ANTS!!!

My new apartment is quite nice.  It's very spacious, nice open kitchen, extra bedroom, balcony, patio, shared pool, safe neighborhood, etc.  However, there is one massive problem...   ANTS!!  Holy fucking crap these ants are not fucking around.  There are MILLIONS of them!  And no matter what I do, they outsmart me.  Outsmarted by ants.

As many know, before coming to Aus I was helping my mom to clean out her house so she can retire and sell it in a couple years.  There were a few pest issues there that needed controlling, the usual suspects: mice in the basement, a bees nest buried in the ground, hornets, and carpenter ants.  I rid the house of all these using minimal toxins and was quite proud of my work.  Well, except for when I dumped a bottle of bleach on the bees nest, those fuckers kept attacking me! Being stung in the inner thigh sucks!  Anyway, with these Darwin ants, it seems the more I do to get rid of them, the more they come back.  At first I thought they were sugar ants, but according to wikipedia, sugar ants are big; these are tiny.  Then I googled ants in Darwin and found Singapore ants, which these look like.  But it says they bite and can chew through electrical wiring, even starting fires. I haven't noticed them biting yet, so maybe that's not it.  Now I have been reading about "ghost ants," which these seem to be except it says when you crush them, they smell of rancid butter.  Hmmmmm, surprisingly, I haven't smelled that yet.

What I do know is these ants are getting stronger and smarter -- while in turn, I lose my mind tracking them around the house.  I know from experience that to get rid of ants, you have to kill the colony.  If it's in the ground, you can apparently dump boiling water on them, but that's only if you can reach the colony with the water.  Obvs I can't dump boiling water into my walls.  So I put out ant-rid, it's a mix of something sweet and boric acid.  The ants bring it back to the colony, they all eat it - including the queen - and then they die (thanks to Amie for teaching me this, this is how I killed the carpenter ants at moms).  I bought 2 types and put it everywhere.  Well, as you can guess, these ants won't touch the stuff.  They literally don't go near the bait. The only thing they seem to really hate is bleach, so I am bleaching everything, all the time. (I looked up whether bleach is bad for the environment/your health, and I am seeing mixed opinions. I am thinking with a smell like that, there's no way it's good.)  Bad thing is, it's the only thing I've found that the ants don't like.  But even still, it will only keep them out of a certain cabinet for about 3 days, the smell must wear off, and then they are back. Also, I have been putting all my open pantry food into zip lock bags or tupperware.  Well, they have discovered how to get into the bags and now, in addition to the mere grossness of having bugs, they are destroying my food! Yesterday it was a ziplock of sesame seeds, today peanuts.  I am losing my mind!!!

It seems there is nothing I can do.  Everyone I have talked to, has these ants.  These ants run this town.  I can't even use the fucking dishwasher because if you have dirty glasses or plates in there, the ants go in the dishwasher.  THEY GO EVERYWHERE!!  Oh, and the other day, I found a dead gecko in the kitchen.  Idk if I am cut out for this tropical living...

Return of the Mack!

Hi everyone!  Welcome to the relaunch (lol) of my blog.  I stopped writing last year mostly because of a lack of time/brain cells/general burnout in Korea. But now I have moved again and time is all I have...A LOT OF TIME!

I hope you'll enjoy my bitching about the trials and tribulations of living in remote Australia.  I can't guarantee it will be as amusing as before because I don't have the kids or the Korean club scene providing unlimited material, but I will try my best to keep it interesting.  Feel free to tell me to STFU if I am whining too much :)
Love to all and happy holidays, Al

I am the 1% !!

Out of curiosity, and to see what I'm up against, I looked up the demographics of my new city.  Although by far the biggest city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, Darwin is small.  The pop is about 120,000 -- which is not that much bigger than Lowell.  There are no other nearby cities, the closest "city" is Alice Springs, with a population of 25,000 and a 2 day drive away.  Are you jealous yet?

Anyway, as a job hunter, what I really wanted to find out was the unemployment rate.  It's 1%.  Seriously.  As I sit in my apartment each day applying to every job I come across, I notice no one ever walks by.  Everyone has a job here.  The parking garage is empty, the pools are unused, no one is home.  So why don't I have a job yet??

