Job Search Training.

While writing my last post, i realised just how much cash Centrelink owes me, and just how helpful it’d be in progressing my plans to GTFO Australia. So, armed with new hope for making my life easier for once, i grabbed my phone and made the call!

I’d like to point out how enthusiastic and hopeful the last paragraph was, as it really puts my experience in perspective.

After hanging on the line listening to some horrible government propaganda for a while, i got transferred to an operator. She went through the usual red tape, and assured me that claiming back to my initial claim date would be no problem. She was nice, everything went smoothly, too easy right?

WRONG! BAM! Job search training.

What, pray-tell is job search training? i don’t even know, and I’ve been attending it for five days.

Basically, to get the money out of Centrelink, i need to attend this course wherein the concept is that participants are taught useful techniques and strategies to assist them finding work.

Notice i said concept?

I’m pretty damn sure the first “lesson” was a thinly veiled “CAN YOU READ, DUMBASS!?”. The second riveting endeavour, “Time Management” – “CAN YOU READ TIME, DUMBASS!?”, and so on and so forth, ad naseum.

As I’m sure the more imaginative among my dwindling readership (bullshit, no-one reads this, you don’t have one!) can imagine, i was bored senseless. My first day, after completing the “exercise” in like ten minutes, i coloured in the back of an A4 sheet of paper in tiny little checkboxes. Then counted them. There was 1,523. At that point the woman taking the class even had the audacity to approach me and ask “are you.. maybe.. a little bored?”. To use the term “staring daggers” would be putting it mildly in this situation.

Anyway, it’s only 5 days worth, and if i get my payout it’ll be worth it. If not, what have i lost? it’s not like i do anything with my time anyways..

Seriously, the rest of my free time is either sitting at home, being a retarded fitness addict running up and down Buderim, at the beach, or sitting at Starbucks drinking coffee, reading, writing, and flirting with the waitress there.

Needless to say; i’m both bored and lonely.

AND I’m getting no closer to my departure as of yet.

oh woe is me?

- Matt

Agitated

It’s 5am again, and i cant sleep.

I’ve spent the past 4hours laying awake in bed.

I just cant stop thinking, and i’m pretty fucking pissed about it.

I feel like i’m wasting so much time, and there’s nothing i can do about it. I planned to be roughing it in the UK by now, getting ready to undergo selection, but via complications, my laziness and my sheer ineptitude, i’m still sitting here freezing my ass off on the coast. It’s the most helpless i’ve felt in a long time. I’ve got so much to do, and i’m so keen to do it, but there’s nothing i can do to progress at this point – i cant even begin to convey the feeling – which, i might add, is probably due to my poor writing style, which i’ve decided i hate after reading back through my prior posts.

I’m trying to us this blog as a vehicle to get that off my chest, but i just can’t. Agitated x2. At least i find a little serenity in reflecting on stuff here i guess *shrug*.

Anyway, i’ll give up on that for now, no-one likes a whiner anyway. News!

For starters, i got a new phone number in light of Commander wisening the fuck up. It’s 0405 197 158. And dont give me shit about putting it on the web – i’m so bored and antisocial i’d LOVE to have a creepy stalker or something. Call me, kay?

I called centrelink, deciding i should actually.. see some use of my tax dollars and claim the support they owe me. I havent done this prior to now because i feel dirty at even the though of it, even though i really shouldn’t considering it’s where the ludicrous amount of money the government taxes me goes. Anyway, as a bit of respite from my horrible luck of late, i may be able to claim up to 13 weeks worth of “you’re an unemployed dumbshit” off them, which would put me well and truly ahead in my “getthefuckoutofthecountry” fund.

Lets break that down.

I’ve worked out i need:

1. Approximately $1500 for tickets, $1800 at the most.
2. $490 for my visa, this will also take two months or so.
3. $150 for my passport, could take a month?
4. $500 for the pubjobs scheme. This is a great idea, kudos to whoever thought it up. Basically, i pay some flight-centre sub-company $500 and they get me a job working in a pub in the UK, wherein i get paid, and live in the accomodation above the pub. It’s not a heap of money (£120-£200 a week, about $240-$400AUD) and they supply me with a cooked meal a day and a place to sleep. The downside is that it’s a minimum 3 month term working in the pub, but i reckon it’ll be good to have that time as time to get out and explore the UK and Europe a little, as well as get my application and initial assessment done with the Paras.

That would be the bare minimum between now and then. So conservitively speaking, i need $2940 – ignoring obvious things like travel from the airport etc. Lets take stock of my current situation.

1. I’ve got about $700 in the bank, which is great i suppose after living off my savings for the better part of four months.
2. Claiming off Centrelink i can expect, at an estimate, at least $300/fortnight. If i can back-claim, thats about $1950. That would fucking rock. I’d be set. I’d sit here and live off unemployment – spending lots of time on the pristine beaches at my doorstep - until my Passport and Visas came through and just leave.
3. I’ve got a lot of goods to sell. At least 2k worth, trouble is selling them.

