Due to overwhelming popular demand, I’ve been forced to write another blog post! I want to give a massive shout out to my fan out there! You know who you are!
Aiight so I’m still in New Zealand. And no, despite my best efforts, I still haven’t managed to develop a fully Kiwi accent yet. Lame! On the bright side though, I’m becoming more and more in touch with the lazy, spiritual, New Zealand way of life. I often end up taking long coastal walks to Fitzroy beach, I never wear shoes, and I climbed Mt Egmont last weekend (climbing the mountain was the one exception where I wore shoes). I don’t mean to brag, but I think I’m just one step away from being treated like Maori God.
Climbing Mt. Egmont was awthum! The sun was shining and the New Zealand people we were hiking with were great fun too. To save money I decided not to buy a water bottle, and instead reuse one of my 3L milk cartons I had previously discarded 3 weeks ago and fill it with water. It was a great idea! The sour milk aftertaste was enough to keep me on my toes all day, and the extra calcium was definitely needed! “Wilk” – in stores soon! Oh yeah, and I climbed it on Saturday, which was Australia day! To celebrate, I bought 4 beers to the summit and shared them around with some of the other guys. The alcohol + high altitude + dehydration made coming down the mountain a total breeze.
At exactly 2200m up the mountain, I lost Facebook reception on my phone. It was at this point where the hike actually gave me strong flashbacks of Lord of the Rings. I felt like Frodo trying to climb up Mt Doom to destroy the ring. Except I was trying to climb up Mt. Egmont so I could spend 1 hour of leisure time without worrying about someone else’s Facebook status… but the hearts of men are easily corrupted… and I inevitably ended up getting even better Facebook reception at the summit.
Climbing the Mountain made me realize something. I was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too unfit to do any physical exercise. So, out of more of an emotional tempertrantrum than logical thinking, I decided to sign up for the Iron Man competition on the 9th of Feb! WOHHOOOOOOOOOOOHHHhhhooohfuck
Ummm, oh yeah, my Gym membership is about to expire. It’s good timing too because I was starting to think I didn’t look enough like toothpaste.
Uhhh yeah, I got a lift home from work by a colleague of mine at roughly 5pm yesterday. Needless to say, we hit Rush hour on the way home, so it took a good 15 minutes to get there. Yeah, New Zealand rush hour is really more like a bit of congestion in a wall mart parking lot.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Office Environment
I’ve finished my Schlumberger project. It was a challenging few weeks of number crunching and staring blankly at graphs, but it’s done! I think the working environment I’m in helped quite a bit. One of the huge advantages Schlumberger has over other companies is its blend between an office environment and a manual labor job. My general daily plan is to do work on my laptop until I feel tired, then get changed in PPE and head out to the workshop and watch stuff get built. This gives me two lives – the office Matt and the workshop Matt. My office alter ego is boring and predictable. I find myself falling further and further into a routine which involves;
1. Waking up at 7:20am and rushing to get changed and brush my teeth before the Taxi leaves (while simultaneously dreading the fact that I pressed ‘snooze’ a dozen times)
2. Heading to work and getting a really shit hot chocolate from the coffee machine
3. Sit down at my desk and start up my computer
4. Say a startled hello to the other employees who come in just as I begin to type in my password
5. Begin the inevitable ‘who can type the longest with your head down’ competition with all the other employees.
I noticed with my other internships that this type of routine can do wonders for productivity, but at the same time destroy the social part of you that makes you human. There are two things I hate most in this world; 1) when a Japanese man slurps miso soup really loudly in a restaurant, and 2) the social life in an office environment. My previous internship showed me that there is an obvious hierarchy among employees which involved ‘desk sitters’ at the top, ‘cubical chillers’ in the middle, and receptionists/ secretaries at the bottom. Consequently, a strange and unnatural social life evolves from this environment. The social life I’ve observed the most is the one between two ‘cubical chillers’. I feel like David Attenborough when I see it because it’s so unique. It’s a strange mix of; small talk and work conversation blanketed in a sea of small grunts of approval and faint laughs. It’s kind of like a normal conversation that’s been compressed into 1.5 minutes and disguised by a very forced sense of humor. The office laugh is the most iconic thing about it though – whenever two employees in cubical finish talking to each other they either let out a loud and quick burst of laughter or draw it out like an overly prestigious gentleman coughing out air…
My previous internship with Transfield taught me that a joke can be as unfunny as ‘prank defibrillators’, and you’ll still get that iconic office laugh.
