Melbourne Derby Day!

AU$50 black dress shoes. Wake up at 5AM. Walk for 1.5 hours. Raise money for 11 hours. I had a sincere smile on my face all day, try to be as approachable as I can, and greet anyone that makes eye contact with me. Some of them just looks like in disgust as if I'm going to steal their money.

I was really tired and upset yesterday because I had a long day and a lot of things happened all in one day, but nothing sleep didn't fix! It has been a weird week.

All week, I was applying to jobs at least 4~5 hours a day on Gumtree and Seek with no luck. x( Most of them don't respond. Some of them respond saying they have already found someone. Some of them say they have better matching candidates. I had one interview on Friday for a volunteer position with the YHA org to participate in a video shoot. In return, I get 10 days of free accommodations at any YHA around Australia. I was declined yesterday because they found someone better. I'm not good enough even for volunteer work. QQ; Oh well... Just got to keep trying on Monday. It's so demoralizing when you're applying for jobs and not getting any of them. It makes me feel like I'm not good for anything. >< Stay positive, Henry.

During this week and a half here at Melbourne Metro YHA, I've met three Germans! It's weird because all three of them saw me playing League of Legends and started talking to me, but two of them left already. The one that's left is Christopher. He's a pretty cool guy. Really good at making websites. We've been hanging out for quite a bit and I guess we get along pretty well haha... He seems like a genuine guy and likes hanging out with me so he can improve his English. On Friday after my interview for the YHA video shoot, I saw people walking around with PAX passes and I totally forgot that PAX was this weekend! I was like ohhhh, I wanna go! So I went back to the hostel to grab my camera and then I thought of Christopher that he likes game too. I messaged him asking if he wanted to go with me. He was super excited. He said he has never been to a gaming convention before. When we went, I can tell that he was really happy and excited about it. We stood around the lobby of Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre looking for people with Friday badges and see if they're going to come back (because we were there around 4PM). If they weren't coming back, we wanted to see if we can buy their passes. One kid just gave me one for free but Christopher was too shy to be asking people. I eventually found one that was willing to sell one and Christopher ended up paying $20 for it; which is okay because day pass is AU$60 and we only have 2 more hours before the convention closes for the day. He was really happy at the end. He thought he was going to spend a boring day at the hostel, but I made his day. It makes me happy to be able to make others happy. :)

Not only the Germans, but I've met a few other people that I didn't get to communicate with as much as I got to with these Germans. They keep me busy and not feeling lonely ahahah...

I've been playing League of Legends quite a bit recently though, especially on the US server... Because I wanted to get Andy's account to Gold before the season ends. I'm pretty sure I will stop playing as much once I get his account to Gold. But it's so hard because I'm playing on 280~400 ping and I'm only really excelling in playing Sona. Even at that, I don't win every game with Sona. I can't CS or team fight with this kind of ping... Season ends in a week and a half. @_@

Yesterday though... During Melbourne Knowledge Week, I met this other girl that was telling me about Melbourne Derby Day. So they have this horse racing thing and it's one of the biggest event in the year. She was telling me that I can volunteer and just go in for free, which makes a lot of sense! I should start volunteering at Anime Boston and PAX so I can get in for free! So she mentioned that I can volunteer for Starlight Children's Foundation. Apparently, they raise money to help sick children in hospitals and we raised money by selling Melbourne Cup pins.

To attend the Flemington Racecourse, you need to be wearing formal clothing, even volunteers. As a volunteer, we need to be specifically wearing black formal shoes and tailored pants. I have dress pants, but I didn't bring my dress shoes, so I was thinking about back out... I wanted a new pair of Converse too and now I have to buy another pair of shoes that I can't wear regularly. Anyways, in the end I ended up sticking to it and bought a pair of AU$50 formal shoes. @_@ It's the cheapest quality piece of shat ever, but it was okay in terms of comfort, so whatever. I can probably wear it to job interviews too I guess. The day and I was excited for it! I signed up for the afternoon shift which was 12:30PM to 5:30PM. They mentioned that they needed people for early riser where we sell pins to people that arrives early at 7AM. I decided to go for that anyways! When I do things, I get excited and wants to do everything lol... Big mistake! I woke up at 5AM, wash up, and started heading out at 5:30. It started POURING! I was like -_-; I'm not gonna make it! Luckily, I got to an underground walkway over the train track before it started pouring heavily. I waited there hoping that it might get better. It lasted probably around 10 minutes and luckily, it lighten it to the point that it's okay to start walking again without getting drenched. I made it to the racecourse at 6:50AM, so it was a little bit over an hour walk. Not that many volunteer showed it, but I got paired with this crazy lady. I don't even remember her name, but she was AGGRESSIVE AF. She mentioned that we should put some pins on our shirts so people can see how it looks like (there's two pins, one for $5 and one for $10). I took one of each pin and pin them on myself and wanted to donate $15 for the pins, but this lady (my partner in selling pins) didn't want me to pay for it... Awkward. I sneaked it into the bin anyways. So we headed out to sell pin and she said she was a saleswoman before. She'd get in front of other people's face, shove the pins into their face, and ask them if they want it. I was being a bit passive but still making sales. This lady think she's doing all the work and told me that I need to try harder! And that she's going to take all the credit because I'm not doing so well... Whatever, mate. Sales slowed down a bit and she couldn't stand it, so she made me go to the train station with her out in the pouring rain to make sales when people get off the train station... She was like, "COME ON! STOP TRYING TO KEEP THE PINS DRY AND SELL!" Words cannot express how rude and crazy she was; you gotta be there to witness it. She was getting into my nerves when she started tucking my shirt to get into the crowd and make sales to the point where I screamed out at her to Stop! I flipped out and she backed off for like a good 5 minutes before started doing it again. I had to deal with her from 7AM to 12:30PM before she finished her shift. She was trying to act friendly and all, but I started ignoring her and just doing my own sales. My second partner was passive af though lol... More passive than me. But he's a cool guy I guess. His name was Nick and he's still in Uni. We messed around the whole day watching the race, and just strolling around because most of the people that wants a pin already bought one and those that don't have a pin don't want one.

I don't know if it was a fun experience. It's nice to be part of Melbourne's biggest event of the year, but the things I have to deal with and standing from 5AM to getting back to my hostel by 6PM? It was tiring.... It was also Halloween night too, so I had Chris buy some Smirnoff Ice, made dinner, and spent the Halloween night drinking, eating, and watching The Conjuring. Good way to spend Halloween in Australia, right? :P I hope my Christmas is going to be better... I don't want to spend it alone again QQ I met this cute girl at the racecourse though that was also volunteering for Starlight! But I don't think it's gonna get anywhere LOLOL... I added her on Facebook and that was about it. We had a little back and forth conversation on Messenger, but nothing extraordinary. Don't need woman! I just need a date for the Pokemon Symphonics concert for the 21st just in case Anita can't take the day off from work. T_T; Plus she already has a boyfriend. :U I keep joking saying it's gonna be a nice date and she just brush it off haha.

Anyways, Happy November! Man, I need a job.