Heat Wave

I heard a story that in the recorded history of Melbourne there has never been more than 2 days over 40 degress in a row. Well, we're sure blowing that record out of the water this week! Yesterday it was 43 degrees in the city at 4:35pm. It actually got hotter a couple hours later. It's 1pm now and it's 41 degrees and expected to continue rising. Tomorrow it's supposed to be even hotter. Fortunately, the heat wave is supposed to get a break by tomorrow evening, bringing us down to the mid 30's.

Now, before you go thinking "ooh I wish I was there" let me tell you, no, you don't! Yesterday over 120 trains were cancelled in Melbourne because of the severe heat. It's likely to be the same story today and tomorrow. The sun in Melbourne is not like the sun back in Canada. It is much more intense here, so the risk of sun stroke, heat exhaustion, sun burns, and skin cancer are higher. I went to the market to pick up some lunch today, and on my way over I saw an egg that had been fried on the pavement. I kid you not.

This isn't even the kind of weather that you'd want to have to go to the beach. There's no shade at the beach and the water won't do anything to protect you from the sun. This is the kind of weather where you find a dark, air conditioned room and pass out with as little clothing on as possible.

I was going to start moving some of my things over to my new place yesterday, but even though I'd be rewarded with A/C when I got there, I'd still have to brave the heat to get there. In retrospect, I may have been able to catch a bus from the tram stop instead of walking a kilometer in the heat. Oh well, it'll be cooler this weekend.

In other news, I'm officially not going to the IASSCS conference in Vietnam this year. I'm actually not that disappointed about it though because it would have meant a lot of extra work and money at a time when I've got plenty of work, but not so much with the money. Plus it means I'll have more funds from my student money to advertise my survey, which will make my life easier in the long run.

So now all I have to do is book my trip home. Right now I'm thinking about coming back towards the end of April. I'll know better after the weekend.

Moving House

This has been an interesting week. Over the weekend I decided that I can't afford to continue paying what I'm paying in rent, let alone pay more. So on Monday I told Kirsty that I would be moving out as of the end of February. I set up a profile online to find a new sharehouse and started contacting people. I heard back from a good number of those people and set up times to view places. On Wednesday I had my first viewing, and although the place is really small, I quite liked it and the area it's in. The guy living there said I could have the room if I wanted it and I said I'd let him know by Monday as I had some more places lined up to see.

On Thursday morning Kirsty and I talked again about the housing situation and she said that she doesn't want to stay here either and pay the higher rent, since we actually don't have a leg to stand on in fighting the increase. (Our new oven and stove top, while electric, are a good brand. We looked it up online it the landlord spent about $2600 on them. We'll be sending cookies. We've come to realize that while the landlord is pushy and has boundary issues, he's not completely evil.)

So today we are going to go and look at some rental properties and see if we can continue to live together. The most likely bet is that we'll get a 3 bedroom place and bring in a 3rd person. We still have to figure out if we are going to give notice on this place at the end of the month and take a leap of faith or wait until we have something lined up.

I'm still looking at the sharehouses that I had already agreed to see. I looked at a place yesterday but it wasn't a good fit. I've got 2 more places lined up to see on Saturday. It's possible that within a week of having decided to move out, I may have the who what when where and how sorted out. At the very least I'll have the who and when figured out.

Happy New Year!

And just like that 2008 comes to an end. It still feels like just yesterday that I was packing up my life in Calgary to move out here. I guess that old saying "time flies when you're having fun" has some truth to it.

This year, instead of spending Chirstmas at home with my family in the dead of winter I stayed in Melbourne and spent Christmas with one of the women from my campus, Sue, and her family. It was a really nice way to spend Christmas. I took the train out to her place in Frankston, which was about an hour and half from my place and got there in time to see her grandkids open their Christmas presents. It was great to watch their reactions to all the different presents. Her grandson, Thomas, reminded me a lot of a young Patrick. The rest of the day consisted of lots of food, TV, and good conversation.

I spent the night at Sue's place and then in the morning me, Sue, and her daughter Naomi hit up the Boxing Day sales. After a day of shopping and relaxing I headed back home. It was really nice to be welcomed into Sue's home for Christmas and spend it with her family. It definitely made being away from home a lot easier.

As some of you know, my housing situaton has been a bit up in the air lately. Well our landlord has decided to up our rent, but we have a good case to fight against the increase, so that's what we're going to do. We thought about moving for awhile, but have ultimately decided that we've got a good place here, and we're not going to give it up because of our crappy landlord.