Sometimes I feel like I can be a composer around the office. I could use the different sounds made by working employees to make a symphony. My first big hit would be this:
Sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh
cough cough
sneeze sneeze.
Frustrated typing, cough cough
Murmur, faint laugh
Watch out Beethoven
Anyway, enough about the past. How about the present? I was walking down Liardet St yesterday and I noticed the most pathetic street advertisement ever. It had written on it; “Taranaki – where family violence is NOT OK!” I wonder how many drafts they came up with before they ended up with that one. I’d suspect the only other alternative to this ad was:
“Taranaki – where domestic abuse is NOT PREFERED!”
I’ve decided to use my spare time at home to do something creative. I’ve decided to make a new meme that’s going to hit the world by storm. I decided to make a meme very similar to “Philoso raptor”, but instead call mine “Hypothepotamus”. And the picture is going to be a hippo wearing science glasses. Genius, right?
1. Waking up at 7:20am and rushing to get changed and brush my teeth before the Taxi leaves (while simultaneously dreading the fact that I pressed ‘snooze’ a dozen times)
2. Heading to work and getting a really shit hot chocolate from the coffee machine
3. Sit down at my desk and start up my computer
4. Say a startled hello to the other employees who come in just as I begin to type in my password
5. Begin the inevitable ‘who can type the longest with your head down’ competition with all the other employees.
I noticed with my other internships that this type of routine can do wonders for productivity, but at the same time destroy the social part of you that makes you human. There are two things I hate most in this world; 1) when a Japanese man slurps miso soup really loudly in a restaurant, and 2) the social life in an office environment. My previous internship showed me that there is an obvious hierarchy among employees which involved ‘desk sitters’ at the top, ‘cubical chillers’ in the middle, and receptionists/ secretaries at the bottom. Consequently, a strange and unnatural social life evolves from this environment. The social life I’ve observed the most is the one between two ‘cubical chillers’. I feel like David Attenborough when I see it because it’s so unique. It’s a strange mix of; small talk and work conversation blanketed in a sea of small grunts of approval and faint laughs. It’s kind of like a normal conversation that’s been compressed into 1.5 minutes and disguised by a very forced sense of humor. The office laugh is the most iconic thing about it though – whenever two employees in cubical finish talking to each other they either let out a loud and quick burst of laughter or draw it out like an overly prestigious gentleman coughing out air…
My previous internship with Transfield taught me that a joke can be as unfunny as ‘prank defibrillators’, and you’ll still get that iconic office laugh.
Sometimes I feel like I can be a composer around the office. I could use the different sounds made by working employees to make a symphony. My first big hit would be this:
Sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh
cough cough
sneeze sneeze.
Frustrated typing, cough cough
Murmur, faint laugh
Watch out Beethoven
Anyway, enough about the past. How about the present? I was walking down Liardet St yesterday and I noticed the most pathetic street advertisement ever. It had written on it; “Taranaki – where family violence is NOT OK!” I wonder how many drafts they came up with before they ended up with that one. I’d suspect the only other alternative to this ad was:
“Taranaki – where domestic abuse is NOT PREFERED!”
I’ve decided to use my spare time at home to do something creative. I’ve decided to make a new meme that’s going to hit the world by storm. I decided to make a meme very similar to “Philoso raptor”, but instead call mine “Hypothepotamus”. And the picture is going to be a hippo wearing science glasses. Genius, right?
Monday, January 7, 2013
My name is Matt, I'm 22 and I'm living in New Zealand
I've given up trying to understand my roommate from Papua New Guinea. Even though we can't understand each other, it doesn't stop us from having conversations with each other. I've learned that I can say any meaningless drivel and he will laugh politely at it. Also, the one word I do understand coming from his mouth is the word 'shit' (which he pronounces as 'shieii'), which I always assume is the punch line of any joke he tries to tell. So I know when to laugh politely at his jokes too. He's a good bloke, but it's getting kind of difficult. Both of us just finished having dinner at opposite ends of the table. There was a 10 minute lull in meaningless, non-translated conversation where all you could hear was the awkward silence mixed with the sound of quiet chewing and cutlery lightly hitting the plates as we ate. It made me think of what a middle aged, bitter, loveless marriage would be like.
Aside from that, New Zealand is still really cool. The coastal walk is awesome! I went for a walk / hike for about 2.5 hours yesterday right along the coast in scorching hot sun wearing nothing but pants and a shit tone of sunscreen.
