Day 90 - Paella Powered Prayers

Camera Crows on the Prowl

July 7th, 2015

AHhhhhhh... today is a good day. I start the new job at 6pm for a 2 hour training period. All I can think is "I don’t ever have to look at a house and think 'where’s the front door? are they home? the car’s still hot, so they probably just arrived.. but there are no lights on.. What’s the deal with this gate?' ever again." Hopefully. It’s downpouring, but hey, who cares? Not like I’m wandering around in it.

Shimou lets me print off some resumes to go look for another job, but since it’s raining and I’m running out of time, I opt for the gym instead. I’m not sure if I’ll need another job; it all depends on how many hours this place feels like tossing my way.

The half hour walk to the job is relaxing. I rock up to find German Nadja [Nadia] working alone. It’s a small place, and reminds me of the Pita Factory, but better. Much better. Then again, that’s not entirely hard. She shows me the cash register, how to make meatballs, the different paellas [pi-yey-ah] they have, including a “black” one that has squid ink - cool!

More street art on the way to work

The other employee, Bangladeshi Kafayat (sp?) arrives shortly before the end of my shift. I’m not sure if he’s made a number of mistakes or is new to this sort of work, but the way they spoke around him made it seem like he’d not done the best work. Hard to tell if it’s them being strict, or an accurate reflection of his performance. Either way, I’ve worked far worse places for longer.

After cutting up 8kg of chicken, they release me back into the wild at 8pm. I’m on my second listen through for “4 hour work week,” and I could not recommend it more. Like, seriously, I’m actually pushing it on everyone. I’ll probably go through it a third time, sitting down with a pad and paper, following the book and taking notes/actually doing the exercises. That’s the drawback of audiobooks: you don’t usually have a pen and paper to do the exercises.

Back at the share house, Ricardo tells me that Phon had moved out without saying anything. Her fridge shelf and cupboard are still stocked, but there’s nothing in her room. That would leave me, Ricardo, and the new French girl (Assia), though she works evenings and I never see her.

This was erected recently near the
Cathedral place. It's two young, red boys.

I inspect all the rooms to see who is actually still here. It’s after dark, so I assume they’re not home if the lights are off. It’s only 9pm, so it's unlikely they're sleeping. I am correct, but also find three free beers in Phon’s former room. Score.

Ricardo and I sit in the kitchen while I make pizza, chatting about whatever random things. I try to explain an idea I’ve been playing with, but the language barrier makes it difficult. The idea is about impressions, or versions of ourself, that people get to see:

I still see my ‘real’ self as some former version of myself. Say I worked really hard the entire time someone knew me - that’s the person they think I am. In some respects, that is the person I am, at least for the time they knew me. In more sense than one, we are constantly changing. I forget the exact number of years, but every 5-10, our cells have all been replaced. We are a new person. We are a gradual evolution of that former self, though no piece of us from our childhood continues to exist, yet it still somehow defines us. Only the memory lives on, however inaccurate those may be.

Anyway, that was the basic idea. How it can feel like the people who only know you for the past short while don’t now the ‘real’ you, though they know a version of you. Flash back to Citizen Kane or Baccano!

He didn’t get it, but the conversation moved on for a while until he called it a night. I spent the time talking to people from home and playing games. Nice to relax after a hard week. Life is tough! (/s)