Worst case scenario is that our landlord does give us notice to vacate and we have 3 months to find a new place. The rental market has slowed down, so that's doable. And if for some reason we can't find a place in that time, we can stay with Kirsty's partner until we do find something.

I had been kind of hoping that we'd move into a new place, but when I reflected on why what I realized was that I haven't put a lot of effort into making my current place feel like home. I've had ideas and plans, but mostly they haven't gone anywhere. So today I decided to do something about that and I have started to redecorate my room. Normally when I move into a place I cover the walls with postcards from around the world. My walls here are still largely bare...and a horrible peach colour. So starting today, I guess you could say it's my new years resolution, I am turning drab into fab.

School's Out For Summer!

Okay, so maybe school technically isn't out, and maybe the weather we've been having is closer to winter weather than summer weather, but still! I'm done!

On Monday I had my practice proposal. I had been losing sleep for the past month or so over this presentation, and last weekend I was pretty much locked indoors, glued to the computer, pulling it all together (well, that and it was raining and cold, so going out wasn't all that appealing anyways). All the hard work and lack of social life paid off though -- my presentation went great! Everyone was really impressed and excited about the direction I'm going in, and I got lots of great feedback from people too.

My actual panel presentation is scheduled for the end of February. It's probably more time than I need, but as Gary, one of the professors here, was pointing out, that gives me time to work on my ethics application. And, if I do get accepted to the IASSCS conference, I'll have to write a paper for that as well.

Having passed through the first of a series of hurdles to get my research off the ground, I have decided to take a mental break. With the pressure of a looming deadline off, I quickly realized that I really do need a bit of brain rest, and that if I start up now with the readings and making changes to my proposal, that I'll get right back into the cycle and push myself through the Christmas break. So, since my campus is closing next week for the holidays anyways, I have decided to just not do any uni work until after Christmas.

Instead I have been catching up on my RA job, catching up with friends, and catching up on sleep. I've also got some catching up on Christmas preparations to do. I am going to treat myself to a couple of luxuries I've been putting off as well -- like getting a haircut and checking out the new cheap bookstore near my tram stop. Over the holidays I'm just looking forward to being able to get out and explore more of Melbourne without having that lingering guilty feeling that I really should be finishing that book or typing up my notes or whatever.

The other thing I now have time to do is house hunt! No, I'm not buying a place, I haven't suddenly won the lottery. My housemate and I are looking for a new place to rent as our landlord has taken to devaluing our place and upping the rent. And, despite my love for northern Melbourne, I have agreed to moving south of the Yarra. So today we're heading out into the southern suburbs to check out a couple of houses.

It's funny, when I first moved here being near the city was so important to me. But now that I've been here nearly a year and have established myself, that has become much less important to me. I love my neighbourhood, and I love the next neighbourhood up even more. If we can find a good place in the same area we're currently living in, we'll stay. But so far we haven't found anything there that's a step up, or even sideways, just down.

Even if we do find something in our neck of the woods, it's actually more convenient for me to live in the south. Most of my friends live in the south, the group I go to on Thursday nights is in the south, and pretty much any activity I'd be interested in getting involved with in the future is probably going to be in the south. Everything seems to happen in the south. So as far as I'm concerned, right now, I'm happy to make the change.

Time Flies When It Matters

All of a sudden it's December and I'm 10 days away from the practice run of my proposal! My anxiety levels are pretty high right now. While everything does not need to be perfect, or complete, for the practice run of my proposal, I do actually need a theory section, a method section, and a powerpoint presentation. So while we are enjoying some lovely summer weather, I am hunkering down and getting to work. Any minute now.

I decided to take yesterday off and spent the afternoon wandering around Collingwood, something I told myself I'd do back when I first moved here. Yesterday we had really nice summer weather and I was very glad that I decided to go out and enjoy it, so any minute now I'll get back to work.

I had some visitors towards the end of November: Jeannine and Drew came out to Melbourne for a couple of days. It was really nice to see them, especially since it's been something like 5 years. I was happy to have people come out to my city and have a chance to show them around. Unforunately, they were only staying for a couple of days at the end of their vacation in Queensland, so we were limited in both time and energy. I took them up to Carlton and we had dinner at an Italian restaurant, then gellato as we headed back into the CBD. The next day we met up again and I got to show them a bit of the Queen Victoria Market, which is right across from my campus. Then we went on a couple of river cruises on the Yarra. It was a nice, relaxing way to spend the afternoon, but I didn't feel that the river cruises did Melbourne justice.

