Day 184 - Post Melbourne Edition
David Guetta vs. The Egg - Love Don't Let Me Go (Walking Away) (Joachim Garraoud & David Guetta's Fuck Me I'm Famous Mix)I dare you to find a longer song title.
With a song title like that, you're expecting some epic, ghetto blasting, stuff so good that not even Chuck Norris can stand it.
Alas, it's some mediocre commercial house track that is just as crappy as the others. Bring me back to the old school trance anthems thank you very much.
Anyway, this is the Post-Melbourne edition, though there aren't many editions to speak of so why does this post have to be so special? No particular reason. It's just that, now, I've somehow found the time to write up a blog post.
In fact, as I look back to my previous posts, my last post was 141 days ago (nearly 5 months), and I hadn't seen Phantom of the Opera yet.
All you Melbournites have actually seen snippets of my life since then. After all, I have been back. And I miss the place muchly.
So, a rundown since my last post:
- I have been back to Melbourne twice now, once in March for 10 days, more recently in the mid year for 17 days. I'll talk about that in more detail later.
On the PhantomI did go see Phantom of the Opera - quite a good experience. I love the music, and couldn't stop singing afterwards (probably to the annoyance of housemate Sheryll and her collegue Vashti, poor dears). I now have a yearning to go see this on Broadway (where I believe it is a permanent fixture?), perhaps in time.
On WorkWork is still treating me pretty well - it is relaxing at times, challenging at others, and each day is never the same. Pretty soon it will be the midyear review, so it'll be good to gather my thoughts soon to describe my expierences and achievements over the past 6 months.
On Magic: The GatheringThe Alara Reborn prerelease for Magic: The Gathering (weekend of April 25th-26th?) was the last time I ever played a game of Magic. Yes, I have stopped playing Magic. This will be a cause for celebration for many of you who know me, a cause for concern for a few others, undoubtedly a minority.
The factors that lead to my stopping really come down to an unfortunate set of circumstances. The weekly Magic events that are run in Perth are a Tuesday night draft, and a Friday night draft.
Thanks to my work hours, I can only make it to every second Friday night draft, and the late night Tuesday drafts. However, whenever I go to the Tuesday night draft, I find that I cannot sleep, and am buggered for the next day. So, I simply stopped going - I value my sleep too much.
Then, for some reason, I found myself not going to the Friday night drafts either. This I don't know why - it may be because I simply couldn't be bothered heading into the city, even though I just spent the entire day at home.
Hence, I stopped playing.
I don't think I had as much of an incentive to play here in Perth as opposed to in Melbourne. I think that I had many good friends that played Magic back in Melbourne, so it was harder for me to let it go. Of course, this was not the case in Perth - and I didn't really make any friends in the Perth Magic playing community either. So it was easier for me to stop.
It's proven to be quite liberating.
On Daily Routines
By now, I suspect that I would have settled into some sort of routine. For a while, it consisted of waking up, going to work, coming back, eat something crap, spend the rest of the night watching anime (and hence not blog posting), stalk some people on Facebook and blogs, then go to sleep.
Since coming back from Melbourne recently, however, that seems to have changed:
I make sure I cook on the weekend. I will cook to great excess, so that I will have enough to eat for the remainder of the week, and not have to spend time cooking when I come home at night. This allows me to do other things throughout the week.
Nearly every day after work I head to the gym, except for on Wednesdays, where I head to the gym after playing soccer at work. Also on Wednesdays, I go to a bible study group that Deborah Lin (friend who I met last year at vacation work!) introduced me to
. I quite enjoy their company - the meetings are nothing like what I'm used to, but I am learning a lot more about the Bible.
Every other day at night, I do other things, which I will go into later.
I think this routine, especially going to the gym every night, is a lot better for me, and my outlook on life as well. Actually, it's just been really positive in recent weeks....
On AnimeFor a while, I really got into watching a bunch of anime that I got off my cousin Jason on one of my house visits. In the period of about two weeks, I finished:
Nodame CantibleRomeo x Juliet (which, after a wiki search, I found that it was the only ever adaptation of Romeo & Juliet for a television series!)
