today...
Saturday, 15 March 2008
Automatication
Most of you know that I work at Curtin; and Curtin is reknowned for the horrendous parking situations that we face in the morning. I thought that since a student parking sticker costs $100, a staff parking sticker wouldn't cost too much more than that... maybe $120? I was so shocked to find out that a yellow staff parking sticker costs $200 and a purple staff parking sticker costs $400!!! Do I hear "rip off" echoing within my bedroom walls... or maybe it's echoing in my head???
TOTAL RIP OFF!!!
So I decided to get a student parking sticker (just because I can). I mean, I don't particularly mind walking an extra 5-7 minutes just to get to my car if it means that I can save $100! $100 could buy me lots of things...like lunch for a month, or 5 cardigans from Pauline's favourite shop, portmans, or I could buy a nice dress, or 10 nice necklaces like the ones Usha has... or ... I could treat people to dinner... bah! There are lots of things I can do with $100...oh... or I could pay for my parking fine in Northbridge with cost me $100 XD Boooooo to the police who fined me!
In fact, in these two weeks alone, I've been fined $100 for parking in a taxi zone in Northbridge which I totally was unaware of. Unfortunately, the 2 cars in front of me and behind me were also fined. Stupid signage was not evidently clear! Then I got fined on the 3rd day of first week of uni... bahhh cost me $20! That fine I must admit I deserved because I was parking consiously without a parking permit. The lady even asked for my student number when I went to pay the fine! Then coming home, I drove past two policemen who were holding speed radars... and as you might know it - I was speeding at 65-70km in a 60km zone. So at present, I don't know if I've been caught out... I was obviously the only car there at them time... but pray for me I don't get caught! I'm so out of money at the moment - because I haven't even paid ever since I started working at IO a month ago!
So anyway... normally I've been parking at Humanities but a few days ago I decided to be smart and park at CBS because it is a bit closer, and there was parking space for once at 8:30am! So *ding* at 5:00pm I knocked off work and proceeded to walk to my car... past Curtin in the Park, past John Curtin Forum, past Kirabilli's cafe, down the stairs past Elizabeth Jolley and through the staff car park... and suddenly halted! @##$%%^ I PARKED IN CBS AND I WALKED ALL THE WAY TO HUMANITIES!!! @##$%%^ Garh!!! So I had to make the arduous trek back to CBS in the hot sun where my arms are burning black! When I got to the Tav there... I saw William and Andrew my colleagues...
"Oh how come you came from that direction?"
"Oh... *embarassed look* I parked in CBS but I walked to the other end of uni..."
"Oh ok *puzzled look*... see you tomorrow then."
"Oh... *embarassed look* I parked in CBS but I walked to the other end of uni..."
"Oh ok *puzzled look*... see you tomorrow then."
He probably didn't get what I was on about since staff shouldn't technically have student parking permits if they're not a student...
So I continue walking... and a Honda beeps at me from behind. It's one of my senior collegues, Betty!
"Do you need a lift?"
"Oh it's ok, I can walk from here, thanks!"
"Oh it's ok, I can walk from here, thanks!"
How nice of her to ask me if I needed a lift... but that would be really awkward if I was sitting in her car... *twddles thumbs* and besides my car wasn't too far off and I didn't want to trouble her.
I have this problem with accepting things when people offer them to me. Not just people giving me lifts... I mean, normally I drive so people don't normally offer to pick me up. But I mean when people offer me chocolates or chips from their own stash... I feel so bad if take a piece and so usually I decline people when they offer it to me. In my mind, I just don't want to trouble them and I don't want to take away their food which they paid for... but maybe in their head they might take offence to it or think I'm some kind of nambi pambi bimbo for not wanting their chocolate - because who on earth declines chocolate right?! But for me, it's easy for me to decline chocolate since I don't like it that much but there are probably a few things I can never decline - like a cup of Jasmine Green Tea, or Redskins, or ... strawberry jam donuts... or KFC just to name a few.
ANYWAY... I keep diverting away from the purpose of the post. I'm talking about "automatication." I know it's not a word but who cares, I can invent words however I wish! So as I was saying, sometimes we have such routines that we can automatically do something without realising it - almost as if we're robots. Sometimes I'm so tired after work but I still have to drive home - but when I'm driving home in such a tired state, it's as if I'm not really driving at all. it's as if the automated part of my brain that knows what to do kicks in and every stop, every turn, every signal is automatically done on command before I even know I've done it. It's like this glaze that goes over my eyes where my field of vision is just narrowed, and the only thing on my mind is just going home. It's just like when I parked in CBS this morning, but after work I just automatically walked in the direction of Humanities - which are on opposite ends of the University might I add which is about 7 minutes brisk walking! sian. And only when I reached the destination did I realise I was in the wrong place.
I guess automatication is a bad thing in life. It kind of makes us numb to the things around us when we should be aware of our surroundings and aware of the things we're doing and enjoying life rather than just being robots.
today...
@6:54 pm
bye bye~