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Cut Across Shorty Forgive the title. absolutely irrelevant to what I'm going to write about, although having said that, I don't know what exactly it is I am going to write about! Let's go back to The Receptionist then. I'll break it down to The Receptionist in regard to my conversation with ~O. I spoke with ~O at length last night (this morning for her) in regard to a conversation I had with The Receptionist, on Wednesday, I think. She told me she had been in San Diego for a while, adding she: "broke up with her b... her friend". I was eager to ask ~O, who might not be the girliest girl I know, but is certainly one of most sensible and logical, if The Receptionist was hesitant to suggest she recently had a boyfriend? ~O told me that no girl would be dumb enough to say that by accident, and suggested she intentionally chose to use the words 'broke up' and half say boyfriend. She was in a cab and quite preoccupied about humiliating expositions owing to a potentially compromising dress and lack of sello-tape though (I still don't know how the sello-tape would work, or what you'd tape where, it's so much easier for men!), so I decided not to question her logic until, well, tomorrow. The other interesting thing is that the Receptionist was only going to be working this week, but when I left early yesterday owing to my cold, she told me her contract had been extended by a week. I wonder! Oh, I also want to design my own cool poker themed t-shirt as all the ones on eBay suck. Ideas are welcome!
God Dammit I took my laptop to my new temporary job on Thursday, plugged it in, and my power adaptor began sparking a beautiful bright blue! I hastily unplugged it and bought a new adapter on eBay. I bought what I thought was a VGP-AC19V24, but received a VGP-AC19V10. What a jip, I know! Added to this my left mouse button has become slightly less sensitive - this happened after I had had my laptop only 10 months, but since my laptop was still under warranty Sony fixed it for me. I wonder if they'd be so kind as to do it again, purely out the kindness of their heart. Anyway, enought about the monotony of technical inadequacies, let's
talk about The Receptionist! This is a tough one for various reasons.
One half of my mind is telling me I'm an ugly oaf who doesn't stand
a chance in hell of impressing a girl bearing mild resemblance to
Scarlett Johansson, another half tells me my charm and wit is such
that I can overcome any imperfections I otherwie posses, and the
third half wonders if I'm even that into her? Even though she's
a quarter Brazillian she doesn't speak Portuguese, her ears didn't
prick up when I mentioned jazz in passing and she doesn't offer
me coffee. Our conversations have been interesting, probably because
she's going to Bangkok in a couple of weeks. I must have looked
pretty cool, just suddenly knowing all about where she just happened
to be going in a couple of weeks. (Just had a chat with the one
they call '~o', thanks for calling me hUn! (sorry for sending you
E's instead of Valerian (just remember, the first one's always free!)))
Another similar demonstration of my intolerable
The Receptionist I knew Salar would be funny! Let me start by telling you about The Receptionist (if I'm not careful this is going to pan out like a Guy Ritchie flick - not only are its main characters Salar - an outspoken, over-confident Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu sporting Iranian, The Receptionist - An intolerably radiant, vivacious, aesthetic and prudent office worker; and me - an uptight, naive public schoolboy, but they also seem to be developing colourful, somewhat unusual names (partly owing to my ignorance)). The Receptionist arrived yesterday on a week long temporary contract, with it being my first day also, I didn't know how long she'd been there - not until Salar told me anyway! She seems to have a slight Australian accent, although word on the street is that she's a quarter Brazilian. She seems ever so sweet, talkative, open and somewhat shy. And, well, Salar wants her. The annoying thing is, his approach is as inflexible as the KKK's policy towards admitting black people into their organisation. He is extremely persistent and unwaveringly aggressive with approach - and she's really not interested! As it happens, this works rather well for me since I can work as a double agent. I can impress my new friend by telling him what to say to appeal to her romantic side (most of which he doesn't) and impress her by telling her how to politely resist his advances, although having said that, I do kind of feel sorry for the poor girl! It's not only Salar, it's painful listening to every guy trying it on who walks through reception, everyone but me of course - I wouldn't like to kid myself that her smiles are because she's happy to see me (but probably because I look important :P) and I wouldn't want to subject her to more cheesy 'How you doin's' while raising an eyebrow and pouting my lips! See, I'm not inflexible, I'd like to think I can read people and be able to conduct myself accordingly where necessary. Of course when seeking a girlfriend, in theory, this shouldn't be necessary since you probably wouldn't want to be with someone you can't be yourself around anyway, however this isn't always the case in practice. On the same basis you wouldn't express your political views upon introducing yourself to a stranger, but might be happy to once you've sat down and ordered a drink or two, there are parts of your personality you might hold back at first also - for fear of overstating any single part which may be perceived out of context. Where was I? Oh yes, as we left the office today, Salar and I were talking about girl etiquette (I think that best describes it) and now this has somehow become a contest between me and him. Not in a macho 'let's see who can get the girl' kind of way, but more of a moral desire to prove that space, respect and consideration wins the girl for me, and that persistence, aggression and aggravation wins the girl for Salar. I really don't know enough about her to determine whether or not I'd like to take her out anyway - I guess that's the difference between me and him.