Looking at it that way, it’s really not such a dire situation – time is my enemy more than money. Timing it so i can book my flights in advance to get them cheaper, along with having my visa before i go is difficult. The department of immigration gives you a ballpark time span of like 4-6 weeks on SIMPLE cases (which mine should be, i’m applying for an Ancestry visa, stating that i have the right to live and work in the UK due to my family history – all you need is one parent or grandparent who was a UK citizen. My mother was not, but my grandmother was, i’m supplying them with my birth certificate, my mothers birth certificate, my grandmothers birth and death certificates, and if worst comes to worst, i’ll get her parents detials).

This means reaslistically if i book my tickets for two months from now i should be right, but i just cant be sure, and i cant leave without a visa.

What else is news? probably nothing. I’ve really got no life at the moment, i havent for months, and it’s really quite frustrating. Remember post #1 where i talked about my shit habits and being a loner? yeah, well, it’s still going. I’m afraid to do too much about it though i guess – i dont want to get too attached to anything here. Friends have made it easy for me, by deciding they hate me for some reason (barring Scott, he and i are probably closer than ever, and thats great) and family have been kind as well, my mother leaving to travel the world after catching the bug off me, and my brothers – one moving out and the other living with my father here.

My father is a non-issue, i cant say i feel much remorse nor regret at leaving him behind, he was absent for most of my life and i hate the way he lives his. I really only hope my younger brother doesn’t pick up his terrible defeatist habits and become like him. But i guess all this is another psych session for another time.

Oh, i also got off my ass and uploaded photos – well, i’m doing it right now anyway. Dialup sucks. ass. But check my Flickr feed for new shit. I’ll outline the noteworthy ones:

• 

  Salad Face Man. You have no fucking idea how hard it is to keep a straight face while holding a plate wherein you’ve made a face out of leftover salad, especially while at a resturaunt.

• 

  Guy-who-has-an-alpacca-for-a-wife. I grabbed these while at the beach the other day, check out his wife’s cute handbag!

Fuck me, 1123 words? i’m pretty good at ranting on about nothing huh?

I think i’m gonna go indulge my inner health psycho with a long run up and down the 15%incline hill outside my house. THEN i’m gonna go lay on the beach and read for a bit. I think i should take back what i said earlier about frustration, i feel a lot better after writing this.

baibainow.

- Matt

Update!

It’s like..

Fucking 5am.

I’ve gotta start writing these at a more reasonable time.

Anyway, i digress.

Things have changed! lots of new..

I moved down to the Sunshine Coast for one, after i learned that i need to visit some government thing to get my visa. This meant saying goodbye to everyone in cairns. So i invited everyone i could think of on short notice to go out to dinner at some little pub deal. Most of the actual responses i got were along the lines of “whoz dis” until the day before, but whatever. 15? people came, it was fun i guess, everyone kinda kept to themselves, and left early. I guess i expected it – the people i called friends probably don’t, and wont miss me, nor will i hear from them again unless it is in some way beneficial for them.

After the luxury pub dinner Kirby Dean and Sam came back home and we sat around drinking and talking and whatnot. I had a good long chat with Dean and that was basically it. At this point I’d ingested so much alcohol i felt wretched and decided a swift concede to sleep was in order.

Anyway, i guess not everyone feels the same way. Like Sam. Leaving her was hard.. see, she told me she still cares and stuff, which is a fatal move. Matt = bad for her, and she knows it I’m sure. I’m glad she still cares but i wish she’d moved on i suppose. This paragraph is crap, i don’t know how to articulate what i want to say. pfft.

letssee, time to do that “rad-dot-points-thing-I-do”© , ‘cos I haven’t updated in too long.

NEW STUFF:

• Living with my father on Sunshine coast. Goddamn i dislike him. He’s really become the stereotypical old-white-guy, it’s sad. Other than that, there’s no fucking work here, and I’ve re-discovered how much i love the beach.
• I got a job! working for the red cross. They then turned me down because i couldn’t get them a reference over the weekend. How fucking unreasonable is that?

Wow, I’ve been wasting alot of time.

So basically, I’ve worked out i need to sell all my stuff and make about 45k p/a, within the next two months, to move easily.

I think, i’m gonna go look at personal loans and shit.. maybe a new credit card, compound my issues. It’s risky, but faster?

Or perhaps i’ll do a stint working in a pub? it’s only three months.

By the way, shout out to the peeps (spambots? that dont spam? – i think they’re people) from the random third-world countries commenting on here. Thanks for popping this blog-cherry i suppose.

Airborne easy? fuck you, this is hard.

- Matt

p.s; photo’s later! typing this on my fathers computer and shitty dialup.