Clannad: After Story (which, being about a guy raising his daughter after his wife had died, really made me cry - for some reason, I felt like I could relate to that, even though I've never had a wife who died, or kids....creepy)
Spice and Wolf (which is simply awesome - any anime that talks about fractional reserve banking, margin lending, asymmetrical information and game theory, all with a really really really really cute wolf girl, has got to be awesome)
On Melbourne
I said it once, I'll say it again. I really miss Melbourne. It was great seeing everyone again, and even after two weeks, I wasn't able to meet everyone!
Yes, that's pretty much what I did in Melbourne for two weeks - meet up with people. It ain't a bad thing.
A few notes I should say to people, that I can say publicly:
To all the DoTA players - Andrew, thanks for organising the LAN, and it's great that we've all been able to play over the wonders of the internet.
I put forth an invitation to all else who play - please PM me for the name of a Hamachi server where we can gather and DoTA.
Eventually, I'm going to see if I can organise a time where a whole bunch of ppl can be online at the same time - both Perth and Melbourne people. It will be a massive LANfest
To Sylvia and Ewan - once again, I apologise for not being able to come to the wedding, but from all reports and pictures, it seems like you had a fantastic day. No, no amount of Settlers can ever compare to the awesomeness of that day. Congratulations, and all the best now into the future.
Steph - I still haven't gotten around to getting 774 streaming over the internet, but even if I did, I wouldn't able to hear you on air because you've probably gone home by the time I get to listen. And I don't really get to listen at work :(. Also, dreadfully sorry that I didn't ring, and didn't reply to your message regarding Stern Hu - I was quite busy, I think you'll understand why ;).
2nd Floorers - Apologies! I didn't get to meet up with you guys at all except for the brief random run-ins around the city and whatnot. Next time, I will try to make dumplings happen.
Old Scotch - same goes! Next time, I shall be more diligent. Or maybe I just need more time.
And, that's about it.
On Love
Last, but not least, I have found love. Or more like, love unexpectedly found me some time back in March
.
But that's a story best left for another post. Right now, I want to call her. If she's still awake.
In Perth - Day 43
Hi all!
Notice the many many days between this post and the last? I've been prevented from posting as a result of two things:
- Since moving to the new place in the Perth city area, the Vodafone 3G internet has been totally horrible and unreliable. I wasn't really able to sustain a good connection, until I finally got some proper phone line type ADSL
- Work life means waking up, going to work, coming home, eat, go to sleep. Rinse, repeat. Whenever I had free time, I had to sort out the new place, and make sure it is in living condition.
So in essence, I've just described the majority of my life for the past, err, however many days.
Get ready for a long one.
Back in FremantleIn order to get to work in time, I need to take the 6:50AM bus (825) from Fremantle down to the corner of Rockingham Road and Mason Road, then somehow hitchhike from that corner over to the refinery proper. Fun! Hitchhiking! Every Day! To get to work!
Great thing about it though is that you get to see great sunrises:
And at night, you get some great scenery with the moon over the Indian Ocean, and the old historic buildings on the shore.
However, I couldn't really sustain that for long, so I moved out to stay with my eventual housemates at Mounts Bay, which is closer to the city, and the train station, so I could take the train down instead and either get a lift from the station or take my bike from the station to the refinery.
Mounts Bay
Not much to say here, except that it was certainly different living with people rather than living on your own. For starters, I can no longer pile up the dishes like I do and wash it all in one go. It's not that hard to do, but it's fine.
The New House
So to the new place. We decided that the most ideal location for us is a place just to the north of Northbridge, built on the site of an old brewery. Quite a fantastic place, complete with 3 sizable bedrooms (well, one of them is pretty small, but that one is the storage/guest room :p). A nice kitchen with Gas stove (very important), and good living areas, of which becomes this house's best asset.
To the rear of the townhouse is a rectangular living area that is a perfect shape and size for a home theatre system. This got my creative Large TV juices going, and I went out and bought myself a 52" Samsung Series 8 LCD TV to be the showpiece of the room. My housemates love it, I love it, and was a great investment for a non-disclosed price :p
Notice the Guitar Hero :) that isn't mine :P
Anyhow, that's a 7:2 surround sound system that also isn't mine :P
On Cooking
Cooking is easier than everyone (i.e. my mother) makes it out to be. I have now cooked mince. Lots of mince. My creation is as follows - spaghetti bolognese:
I will venture into bigger and better things as time goes on, but for now let's stick to the basics.
