About no-show, reality checks, Mordor of Australia, Sisu and miners

Thursday was supposed to be an exciting day with the defensive driving course. I woke up super early, took a cab to Albion and entered an old warehouse office where people were filling in forms. I sat down and started to fill in the form myself, handed it out to the instructor and was told that “ah, you are the no-show from yesterday. You cannot attend this course”. Wot? I am not a no-show. Apparently I was and needed to leave the office immediately *rude*. What happened was that on Monday I was told the defensive driving thingy happens on Thursday, I got a confirmation mail welcoming me to the course on August 10th which in real world was a Wednesday and in my world it was Thursday. How embarrassing. I went back home, changed clothes and left to the office feeling the most gigantic stupido ever. Client is paying quite a lot of money per hour for my work, sending me to a driving course for the whole day and I cannot even read a freaking mail. Two thumbs up for the cheerful spirit. First thing at the office I went to apologize the miss to my client PM. He said “no worries, these things happen, especially when you have so much on your table right now” but it didn’t make me feel any better to be honest. I felt I had just committed a professional suicide and I will get fired or something. Luckily dear Marijke was at the other end of OC. I said I feel like buying a one-way ticket back home. She said it’s a bit strong reaction and this point and I should consider still and this is not the end of the world. Of course, no one is dead because of this but for me it is the end of the world to let people down, especially people who are overloaded already and not in need of any extra work because of my inability to read.  Anyways, missing the driving course was a show-stopper for the plan to rent a car and drive so they needed to organize me an escort to drive me back and forth every day or cancel the training. After few painfully long hours the scheduler came over and said all good and I will have an escort next week and training will happen as planned. I wanted to give her a hug (I didn’t). Instead I got her a Thank you card and strawberries for the extra effort in organizing a plan b. Lessons learnt: do not assume anything and double check the dates. Still, I am relieved for not being forced to drive here. Things happen for a reason, even the embarrassing ones, I believe so.

Rest of the day turned out to be a lot better. After work I got my Virgin phone plan and iphone 4 and two packages from home with candies, hapankorppu, sisu, salmiakki, adorable drawings by the little people and a real letter from Kiira. She’s 5 years old and wrote a letter telling she is missing me very much, explaining what has happened lately and asking if I could come for a visit after my Australia trip so that we could play and eat sweets together (I cry when I write this). I think the letter is the most adorable thing I have gotten in my life…I love those little creatures with every cell of my body and I miss them so much I cannot imagine myself being this far away for years. And I think it is amazing to love something as much as I love them. Anyways, after few tears again Eepi and I went for a run, rewarded ourselves with risotto and a glass of SB (or half a bottle each to be honest) and big piece of chocolate cake from the Five Sisters Coffee House near my place. Better to learn to put things in context again. I got mail from my loved ones, endorphins from running and a good meal in excellent company and have little people's drawings on my fridge door. All of those are greater than missed defensive driving course.

Saying bye to Eepi on Saturday morning was super sad. We had had a great week together and I enjoyed having a friend around…not to mention the service of getting my fridge filled with quality SB, groceries done, yoga and running coach, exploring city and good conversations about life from various different angles J *Thanks Eepi, miss u* The moment of goodbye felt weird as she’s going back to where she belongs and I am staying here. It once again made me realize that I am here to stay. It was the first time someone has come over for a visit and the first time someone is leaving back home and feelings attached to first times always come as a surprise to me, no exception here. And I still suck at goodbyes. I cried (of course), started cleaning fiercely, hit my toe twice to the same stupid bathroom sill and decided to leave to city to get a good cup of coffee. Coffee pick-up turned to a trip to Sunshine coast which was exactly what I needed after my mixed-feelings miserable morning and to-be too short weekend because of work on Sunday. Sunshine coast was much cozier and a lot less touristy than her big bro Gold Coast. I liked it better. First thing there I called to congratulate my mom turning 60. She cried at the other end of the phone (the crying gene comes from her obviously), I kept myself together and told her to enjoy the day with her nearest and dearest-minus-me and promised to raise a toast for her over lunch. I was of course sad to miss the party but also excited to be in a new place again, see my love Pacific ocean, get to stand in the water and dig my toes into the fine sand. Smile. We had lunch at over-priced Italian restaurant, headed back home to Skype with the little people <3 and ended up having an easy going night at the Powerhouse.