Let Me Tell You About Salar... "I saw you reading Richard Dawkins" said Salar, an Iranian Dane sitting opposite me. He'd already beaten me at table football, a game I usually pride myself in being quite good at after what seemed like endless rainy schooldays in the canteen at my secondary school in Portugal, when the concrete football pitches were too wet to play on. Since we always played 'winner stays on' it became very competitive and as there was only one table, if you lost you'd sometimes have to queue up for quite a while until you got another go at beating the winners - survival of the fittest probably made a whole lot more sense to me following the competitiveness of the table football rivalry. We'd already made small talk about the drinking culture in the UK, UFC and Rampage Jackson's role as B.A. Baracus in the upcoming A-Team movie. But why did he mention my book? It was though he wanted to either pick a fight with me over my interest in biology ('The Selfish Gene' was on my desk, not 'The God Delusion' which I have already read and wouldn't leave exposed during my first day in a new job anyway (not for politically correct reasons, just because I don't want to associate myself to people who publicly demonstrate their religious beliefs)) or tell me something. It was the latter. We discussed the functions of the brain and he told me that everything I know, interpret as matter, perceive and read is stored in the left side of my brain, and that by exploring the right side you can achieve what he referred to as nirvana, but actually sounded more like ataraxia. I don't know very much about psychology, so at this stage I can't confirm or deny this, but what was interesting is that he told me about a 'course' he did. He went to a temple, totally free, and silently meditated for 10 days, for nearly 12 hours a day, leading up to new year. He told me that he lost his ego after this, which made it easier to deal with anger, avoid stress, be happy - and, he confessed with great enthusiasm, approach girls (he demonstrated this unreservedly after work). It can be somewhat embarrassing when we walk down the street and he talks at pretty girls, who, most likely owing to his incredible outspokenness, tend to avoid him. He's fairly good fun to hang out with though, and although he doesn't stop talking, he can be interesting to chat with at times. We're either going to be friends, or he's going to get me into a lot of trouble!
What a Week A recruiter (I refuse to call them 'recruitment consultants' anymore, since the last thing they have time for is to be consulted) called me through the week and offered me a temporary sales role with a company near London. I turned it down. My rejection was met with stubborn perseverance (something recruiters do so well) and over the next couple of days it dawned on me how desperate this company was for a Portuguese speaker - so, once the snow subsided, I went along for an interview at my convenience and realised the company wasn't as bad as the online reviews had made it out to be after all. I still wasn't going to work for what they were paying though, so, after a couple of words back and forth the wage was put up and I agreed to start tomorrow. It's only a two week contract though (12 days to be precise), but hey, it's a fast buck. [18th] I also had dinner with Jessica through the week. That was delightful, my Mother and I had had a fairly tough day, my Mother lost her wallet in the supermarket (or had it stolen), it was handed in to customer services sixty odd pounds lighter, I couldn't find an adapter for the speakers I retrieved from the garage last week and we were both pretty tired by the time Jessica arrived. Whereas I think I looked half dead my Mum brightened up and was a great host - Jessica though is always pretty effortless, understanding and easy to talk to though. I then caught the train to London with her on my way to play cards on Friday, which, if you read my blog a couple of posts back you'll know went well. What else happened? Grf, I don't know - I'm going to write today's blog now!
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Sadly
some things are just beyond my control. And while I don't know if
there's some sort of clock ticking until The Receptionist's time
to buy me a coffee is up, I know that she could probably seal the
deal and maybe even lock me down if she turned up on Monday with
a Venti Latte stuck to a post-it note with my name on it!