On ShoppingSpeaking of cooking, you need to get ingredients from somewhere, and Perth is somewhere that is very hard to do so, considering that the shops close reasonably early inside the city. It's often a very big rush to buy things before Woolworths closes at 7PM. Hence, most of my shopping is done on Saturday, when I actually have a day off. And let me tell you, it is VERY busy, since everyone is trying to do the same thing. Talk about dysfunctional.
On TrainsOn the other hand, the trains are NOT dysfunctional. I dare say, down the middle of the Kwinana Freeway, the trains on the Mandurah line will reach speeds of 130-140kph, easily passing every car on the freeway heading in the same direction (in clear traffic) - even those hoons - the train leaves them in their dust. The key to achieving these speeds are:
- Straight tracks, and;
- Stations being spread far apart
People in the intermediate areas between stations can either take a feeder bus to their station, or they can drive. Carparks along the Mandurah line are clogged to the rafters! Which is very good to see.
This is what the Doncaster line should be modelled upon, if ever it is built.
On Church
The fact that I have to spend my weekends running errands, shopping, and cleaning, I've found that, in the first month or so of my being in Perth, I've been unable to attend church. The lack of a car is also a problem, since the church I want to check out (South Perth Church of Christ, thanks Nicole =) ) is very hard to get to by walking...
When I return from Melbourne, I suspect I will be more able to attend on Sunday, be it SPCC, or some other church that I can get to easily without a car, provided I don't have one, or something to that extent.
On randomness
I found a meme of sorts on Audrey's blog, where you type in " needs" in Google, and see what you get. This is what I get:
- Jonathan needs:
- a one or two parent family that will set guidelines and be consistent in sticking to those standards
- an experienced, skilled family
- to draw up a business plan
- a haircut
- real women with real sound systems
- milk
- to stop sending drinks now
- your vote
- to hurry up and have a kid
- to undergo his third lung surgery this year before October
- a new shift key
Everything bar the last two points I find very very true....to have a kid. Brings me to my next point:
On Women - _ -
On MelbourneRegardless of how much I wanted to get out of Melbourne, I still miss the place a lot. I miss family, I miss friends, I miss late night supermarkets, I miss Connex. Though I didn't miss the bushfires - a very terrible tragedy, of which you've heard heaps of before. I hope, and I know, that the brave people who lived out there will rebuild quickly and tenaciously.
I miss trams. I miss trams a lot. I miss good cheap dumpling places. I miss DonDons (though Taka's here in Perth kind of makes up for it). I miss having a train station only 3 minutes away from my house. I do miss university, as strange as that sounds. I miss good tasting water.
On SoilI miss soil. Yes, I miss soil. All that nice brown loam...there's none of it here in Perth. Dig below the surface and what you'll find is Sand. Nothing But Sand. Indeed, if you took away all of the grass, the roads, the footpaths, the houses - what you're left with is a desert!! I guess that's why they have a desalination plant here...just like all the desert oases around the world. It's also the reason why they call themselves Sandgropers over here....eww.
On ReturningTherefore, since I miss the soil so much, I'm coming back to Melbourne for a while - nine days to be precise - to dig a bit of soil up. It actually arises out of a coincidence - the "About BP" training course for graduates just happens to be held in Melbourne. Hence, I'm coming back
from the
14th to the 22nd of MarchOn ConcertsLastly, I miss out on a few concerts I want to go to. I get back in Melbourne in time for the Bushfire Relief concert - but it's sold out. Then Jackson Browne is playing on the 14th in Perth! NO! oh well.
I must make sure I see
- Phantom of the Opera - before the 29th March
- Air Supply (with WASO!)
That's all from me. I best be off to bed. Work again tomorrow!
Take care all.
Day 5 Update
Day 5 of since my arrival into Perth...
I've just finished cooking my second ever dinner, and again, it is instant noodles with Spam, bacon, egg and spinach. It's actually not as bad as it sounds! Though...you could probably serve me dog food and I would still think it's good...
I also washed clothes for the first time here too, which I have just finished folding. I'm being the most un-green person ever - I feel very ashamed that I HAVE to use the dryer! There aren't any racks here, so I wasn't able to just hang them inside the house. I tried to compensate by using this "Planet Ark" clothes washing powder. Apparently it contains no phosphorus or petrochemicals (pfft), and is biodegradable (technically they all are :p)....I bought it because it was the cheapest around, HA!