Well, I guess that's enough avoidance of my work for the time being. So I will leave you with this: a picture of the latest creature to set up house in our back yard.

November-a-go-go

I haven't had a great deal to update about. Life is puttering along as life does. Hay feaver season is upon us and I am happily stocked up on antihistemines and kleenex. Apparently Melbourne is the hay feavor capital of the world, and I'm pretty sure my street is the hay feavor capital of Melbourne.

Uni is going well. My supervisors are very pleased with the quality of my writing and are happy to have me spend a bit more time producing a really complex and well crafted piece of research, which is great because I know that if I can work at my own speed what I will produce will be well worth the wait. I'm currently turning up the gears and working on getting my proposal off the ground. My practice run will likely be next month. That means that I will be super busy and if you do see any new updates from me, it's because I'm in avoidance mode.

I am planning on coming back to Canada in 2009 for sure now, though many of my other travel plans have been pushed aside. I don't know when in 2009 I'll be back, but it's looking like some time between March and June. I'm thinking of staying in Canada for 6-8 weeks, but we shall see. I'm hoping to get my flights booked in January. I'm also hoping to be able to make enough money to pay my rent while I am away since I will likely be suspending my candidature and therefore not be receiving incoming funds. There is a lot yet to be decided.

Christmas decorations and merchandising has officially started here. It is completely surreal to be walking around wishing you had worn something lighter because it's actally quite warm, and then stumble across a crowd of families with small children lining up to get a good look at the Christmas display windows at Myer. The windows have snow in them, just the rest of the country's got it wrong. Then treating yourself to an icecream to cool down while "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" is blaring in the background. Apparently in Australia that means spending Christmas at the beach. It's not an altogether unpleasant suggestion, though I suspect I'd end up with sunstroke, hallucinating reindeer. Perhaps I will buy a festive Christmas-in-summer hat to replace my traditionally worn elf hat.

Moments of Clarity

My time here in Melbourne has flown by. I have already been here 7 months, but it feels like I have both been here forever and have only just arrived. When I reached the 7 month mark in Ottawa, I was happy to be staying on a bit longer, but I knew that I wanted to come back to Calgary. When I reached the 7 month mark in Amsterdam, I was enjoying my university program but was sick of my housing situation and badly wanted to come home. Now, at the 7 month mark in Melbourne, I feel no need to go home because I know I am already there.

Sometimes this knowing that I am at home in this city hits me with such force, such clarity, that I have to give it a moment's pause. Now that spring has a firm hold over the city I find myself having these moments of clarity with more frequency. Just today, as I was walking back to my office with a bag full of fresh produce I purchased at the Vic Market, the sun hit my face and I thought "why would I ever leave?"

I even experienced this sensation this weekend, while in the midst of a nightmarish incident with my landlord. On Saturday he called our house and tried to bully us into storing a "new" stove that we do not want for "a few weeks" until he can get it installed. I told him no, we do not have the room, and when he persisted I said I would have to talk to my housemate and she would call him back. When she hadn't called him back immediately, he decided to show up on our doorstep. I let the second call go to voicemail, and when I listened to the message saying he was now waiting outside our house my face went white. I had to hide in my house for about an hour before I felt confident enough to make a run for it to a nearby cafe. He was still waiting as I snuck past. The experience left me feeling like I could no longer be free from harassment, that I could no longer spend my Saturday mornings lazing about the house, because if I was caught at home I would be harassed by a man who is legally not allowed to contact us directly.

Kirsty, my housemate, and I decided that since this man had ruined our Saturday, we would not let him ruin our Sunday and we set out to enjoy the warm weather by the bay in Williamstown. Even though we were both stressed from the day before and things weren't all going our way with the Williamstown outting, we were able to have a really nice day. We went out on a short boat tour and as we looked out at the CBD from the ocean I said to her "Why would I ever leave this place?"

Regardless of the upsets and the headaches that our landlord has taken to inspiring in us; regardless of the long, cold winter spent mostly without heat; regardless of the fact that the seasons are in reverse; regardless of the fact that summer is too hot for too long; regardless of how much more expensive things are here; regardless of how far away Australia is from the rest of the world, making international travel more expensive; this is my home and I have no desire to leave.