I have spoken to other people who have moved to "The Territory," and the consensus is your first job is very hard to get.  Once you have a job, you'll constantly hear of people hiring and job offers will be coming left and right.  I was told this my first week here, when I was still optimistic, and kinda thought, ya, whatever dude.  "No really, it's not about what you know here, but about who you know.  And don't put on your resume that you have a master's degree, it's going to put people off."  Uhhh, what?

But really, is this the case?  There's one university in the entire state, and it's not very big.  I had a conversation with a woman the other day who moved here from Melbourne to be with her boyfriend while he serves in the army.  She's 27, so it's not like she is just a kid, and it took her 8 months to get a job.  She wants to go to school to be a dental hygienist, but there isn't a single program in the whole state.  This is an area almost twice the size of Texas!  Am I fucked?

I applied for a job yesterday with the local government and was asked the following questions on my application:
Have you the ability to communicate orally within an office environment? yes/no
Have you the ability to communicate in writing within an office environment? yes/no
Do you complete tasks within deadlines? yes/no
Have you the ability to work effectively in a team? yes/no
Do you display willingness and motivation? yes/no

Umm, YES!  I hope!  The entire application was basically asking about my personal info (address, etc) and questions like those.  Funniest part is I probably won't even get an interview.

So my new plan is to try to "know people."  "Hi, I'm Al.  Nice to meet you.  Where do you work?"

It's beginning to feel a lot like... nothing!

Never before have I ever been so unaware of the holiday season, and I HATE it! I think it is a combination of living in the tropics and, for the first time in my life, being around absolutely no Americans.  I was skype chatting with my good friend Scott today around 7pm when I realized that before hanging up, I should wish him a Happy Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving is TOMORROW!  I didn't even think about it!  Seriously?  I forgot Thanksgiving??  I could never have previously imagined a world so strange that lil chunkaaa's favorite holiday would approach almost unnoticed, but behold, it has happened!  Turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pie!!! All out of sight, out of mind!  So now I am sitting here at 11pm wondering what to do.  Do I prepare my own mini Thanksgiving feast tomorrow?  Do go on with my day and play Mario Kart as usual?  Do I even want to eat  all that savory delicious food when it's 95 and 90% humidity?  (BTW - I am not making up that humidity percentage.  If you're like me, you prolly didn't even realize 90 and 100% humidity ratings were possible, but they are.  Proof: http://www.weatherzone.com.au/nt/darwin-daly/darwin.)  So much to think about, but I am leaning towards the unthinkable and just not eating the feast this year.  Am I still thankful without the food?

For those I haven't completely filled in, I am living in Darwin, Australia -- been here almost 4 weeks.  Google map it and you will see how close it is to the equator and that this extreme heat isn't because it's summer in the southern hemisphere-- it's like this all year.  However, the weather changes slightly from wet season, "the wet" as the locals say, to dry season.  Obvs it rains all the time during the wet, which begins in November and runs til about April, so perfect timing! One super cool plus to wet season are lightening storms!  Darwin is famous for having insane lightening.  I live near the water and can watch it strike over the ocean.  It's very, very awesome.

Christmas is not quite the same, either.  Since there is no Thanksgiving or another major holiday in Nov, Australians jump right into xmas, but it is soooo low key!  At least here anyway.  Last year I was in Vietnam for the holidays, and there were decorations everywhere!  The year before I was in Korea, where even the subway is decorated.  And obviously I am used to America, where half of every department store turns into Santa's workshop.  Jason looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him where the Christmas store was in the mall.  Then he asked if I was making that up.  Seriously, I don't even think you can get your picture with Santa here.  A few people have decorated the outside of their houses and it always takes me a moment to remember 'tis actually the season, and these aren't those crazy people that leave their decorations up all year.  I have attempted to do my part by putting twinkle lights on my balcony...which is next to the pool.  I think it looks like college basement decor since it's hard to think of xmas in the pool.  Maybe a tree out there would help...might have to be a palm tree :-(