When I'm not having candlelit dinners or long walks along the beach, I like to go to the gym - wow, this is sounding like a pathetic online dating profile... I just bought a $100 gym membership which gives me 24/7 access. This is really good for me because I like the reliability of something being open in New Plymouth past 5pm…
Work is getting better. I've been given an assignment which is quite interesting. I can't say what it is specifically, but it's got a lot to do with theory and data analysis which I think is kinda cool.
Lastly, I'm still looking at youtube videos of the Lenovo x230t, the computer I plan to buy for next semester. In particular, I really want to gauge how well this laptop keeps up with handwriting. The last thing I want is to make a 1.5k investment in a machine that can't perform its main purpose. But youtube and Google reviews are pretty promising, so I think I'm probably going to go for it.
Oh! My Grandparents are coming to visit me in New Plymouth on the 19th! How badath is that!? It’ll be cool to finally have someone I can casually go to the bar with.
Aside from that, New Zealand is still really cool. The coastal walk is awesome! I went for a walk / hike for about 2.5 hours yesterday right along the coast in scorching hot sun wearing nothing but pants and a shit tone of sunscreen.
When I'm not having candlelit dinners or long walks along the beach, I like to go to the gym - wow, this is sounding like a pathetic online dating profile... I just bought a $100 gym membership which gives me 24/7 access. This is really good for me because I like the reliability of something being open in New Plymouth past 5pm…
Work is getting better. I've been given an assignment which is quite interesting. I can't say what it is specifically, but it's got a lot to do with theory and data analysis which I think is kinda cool.
Lastly, I'm still looking at youtube videos of the Lenovo x230t, the computer I plan to buy for next semester. In particular, I really want to gauge how well this laptop keeps up with handwriting. The last thing I want is to make a 1.5k investment in a machine that can't perform its main purpose. But youtube and Google reviews are pretty promising, so I think I'm probably going to go for it.
Oh! My Grandparents are coming to visit me in New Plymouth on the 19th! How badath is that!? It’ll be cool to finally have someone I can casually go to the bar with.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
2013
Once again everyone above the age of 15 has celebrated the start of a new year with a hangover...
I'm sure that the; throbbing pain in your forehead, the smell of smoke on your clothes and the burning desire for bacon put a swift and decisive end to the unrealistic new year’s resolutions that you thought up just a few hours prior to the countdown. If this describes you (which I'm sure it does), don't be discouraged. Be comforted by the fact that someone out there was way more wasted, has a much larger hangover, and is waking up half naked in a pile of their own shit.
That's right guys. The next time you feel that you can't perform to the level society expects of you, just think about all the other dickheads (half the people you went to school with) who are doing much worse. Relatively speaking, you're a god.
Umm, ok, where was I? Oh yeah, I'm in New Zealand and 'working' very hard. Actually I’m still on vacation. For some reason New Zealand noticed that the rest of the world only gets the 1st of Jan as a public holiday, so somewhere along the line the New Zealand government decided to embarrass the rest of us by making the 1st and the 2nd pubic holidays. Take that everyone else! Personally I'm indifferent about the extra public holiday. Having another day off and looking at youtube videos reviewing different laptops is about as interesting as sitting at a desk and teaching yourself about the oil industry.
I'm sure that the; throbbing pain in your forehead, the smell of smoke on your clothes and the burning desire for bacon put a swift and decisive end to the unrealistic new year’s resolutions that you thought up just a few hours prior to the countdown. If this describes you (which I'm sure it does), don't be discouraged. Be comforted by the fact that someone out there was way more wasted, has a much larger hangover, and is waking up half naked in a pile of their own shit.
That's right guys. The next time you feel that you can't perform to the level society expects of you, just think about all the other dickheads (half the people you went to school with) who are doing much worse. Relatively speaking, you're a god.
Umm, ok, where was I? Oh yeah, I'm in New Zealand and 'working' very hard. Actually I’m still on vacation. For some reason New Zealand noticed that the rest of the world only gets the 1st of Jan as a public holiday, so somewhere along the line the New Zealand government decided to embarrass the rest of us by making the 1st and the 2nd pubic holidays. Take that everyone else! Personally I'm indifferent about the extra public holiday. Having another day off and looking at youtube videos reviewing different laptops is about as interesting as sitting at a desk and teaching yourself about the oil industry.
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