Living with the Awkward Silence

     So you’re sitting in a generic restaurant like olive garden with a group of people you know, but only slightly well.  That boring girl is telling that story you’ve already heard 3 times again where her friend was driving out in the country and accidentally “killed two birds with one car”.  After a few courtesy chuckles, an AWKWARD SILENCE commences, catching everyone by surprise. What do you do?  From the beginning of time, the human race has been plagued with awkward silences and poor responses to these events.  Solutions to this problem varies upon situation, but to the social novice, it is best to sit still, and most importantly, AVOID doing any of the following.

Don’t stare at anyone.  You may notice that once the silence has begun, your acquaintances will start averting their gaze towards inanimate objects.  If you choose to stare at another human being, you will face the consequences.  They will ask you, “What? What are you looking at?” My socially clumsy friend, you have dug yourself a grave.  No possible response will save you now.  Instead, choose to stare at that vase on the table with a fake tulip, or better yet, retreat to the bathroom.

No stories.  You may suddenly find this an opportune moment to share about that time where you cut yourself shaving and had to get stitches, but unfortunately, it is not.  Rather, keep your mouth shut and let someone who is more verbally flamboyant interrupt the silence.

An Empty Chamber Pot and the Long Goodbye

     A night ago was my roommate’s 21st birthday celebration.  Naturally, this night involved less hitting pinatas and more chugging gallons (or should I say “litres”) of alcohol.  When a couple Americans finally carted him into the room at 2 a.m. with a vomit bucket, I’d say he was punched pretty hard by the iron fist of substance abuse.  Meanwhile, I had fallen asleep reading Skunk Works a couple hours prior, so I sleepily glanced over, saw that the blubbery mess of Pause (actually pronounced “pow-say”) was lying on his stomach like a beached whale and vomit bucket in reach, and said “Glad you enjoyed yourself Steve.”  Pause grunted in reply.
     Three hours later, I was awoken to what I initially believed was my roommate vomiting in his bucket.  Upon further listening to the very consistent and familiar sound, it became more apparent that he was performing the number 1.
“Steve.  Hey Steve!” I uttered.
“Yeah.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I dunno man.”
“Are you URINATING in that bucket?”
“Yeah… I dunno man.”
“Well, go dump it out when you’re done, because I don’t want you or I to knock over your chamber pot by accident in the morning.”
“All right, dude, I’m sorry Simon.”
     However, instead of proceeding to the bathroom, he stumbled back into bed.  Sighing, I decided that the thought of inhaling urine fumes for the last hour of my sleep was not enticing, so I got up to empty that bucket of piss myself.  The good news was that when I shined my flashlight on the bucket, I found that it was empty.  Turns out, he emptied his bladder directly on his clothes and all over my backpack.  My backpack not only held my laptop and papers, it held my holy Bible.  Had he been sober, I’m sure God would have dropped a thunderbolt onto Rosemere Backpackers that very night.

     I’ve only got a week left, and I wish I could say I’m not going to miss this place, but obviously I will.  It seems sometimes that spend a large portion of the early part of our lives constantly saying goodbye to things, such as preschool, elementary school, junior high, high school, 1st year freshman dormitory floor, RA Hall Staff and residents, and now this.  Although the thought of unhealthily spicy University Chicken wings in my mouth creates a relentless desire to return home, I look back on the past 10 weeks here and wish that it were a bit longer.
 
     During the time before the German engineer Mark left, the coworkers, my supervisor, and I were gathered at an Indian restaurant, where surprisingly enough, Indians cooked the Indian food rather than Mexicans.  Mark’s parting gift to us all was to treat us to lunch. For all the alcohol that Germans and Irish can handle and I can’t, I make up for in hot sauce.  My boss warned me strongly about the spiciness of the legendary Chicken Vindaloo, so I obliged to his requests for my safety, and only got it in medium spicy.  I dump loads of hot sauce on everything, and I should have predicted that I would be completely unscathed by the mild simmer of the Vindaloo spice.  Unimpressed, I expressed my complaint to my boss, who never again questioned my spice tolerance. Later, we were all at the airport waiting for Mark’s flight, and my boss bought a round of Mac’s Gold.  I didn’t want to drink alcohol, so my boss asked, “How about I get you a nice bottle of Tabasco instead?”  I said, “Sure.” He laughed.  I did not.