I met up with Barry Collins from Crown Removals yesterday - he is acting as my property consultant for the upcoming period of time. We drove around areas where I may be interested in staying:- East Perth, and South Perth. West Perth is another location we may be interested in, but I've been through there already on my own travels, therefore I didn't need to waste Barry's time by asking him to take me there.
I must say, I really enjoy the look of East Perth. It reminds me a bit of Docklands, but the community is well established, the design of the place ties in well with the existing city (unlike Docklands, where the Stadium was plonked such that it acts as a very large fence between Docklands and the City), and is well connected to the city via buses and trains, which are free! South Perth has potential too, since the ferry that connects South Perth and the City is cheap. In both situations, I have easy access to a freeway that runs counterpeak. West Perth also has easy access to the city and the freeway, but the community doesn't really feel as connected - a mishmash of offices and apartments. I'm not too keen on living in West Perth. If anything, we're going to be targeting East Perth.
Whilst we were travelling through South Perth, we managed to stumble upon a rather stranded looking real estate agent standing outside 19 Victoria Street (which happened to be one of my properties of interest). As luck would have it, he was waiting for someone who he was going to show around the house. However, he never turned up, and I did, so I got to have a look around the house! I took some photos of the place, which I will put up on Facebook.
The real estate seemed keen for me to put in an application for the property. Barry had a feeling that if I applied, I will be likely to get the property. I'll put this on the backburner for now; I want to go for a property in East Perth, so we'll see how that goes first.
Nothing much else to report for now, except that I am missing you all back there in Melbourne, and that I HAVE returned the shopping trolley.
Arrival
The Fremantle Doctor is in tonight, leaving air-conditioning redundant as the cool sea breezes burst through the large open doors and windows of the apartment...
I think I can get used to this :)
I've now spent a a day and a half in Perth, rather uneventful, and not much has changed since I was last here some 11 months ago. People are still complaining about daylight savings, water per capita usage is still the highest in Australia, shops still close at 5:30PM and don't open on Sundays, and it's still a very, very beautiful place to live in. The next week's forecast is for sun, sun, and more sun.
So what have I done during this time?
I arrived in Perth yesterday at around 12:45PM, waited ages to get luggage, and my cousin came to pick me up from the airport. He took me to my apartment, had lunch at McDonalds, before going to visit his parents (i.e. aunt & uncle).
The view from the apartment:
i.e. another one of my badly photoshopped panorama views
I met up with Anthony, Andrew and Ana for dinner, and then for drinks afterwards. So yes, I did spend my first night in Perth slightly drunk...but not too drunk. Not drunk enough to not make it back to the apartment at any rate. Quite a few louts on the train though, very loud ones. It makes it hard to hear yourself think.
Today was grocery shopping day for me, so I left the apartment at 9AM and walked into Fremantle to start shopping. It was a pretty decent 15 minute walk from the apartment to the shopping centre, and I bought some $70 worth of supplies that should last me at least a week. However, I realised that I don't have a car, and had no way of carrying eight bags of stuff from the supermarket back to the apartment. So, I pushed the trolley all the way home. It explains why I now have a shopping trolley in my kitchen.
I think now that I have to concentrate on finding a rental property. This is my quest for the next few days or so. It seems daunting at the moment, but maybe it might get better when I spend some time with the property consultant person on Thursday.
On other things, I think I'm taking care of myself... I took a shower after all, I'm cleaning up, I'm eating (instant noodles with spam, spinach and egg), umm....
The Vodafone broadband wireless here is terrible (infrastructure wise, anyway). I seem to be getting constant dropouts - at the time of writing, I have had to reconnect at least 5 times. I cannot wait to move into the rental property, and connect up some decent internet.
As I said, I have no car. I need to consider whether I should rent a car ($20/day for a week?), or wait till I get my car through the company leasing program. I've heard that it may take 3 months to get the car...if that was the case, then the car rental costs are going to go through the roof! Screw it, I'll stick to the public transport system for now, which, apart from the louts on the train last night, has treated me pretty well.
Am I worried about anything? Not really...except for finding a church. It's kinda scary just walking into a church not knowing if you'd fit in with the fellowship and all... I think I'm going to need some help here, or I may have to start up my own Jono church - one of the most spiritually uninspired churches ever (haha).
