Saturday 28 April 2012

A sneak peek into next week

Recently I have let things slip a bit and I am more behind than ever now, but don’t worry.  I have got my act together and I have a schedule for myself to stick to.  Following this schedule will ensure that I am up-to-date by Sunday 6th May (next week).
To make sure I stick to this schedule I am going to publish it so you guys can tell me off if I fall behind.  It also gives you a sneak preview into what is coming up.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it.  (And I do enjoy writing it).

Saturday 28th April
  •          Gonna start a revolution from my bed (Friday 13th April)

Sunday 29th April
  •          Argyle and Night out in the docks (Saturday 14th April
  •          Sunday 29th – Sunday Reflection V (Sunday 15th April)
  •          Chipping Away (Monday 16th April)
  •          The Breakthrough (Monday 16th April)

Monday 30th April
  •         Unsettled (Tuesday 17th April)
  •          One Door Closes (Wednesday 18th April)

 Tuesday 1st May
  •          Another Door Opens (Friday 20th April)
  •          Mexican Night (Saturday 21st April)
  •          The Wrong Man (Saturday 21st April)
  •          Training Day III (Monday 23rd April)

Wednesday 2nd May
  •          Anzac Day, (Wednesday 25th April)
  •          Ignorance is Agony (Wednesday 25th April)
  •          The Best Job in the World, Almost (Friday 27th April)

Thursday 3rd May
  •          Spectrum and 60’s music (Friday 27th April)
  •          Sunday Reflection VI What?  On a Thursday? (Sunday 29th April)

Friday 4th
  • Untitled (Monday 30th April and Tuesday 1st May)


Saturday 5th May
  • Untitled (Wednesday 2nd May, Thursday 3rd May, Friday 4th May)

Sunday 6th May
  • Untitled (Saturday 5th May and Sunday Reflection VII 6th May)



(Day 37) The Box of Tricks


Saturday 7th April (Day 37)

The problem with writing about this night is I don’t remember entirely what happened.  Luckily I had my camera with me and from the photos I have managed to piece together the events of this night, though some of the details are fuzzy.  Enjoy!

“Punch is the term for a wide assortment of drinks, both non-alcoholic and alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice... Punch is typically served at parties in large, wide bowls, known as punch bowls.  Due to its sweetness, the drinker may not taste the alcohol and become intoxicated more quickly than anticipated. This drink is popular on college campuses as an inexpensive means of becoming intoxicated” Wikipedia

I can’t remember exactly why we are having a punch night tonight.  Monta, Mick, Lisa, Amy and JC are away this weekend in a rented car driving up along the coast so this means there will be less of us to share out the punch; and this is just a recipe for disaster.  We are not sensible and I know we are going to drink all of the punch.  We are not going to turn around half way through the night and say “If think that’s enough punch for me tonight lads”.  I can see ourselves drinking ourselves to oblivion or until the punch is all gone, whichever comes last.

We had all given Troy and Ryan $20 to go out and get the stuff for the punch.  They returned that evening from work with a large plastic box and several bags full of bottles.

After empting all the various bottles of intoxicating substances into the plastic box we started drinking straight away.  The punch was very nice; the blend of spirits, fruit juices and cheap wine worked well to make a concoction that was sweet and fruity to taste but made you feel silly very quickly.  We dubbed the punch “The Box of Tricks”.

Everything you need to get absolutely hammered
And so it begins...

After a few rounds of punch I suggested a game of Ring of Fire and I managed to borrow some cards off Anna (Polish housemate from next door).  She said I could keep the cards; I guess after seeing the state of us I didn’t think she really wanted to touch those cards again.
For clarity we established the rules of Ring of Fire early on and wrote them on a piece of paper for everyone to see.

You can tell our level of drunkenness in each photo by
looking at the level of punch left in the box

The first round of Ring of Fire went down well and everyone was having a merry time.  However the next two rounds didn’t go as smoothly as the alcohol was taking effect. 