Sunday was lost for travelling then. I needed to be at the airport already 11am so didn’t have time for anything else than packing during the morning. I wasn’t on the best mood really. I am very jealous of my weekends and travelling to Moranbah felt like someone eating my ice cream portion and making me pay for it. Mur. At the airport I went to security check and asked if they have those little plastic bags to put my liquids in. “No, we don’t have them. You can carry liquids on Sundays”. Ok, that’s weird. The plane was super small and majority of the passengers where men (and most likely miners). A bit before landing I saw 3 different mine sites, commented them to be huge and the guy sitting next to me said that what I see is not huge but big instead. Landing to Moranbah was literally in the middle of nowhere. The “airport” was a small barrack building (that was told to be under renovation), check in was in a tent and people were sitting outside on plastic chairs and the luggage was delivered with a tractor. I had pre-ordered the one and only taxi in the town, driver said to be “hell busy with you visitors coming over and leaving at the same time” and I didn’t get any receipt as “I forgot the machine home, sorry”. No worries. I got the key to my motel room, went in, realized it is quite terrible, spotted a cockroach and a spider, made a silent scream, killed both and carried the remains far away to make sure their families are not gathering for a funeral in my room, felt super anxious and decided to go for a run to escape “all this”. Running felt good, especially the first part of taking distance to the sloppy motel and dead bugs, I didn’t really want to turn back at any point but was forced to as I haven’t done much sports lately and am in shitty shape. On the positive note, I think I will be in excellent shape in no time with these trips to mines ahead. After my run had a shower and went to the Coles (grocery store) nearby to get water and something to eat and felt more than happy to find wine gums also. I must say it was the most pathetic Sunday in a while…well, figure it out yourself if wine gums are the highlight of your day. I went to sleep in fear of the wildlife crawling in and leaving the lights on. Five nights to go, that’s less than six at least.

Monday was once again another “first” work day. I was super excited. Had no idea what kind of people the miners are, how they perceive the topics of the training and are they going to throw me with tomatoes or kindly sit and listen and do what is expected from them. There I was, room full of miners in their overalls, hands in dirt and helmets on the table looking very reserved and somewhat suspicious of the upcoming few hours. Most of them said already at the door that they have better things to do and if it would be possible to reschedule the session or just skip it. Oh dear, a bit of a change mgmt work ahead I thought. Showdemgirl. “Good morning everyone and congrats for winning the best possible way to start your Monday morning!” Rock ‘n Roll, here we go and no way back. First ice breaker was the fact that I come from Finland and have never visited a mine before. They found this super exciting, asked what brought me down here, started smiling as I told them I didn’t come with family, they said some aussie guy will be lucky and listed a lot of places for me to see and experience. Some of them also knew Koskenkorva and Duudsonit and one of the trainees had been in Finland 1996 and remembered “liquorice kossu and Silja Carnival cruise to Stockholm”. Uhu, the Crème de la Crème of Finland. After 15 minutes I had half of them on my side and in 30 minutes pretty much all. Tension was gone and the feeling in the class room relaxed and fun. I had also Sisu with me and promised a taste for everyone scoring 100% on the different skills assessment. That ended up being a success and they immediately started to compete internally who gets the most “guts candies”. I tried to explain the concept of Sisu with words like guts, persistence and perkele (beforehand apologizing for swearing in a training event but thinking it is not as bad  as they don’t understand what I say) and as a side product educated them also about the winter war against Russia. “Gut candies” sink in with them and I think Sisu would soon be a best seller at Goonyella. At the end of the session I asked if my dear group has the “guts” to taste Salmiakki, which is similar to Sisu but a bit different. Everyone raised their hand excited to taste. You should’ve seen their faces. Big, rough miners being totally stunned by the taste, like when you are having something super spicy, helplessly looking at each other in search of peer support and face grinned trying to deal with it like a manly man should. Priceless. We all had a blast, they thought the training was way better and more fun they than ever expected and they learned a lot. The best possible thank you in my opinion. I think I can do this, I think I am good at this. Well done Monday and a big relief as the rest of the week is repeating the same sessions.

Besides work there’s nothing to do here. Today I went running again (proud), then to Coles to get something for dinner, watch telly, prepare for the sessions and now write my blog.  Moranbah is all about mining. There are 8000 permanent residents here, 12000 including visitors and contractors and approx 80% of them work on a mine site. There are also few “mine camps” around, areas of barrack buildings where people from outside Moranbah are staying for the week. Everyone here is wearing a corporate “uniform” of two different teams: team of blue-orange and team of blue-yellow. The blue-orange team is the biggest and also the team I am representing. If you wear normal clothes you are considered as a stranger (I do wear normal clothes outside work). You also see a lot of fancy cars as miners make shit load of money.  It’s also expensive here for the same reason. I have spotted sports court, Chinese restaurant, 2 bars (one with karaoke every Wednesday), adult entertainment store, police and a hospital. Not much to do for a city girl I would say. So nights here are a bit lonely….a price you need to pay for the experience I believe.  I am counting days to get back to Brisbane again, get a good dinner, see familiar faces and sleep in my own bed, or own mattress as I am still missing the base. I have 3 nights to go. One, two, three.

Outback Ansku says good night :)

//Ansku

PS:I have been listening Ipanapa and Paukkumaissi albums a lot lately as I find those to be enough cheerful for the somewhat depressing atmosphere here. Listened Adele for a while but started to cry. Urho Kepponen, Jopo, Onnenpäivänen and Saunatonttu are my current favorites. Spotify is a life saver really! Also promise to add pics soon, mine pics J