Archive

Uncategorized

January 13, 2012
Uncategorized
Leave a Comment

I just went to the supermarket for the first time since August 2011 (not counting one time in Australia at Christmas). At first it was novel and funny and I checked in on Facebook. It soon turned a bit scary and then right at the end very grounding. This is the second grounding experience this week – the first one was on monday night when I did my own laundry at the Laundromat!

I went past on my bike on the long leisurely way home from gym and almost went in but decided I go home first because the people hanging outside looked dodgey and I worried for my bike. When I was younger I thought I would have just taken the risk. Too old and sensible for that now. Took it home and then I strolled back down wondering where I’ll take my self for the long weekend – a three day bike ride, or a plane ride to Tulum, Whistler or whatever. Anyway I’m in there strolling around in wonder and a daze thinking hard about healthy breakfast choices. I’ve been meaning to come in and get breakfast stuff for months now and never got round to it, it just sat on my things list. I’d usually grab a Lox bagel and a latte from Café Sophie on the way to the Facebook shuttle bus, but I’m sick of that and its a waste of money and not very healthy (I’m on a health kick with the help of my personal trainer).

There were some yummy looking things but I resisted as I only strictly needed breakfast items and often I thought (like trail mix and then Gatorade and later pop chips etc – which were $10 for 10!?) ‘oh I can get that free at work’. I noticed the variety of people in there. All sorts but because I wasn’t used to this I felt like I was surrounded by struggling people!? It’s TIME CONSUMING and WORK to shop for things, and then you have to take it home, pack it away, then later prepare it and then eat it! And then take out the trash, do the dishes… it goes on and on.

But really they were just normal people shopping like I was. So I find with delight the thing I came for: Fage the healthy thick Greek yoghurt which I had recommended to me as a delicious high protein food.

At checkout I’ve forgotten my club card so I just resign myself to paying two dollars extra per item. I buy expensive fresh cherries from Chile and fresh and some frozen berries to mix into my Fage, fresh milk and Safeway’s best take on artisan bread. Whatever it will go with my Vegemite and cheese.

I take a picture with my iPhone of my goods because it’s such a novel experience and send it on Facebook to a friend. Anyway the sketchy looking guy next in line compliments me kindly on my nice sweater and I say thank you and notice that all he is buying is a six pack of instant noodles. He says to the clerk that he’s bummed that they don’t have the shrimp flavor left! Anyway it turns out you can put your phone number in the computer in leu of a card and get the significant discount but mine doesn’t work as I signed up before I started work at Facebook and didn’t have my all expenses paid iPhone yet. So the guy behind me offers to use his and he keys it in and I get $10 off my bill making it $32 or something which I swipe on my debit card and then choose the highest cash back option of $60. It made me a bit uncomfortable afterwards thinking that these guys working there probably don’t make much and then there’s the sketchy but nice guy behind me forking out for instant noodles.

My lifestyle and the circles I’m in can make me forget my considerable privilege. It’s also the suddenness it’s been handed to me which makes it all the more stark, leaving me self aware. I went from rags to riches in 2011 literally overnight…

I’m still learning to live in and accept my privilege and I’m glad I can still recognize and be very thankful for it. I am not cunty about it and am thankful to the workers packing my bag and to the fellow helping me out with the club discount and then the greeter wishing me a pleasant evening. Still, I wish I had paid the dollar for the guys noodles though for the gesture he was clearly struggling with life…

Trundling along

December 11, 2011
Uncategorized
Leave a Comment

I’m slowly settling into San Francisco. Slowly because a lot of time is spent down in Palo Alto at the office, and the commute, while fairly easy, does take up time.

I’m shifting back to using iCal to splice up my time. There’s not a lot of it between gym and all that. Anyway.

So I have a personal trainer! The guy who I had the chance meeting with that day I joined golds and was wandering listlessly around town in self pity at my homelessness and who ended up getting me in the spare room – well he’s my trainer now and he’s really made my conscious of how lazy I have been in the gym this past year. Every since I left NYC really I haven’t been doing it right by my body. I’m slowly turning that around but it HURTS!?

Last night was the Facebook Holiday party which was really extravagant. It was at the SF city hall and it took up the entire space plus a huge tent outside. Food was bountiful as was the alcohol and I INDULGED. I got a little messy at the end which was embarrassing but a lot of people had cleared out by then. I found myself in possession of some sparkly magic hats and was spreading the glitter everywhere!? Too much. Anyway I’m staying home tonight, as I am forming a habit of doing which is kind of unheard for me. I mean NOT going out on a Saturday night? I guess that speaks for the SF nightlife or maybe it’s just the fact of longer hours and also not having that many friends here who I feel like an integral part of yet. I haven’t had that since… maybe when I lived in Melbourne. I kind of sort of had that in Rio and then probably was getting there in NYC, where I found it easier to get friendly with people and be included, and same with Amsterdam but now here… I dunno there are SO many people extending their hand in friendship so it’s all my problem but still I feel like I’m alone sometimes. Like I didn’t really feel like I knew anyone who it would be appropriate to invite to the holiday party as my plus 1. I guess I am just going to have to stay and let these things fall into place.

