Division and Arrogance

I'm in Malaysia! I'm visiting my family here for Christmas. I'll write a full story about all the good family things I'll get up to in a separate post because I want to show y'all another cartoon.

The day we (my brother and I) arrived in KL, my Dad shouted us a high quality haircut and beard trim at the finest hair stylist place in the finest mall in the finest area of KL. As the hairdresser started doing his thing, I couldn't help but overhear the other rich expats casually describe the elaborate hair style they each wanted. Ok, this is where it gets weird - I started looking in the mirror in front of me and I began noticing all the common facial features I had with apes. Then I started looking around the room and I noticed it in my brother and in the hairdresser. (I know, very weird, right?). After this minor hallucination I couldn't stop thinking about how stupid having an elaborate haircut was - it just seemed like such a waste of time and money to dress up an ape.

Anywho, that was the main motivation for this cartoon. What I'm trying to show in this comic is that the divide between first world and third world countries is mostly an artificial one. It's tempting to think that the people in these countries 'earned' their place in society because they're worked harder or smarter etc etc. But in reality, I think humans aren't that intrinsically different at all, it's just that we're all prone to indoctrination and absorb the culture we're raised in.

I've always found it kinda funny that if you put a suit on a monkey it just looks like a monkey in a suit. But if you put a suit on a human, it looks like a successful business man.

social pressure cartoon

Hey folks,

I just created another cartoon titled "if social pressure was visible". I think Western culture is often praised for being free, but if you look a bit closer you'll find that there are a lot of invisible social forces that tell us how to think and how to behave. It's no coincidence that different countries have different fashion trends, socially acceptable activities etc - we're all apes in shoes trying desperately to live up to arbitrary stereotypes.

NZ south island trip!

Wow, I actually got around to writing about my South Island trip. Even I'm impressed. Because I kinda rushed to pump this post out, I expect most of the dates (probably all of them) are horribly wrong so if you do the math and realize that things don't add up, it's not because I'm deliberately lying to you, it's because I'm too lazy to remember important dates.

Aiiight so I arrived in Wellington on the 9th and I actually wrote a post for that day. This is what I wrote.

Today on the 9th of November I started my trip to the south island of NZ. I begin catching a flight to another part of the north island, Wellington. I've never been to Welly before but I'd heard a lot of mixed reviews. For starters I'd heard that Wellington was famous for unpredictable weather (except for wind which is consistently 100km/hr). For mains I'd heard that it was super hilly and for desert I'd heard that the people are all super friendly and super liberal (like, literally everyone). The weather thing is right, it was bright and sunny when I first arrived but soon enough it got quite overcast and rainy. Wellington is not that hilly at all - the CBD is remarkably flat. There ar e a few mountains surrounding the city but they're pretty out of the way. I'm hoping to climb one tomorrow but I don't know the names; I hope one is currently called Mt. Inn. I haven't met many people from Wellington formally, but I did notice the reactions from the people watching Trump win the election on live TV around pubs and public libraries and everyone seems to be really liberal. I would say NZ in general is about as homogeneous as a sunburned ginger. 

And that's when I stopped writing about my trip. Oops. The most important things to add to this was 1) I ended up climbing Mt Victoria 2) I want to an epic burger place called Ekim Burgers (very hipster) 3) I went to the museum and saw the WW1 Gallipoli exhibit - it was breathtakingly good and 4) I met up with a good New Zealand friend of mine, Luke, which I met years ago in New Plymouth when I did my internship with Schlumberger. Oh and 5) I met up with my the crew I'd begin road tripping with: Max (my Swedish friend I met in Cambodia), Sunny (a German), Lucas (a Brazilian) and Peter (a Slavanian? Slovenian? Sloevienian?)