     A while ago I ran home from work.  My boss thought it was a stupid idea, but I thought it was terrific, since it would save me $3.20.  The bus ride from my work in Petone to Wellington was just over 8 miles, and since I was physically able to run 10-12 miles during my high school days, I was absolutely certain that I could do the same now, 2 and a half years later, and 5 pounds of leg muscle less.  I chose the best day to run, when the clouds loomed over the sky and torrents of rain pounded mercilessly.  My original path was to follow the shoreline of the bay, which ran adjacent to a set of railroad tracks.  I had trekked a mile down the path, when all of a sudden, the path disappeared forcing me to make a tough decision.  Either I crossed the railroad track, which had a sign that said officials would fine those who crossed $10000, or I ran back a mile from where I came and went on the overpass over the tracks.  Guess what I did.
That’s right!  I chickened out and ran back a whole mile to start my run over, bringing the total number of miles run to 10.  I gasped for air in the final stretch of my run due to my now inefficient lungs, but eventually collapsed in the hostel, accomplishing my amazing feat.  I expected a flock of girls to come marvel at my success, but none came.  I expressed this to Britney, who comforted me by saying in a high pitched voice, “Oh Simon!” and gave me a hug.

     The last full day of fun was when I went up to Tongariro Park, just south of Taupo with Emily and my crush Ronnie (it was her last day in New Zealand).  Ronnie and I chatted away for 5 hours during the drive up north, starting at 4:30 am, while Emily slept in the back.  Once the sun rose, the photography nerd in her was unleashed and she started saying nerdy things such as “The lighting is perfect!” and bad cliched puns (Get the picture?).  As expected of New Zealand weather, the rain and sleet started coming down the moment we began our 2 hour hike to Taranaki falls.  The hike itself was brilliant, the trail traversing through open flat savannah, forested areas, and rocky cliffs.  Meanwhile, Ronalynn had to get each shot just perfect with her Canon 90000XBZasdf and her $700 lens while we all stood soaking the rain water which, before long, was sloshing uncomfortably inside of our shoes.  I told her that once she becomes a photojournalist, she’d be the one in Baghdad spending hours trying to get a picture of a bomb landing right before her, with the “perfect amount of lighting”.  We arrived back in the visitor’s centre at 4 pm, looking like we fell in a lake, and asked for where the loo was.
“You had a good hike?” the vistor centre employee asked.
“Yeah, good thing it didn’t rain.” I replied.

     Half a week ago I went with Bevin (nicknamed Beverage) to the one place in town that served pho.  She doesn’t handle anything remotely spicy, so obviously I dumped her chili peppers into my soup along with my own.  I should have thought twice before dropping it in.  By the end I was a teary, snotty mess as Bevin looked on, frowning in disdain.  I don’t think I’ll ever succeed at dating.

    Marmite is something they don’t have in the states.  What it is is a spread which you should only use in small amounts on bread.  After my boss had raved endlessly about this culinary masterpiece, I had to try it myself.  One German guy at my hostel happened to have some marmite, who willingly obliged to have me try a smear.  The thing looked like tar.  After the group of us sitting at the table almost hurled tasting it, we decided it was food that we could be much better without, such as coconut flakes and anchovies.
“Why do you like Marmite so much?” I asked, grimacing with the taste of the tar in my mouth.
“Well, it’s tasty and cheap.” He replied.
“Yeah, that’s because rat vomit is not expensive at all.”

     The last thing all the American interns had to do was type up a 2000-word essay along with all our journal entries surrounding our trip, and email it to the annoying and questionable Jillian Litster.  This Aussie lady had the nerve to ask us to put “sources and references” within our essay, and then state that she was taking off for 2 weeks.  The rebellious lot of us decided to forego this ridiculous request, and I might even go as far as to not do the essay at all.  I have too many things left to do for fun and not enough time to oblige to a silly BS assignment from a faceless AustraLearn organizer who spends her office time playing Solitaire.  Even if I passed the assignment with flying colors and fireworks, UC Berkeley’s engineering department isn’t going to give me anything more than a free pen, which they give out for free anyway.

     Well, I’m sad to say that that this entry is the last record of my boring adventures.  Pretty soon, I’ll be busier than I’ve ever been, with little time to chug out entries such as this one.  Those stories will be saved for dinner and AIM conversations.  Meanwhile, I’ll occassionally update with the mindless gibberish that I wrote before I came to New Zealand.

Courtesy of Ronalynn