Ring of Fire becomes a surprisingly complicated game when you are drunk and by the 3rd round it was becoming hard to follow the rules we had established at the start.  Everyone was just drinking regardless of what card was being drawn and we could never remember who’s turn it was.  It was still good fun though.

A by-product of our drunkenness
The final push to finishing off the box of tricks
A decided to try and write my initials on a wall using ketchup

After the 3rd round of Ring of Fire we made a final push to finish off the box of tricks and we staggered off the town.  We initially lost 2 people as they decided they were too drunk for town. 

The first place we headed to was Star Bar; the bar that I have been refused enter to before for being too drunk.  Well tonight, we all got in!  I have no idea how we managed that.  The bouncer even stopped me in the queue to ask me how much I had to drink that night, it is very rare to be stopped in the queue and to be asked this question and still manage to get in.  I told him I only had 2 ciders in my most sober voice and he believed me.  I was absolutely hammered but maybe all the sugar in the fruit juices in the punch were allowing me to think quickly when I needed to pull myself together.

I was really surprised by Star Bar.  I thought it would just be a small reasonably stylish bar but it turned out to be a very large night club.  It looked so small from the front of the building; where were they hiding all of this club?

I quickly got talking to some girls on the dance floor.  Usually I find it hard to talk to members of the opposite sex in nightclubs but I had no issues tonight.  I was actually talking to them because I decided it was my mission that night to get one of our friends with a girl that night.  I was being his wingman and as a wingman it is always easier to make the first move.  It is just easier to talk to a girl on someone else’s behalf rather than approaching a girl on your own behalf.  That is the beauty of the wingman.


Some of us and a random girl
What was I saying to this random girl?!
Star Bar is pretty big inside

After spending some time in Star Bar we headed off to Scruffy’s which was another place we miraculously got into, but to be honest I didn’t stay in Scruffy’s very long.  I felt like I was just too drunk to have a good time.  Having a small amount of alcohol and being happy tipsy is good but I passed that point a long time ago, probably in the first round of Ring of Fire.  I was just carrying too much alcohol to relax and have a good time.

I decided to leave earlier than everyone else and I headed off toward home and of course I ended up getting lost.  I haven’t been lost in a while; do you remember when I used to get lost pretty much every day?  Tonight I was doing drunken unplanned exploration.

I ended up in some town that looked like a typcial Chinese town.  All the architecture was in a Chinese theme with archways, dragons and embroidery.  I didn’t know Sydney had a China Town, either that or I was far more lost than I thought.  After staggering around some deserted streets I finally ended up on a road that I knew and arrived back to the house.


Stumbling upon this weird pavement thing
was when I realised I was lost


I must have looked an absolute sight.  Trying to put the keys in my door when I was this drunk was like trying to thread a needle.  After lying down on my bed it didn’t take me long to fall asleep, or pass out I’m not sure which one.  Tonight was pretty good overall.  Although I think if there were more people to share the punch out the night would have been better.  But what can I say?  It is nice once in a while to just go out and get absolutely hammer, just once in a while!  I won’t be drinking this much for a long time though.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

(Day 35) Training Day II


Thursday 5th April (Day 35)


Today was the day I was going to be trained up in the art of street fundraising (for the second time).  I arrived at the office on time; the office was a lot quieter today.  There were no crazy games or award ceremonies this morning.  I think they are only done every Tuesday morning, doing something like that every morning would just be insane.

The setup for the training day was similar to the interview day with everyone sitting around in a circle.  The main difference being the poorly whiteboard that was being sold to me last time was now joining us as part of the circle.

Ben was taking a more informative approach this time; talking us through the process of approaching people, building rapport, rapping people (going through the script) and filling out the signup form.  He was using the whiteboard and writing stuff down for all of this. 

One of the main parts of talking to someone about the charity (rapping) is something called the “emotional rollercoaster”.  The script we are given is divided into different parts and each has a different emotion.  For example the part where we talk about the number of children dyeing the tone is sad and sombre but when we start talking about the charity and the work we do the tone changes dramatically from sad to super happy.