Wellington is amazing, but it technically wasn't part of the South Island so that mean't we had to keep moving! Due to our horrible organization, we arrived at the dock to catch our ferry to Picton almost an hour late. Fortunately, my time in Auckland had taught me to rely on New Zealand's unreliability, and surely enough the Ferry hadn't even started to board yet. I'd heard rumors that the ferry was mean't to be extremely bumpy, windy and vommity which excited me because I loved the idea of balancing on the front bow the ship while everyone else was throwing up in the bathroom. I'm disappointed to say that the ride was smooth and vomit free.  When we arrived in Picton we immediately drove to the nearest Domino's for a quick stop off and refueling before making our journey to the Abel Tasman.

The next day we finished our journey to the Tasman and went on a 8 hour loop around the place. It was really great! Even though the weather was forecast to be shit, the sky was blue and sunny all day. It was even good enough for Lucas to test out his large and loud drone to take some great landscape shots and intimidating selfies. Because everyone was stuck with me for 8 solid hours, I took this opportunity to engage in some real deep conversation about philosophy. Amazingly everyone got into it and we had a lot of really interesting ideas flowing back on forth - it's such a big relief to talk philosophy with non New Zealanders (since Kiwi's tend to have an awful habit of regurgitating well memorized ultra liberal dogma). It was a great day! And if it wasn't for those bloody sandflies it would have been a perfect day.

That night we decided to camp at the Abel Tasman and I managed to make a roaring fire with nothing more than a crappy lighter and drenched sticks. I got mad props from everyone around me for building it. I found it quite funny on reflection that one of the only things I'm good at building is something that's famous for destroying things which other people are good at building. After a great dinner and good company we decided to set up the tents and go to sleep. And that's when the earthquake hit. The 7.5 quake WAS AWESOME - it's like I was surfing on land! It wasn't a very rough and high frequency shake, it felt like a giant was slowly moving a carpet underneath us back by 1 meter and then forward by 1 meter about twice per second. So much fun.

With no need for coffee the next morning we immediately took advantage of the crappy weather and made this day our driving day. We first intended to stay in Greymouth for a night to split the journey in half, but after only being there for an hour we realized how deadly boring the place was. After careful deliberation, we decided to make our way to Franz Josef and square our shoulders for the long drive ahead.

Franz Josef was amazing! We stayed in a hostel called chateau Franz backpackers which was only $28 / night and featured free breakfast, free soup for dinner and a hot tub! Great value! Great place! There were also dozens of walks around the place including the Alex Knob Track and the Glacier view point. We loved it so much here that we ended up staying 3 (or maybe 4?) nights.

In the morning we started packing up to make our departure for Queenstown and by early evening we were on our way. We arrived late at night and set up our tents at a campsite nearby after realizing that every Queenstown accommodation was completely booked out due to a Marathon the following day. The next day we lazily woke up and waddled on down to the city center to buy beer bacon and bread. We ate all of our food and selfishly gobbled up all the free internet we could find from nearby cafes as we watched panting heat exhausted runners pass us by. Queenstown is really nice, but it's nothing like what I remember it being. About 6 years ago I traveled to Queenstown with an American friend of mine Johnathan Effgen to go skiing. Either the town has changed dramatically, or my memory has because it looks completely unrecognizable. Either way it's amazing. There were ducks, seagulls and buskers everywhere all desperately looking for a meal. Later on in the day we said goodbye to Sunny and Peter and said hello to two new travelers Tim and Rebecca - they are Sweedish friends of Max who were going to join us for Milford Sound. We were mean't to pick up my Italian friend, Federico from the airport today to join us as well but sadly he had to cancel his plans last minute for work reasons.