Mijn huiswerk: een voorstellen!

May 19, 2011
Uncategorized
1 Comment

Hé Sabine,

Hoe gaat je?

Ik voorstellen op je!
Mijn naam is Mathieu. Mijn achternaam is Tozer. Ik komt uit Australia. Mijn geboortedatum is 24 december, 1983.
Ik woon in Amsterdam, mijn straat is Derde Looiersdwaastraat. Ik heb in Amsterdam voor drie maanden. Ik werk by Sofa (www.madebysofa.com), maandag tot vrijdag, elke week. Ik ga gym op ‘smaandags (de morgen), ‘swoensdags en ‘svrijdags in avont. Ik heb twee fiets, en ik ga lopen zaterdag. Ik heb twee zus in Australia.

Op zaterdag vier juni tot 14 juni, ik ga San Francisco by werk. Ik kan niet kom naar klas op maandag zes juni en donderdag zeven juni. (Maandag 13 juni is vrij!).

Tot ziens!

Mathieu.

So, this all might be totally weird, but it’s my best shot at an email to my Docent (teacher) containing much of what I’ve learnt over the past 3 lessons. It was fun to write! And Dutchies: don’t snigger at my mistakes!!! I wrote most of it by myself, cross checking with my textbook and also sanity checking with google translate here and there, but I didn’t write any full sentences in English and just copy them in or anything, so any weirdness is totally mine.

Bleeker St

April 13, 2011
Uncategorized
Leave a Comment

There’s all these moments when you’re in NY where you think of films you saw in the 80′s as a kid, even all the way back in Australia, and when you run into them you get this nostalgic feeling even though you haven’t ever been there before or really experienced it.
I’m stopping by a Starbucks to tap out some notes before visiting the Leica gallery where I’m going to see a photo set of images about nightclubbing in the 80′s in New York. I find myself lamenting the fact that I didn’t get to experience that, and cast around in my head for places where such decadence is happening now, but then realize that in some way I’m living in quite extravagance myself. Here I am on Tuesday morning sporting a chic wet weather look in timbs, jeans and tight white T and sports gym bag on my way to look at photographs about nightclubbing in the 80′s, before going Japanese language book shopping then across town again to work my body in a high end gym. And all of this while I actually live across the Atlantic in Amsterdam. So people are living extravagantly in other ways.
Still, I think there are people here in the city trying to live out the 80′s style club decadence. But because it’s not full scale anymore it seems a little like clinging on. The Suzanne Barton parties and just the general shennanigans going on at greenhouse on a Sunday night were a spectacle, it made me want to be a part of that. But I think this is an affliction of mine – always being a part of something (I was there, dancing around and enjoying myself thoroughly) but then thinking that I’m just a a tourist, passively watching and not creating. I desperately want to be more creative. I think that is what is really missing in my life at the moment. I think I tastefully consume, but I don’t actively create enough anymore.
Blogging used to be part of that, part of my expression, and that’s fallen to the wayside. The only thing that is stopping me is more useless exercises and pursuits, a lack of focus, and indeed trying to walk down too many paths at the same time, diluting my creativity.
I just find focusing so hard.

Just got approached by an amberecombie and fitch store recruiter asking if I wanted to represent them (ie be a store ‘manager’ ie a store model Aka pretty face).
Still it’s nice to be approached about a job.

Quite a strange experience this morning at the expat centre.

March 30, 2011
Uncategorized
Leave a Comment

Quite a strange experience this morning at the expat centre. When I arrived, flustered from my sprint on my bike down there, slightly dizzy and helping myself to the coffee, the motherly figure at the reception desk asked for my name. I said I had an appointment at 11 am and I told her my name. Unfortunately she couldn’t find me on the agenda for the day nor Sofa on “the list”. I explained how this was exactly what we’d been through on the phone yesterday, cheerfully, of course since she had already assured me that they’d be able to help me out somewhere. While I was emailing back to the office on Internet Explorer 6 there was a Chinese lady who didn’t speak English or Dutch being helped by someone who was trying to make herself understood. I offered my Japanese services (I had heard it across the room before so had reason to believe that she was Japanese) but the working lady said that she was in fact Chinese.

So there was this back and forth for the next 20 minutes as I emailed back to the office for IDN numbers, and more “oh you’re not on the lists” and don’t worry we’ll squeeze you in.
So I’m standing there and a pint sized Dutch Latino gay guy comes out from behind the desk and gives me ‘the stare’ and the flirty receptionist winkingly telling me Marcos will help me out.

So he ushers me in, looks at my documents, copies, signs, copies signs, and before long I have registered myself and have a tax file number. In all it was a very strange experience, but still cheerful enough. Quite human.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.