming back from that workshop, I realised that i d received a parcel. I knew it must be one of the items i bought from trade me. haha the famous well known online super market.. yay!! I received my "gothic styled" top... this is the picture of it. It looked nicer in the trademe pic though. haha... but still its nice and comfy. Yeah, I did mentioned before this that i ordered a bouquet of flowers for mum. But I wasnt sure whether my credit card had been accepted or not. i really hope my mum will receive it on monday. Actually, i planned to start with my research paper's assignment tonight. But, since tomorrow is my first day of working as a hotel cleaner, then i guess i should study the workers' manual a bit. Just to provide some prior knowledge before start working tomorrow. Cant imagine how am i gonna work there... never had such experience before. Hope everything goes fine....

A place that has been planted with a seed of love... (1)

Woke up at 7.30am when the class starts at 8. my stomach's rolling its drums...sooo hungry but of course no time to grab even a fast breakFAST. this morning it was super duper unusually freezing cold. just imagining the water could make me shiver right now. no time to stare at my wardrobe's collection *as usual* to choose the best outfit of the day. Everything just went wrong... woke up late, no breakfast, hate my outfit, ankle's still swelling-cant dash to class, totally forgot my homework(naah..it's totally not a totally forgot kinda stuff-never care to do it..;p), n the list goes on....

today, i made a record. for the first time in my phonological history, i escape my beloved phonology class... why do i have to attend it? the excitement, enthusiasm, and my willingness of learning it has gone... i just cant adapt with the new teaching environment and teaching strategies or whatever they call it. besides, attendance is not compulsory. so, how did i spend my 2 hours of phono class?? haha... sitting in my room staring at this technological device that kids nowadays seem to adore so much-laptop! haha...

i was searching for something sweet, elegant and has the ability to portray my love, appreciation and sincerity to my dearest mum. for this coming mother's day, i would like to present my mum, something special so that she could feel my presence everytime she touches and looks at that something. after searching for like ages with all the connection problems, i finally found the best one. i decided to buy a bouquet of pink and purple carnations with a heart shape ballon hanging there saying " i love you". i hope it will be delivered to my mum on monday while she is still in school. (The above roses are not the one i am giving her, mind you..haha)

This is my first time not celebrating mother's day with her at home. i did not feel the slightest sadness in my heart while searching for her present online. but, while typing the wish card, i could not stop my tears from dropping down my cheeks. it's so sad thinking of all the bad things u had done to your mum all this long. how u never border to care about her feelings when she is there right in front of your eyes. as i was typing it, one by one, the memories of us together cramming my head. i saw her smile, her tears, her anger, and her pictures appeared in my head like a roll of film. till then, i realised how gratefull i am to be her daughter, to have a mother as strong as her. she raised me with patience and love. though she scolded me and raised her voice, but all those had made me a better person then yesterday. if not because of her, i might not become who i am today, or where i am now. thank you, mum and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all mothers out there.