The next day we made our way to Te Anau - a small town that's convenient for hikers because it's located so close to the Milford Sound ferry. Federico had planned to avoid the Ferry cost ($60 each) by crossing the famous Dore's Pass. After looking at the map it seemed like Dore's pass was only 10km long so we assumed it would only take 2 hours to complete. We were so wrong. The department of conservation refused to print reservation tickets to Max, Tim and Rebecca because they thought Dore's Pass was too dangerous - they panicked and purchased last minute ferry tickets leaving Lucas and I alone with the car. Fueled almost entirely by Lucas's optimism we decided to commit to the Dore's Pass. This was by far the hardest hike I'd ever attempted. There were huge rivers that we needed to cross, it was completely deserted, no signal, huge muddy uphills, branches everywhere, eclipsing forests and giant overgrown trees/plants that we needed to avoid. Oh yeah, and there WAS NO PATH! just small little orange triangles pinned to some trees just to let you know you're going the right way. We got lost dozens of times. After a full 5 hours of hiking we decided to set up tent only 5km into the trek. The morning after Lucas expressed his desire to continue the hike so we could still meet up with the others along Milford Sound and celebrate his Birthday with them. Because I was the more experienced hiker I vetoed his decision because it was wet and cloudy and we may have needed an ice axe and crampons to get out of the valley we were stuck in. After being defeated by the deceivingly small 10km track we got back to our car and drove all the way back to Queenstown.

We ended up celebrating Lucas's birthday in Queenstown instead of along the Milford Sound track. Sadly though, Lucas found out on the morning of his birthday that he'd been rejected from the Canadian Uni he'd applied for which put a damper on the whole night. Not even the famous Fergburger could raise our spirits.

Wow this is getting tough to continue writing like this, I'm just going to dot point the rest:

• Drove back to Milford Sound to pick up Sweedish friends
• Snuck into area where we could see MASSIVE waterfall
• Spent a night at Te Anau. Met a really aggressive elderly New Zealand woman. 
• Went back to Queenstown
• Tried Fergburger again! So good!
• Enjoyed eating by a special designated creek where we could drink beer and feed the ducks. Very cool.
• Drove to Dunedin
• Passed Wanaka and hiked Roys peak! Views were great. More philosophy!
• Arrived in Dunedin
• Uni looked quite disappointing
• Went on speights brewery tour. Amazing!
• Finished last part of the trip in an internet cafe and playing counter strike!
• Developed fantastic appropriation of the popular saying "whatever floats your boat" which was "whatever chokes your throat". Very proud.

There I did it! Wahoo!

offence vs date

I promise I'm going to post about my trip soon ahhh!

In this small drawing I wanted to focus on two things: 1) What we find offensive sometimes isn't rational, but dependent on our culture. 2) We still have very archaic views on appropriate dress wear for work.

miracles are everywhere

I just finished my 3 week trip around the south island of New Zealand! It was amazing and I'm going to write another blog post soon about it. My last few days were spent in Dunedin - a very religious Scottish-like city. That motivated me to create another small artwork below.

Here I want to show how easy it is for most religious people I've met to assume that natural phenomena is a miracle. I've met people who honestly believe recovering from cancer, winning the lottery or surviving a dangerous pregnancy is a miracle...

Equality

2 in one day. Yeewww.

Subjectivity

Ok, another quick cartoon. Here I want to criticize the notion that all ideas are equally valid. Even questions that are commonly thought to be entirely within the subjective domain like "is yellow a better colour than blue?" HAVE answers. It's just a matter of more precisely defining terms like "better".

This really bugs me because I've met a few people now that actively believe criticizing someones idea is the same thing as criticizing the person. New Zealanders (especially those from Wellington) seem to have developed a very reactionary 'oh, everyone's ideas are just as good as everyone else's'. 

I'm sure there are some very xenophobic, conservative New Zealanders outside of Wellington to tip that scale in a different direction. But i'd hardly call that a healthy balance...

cultural elitism and science

Just created another cartoon. Here I want to show the importance of judging the quality of an idea based on the validity and soundness of that idea and nothing else. "Respect" for culture should not go so far as to have sympathy for ideas that lack evidence. I'm NOT arguing for racial / cultural / gender discrimination!

