Oh yea~ Seems like I’m pretty consistent with my Monday night weekly recap of my life in New Zealand.
Would love to add more photos to my entries but I’m kind of lazy so I’ll leave the images to appear on Instagram and my blog will be all the longwinded grandmother stories that I can’t stop talking about.
As mentioned last week, I finally got offered a job in a nursery – not the place with kids but a plant nursery. More than 50% of the people got it wrong and they were like ‘are you kidding me; what are you doing with kids’. Thankfully or perhaps sadly, dealing with plants is kind of worse than kids. At least kids they can walk; sadly, plants don’t.
So, what’s with my job and why am I ‘complaining’?
It is pretty back-breaking and some routine jobs require me to do squats. Let’s see, I may have did approximately 500 squats today? Well, these plants are placed on the floor and our jobs requires us to move plants very often. After they are seeded, after they have grown out and perhaps need a haircut aka trimming, or when they need to move from one area to the other. Or perhaps they area ready to get packed and sent out.
So basically in my one week, I sweated the most since I’ve arrived in NZ. There were glasshouses and it gets really warm inside (like duh!). I never had any physical labourious job my whole life. I mean, I did work in retail and F&B before but it involves me standing around for 8-10 hours but hey, this nursery is a whole new level.
You will need to have good hand-eye coordination and my muscles have been tensed up like since the first day I’ve started. I’m still waiting for the day my muscles stop aching. From my thighs (the worse), to my back, to my knees (yes, there’s a lot of kneeling jobs as well), to my arms, fingers and damaged nails. EVERY MORNING FEELS LIKE I’VE CLIMBED SOME MOUNTAIN or completed a 20km hike or something.
That being said, I think my body is indeed slowly adapting to it as today (Day 5), I don’t feel much soreness in my thighs despite my 500 squats. One of my work colleague suggested me to try out yoga and hopefully I will not procrastinate and do it this week.
As much as I am complaining (queen of complains), I am still thankful and glad and happy that I am employed.
To be honest, the minimum wage in NZ is pretty decent. We earn $17.70/hour + 8% (cause we do not have annual leave) and if you extend it out to a 40-hour work week, you can get $3,058 per month (4 weeks) and of course you need to deduct taxes which is about 10.1% if I didn’t recall wrongly.
$3k – can graduates even earn that much these days? I didn’t even get $3k for my first job. Anyway, seems like this minimum wage is so much better than a lot of other countries (even Europe) that backpackers or anyone at all, really didn’t mind settling down in NZ for good. Even though the things are expensive, they say that the quality of life here in NZ is a lot better than many places.
Anyway, so I know of this one person who is working at another town 50 mins away from christchurch. She said her job was super boring but it was easy; but she is thinking of quitting cause it was too boring. She was excited about my job cause she said like you can work and work out at the same time but I guess.. the grass is always greener on the other side. I SHOULD JUST SHUT UP AND SUCK THUMB AND BE HAPPY. Well, I am happy; just that I’m very tired.
One more update about my solo/emo life here is that.. I finally moved out of my HelpX house and its with much sadness and regrets.
It was a difficult decision. I really love the place but it was too far from my workplace. It’s like 10 mins drive vs 20 to 30mins drive. In my new place, I wake up 30-40 mins later and I think I save quite a bit on petrol as well? Too good to be true? Well there’s a lot of sian-ness that I didn’t see it coming. I gave up a CLEAN and BIG kitchen where people wash up their plates, pots and pans after they are done. I gave up having a somewhat family to talk to whenever I’m home. You know I actually didn’t look forward to going home today after work? This had never happened last week. No more friendly house mates that will say Hi. No more tips on cooking. No more fireplace. No more random free/shared food form my house of 9. In return, I got a study table and a chair in my room, a warmer room and too much quietness and darkness. I don’t know if I made the right decision to move and technically if I wanted, I could move again (2 weeks notice period) but my friend was telling me that I shouldn’t be too picky cause after all, I’m just a traveler, tourist and its only temporarily. Maybe adapting to the situation would be a better learning to my life than to whine and complain all the time. > <
Let’s see how things go.
For the weekends, I went to New Brighton to help my friend with her flea again and on Sunday, it was shared big breakfast aka a housemate (HelpX) birthday breakfast and kind of like my farewell? I can’t believe I got a card from them. Everyone is so lovely there.
This weekend, thinking of going somewhere far but I’m not confident that my driving can bring me anywhere.
Look forward to my updates next week.
If I’m staying here for 26 weeks (assuming I’m not extending), I’m about 10% done with my travel.
Time flies; really.
The plants don’t walk, but maybe they can talk…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD1apbw8rgI
Thanks for being such a loyal reader! Haha but even if plants can talk, it wouldn’t make my work any easier.. oh wells!