I just washed up the mountain of dishes in our kitchen at 3:25am today. That's my entry. Leaving things to the last minute is working excellently, as expected.

I am in a soup. Today I found out from my parents that I was a drunken accident. I hate them, why did they have to tell me? I hate the world, why would you build an all night adoption clinic and why would there be a bar right next to it?!

So if you like mediocre jokes, I remembered last year when I wrote a humorous dating personal for each of my lecturers which was in fact a facade for a rant stemmed mainly from having to wake up early to gather material for the dating personals. I'm considering doing that again this year, except I haven't seen any of my lecturers for about 2 months so it may be difficult.

There's been not much to write about in the past few days. With that in mind, I quit my job tonight. No more Woolworths for me.
I think it was a worthwhile sacrifice for a decent journal entry.
If there's anything that gives you an antfarm view on life and death, it's working in a large business for a long period of time. I've only been there for about 30 months, since November 2002, yet it seems like so long ago when I didn't work there at all!
Like life, Woolworths had people before I was hired there. Some of the more famous ones I heard about, but there must be many others whose deeds do not live out in infamy.
During my short time on the shop floor new people came and people left. Some left young, some left old. I watched the careers of some people come and go in the blink of an eye, just like the butterfly and the tree. And in the same way I've come and gone in the blink of other's eyes. I think the point of the analogy is that Reagan is a Sequoia Tree. But that's what he gets for working at Woolworths for 100 years.
I will miss Woolworths, I never ever found the work difficult or challenging and the people there were good fun and cool. It is tragic then, I suppose, that it was only when the management became so overbearing such that it affected my quality of life that I was prompted to consider what my other options were. However the promising result is worthwhile. The butterfly of my life is leaving the branch of the Sequoia Tree and setting off down the tracks towards a new and better way. Just like the fairy tale, this butterfly is turning into a train and flapping it's wings away.

May 5th 2005

Dear Managers of Woolworths,

This letter is to signify my formal resignation from my position as Long Life Night Filler at Woolworths. I want to thank the store and all managers for having me as an employee for the past two and a half years. I have found this position to be fulfilling (no pun intended) and I leave only to undertake opportunities to advance my life forward.

Brad

I reverse parallel parked today, for the first time since I got P's in 2002. It was pretty shocking, and it was the reason I got to PLC 5 minutes late.
At uni Ryan, as he has already done this year, informed me that an assignment I didn't think was due tomorrow, was, in fact, actually due tomorrow. This led to much assigning. Unfortunately there had to come a break in which I went home from uni, prepared and ate a pizza and then went to work.
While eating my pizza I discovered that if you sign up for an ING Maxi-Saver account today before 11pm they give you $123 for free. So 5 minutes of forms later I was up $123. Then it was time to go to work for 3 hours to earn another $40.
I don't know how I got rostered on for a Tuesday shift, nor when Tuesday shifts devolved back into the 3 hours of pure face up that they used to be when I did them back in 2003. Alas, without even the prospect of Gug and Pete to talk to as was the case in the old days I began my saunter along the aisles adjusting cans and boxes. It helped me remember why I quit, especially towards the end of the shift when everything I'd faced up at the beginning of the shift was now ruined by customers. (10 days to go!)
Highlight of the shift: Watching a fat woman with a hand basket staring at the chocolate bars in the confectionary section for several minutes, then willing herself to leave without getting candy. She came back eight minutes later and got one, willpower defeated. It made me feel better than her.

I'm sitting in the same place right now as I was a week ago. Will update website when that changes.

My face is so incredibly soft right now. Last night at work there was pillaging of the excess Woman's Day Gift Bags and I nabbed a dozen Listerine Pocket Packs and 3 tubes of Oil of Olay Daily Regenerating Syrum.

I had my last night at Woolworths tonight.

It was actually pretty good. Like any finale, life managed to succesfully pull out a few cameos, but more than a few were missed.

I arrived at 7pm and within a quarter of an hour there were visits to my aisle by Dreadlocks WheelChair Guy and The Friday Night Midget. The Friday Night Midget was covered in cat hair as usual, but it's been a while since I saw her. The last time I think I saw her was when I dumped five packages of toilet paper down next to her, obscuring her from view.

Nathan was there, my oldest mentor at the place. I spent my first few weeks under his guiding eyes before he left nightfill for a life of perishables.

Checkout Nick also appeared at one stage, a guy I'll always remember for his strange inability to do the 'store closing' announcement; it was always truncated. This was more notable because he was in civvy's and I was thinking about Cameos.