Freedom from Speech cartoon

Hey folks, I've created another cartoon I call "freedom from speech". It criticizes Western hypersensitivity.

Quick Update New Zealand

Yep, I know. Ok, let me try my best to summarize the last couple of months and I'll give a padded out version later.

1) Sebastian has left New Zealand. I mean, he came back from Australia to New Zealand and now he's gone again back to the Fatherland. Before he left; me, him and another German traveled to Taupo to do the Tongariro crossing and go skiing. It was amazing! We almost died on the crossing... but that's a story for another blog post.

2) I have a new roommate. Lilli. She's cool. She's a super feminist, vegetarian and very lazy political activist.

3) I still haven't been accepted to do a PhD!! Ahhh! It's taking so much longer than expected. I've submitted the application though. Hopefully I get accepted soon.

4) Oh yeah, I recently realized how crime ridden New Zealand is. A friend of mine got robbed at gun point, another friend has become a witness to another crime and my bike was stolen. WTF New Zealand.

5) I'm planning a road trip around the South Island with a bunch of people. It should be great!

6) In between PhD stuff and Virtually Passed stuff, I've started to create some really shitty cartoon satire to keep me occupied. Here's my first I created today. I got a long way to go, but meh, it's a start.

7) Oh, and I've yet to meet a New Zealander that pronounces "fish and chips" as "fush n chups"

New Zealand day ???

Sorry future me for not updating my blog. A lot of shit has hit the fan - but on the bright side, it's splattered on the wall in front of me and is starting to form a faint outline of the mona lisa. Let me explain.

I quit my job. Yep, it happened. The reasons behind my departure are actually quite simple, but I figure a lot of people reading a summary of my reasoning will probably perceive me as a stoned hippie with absurd idealistic values versing a big bad evil corporation. So what the heck, I'll save you the time:

Me: WTF duuude? You're like totally squashing my freedom maaan. I'll leaving broh.

Society: I can't let you do that, Matt. You will work 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday, and society will love you for it.

Me: C'mon maaan. I wanna do what my heart tells me I should do. I'm not, like, benefiting from being here. Ya know?

Society: College. Job. Family. There is no other way... submit, Matt. You have no choice.

Me: *smokes a doobie* That's all opinion man! I don't fit in here, dude. The skills I have, you don't want, and the skills you want, I don't have. I'm done, broh.

Society: What about your future? What about money? You need it to survive.

Me: Yes and no, broh. Yes... and no.

Ok, I hope that made just a little bit of sense. The reason I'm not in a 100% pure state of panic right now is because things are still looking up for me. PhD entrances occur every month at UoA, I've found a job as a Math tutor and I'm optimistic that I'll be able to get some more work as an Acoustic Lab technician at the University soon!

Now that I've done the book keeping, let me go into some detail about what I've done recently.

I just came back from a 7 day camping trip to Rotorua. There were 5 of us; two Germans, 1 Italian, an American, and whatever I am. We did an amazing hike around lake Waikaremoana. It's mean't to be a 4 day hike, but we did it in two. It was extremely rewarding. The views were phenomenal and the company was great. I loved it. In the other days we did small hikes, saw waterfalls, and toured caves n' shit. Sebastian (my ex roommate) is currently in Australia so we used his car to drive everywhere. The car was in bad shape to begin with - now it's just a metal sheet balancing on 4 wheels. The engine is super inefficient, the window wipers both broke, there were missing seat-belts and the side mirror fell off. If the car was a transformer it would transform into a wheel chair. This trip was a good opportunity for me to tour some more of the New Zealand country side. I'm still blown away at the mountains here - they're all so green and oddly shaped; it's as if gravity works differently here than any other country. I'll post photos on Facebook soon.

New Zealand 4 day weekend

Finally I can talk about New Zealand in all its glory. Easter holiday has given me the opportunity to travel outside off Auckland and see the beautiful countryside. I decided to make a last minute booking to see Taupo and do the Tongariro crossing! Who says atheists can't appreciate religious traditions? Regretfully none of my roommates could come though.

