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Had a good day! Got up at about 9 and caught Mike on Skype so spoke to him for about an hour, then got up, showered, dressed and had breakfast. Steph had to go to a shopping center to get a few things so I went with her as I needed to look for some shoes. Split up when we got there planning to meet in an hours time and I went straight into a show shop and got some sandals! They're really nice! I'm hoping they'll last me till the end of my trip at least, fingers crossed! I then looked around the shops and have to admit I treated myself a bit. Or should I say Mike treated me as he'd just repaid me the money he owed me and gave me a bit exra for my birthday :-D So I got some hairbands, a delicious body butter and eyeshadow! Eyeshadow was such a treat as I brought hardly any make-up with me and am so bored of looking the same all the time. Small pleasures, hey! Even treated myself to a strawberry milkshake once I had finished my shopping. Met up with Steph and we came home, then I started looking for jobs again. Everything I looked at still had a catch, like needing a car or something, so I was getting pretty fed up. There were a lot of fundraising jobs going but I knew I didn't want to do that - they're all commision based and a friend from Sydney got one. They're not hard to get as no one wants to do them, and here's why - he worked 9-5, stopping people on the street to try and get their money, and for those 8 hours he got $19 which is about £12. Needless to say he didn't go back for a second day! There are a few jobs in bars but you need do do a course on "responsable alcohol serving" which costs $80 and I didn't want to do that when the chances of getting a job were, realistically, pretty slim. Went on a website Steph had recommended, meant to be the biggest database of jobs in Brisbane - when I narrowed down my search selecting things like 'temporary work' and 'less than 1 years experience' etc, the jobs fell from 5000+ to 1. It sounded crap but I thought I would go for it, until it said at the bottom MUST BE AN AUSTRALIAN. So basically, there were 0 jobs available for me. So I had a decision to make! I could either keep searching for a job hoping something will come up eventually, or I could carry on travelling. I'm sure if I looked continuously a job would come up at some point, but there's no way of knowing when or if that job would be worth it. With so many travellers looking for work, companies aren't going to fighting over any one. And most people I have met travelling have been to uni already so they're going to be more likely to get somewhere then me for that alone. I had a brilliant chat with Steph who had been in the same situation as me. She said she has been to numourous interviews which were a complete waste of time and had weeks of crappy job hunting till she'd find something that was crap anyway. She said that companies were never keen to employ people on the working visa either. Travellers mess companies around a lot by not showing up to interviews etc as they send out their CV's on mass, so companies are just the same back. She'd called a few agencies she had found work with on behalf of me but they all said the demand for workers in Brisbane was especially low since the floods... add to this the fact that if I ever did find work out here I would be paying 30% tax and having to pay for accomodation, travel and food each day, it was starting to make little sense for me to work here. Something made me feel that I would be letting myself or others down because not working out here means I'd be going home early, but Steph talked me out of feeling like that - she was right in saying at the end of the day, work is work wherever in the world you are. If I'd have worked in a shop or something, it could be a shop anywhere. I wouldn't really be missing out on an experience by not working out here. And although I might feel like I have missed out on something, it really would only be work as I managed to save enough money before I came away to do everything I want to up the East Coast. It's not like by not working, I wasn't able to do Fraser Island or Whitsundays or something else. The only thing I would have potentially done is seen other areas of Oz but I worked out I would have never had time to do that if I worked long enough to get the money to be able to do so. Any money I made would just be coming home with me, so I might aswell make that money at home when I'm keeping more of it. As you can see from my rambaling on, it was a big decision and I had to really justify it to myself but I thin I am doing the right thing. Instead of having memories of Oz as searching for work, I can have it as one big adventure and I know I can say I tried to look for work as I did, it was just pretty clear early on it wasn't going to be worth it. If something does come up as I continue up to Cairnes I can always take that so it's not a decision I can't change. So was really glad I'd spoken to Steph :-) I am going to stay in Brisbane for about another week as I like it here :-) Me and Steph still have 2 more theme parks to go to aswell! Finished up on the computer then went and helped Steph practise her new head turner