(reconnected for the 6th time)
I have been reading The Daily Bread, helps with keeping a daily devotional schedule....doubt it's going to be enough on its own though.
Anyway, that is all for now. Sorry if you were expecting a more introspective blogpost about life, love, and everything in between, but I should quit before I have to reconnect for a 7th time.
I will put up more pictures up on Facebook (which I may have to reconnect for an 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th time to finish).
Take care all
(reconnected for the 7th time before posting)
My Dream Train Network for Melbourne
I've finally drawn up the map of my dream train network for Melbourne. It took me about a week to do, and I really could have been doing other things, but it's done, and it's awesome.
Hopefully it will publish okay...the picture is really big...
Morituri te Salutant II
To kick off my exam study, I took an overview of what might be covered in my International Finance and Process Equipment Design exams.
International Finance:This is the first time in about one and a half years that I ventured back into the world of Finance, and I have been reminded of why I hate it so much. The material is bland - not mentally stimulating. I probably should have changed subjects before the Census date. But as it is, I'm stuck with it.
Looking at what it is I had to cover, it seemed daunting. The fact that I haven't been to a single lecture past week 6 may be a factor to my feeling of helplessness. Bryce believes that International Finance is the best chance we have for an H1 - I beg to disagree. Judging by the past exams, the material tested would be heavily based on concepts - and we probably have to know it thoroughly for that H1. I think my method of tackling this would be to read the subject material heavily and take in as many of the concepts as possible. One and a half days of full on reading (**and NOTE TAKING, I cannot stress this enough, people who want to copy my studying habits. Reading without note taking is like flushing time down the toilet**) should be able to do the trick.
Process Equipment Design:
What I said above pretty much applies to PED as well. However, the concepts are slightly more stimulating, and they seem less daunting - I've actually been to *some* of these lectures, and immersed myself in this subject through the assignments. The exam, also, is only worth 40% (though it is a hurdle requirement). If all goes well with the last assignment, there should be less pressure on this subject to perform well in the final exam.
I definitely feel more at home with engineering concepts - they're a lot more tangible than finance concepts. Tthe only financial concept that makes tangible sense to me is the 'time value of money' - arbitrage makes no sense because it doesn't exist, risk is highly subjective and impossible to evaluate completely (that's not what actuaries would tell you though). To that extant, some note reading/taking and practise problems should be able to hammer PED down. Knowing that calculations for designs of pressure tanks, heat exchangers and distillation columns are unlikely (since we've already done them for assignments) leaves us with pipes, compressors, pumps, packed and fluidised bed columns should make studying more focused. We'll still need to know concepts for the other three units, however.
So that's what I think so far. I'll be going through notes for the next half a week or so, so I'll be disappearing for a while. We'll see how things are going on Thursday.
P.S The sermon at church today by Ps. Chris Fields was incredible - it gave me an epiphany of sorts, i.e. God speaking into one's self. I'm going to see if I can ninja a copy of his presentation, then rant about it, sometime. Just not now.
Needs a new Phone
My phone died today...
I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden, the screen on my phone just cracked. It's been one and a half years, the memories I shared between myself and the phone, but it looks like it has had it after the $112 ordeal last month (stupid expensive phone contracts), and went to high heaven.
This is what it looks like now:
Pretty colours eh?
According to the "Nokia PC Suite", I've managed to back up all the contacts from my phone, and I can transfer them to any other model. Let's hope this is the case.
Continuing the malfunctioning technological equipment theme, whilst I was vacuuming my room yesterday, I managed to suck my earphones into the nozzle, and get it wrapped around the rotating head. I somehow managed to prise it back out and, miraculously, still works! It would have been touch if it didn't....I only had the earphones for less than a year.
Furthermore, one of the lights has gone out in my room, and Essendon lost by 4 points :(
So it's not going well for me this weekend.....not so far, anyway.
P.S. I turned on my old phone for a bit of phone testing....which meant I now had three different appliances connected to three different networks!
Phone on the left (the busted one) is connected to 3/Hutchison 3G network, phone on the left is Telstra GSM, and the thing sitting on top of the "Ravnica" box is connected to the Vodafone/Optus - very pathetic - 3G network.