Also working during the night were some of the many comrades I've spent most of my time with: Gug, Benno (my aisle companion for many months), Jono, Boris, Oakes. But how the crew has changed since I first walked through those doors.

Continuing with the Cameos, Dragan was working late this night. My perspective of Dragan sure has changed since I first met him. While most everyone in the world seems to be more of an asshole than they let on, Dragan is one of the only people I know that is less of an asshole than he acts. I'd be blown if I knew why he acts like this, but hey, he's got a weird name and allegedly an ugly arranged wife so I'd probably be bitter about people with Santa hats and mess up normal people's names too.

Kylie was very nice to me again tonight too, as usual, supplying two chocolate mud cakes and a farewell card for me at the end of the shift. Honestly, the card is bigger than my TV. I was a little bit taken aback. I think we spent about twenty minutes in the lunch room for what I think was my 'Turning in my knife and badge (and discount card) ceremony'.

There were non-personal cameos too. I cut my finger at the nail near the start of my shift, and this was a call back to my first few shifts where my nubile, unworked hands first had to deal with hard work and the fact that Steve never gave me a packet knife.

And finally, there was Trix Dishwashing Liquid: 1 Litre, lemon scented. The very first thing I ever filled at Woolworths and (not coincidentally) the last.

Some cameos that would have made the night really special, but didn't end up happening:

Steve: The day you realised you didn't have to take Steve seriously was the day that he became incredibly entertaining. He was a cool guy, pretty freaking fucked up, but hilarious nonetheless.

Posi-Anne: She was the woman/manager that taught me that in life when someone says "hi, how are you?" they're not really expecting an answer.

Nick: Nick was the epitomy of what made shifts good back in the old days. Yeah, the loads were big, but he didn't care if we got done on time nor how much stock we had to devour to give us the fuel to fill. The result was many fun filled five hour shifts, delectable delights and challenging work. Hey, I liked it. It was mainly during summer a few ago and I think I usually got drunk after. It may have been a bit much for Nick to come back from England for his apperance in my farewell though.

Paul: He gave me my job and he made me feel good about myself when I had the courage to say hello to him. For my interview with him, he asked if I wanted to work checkout instead, and I stood up for myself and said 'nah'. His departure really was the first slip in the slide of management and policies there, which is sad. What's sadder is that he didn't come back to say goodbye to me.

When I should have been at work tonight I was at the russell, and also doing some homework. The more I think about it the more it seems evident that my primary reason for leaving Woolworths was to provide the fuel for that huge entry on Saturday... and it only got one comment. For Shame!
In other leaving Woolworths news, I left my legacy in the mens toilets on Friday night. I can practically promise you it's still there.

You know, because permanent marker doesn't fade that easily.

I had a good day today.

I woke up, shot some hoops, did some weights, then went and played basketball at Uni for over two hours. This was sweaty work. From there I went straight to the gym and did weights for another hour. Then I came home and ate tea, then I went to my basketball game and we beat Team Palmers and it was the best Thursday night game in a long time even though I got cramp right near the end and didn't play after that. Then I came home and ate tea again.

I didn't put deoderant on at any stage today. Although... I did shower twice.

I'm focusing on my entire life and in particular where I am in it right now. While searching through every aspect of my being I am using relating memory techniques to associate this snapshot of my existence with this entry.
In 20 years Schapelle Corby will get out of gaol in Indonesia. On that day, (May 27th 2025 - I've set a reminder in my phone) I will read back to this entry and perform some mental arithmetic to see how much of a life she's missed out on.
Hopefully this experiment will give me some perspective on whether or not I'm being an ass when I make jokes about her and her sentence.

The Lord provided a beautiful, sunshining day on Monday the 30th of May, 2005.
This was pretty consistent with the rest of the month, and pretty much the norm for all of autumn.
This "Indian Summer" has (probably) broken records for the driest autumn on record in South Australia. There's been piss all rain for months, the ground is dry, the soil is loose and it's not even that cold.
And it's winter in 2 days. That's the deadline God has to somehow turn these parched South Australian hills into lush green valleys, damp the air, summon storm-clouds always threatening. He has to build puddles that will last for months on asphalt that hasn't even bathed recently. He's had three months to get this going and he's left it all to the last minute.
At the risk of sounding mildly conceited, I can empathise with God right now. At least after God's deadline passes he doesn't have 5 exams straight after, four at 8:45am! Oh uni.