Oh yeah, I have roommates now. It happened shortly before I decided to take up bike riding. OK, so I haven’t been updating my blog in awhile. Let me start from where I left off.

OK, so, at the time when I was still living with my Grandparents and when my taste for pre cooked sausages and weet bix & watermelon wasn’t a full blown addiction, I managed to live a pretty stable & repetitive lifestyle. Eat. Sleep. Work. Repeat. That all changed when Granddad and I went to one of his friends place to watch him brew beer. Holy crap, I’ve been doing it all wrong. He did everything from scratch; heating the raw grains with 67 degree C water, growing his own yeast, moving 50L silo’s with motor driven chains… it was amazing! I decided right then and there that I needed a house where I could duplicate this magic. A home with a large enough backyard to transform into a brewing factory. A house with roommates relaxed enough to ignore the occasional explosion. I found that house. It’s in Waterview with 2 other Kiwi Uni students; Elliot and Nicole, and 1 German; Sebastian. The place is in a pretty good location too because it’s far enough that rent is cheap ($160/week) but close enough to bike to work. Ah! Bike riding! There is a direct bike path which begins from my house and leads directly to the AECOM office. The only downside about the house is that there is no internet!! I guess taking 2 weeks to install a basic utility is an inefficiency I’ll have to get used to in New Zealand. In my desperation to browse Facebook and watch YouTube videos of puppies I drained all the data on my phone on the first day. On that same day, my roommates and I decided to go to a pub to enjoy a good beer together. It occurred to me as I was asking the bartender what the WiFi password was that I have a serious internet problem. I mean, replace “internet” in that story with literally any other substance and people relaxing voices and white clothes would be picking me up and dropping me off at the nearest rehab. I’m not concerned about my addition to the internet though - the router should be working within a week. I’m also thinking of getting the Samsung Galaxy S7 soon too so my phobia of being out of touch with the rest of societies technological standards will be temporarily subsided. Oh yeah, I might start up a video blog with this new phone - so yeah, brace yourselves for that.

OK, now I can start talking about Taupo. This Easter break gave me 4 beautiful days to explore as much of NZ as I can. I booked a last minute lodge in Taupo (it was last minute because doing stuff without internet is hard) and set off to Hitchhike down Taupo. Once I realized that waiting by the onramp to the motorway wasn’t working, I caved and purchased a $29 bus down to Taupo. As soon as I arrived I made friends with a young Scottish couple and 2 elderly South Africans in their 50’s. The South Africans were so transparently racist it was disturbing. I knew better than to argue with highly opinionated old men, so I let them rant about how blacks were really just another breed of Chimpanzee until they fell asleep. Once the racists were all tuckered out, I had a chance to explore the town. It’s beautiful, the lake is wonderful and the town is very spread out and disconnected giving it a tranquil country vibe. Funnely enough, I realized while walking around that I had been here once before when I was working for Schlumberger. I’ve probably already written a brief post about this 3 years ago!

The next day I payed $65 to get a shuttle bus there and back from the Tongariro Alpine crossing. I woke up at 5:00am, hiked both optional peaks (I can’t remember their formal names, but one of them was Mt. Doom!) and met a bunch of people.

Once again, I got an extreme case of total bliss talking to several groups consisting of Americans, Canadians, Dutch, French (well, technically New Caledonian) and Polish. It saddens me a little that they were all backpackers so I can’t develop any long term friendships with them.

Traveling back to Auckland was a lot of fun. I woke up super early and tried hitchhiking again. I figured my luck would be much better going from Taupo to Auckland than the reverse, and I was right. After 1 hour I got a lift by two friendly parents who insisted on telling me every possible fact about about New Zealand and their 4 children. Fun fact #1: Kiwi Fruit grows on vines and was first called ‘chinese gooseberry’. They dropped me off at Tauranaga where I easily caught another ride by a very intelligent (and somewhat obnoxious) Australian software developer all the way back to Auckland.