illusion which she had brought on Monday, as she wanted to use it in her show that evening at the comedy club (the one me and Lauren had gone to last week). We practised it and it looked really good! Steph then had an idea that I could be her assistant on stage that night! She'd pretend that I was just a random member of the audience so it looked better but it meant we could perfect some tricks! She was getting her performance filmed tonight so she could have some promotional material and she wanted to add some new tricks in so she cut some of the stuff from the lat week and had the set as her training me up to be an air hostess. We practised and it was good fun, I was a bit nervous but I think that was good as I had to act like a randomer anyway who would be nervous! After we pracitsed I had some time to kill so read a magazine, went on Youtube etc then at half 5 I had dinner, some more spag bol woo! Was even yummier re-heated. We left at 6 for the comedy club and when we got there I helped Steph unload her van and waited backstage while she set up. She was on stage at 7.40 so at half 7 I went and sat on a chair at the side of the room. The MC was the really funny guy from the comedy show at the Powerhouse we had been to on Sunday. He did the same jokes but was still funny! Steph got on stage and began her act, adding in a few new things which worked well expect she threw a blow up globe into the crowd and it ended up smashing some stuff! On my secret cue I got up and pretended to walk somewhere. It was just as she was looking for someone to get on stage so she looked at a few people and then said "that girl there walking along". I rpetended I didn't know it was me and played along with it, had to pretend I was laughing to my friends who were just some randomers and then I went on stage! Steph asked my name etc and I played being a bit embarrased and shocked that I was on stage. Staph exlpained how she was going to train me up to be an air hostess and we started with a sketch I'd seen Steph do last week. She got someone on stage, this time me, and was showing how to pour a drink in an air hostess manner. Once we had done that with a bit of a wiggle she bet me I couldn't copy everything she did exactly. She handed me the drink in my right hand and hers was in her left so she was whispering "wrong hand" and I copied her exactly a few times before "realising" what she meant Then she did some actions and took some sips of the drink and I copied her, but then she spit some drink back into the glass - she hadn't swallowed it but I already had to obviously I couldn't copy her! Had to pretned I adn't seen all this before, was a bit worried people would see my reactions as fake but Stephs friends who had been watching and knew I was a stooge said it looked real. The next it was the head turner which, looking back on the video, worked really well! We had rehursed which ways I would turn it so it looked like I was randomly turning it but because we had rehursed Stephs actions were perfectly in time so it worked really well. The next trick was another new one. I had to sit on a chair and Steph would get me to scruch up a bit of tissue in my hand and she would do the same with bigger bits but her bit of tissue would always dissapear when she rubbed her hands together. What she was actually doing was throwing the bits of paper over my head, so it was reall funny to the audience as I looked as though I didn't know how she was doing it. I tired to look up her sleeves and stuff so it looked like i was genuinely bemused and had to look suspicious when the audience were laughing. At the end she told me to look behind me and I saw all the tissue and again it was quite hard to act being shocked without it looking fake! The final part was Steph restoring a crushed can of coke, which looked really cool. I was just there to pour the coke out at the end and then it was done! It had been good fun!! Obviously i had to act as if I didn't know Steph so we stayed apart the rest of the night, and I went and sat back down on the side of the room. Wondered if people were suspicious tat I was on my own but guess it doesn't really matter if they did. And there were no real tricks I was "in on" like mindreading, just meant it was all rehursed. Watched Glen do his performace then popped backstage when it was the break, saw Steph and she was really happy with it and said I had done well so I was pleased :-D Then went and watched the 2nd half of the show which was all some people I had seen the week before, but the last part of the show was a comedian from the USA who was SOO funny! He was talking a lot about Australian's from his point of view, being a foreigner, so I could totally relate to the things he was saying. Was really glad we had stayed to watch him! Very funny. once the show finished we left, had to sneak into the van incase anyone saw! Got back and got ready for bed then spoke to Suzanne on Skype which was really nice!! Spoke to Mike aswell as it was his day off :-) Tried to put a film on afterwards but non would work so I ended up listening to music on Youtube and doing random quizzes, general time wasting before I went to bed :-)
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