Thursday, May 12, 2005

It's been a long week and I haven't mustered up enough strength to post, but today I've decided that I've procrastinated for too long, so here I am again. This should be a fairly long post, seeing that I have plenty to say unless I forget what is going on in my head right now, so brace yourselves.

Well of last week I have recollection of only one major event, and that was last Saturday. I had to meet a friend called Roger at this place called Broadway to discuss our Micoreconomics essay due the following Monday, and we chose this placed called Michael's Gourmet Cafe or something like that. Now we reached there at sometime after 10am, and ordered a coffee for myself while Roger had a lemon tea. We discussed for about 2 hours before deciding to call it a day and finish up at home. Roger went to settle the bill, but soon came back looking perplexed. He asked me how much my coffee cost (3 bucks) before saying that we had an extra $4 added to our bill. I went to clarify and was told by the lady cashier that we were being charged $4 for staying so long. That was outrageous and I was not at all hesitant in telling her that I found it unfair. I wanted to continue protesting and demand a refund but Roger told me to just forget it. I didn't want to but gave in eventually, albeit reluctantly. I remember saying something to the effect of," It will be a cold day in Hell before I come here again." The lady cashier just watched out exit without even blinking.

Now this incident thoroughly spoiled my weekend for me. I kept thinking about it before deciding to take action. On Sunday I surfed the net to do some research on consumer rights in Australia and ended up at the Australia's Department of Consumer (& Employment) Protection. I printed a copy of their complaint form and filled it up. All that was required now was the details of that establishment and the lady cashier.

On Monday I finally handed up my Econs essay on "The Theory of Economics on Crime-Fighting), focusing on "Illegal Drugs" in particular. Guess that's gonna be the only time I'll be "doing drugs" in Australia. After school ended at 3pm, I went to Broadway, accompanied by my 2 friends Charlene and Cindy who had heard about the story and tagged along to "see me stir up some shit." (quoted)

Upon reaching there, I marched right up to the cashier and was served by this other lady. I asked to see the manager or owner or whoever was in charge, but she explained to me that neither was present and if she could help me. I explained to her what happened last Saturday, expressed my opinion on how dishonest and unfair that was and asked for the name of the lady who served me. As it turned out that particular lady was the owner and was called Marija (pronounced MA-REE-IA). The lady I'm talking to now, Nancy told me that she was a family friend of Marija and that Marija has not been well recently and perhaps that was why she reacted the way she did. She also asked me if she could just give me a refund while I let the matter go. Now I didn't anticipate that and obviously I wasn't sure if this has been going on for quite some time, though I'm pretty sure that I'm not the first one to have been cheated this way. In the end, after talking to Nancy for about 15 minutes, I accepted a refund and an assurance that she will talk to Marija about it and make sure that this sort of stuff didn't happen again. I think it snowed in Hell that day. Ian's Word of Wisdom: Don't get mad, get even.

Tuesday
Dyed my hair. Tried for blonde but got a mixed result, mostly some sort of orange-reddish blonde, some patched of yellow blonde and a little brown. Despite it not turning out the way I like it, I find that I rather like it. Now the reviews I got were pretty mixed, and I find that they can be narrowed down to nationality. The asians basically dislike the patches, while the angmohs find them cool and a good variation from the uniform hair colour all around. I'm going to hand around angmohs more. Oh yes and for you YMers reading my blog, please don't tell my mum. She's never approved of me for 3 things, 1) Getting a Motorbike license, 2) Learning fire-eating and 3) Getting Dyed hair. If this secret leaks out.... Well too bad...

Today
Had my Microeconomics tutorial today. Now one thing about my Microeconomics tutor, he has this uncanny knack for asking me to answer tutorial questions that I have not the faintest inkling to tackle. I could do the entire tutorial except for one question and he will definitely ask me to do that question. Anyway today I couldn't do this Question 2 part C and before the class I made a prediction to my classmates that I will get called to do this question. As luck would have it he did get me to do the question. The classmates in the know just laughed their guts out. The tutor asked me what's the joke.

It rained yesterday and I couldn't go for a jog, so when it rained today I was disappointed again. But after 5 minutes, the rain stopped and I went for my jog. It started raining, and not just at any point, but at the point that I was at the furthest from my house. I spent the next 15 minutes running in the rain. It was my first experience jogging in the rain and at the end of it all when I reached my house, I made a dash for the bathroom, leaving a trail of rainwater and soppingly wet clothes in my wake. Don't ever want to go through that again.

Tomorrow
Having an EBS test tomorrow. It's a test on using Microsoft Excel to perform statistical work. If only our exam was done on Excel, it's so much easier... Sigh...