I'll talk about work and roommates in another post! Right now I'm super tired :D

New Zealand week 4

Alright so it's been a month. Time to get summarizing!

By now I feel I've gotten a pretty good understanding of Auckland. The city is small, somewhat lively and the people are extremely friendly. Regretfully I haven't had the time to explore the city as much as I'd like to. I can only do long activities during the weekends, and I use them to try and travel to the outskirts of Auckland to go hiking! In all honesty, I'm actually a little scared at how little time it took me to develop a routine which stops me from experiencing as much out of the city as I can. I go to bed at the same time, I walk to the same places most of the time and I even drink the same Milo & milk snack drink for lunch every day. It's not all routine though. I've started using my lunch breaks to walk around and I've scouted out a few awesome pubs, coffee shops and Auckland University - I'll have to check them out in more detail later! I've also started developing a pretty good relationship with my fellow graduates which is really great. I join them for lunch occasionally and for after work drinks on Friday. Once again, I'm still blown away at how friendly New Zealanders are.

Oh yeah, I went to Sydney for a few days too. It was a bit awkward to see my Aussie friends again so recently after having a farewell party, but it was still fun. The induction, for the most part, didn't teach anybody much, but at the very least it was a great chance to network and catch up with my brother before I headed back to NZ again.

Ok, what about work? I'm proud to say I'm getting better at it. The projects aren't an intimidating swirl of complicated PDF's and CAD drawings anymore and I'm almost good enough to use some of the computer programs completely by myself. I think my work colleague, Nick (the other acoustics Engineer who is half machine, half machine), is to thank for thet though. He is very patient with me and explains concepts to me very well. I've also recently tried to take some initiative by trying to use Google Docs and Sheets in my everyday work to make collaboration on projects easier. It's helped, but it's not a silver bullet solution; there's still no way to get around the inefficiency of printing off a document, signing it, scanning it, then throwing the document away. On the downside my physical health is taking a slight downfall. My fat ass now deflates on my office chair in an attempt to adapt to an 8+ hour sitting day, my foot is still sore/stiff all the time and my back is starting to creak like an old door. I'm getting old! Ahhh!

Strangely I've been fantasizing about becoming a full time entrepreneur and focusing full time on two projects; Virtually Passed and a new company which opens up small flexible work offices around the city. I can't help it, I think about it all the time. I really want to pursue Virtually Passed on my weekends. Aunt Christine and Uncle Ron would make good mentors!

6 Days in Auckland

Ok, so I've had a few days to adjust to my environment and I'm ready to share what I think about Auckland without getting too focused on specific things that annoy me.

Lets start with my job. Firstly, it's a lot of work. I feel like a toddler asked to learn quantum mechanics; there's so many programs I need to master, forms I need to fill out, and acronyms I need to remember. There's also a lot of HR stuff and legal and financial shit I need to sort out due to my adjustment to NZ which is making things a tad overwhelming. On the bright side, I think I'm on top of the theory so that's good. Oh yeah, I'm also in the smallest division in the company: acoustics. It's just me, a slightly experienced genius, Nick, and my manager, Clair. Nick is in his late 20's and is so on top of his game. He arrives before I do (8:30am) and leaves after I do (5:45pm) and is constantly powering out work. He is genuinely a human Machine. Even on 'casual Friday' - or as I prefer to call it; 'formal Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday' he still wears a full suit. He's a well lubricated cog in the machine and it's making me anxious that I might not fit that well. Clair is a Scottish woman in her late 30's who is also super smart. She seems to have infinite patience with me which is nice, but I'm also anxious that I may never have the powerful Scottish accent she has. My first project I've been assigned to is about controlling noise from Tesla batteries (yep! How cool is that!?) that are being placed in a sub station. If I fuck up the project, I hope nobody hears about it (pun intended). Umm what else? Oh yeah, I feel myself gradually get increasingly more unfit. Sitting down for so many hours a day is really taking a toll on my body. I feel a lot more out of energy and I'm starting to gain weight already :(. It's made worse watching young fit people run along the harbor as I catch my bus into work in the morning. I had an after work drinks on Friday which was awesome! By far the best thing I like about NZ so far is the people - everyone is super friendly. I'm honestly extreemly relieved that the NZ hospitality lived up to it's expectations. I can't wait to move out and live with some great people!

