It suddenly turned cold on Wednesday; I don't seem to recall it happened so early last year. But anyway, the sky was breath-taking when I stepped out of the house that morning. Sometimes I wish I bring my camera with me wherever I go, but I think some things are often missing from photos anyway (especially since I won't capture the whole experience as well as a professional photographer would be able to). And I'd rather not do an even worse job of describing it in words... the clouds were amazing. I don't know why, but either cold weather makes the sky more beautiful or I particularly remember beautiful skies on cold days because it's like a little ray of light shining through the grey moodiness of going out into the cold. It just makes me so much more optimistic about the rest of the day.

On this cheerful Wednesday I decided to give job-seeking another try. I always try for a short time, then stop, then start again, and so on. Really bad, but normally I begin to be convinced that I should just concentrate super hard on my studies and forget about working totally (ya right, if only I could be so hardworking!). So anyway, I went to the Jobzone and got the contact details for some job vacancies advertised there, and decided to call the one I preferred the most - cafe assistant, experience not required as full training provided - great, suits me perfectly!

'Sorry, the vacancy has been filled. But I'll just take down your details anyway, if there are other vacancies I will give you a call, is that alright?'

'Oh, ok.' (Downcast that this happens far too often)

But after taking down my name and phone number, the lady asked whether I was an international student, where I was from, etc, and suddenly, 'Would you consider working as a waitress in the restaurant at night? You do know we are a Japanese restaurant at night, don't you?'

Oops, I didn't even do any research on this place before calling! 'Oh, um, so sorry, I didn't know. But I'm interested in waitressing work...' (Cross fingers)

'Ok, would you be free to come down to the cafe tomorrow afternoon for an interview?'

Yes! Yay! (But reminds myself that interviews are usually the broken link between my looking for jobs and actually getting a job.)

I got the job, no big deal, cos obviously I was her only candidate anyway. The cafe-by-day-restaurant-by-night is small, during the interview she only asked a few questions, I got to meet her husband (the chef), and that was it. She asked me to give it a try on Friday evening. It wasn't that hard; keep all the stuff from the cafe and bring out the stuff for the restaurant and set up the place (most of which I've forgotten by now, but it's ok, cos both the chef and the other waitress teaching me were blur also), and then the usual waitressing work. I think the only hard part was not knowing the menu very well, but luckily most customers have the same problem so they will point to the menu when ordering.

I was lucky to have the other waitress teaching me; she was very friendly and helpful, trying to teach me everything cos she's going home at the end of this month anyway (she has finished her masters in I-forgot-what). I was also lucky that the other two chefs (uni students like me) have a great sense of humour and despite working really hard to get the orders out as quickly as possible, they try to have fun at the same time. And no one tried to slack off at closing time; we all helped to clean up the place and re-set up the cafe for the next day. Hmm... so the people working in the cafe have a good life huh, they don't have to set up the cafe or un-set up the cafe cos it's the restaurant people's job.

I'm also most fortunate that they didn't throw me right into the deep end by asking me to try out on a Saturday, which I've heard from the rest are very busy and I'll need to try to stagger taking customers' orders so that the chefs don't have too much to cook at once. And the customers won't be waiting too long for their food (but I wonder... they'll be waiting too long for their orders to be taken instead, isn't it still bad service?). Only after work when one of the other chefs was giving all of us students a lift home that he said last Saturday two waitresses were fired cos they kept rushing the chefs with lots of orders at the same time, and more importantly, they kept giving all sorts of excuses when the chefs told them to slow down the orders. I guess it's not just about doing things right or wrong; like any other thing we do, what's most important is the attitude. I will always remember that.