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1 July 2016

Letters to Marlis the June 2016 Edition

Melbourne, 30 June 2016


Hi Marlis, I hope all is well on your side, no point in asking the questions in a letter, it’s not like I can hear your answers, right J?

Winter has arrived in Melbourne now, but it is much milder than in the ACT, no minuses on the board here, but people complain just as much about the ‘cold’, haha. If anything, the changes in weather are more like where I used to live in the Netherlands, but the temperature is much more agreeable as long as there’s no wind.

The big holiday
We’re so looking forward to our world roundtrip that starts next week! We’ll leave for Tokyo on  8 July and be in Japan for 5 days. Then it’s off to the Netherlands from 13 to 21 July and then on to New York from 22 to 27 July. We’ll be so busy and see so many cool things that I’ll probably write a page or more on each experience in the next letter. I’ll try to add some pictures in there as well. We’re getting a gift from the Japanese family and as is customary in Japan we’ll have to return gift something as well. That got a bit out of hand quite fast and now we’ve shipped about 40 presents (15 kgs) to the Netherlands as well, most of it Australiana, ranging from toys to nice to have items and some wood crafting. One of Yumi’s Japanese nephews (whom we never met J)will take us to a traditional theatre show and be a bit of a tour guide, so we had to get him and his wife something Australian as well, but we opted for local honey, tea, chocolate, confectionery and the like. At this rate I can only pack one change of clothes and a toothbrush in my suitcase…

Aussie elections
I don’t know about you but I am getting very much over those election scare campaign commercials on tv from both sides. By the time you read this the election is over anyway, but both Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull are not my favourite tv personalities to begin with and those ill-informed political campaign adds in which they act so cringe worthy are not helping much. Well, in the end of the day I cannot even vote, so I’ll hear it when I hear it on Saturday 2 July, but out of shear annoyance I would vote Greens just because Bill seems sneaky and backstabby and Malcolm lost all his credibility after doing nothing for the country since ousting Tony Abbott last year.

Brexit
I did not see this coming at all! I had hoped that the Brits where more Europe minded than this, but apparently things are in such a state that this is necessary. I’ll admit that I did not follow the IN/OUT campaigns to closely back then, but when I did do some research into what was said I found it very scary that the OUT camp was very similar to Reclaim Australia. Some people just want to see the world burn, I guess. I find it hard to believe they’ll get it sorted in that 2 year period, being fast and snappy in their decisions is not what these politicians are known for right?! I keep up with the developments quite closely now, but find it hard to share in the panic. It’s not hard to comprehend why it happened, I find it harder to look forward and see what the impact will really be. It’s very sad to see these very angry (and incredibly short-sighted and sometimes intellectually challenged) people shouting horrible things to other people who they’ve been living peacefully with for years. They want to keep the food, cheap labour and positive cultural influences, but not the inconvenience of being part of a union of states. They will be so disappointed when it turns out that not much will have changed for the better in 6 months or even 6 years from now, I hope it doesn’t lead to mass violence. But the people have spoken and now the nation is divided, well done L. I do love how the media reports on the impact, big scary news: trillions wiped of the stock market!!! But 3 days later when they bounce back, you hear nothing. Good news is no news apparently. The current confusion and dismay was all predicted and to be expected but some people seem surprised that these completely predictable patterns are now coming around. It’s not like the next day everything will have changed already, but maybe they still hoped for that.

Getting used to Melbourne
It’s already been 10 weeks that I’ve been here and I am slowly settling in. I think it makes a big difference that I am not working. I’ve got nothing but time, but as we talked about before, that’s not always a good thing and certainly so in my case. Too much thinking and thinking and thinking J. It does give me opportunity to game, cook, clean and read a lot, but I’d rather make more of a contribution to society. I do feel that I’ve become a bit more relaxed and patient and gained some perspective on life and work in general, so it’s definitely not all bad. The size of the city is still a bit intimidating, but I am finding my way better and better and don’t get lost so often any more. I did get my first traffic fine in years last week. I was not supposed to make a right turn where I did, but I honestly did not see the sign, nor did made the violation intentionally. That’s $190 for the State. Somewhat funny that I did it that morning as well, but now I was on my way to pick Yumi up, who wanted to save $15 on a cab ride….Very good news on the food front though. I found a shop in Croydon, some 40km away where they sell a large variety of Dutch food and stuff, even more than what we found in the ACT. The restaurant scene is really good, as everybody keeps telling me. Being a vegetarian in the ACT was easy, in Melbourne it’s even more so. Tonight (Thursday) we’ll be going to the Little Italy of Melbourne on Lygon Street and eat what is rumoured to be the best pasta in the city for our 9 year wedding anniversary, I am sure it will be fine indeed, yum!

