I have giving the blog a bit of a facelift but the same rules apply, endure my terrible spelling and grammar to find what is happening in my dull life, or ignore my writing like the plague.
***WARNING***post might be on the lengthy side as I decided to resurrect this blog after I have been in Australia for 3 months and 20 whole days already.
AND GUESS WHAT??!! I have NOT seen one flippin' kangaroo!
Alright lets get on with it.
As soon as I got here (Maroochydore, QLD) I was able to move straight into our little granny flat. Thankfully Pete did all the ground work in the apartment hunting and I got off stress free. It is cute and big enough for Pete and I but guests and privacy are 100% out of the question.... our internet is terrible due to the 5-7 other people living in the main house and the only way we can get cable is by having the TV antenna in the bathroom on the towel rack. Other than that..its clean and cozy (after I went on a 3 day ant killing spree)We are in a pretty prime location, we can walk just about anywhere and bike to the beach in 10 minutes.
After about a week of settling in I started the second visa approving job hunt... and because of the lovely cyclone that hit Queensland just before I arrived, strawberry season was pushed back 3/4 weeks. With multiple trips to farms around the coast (most of which had no one around that spoke english) and constantly checking gumtree(like castanet) and emailing everything I could I had no luck. Pete's sister in-law was actually the one that found me the job, it is in Elimba which is a 40 minute drive in good traffic from our home in Maroochydore and I got the job packing strawberries for .17cents a punnet. At first we thought "oh man not a problem" "once you get use to it you'll be able to make 22-24 dollars an hour easy, that's only 2.5 punnets a minute" BOY LET ME TELL YOU WERE WE EVER WRONG!!!
I have been on the farm 33 days now (I started June 14th but the season isn't busy enough with the cyclone and the strange winter weather so we only ever work 2 days on then 1 day off and repeat) IT IS AWFUL. I am not even breaking even with cost of living, plus NO ONE speaks english or sorry let me correct myself no one chooses to speak english so I probably only say a handful of words on any given day. Pete and I had read all of these blogs before I got this job to find out the best way to do my regional work for my second year visa and they all say "stick with it" "you'll get better after 3/4 weeks" "you'll meet strange and wonderful people"...... so far.... this has all been false. Yet in comparison to some stories you hear from further up north I am lucky. The only positive I had was that each shitty day I went through was one day closer to my second year visa. NOW THIS ISN'T EVEN THE CASE! To save this post from becoming way longer than it already is. I'll sum it up.
-Might not get second visa because I am on a piece rate contract any day worked under minimum wage might not count as one of my 88 days.
-Called Immigration (or...the wonderful Anna did!) Said I should be fine, they dont look at pay as long as I have all the correct paper work.
-Talked to boss, he said it will be cutting it close but I should be okay. (I need to be earning between 15-17$ per hour to have the days count. I'd say about 75% of my days are in the bracket)
-Every blog out there says something different.
-No one knows what is really going on.....
All leading to... drum roll please......Brenna FREAKING OUT!
---and those of you that know me, know I am EMOTIONAL so poor Pete has been graciously putting up with a monster!
All this said and done I am now in a state of preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.
And that my friends has been my life this far in Australia.
UPDATE:::::
Don't get me wrong it is BEAUTIFUL,
Pete's family is wonderful,
going to/on the Mountains, Beaches, Hikes, Fishing, Picnc's and all other outings has all been AWESOME.
Just had to vent and be a big baby about the mundane majority of my current situation.
Until next time,
-B
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