Ok, so what do I think about Auckland as a whole? Well there is still a whole lot left to experience, but what I've gathered so far is that it's tiny. The buildings are very spaced out and small and there are hardly any people anywhere. I'm sure the city isn't as quiet as it appears to be though, I'm pretty sure everyone is hiding in some super popular area of town I just haven't discovered yet. I haven't seen much going on yet, but on the website MeetUp there seems to be quite a few things happening. I'll give it a proper go next week and see what I think. I went on a coastal walk today which was nice, but I think I'll have to try something a little more interesting and challenging next weekend.

Lastly, living with my grandparents has been awesome. I thought the lack of independence would be getting to me by now, but it's not at all. Being made lunch and dinner every day and having my laundry done regularly is a luxury I've really missed. I smell clean and I'm not hungry! Yippie! In return I help them out with 'technology issues' like opening Facebook on an iPad and turning on NetFlix. It's a pretty sweet deal.

New Zealand day 1

Ok, let's do this.

I got a job with AECOM in Auckland and flew into NZ last night. I'm currently crashing with my grandparents, which by the way are incredibly hospitable. Free food, free rent, free lifts everywhere and a free public transport card. Thanks Nana and Granddad, you're awesome. I'll repay you shortly once I sort out my bank shit!

Ok ok ok. First day at work after being an unemployed bum for 3 months. How was it? In a word: ''meh". In a few words: "I think I like pretty much everything about the job; the people are nice, the work seems interesting and the facilities are great. The only downsides are; work attire and working hours". 

So before I start a powerful rant that I'll probably regret somewhere down the line, let me clarify a few things you probably already know about me. 1) I HATE formal clothes 2) I HATE the 9-5. 

So first things first, in the induction we were told that the working hours will be quite flexible. This got me incredibly excited until the inductor clarified to the inductees that that 'flexible' mean't we could arrive 10 minutes late as long as we left 10 minutes late too. That's not flexible! Arrgh!

Why in 2016 is work determined by time and not by merit? All this does is encourage the illusion of productivity and ironically makes things inefficient! We've enlightened ourselves so far to believe (correctly) that it doesn't matter what colour, nationality, gender, or sexual preference you have; all that matters is your ability to do the work. This is good, society! Good job! Why can't we go one step further and say it doesn't matter how long you work at something or what you wear while you do it, all that should matter is your ability to do the work! I promise you in 50 years from now people are going to look back at this generation and laugh at how remarkably intelligent CEO's and business managers managed to convince themselves that they can measure the performance of an employee by measuring the % of cotton the employee wears while timing how long that person stairs at a screen. Eargh.

Rant over. 

In other news, I'm still quite optimistic about my job. 

Oh yeah, New Zealanders are extremely friendly :) That's a talk for another rant. 

Australia day 9

This was my last day before going back to Sydney. I was relieved to find out that the sun was shining and the water was perfect for swimming! A good send off.

Australia day 8

We all woke up sore, grumpy and in desperate need of a shower. We decided the $125 campsite was worth it for tonight.

The first thing we did was buy a tent for $50 from a guy 40 minutes out of Byron. Out of pure sympathy he decided to give us extra blankets and pillows too.

The others had an afternoon nap in the tent while I decided to do the lighthouse walk! The view was amazing; I wish my phone hadn't been on charge so I could have taken photos.