Taking the person we are talking to through the emotional rollercoaster is vital to signing people up.  Ben gave us some examples of previous fundraiser who had messed up the rollercoaster.  He said that one guy was talking about how young African boys are given AK-47s and made to shoot their families; however he was saying this not in a sad and mournful voice but in a happy and upbeat voice with a big cheesy grin on his face.  As a consequence he was confusing people and therefore wasn’t signing many people up.

After talking about rapping we started to learn more about the actual charity we were going to represent.  Ben got each of us to read a paragraph from a booklet we were all given about the charity we were representing.

Can I tell you which charity I was representing?  I have always been unsure what I can and can’t say in this blog without risking infringement.  Well let’s just say the charity I was going to represent are very much focused on saving the children.

I hate reading text aloud; I have always been terrible at it.  I remember back in school in my English class whenever I was attempting to read aloud I would always know when I made a mistake because people who were following the same paragraph I was reading would suddenly raise their head and look at me in confusion.  When I read aloud I have a habit of mixing up words in sentences and sometimes I leave out whole words.  This can make the sentence take on a whole new meaning.  It makes reading book quite interesting; I usually end up reading a completely different story than the story that is actually printed on the pages.

Anyway if I concentrate hard whilst reading aloud I can usually stop this from happening and I managed to make it through my paragraph about the charity without too many people raising their heads.

During the whole interview my eyes kept meeting with some girls eyes who was sat across the circle from me.  At one part Ben was talking about the subject of fundraisers and personal information and used me as an example.  He was talking about what I should do if a random girl was to ask me out on a date in the street whilst I was fundraising.  When he said this I saw the girl smile in a shy way.  Did she smile because she liked my name and the word date in the same sentence?

The final part of the training was all paperwork related.  We had to fill out 2 identical forms (employee and employer copies).  The girl who was smiling at me finished her paperwork before me and headed to the door to leave.  I was still half way through the paperwork; some of the sentences I was reading didn’t make sense.  I thought to myself “should I go after her and ask her for her phone number?”

I decided yes and I casually walked towards the door however when I got to the hallway she had already gone.  The lift must have already been at our floor.  Oh well, I will most likely see her soon.

After finishing off the paperwork and handing it to Ben I headed off home.  I started the day feeling confident about this job.  I thought “the first time was just a trial, this is the real thing!” but after the training I wasn’t feeling so confident.  We had been told so much during the day!  There was just so much to take in and only a few days to do it in.  The script alone is a good full page of size 8 font and not only do you have to know it all but you also have to nail the emotional rollercoaster.

There was also a subject that was on my mind.  It is called Rebuttal or Objection Handling.  I was told not to worry about it until the second day but I was worrying about it now.  It is like twisting peoples arm into signing up and I hated it before.  I really sucked at it and I know that if I want to stay in this job I would have to get good at it

How am I going to take this all in?  It is just so much...


It is a lot to take in, especially for a job where
you must hit the ground running


(Day 36) Ideas


Fridays 6th April (Day 36)


Today I didn’t really do much worth talking about.  But I thought about a lot of things that are worth talking about.  There are 2 side projects I am going to do as part of my blog; but I am not going to announce what they are just yet. 

One of the side projects has got me really excited recently and I am really looking forward to starting it.  But I need to buy some equipment to start this side project.  I am not going to tell you what it is but I will give you a clue.  It has something to do with the “Life in the Picture” post I wrote a few weeks ago.

So I have these 2 projects in mind and I am really excited about bringing them to my blog soon.  But what do you guys think?  Is there anything you would like to see in my blog?  Is there something new I could bring to my blog?  I am very open to your ideas so let me know.  You can leave a comment here or you can email me at takingthemike@hotmail.co.uk

Thanks. 



By the way, tomorrow night in the house we are doing one of our famous punch nights.  These nights consist of us buying a large plastic box and enough booze to fill it (the punch).  I can guarantee this night will be messy!