It's been quite busy these few days since I moved into my new house on Sunday. Warning, extremely long post!
Read the whole post, or read about: my moving and unpacking fiesta, getting fined 20 pounds, or spending 30 pounds on a T-shirt.
On Sunday Vicki helped me move my luggage to my house, and we were hungry so I wanted to treat her to lunch. Deciding on Adam's Place (a fish and chips shop near the university), we walked back to Selly Oak only to find it was closed. So we decided to go to Aldi's to get some groceries and cook at Vicki's place. Since we were really lazy, we bought instant noodles. I didn't unpack on Sunday, since I didn't have hangers to hang the clothes with, and I thought it might be more convenient to pack everything at the same time anyway. That night I slept for about 5 hours, waking up almost every hour because I was cold sleeping on the uncovered mattress without a duvet. I kept willing myself to sleep and willing dawn to come more quickly.
On Monday Vicki helped again, this time moving my stuff from Access Storage to my house. We went to Harborne High Street after that for some shopping (via Vicki's place, because we haven't yet figured out how to get there from mine. It was about 20 minutes to Vicki's place and another 20 to Harborne High Street, tiring after two days of moving!). I didn't really buy much groceries but instead bought quite a lot of essentials like shower foam, shampoo etc. I was glad to stop over at Vicki's place for a late lunch (at 3pm) of instant noodles and broccoli.
I generally unpacked everything on Monday evening and night, until everything was out of the boxes and luggages and I couldn't find anywhere to put them except stacked haphazardly on the table (there is absolutely no shelving in any of the rooms! The only furniture in my room are: a bed, table, chair, chest of drawers, and cupboard). Exhausted, sleepy and cold (the flooring is a worse insulator than the more commonly-used carpet), I went to sleep (this time on with bedsheets and duvet, fortunately).
I went back to Harborne on Tuesday (this time not via Vicki's place; I just walked in the general direction and managed to find my way there) to enquire at a stationery shop about a vacancy we saw on Monday, and got a form to fill in. I bought lots of groceries, essential stuff like a clock, rubbish bin for my room and food storage boxes, and a set of 'home office stackable cubes'. Dumping most of the groceries in my bag, carrying the stackable cubes in one hand and carrying everything else in the other, I had a tiring walk home. Basically it was only the hand carrying the cubes that ached, because I had put it in a plastic bag but since the bag was too small for me to carry it like people normally carry plastic bags, I had to carry it under my arm. The problem was that the plastic bag around the box made carrying it so much more slippery and my left hand was struggling to keep a firm grip on it. Stupidly, I only thought to take it out of the bag when I was left with the last quarter of the journey, of course. By Tuesday night all my things were packed neatly into the cubes.
On Wednesday I went with Lanx to Grace's house to collect things she didn't want any more (she's finished her masters' and will be leaving.) At first we went for some bookshelves, a vacuum cleaner and kitchen utensils (and oil, sauces etc), but she ended up giving us lots more, including an iron, a fan, her Play Station, indoor airing rack (I already have one of my own), laundry 'container' (?), extension plugs, and sold us her TV. After one trip to the train station with all six of our hands full, we still had to make another to get the TV. Fortunately, Felix agreed to wait for us at the University Station.
Unfortunately though, both Lanx and I got fined 20 pounds each on the train. It's a long story; when we bought tickets to get to Grace's house, we used the ticketing machine and bought return tickets that said 'Birmingham Stns' and 'University Birm', but we were going to Chester Road Station. So when we boarded the train at Chester Road with all the barang barang, we very unluckily ran into a group of three train conductors, standing right at the door where we boarded!
Once we had put all the stuff down, one of them commented, 'Should have got a cab, with all these things,' and proceeded to ask for our tickets. When he saw Lanx's and my tickets, he told us that it should have said 'Chester Road' instead of 'Birmingham Stns', which we honestly didn't know (I really thought 'Birmingham Stns' meant stations in Birmingham, stupid me), so Lanx tried to talk our way out of it by saying the machine made a mistake. The ticket conductor didn't have anything to say in argument against Lanx's explanation, but he spotted that our tickets were concession tickets and wanted to see our Young Person's Railcards. So just when we thought we'd be let off, he pointed out that both our railcards had expired. (Oh man, why oh why did I not check the date?! If I saw that it had expired I would never have bought concession tickets.) Conclusion: 20 pounds fine each. Sigh...
After we had brought all the things home, I embarked on a task I think nobody would have ever thought I'd do, especially if they knew me quite well. Basically, last year I signed up as a service checker with a certain company over the internet, and this was the first time they ever assigned a check to me. I was to check a shop in Selfridges in the Bullring. At first when I got the call on Monday I was really reluctant to go, because I've really not got the right personality for this kind of job! And the caller was quite incomprehensible, I didn't get the shop name and tasks I needed to do. Furthermore, I had to do the check within Tuesday and Wednesday. Such short notice.
However, after I checked my email on Tuesday and determined the shop name and task details, I thought, why not? It's a good chance to do something out of my comfort zone and I'd be earning money (or a piece of clothing) for it. The company was willing to pay up to 30 pounds for any item I buy, and I had to buy a minimum of 15 pounds worth of things. The difference will be paid to me in cash, of course. I thought it was quite worth it; I could buy something I like (hopefully) which was not more than 15 pounds, and get 15 pounds!
I was supposed to check the display/cleanliness, staff's friendliness/helpfulness etc, the usual, but more specifically, I was supposed to go in, browse around, and take note of how long it takes to be approached by someone (if it was more than 5 minutes then I have to approach them). After that, I'm supposed to describe/specify what I was looking for so that they can assist me, and try on the item. And here comes the hard part: I was supposed to ask about the price and act shocked at the high price, then seem undecided, then ask about a discount, then decide not to buy the item. All these were to test their reaction. I think it's quite weird, how many people nowadays actually ask for discount in shops where they actually know they wouldn't be given one?
I was really looking forward to buying a pair of jeans, but the pair I tried on (and liked very much; it was really comfortable), was 85 pounds (SGD 255)!!!! Actually, while waiting for the sales associate to get the pair of jeans for me to try on, I was browsing and saw other pairs up to 120 pounds. Most expensive pairs of jeans I've ever seen... or am I so un-shopaholic that I don't know the price of jeans anymore? But anyway, I came out of the fitting room and said it was comfortable but too expensive (I found it stupid to ask for the price when it was obviously printed on the price tag), so the sales associate offered to show me cheaper pairs. But he realised the cheapest pair was 80 pounds, just 5 pounds less then this one. So I declined.
I didn't ask for a discount because I just couldn't bring myself to say it; I felt stupid just thinking about it. After pretending to browse around the shop again, I finally picked up the T-shirt and asked for my size, then paid for it. I was already eyeing the T-shirt while waiting for my pair of jeans, after realising how highly their jeans were priced. I had sort of decided I'd buy the T-shirt instead, if it was cheap enough (or expensive enough, if you prefer... SGD 90 for a T-shirt, my god!)
I've already submitted the report, now it's just waiting for them to send me the reimbursement.
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