Later on that night I went out again and socialized with a bunch of Canadians and Australians. Another great night with awesome people. The only downside was that lockout forced us to leave at midnight

Australia day 5

New years! Wooh!

I made a bunch of friends with a bloke from Denmark called Mathias, a new Zealand guy called Tenaki, and a guy from Norway called Bjørn (pronounced 'yaarn' for some reason), and two other British girls.

We all decided to go to the beach for a couple of hours and then see a '7D movie'. 7D was just a small 3D cinema on a platofrn that rocked which sprayed water at you at particular parts of the film... Yeah, I know, that's not 7D.

While we were in the city center we decided to check out the venue for new years. It looked good except we noticed our hostel was illegally selling tickets for $60 when we could buy tickets directly for $40. We all purchased the $40 ticket and hoped that police wouldn't shutdown the hostel or the venue to investigate the illegal markup pricing.

For new years I had plenty of wine (not goon) and a bunch of beers. New years was great. The people were friendly and there was no clubbing! The fireworks sucked and all 400 of us in the venue only caught the last 3 seconds if the countdown. None the less it was a really enjoyable night.

I stumbled into my bed fully dressed at 4am and fell asleep instantly. I was so glad I didn't have the energy to put away my phone or wallet or clean my clothes up from the floor (which were hiding my passports) because I found out the next morning that every room in the hostel had been robbed. Dozens of phones, wallets and bikes which were resting in plain sight had been stolen. Not mine though :)

Australia day 4

After I crawled out of bed and ate my free double breakfast I said my goodbye to my German and American friends. I told them they could crash on my couch any time. Now I just need to find a home that has a couch.

At 10:00am I left to go hitchhiking. I wrote "gold coast" in capitals on my notebook and held it with my left hand while I put my thumb out with my right hand. In literally 60 seconds I had a local stop by the side of the road in a beaten down thing with 4 wheels. He said he could only take me half way there, so after I politely declined he offered me a shot of tequila instead. Literally 5 minutes later I got another offer by a middle aged Italian couple. It turns out that the couple were both neuroscience professors who were doing research on sleep. It was awesome talking to them, they strongly recommended I do a PhD.

I arrived at surfers Paradise without any problems whatsoever - I wasn't even stabbed once. When I arrived at my hostel I met a bunch of Canadians who were a lot of fun. We all went out to drink heavily. Having so much alcohol the day before new years was not smart :+(

Australia day 7

The 4 of us decided to rent a car and travel down to Byron bay! The cost of the car for 5 nights was only $400 - a particularly good deal since we were planning to use it for accommodation and transport.

During the day we decided to look around town. It's got such an amazing hippie vibe here! I love it. People walking around with singlets, no shoes and massive sunburn everywhere. The "falls festival" was also happening so the place was completely packed. I'm a little scared at how easily I managed to fit in.

During the evening I decided to go out drinking and talk to the "locals". Sadly I only managed to find Canadians or Australians from other parts of the east coast. None the less, the relaxing atmosphere was contagious and made talking to people a complete breeze. At this point I can't say I like the people from Byron, but I can say I like the people in Byron.

We had a look at a bunch of campsites and found out that camping was $125 for 4 people! Outraged, we decided to sleep in the car for the night. The Danish bloke had to sleep in the boot of the car; poor guy.

Australia day 6

OK so I'm actually in Sydney at the moment and im trying desperately to remember what happened during my trip along the east coast. Forgive me future Matt for being blunt and using dot points

I woke up and I played my new favorite game, slap cock, with Phil in the pool. It turns out the shuttlecock isn't that durable in water.

During the arvo I went to the beach for a small while with the New Zealander, Danish and Norwegian guys. We got talking about renting a car and camping in Byron Bay.

Later on that night we all went drinking at the hostel and clubbing in the gold coast. Clubbing in Australia was like a cricket bat in the face to me. I remembered why I hated it so much. God I miss Korea