Monday, February 05, 2007

Why does it always happen when I'm on holiday?!

Some people prefer to be sick on their days off so they don't have to call in sick to work. I actually prefer the other way around. I DON'T want to be sick on my holiday! Well, I'm not sick, but I am still homebound. My back is acting up. It has not been this bad in over a year. I was just bending over yesterday and *SNAP* instant pain. It was probably a bad decision to walk a mile to church and back. It wasn't that bad until I sat in the pew.

I must comment about the church we visited yesterday. First of all, there is ALWAYS tea and coffee after church. So we stayed for tea and coffee. We were nearly instantly approached by people and kept up conversation the whole time we were there. They were interested in US! Imagine that. And I wasn't made to feel like a horrible person for working at Starbucks. They invited us back for the evening service, too, but didn't make us feel pressured that we had to settle down in their church and sign up for a list of activities.

So that was a good thing. But on top of my back pain, I was feeling a bit homesick. As far as I can remember, it is the first time I had a general feeling of homesickness rather than missing people or certain things, or just the general overwhelming feeling of being in a new place and having to learn new things every day. The days are getting longer, though. I am so, so, so looking forward to summer! We are really going to enjoy summer in our new flat. We have loads of windows french doors that open up. We are close to the botanics and the river. And in just a little over 2 months my parents will be visiting! Yeah!

3 comments:

Stephanie Wilson she/her @babysteph said...

Wow- your parents will be coming! Wish I could sneak over there, too. I'd give you a big hug...

I hope your back is feeling better soon and you can enjoy your day off.

And why would people make you feel bad about working at Starbucks!?

Anonymous said...

Your parents are visiting?!?! Yeah!! It's good to hear about your experience with the church yesterday.
How much time do you have off? I hope you get some relief from your back soon and enjoy your holiday.

Josh and Deliverance said...

Thanks, guys.

I'm on holiday for one week. It actually worked out that my last day last week was Wednesday, so I get more like 10 days off!

Steph, people here are ultra politically minded and do not like large corporations, especially American ones. And even though all of Starbucks coffee is fairly traded, we only have 2 that are certified Fair Trade, so people don't really consider us to be a fair trade organisation, which is hugely important. Also, because of the lower cost of tuition fees (for nationals, of course), people tend to be pretty educated. So people tend to turn up their noses and say things like, "well, you have to work wherever you can get a job, right?" :(