Volunteering
The volunteering is slow going as well. I never heard back from the Brotherhood of St. Laurence, the SES has enough applicants and the Salvos move very slowly (well, maybe that’s just me). It’s all a bit frustrating, but a good opportunity to practice my patience and pacing. I did do an intersection collection event some weeks back and that was a lot more fun than I thought. I got to run between cars and people would throw money at me J. The weather was quite wet, which was actually good for getting people to give more generously. Not that there was anything wrong with their generosity, people were very happy to throw some (or a lot of) change in my tin, so I had a good time in the rain either way. The paperwork for my Salvos volunteering is now finally all done, hopefully after the holidays I can really start doing some good. So weird when you consider everything that needs to be done and then it takes forever to start helping out. I still have some money left that is earmarked for charitable giving, but I offered it up 2 weeks ago and I still have to hear back, I guess they must have enough funds then?

Keeping busy
I manage to keep myself entertained, but look forward to the holiday activities and starting a job search when we get back quite a bit by now. Aside from the house work and cooking I do lots of gaming and watch tv series. I won’t go into too much details on the games. One was particularly cool were I got to do all sorts of missions in 19th century London and it was all very beautifully made and a lot of fun. I’ve watched a Canadian tv series on a detective duo of a father and son and there was no real bloody violence, no swearing and all the women were very strong and opinionated roles for a positive and welcome change, very well done. The Republic of Doyle was the name if you come across it on tv. Another one is Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and that is particularly cool because it plays in Melbourne in the 1920’s! Miss Fisher is another very strong woman who drives cars, flies planes, has a gun, multiple men in her life and she’s also a very smart detective, how very novel! I love her after just 3 episodes, so good thing there’s 3 seasons of excitementJ. I’ve read some books in the meanwhile and one is so incredibly smart that I only read a couple of sections every time because I get so excited by how smart it is. The title is: “This idea needs to die” and works from the premises that most scientific concepts we’ve held to be true for ages are really up for retirement because there’s now too much proof that they are not as true as they used to be. It starts a bit heavy on the Quantum physics side of things but lightens up a bit later on. There’s 175 ideas across 30 topics, so that will keep me occupied for a while longer. I’ve also read a book (Tracks) by the lady who took 3 camels and her dog across the Australian Great Western Desert from Alice Springs to Perth and it was such a beautiful, personal and honest book it really gripped me completely. Even though it happened 30 years ago, it was made into a movie only 2 years ago, but I am happy I read the book instead. She really captured the spirit of that time towards women and Aboriginals, very well written. I still have some smart books left, but will read those while travelling I think.

Kendo
It’s been a bit harder to stay motivated to go to Kendo every week.  We were a bit under the weather the past two weeks, but it’s been tough going since started two months ago. Maybe it’s all the change, maybe it’s the different setting and people, but I really struggle to find my confidence to practice well. The people are friendly enough but I get so much feedback on how I am doing my Kendo, what I need to change and it appears everything I am doing is wrong. Not great, but apparently it comes with the program. I’ve even read a book on the basics, which helped a little. I now plan to redo the beginner course and get the basic straight first. I keep reminding myself that I’ve got the rest of my life to train, so no need to get it right from day 101, but it’s very intimidating when everyone is so much better than you and you feel like you’re trying but it’s not working. I thought it was just me, but Yumi feels the same way. I did a lot of thinking and came to the conclusion that I put way too much pressure on myself, training 2-3 levels above what I can actually do. Time for some realignment and a fresh start after the holidays.

Tailbone (Coccyx) inflammation
I almost never have medical issues, but now I actually went to the doctor because I could no longer get up easily after sitting down for a while. I did know that I had some signs over the past 6 six months, but I put it down to bad posture, but it is actually a thing to have tailbone inflammation. All that cycling and my not great posture did not help, so now I have to deal with it responsibly. I did my research on Google (the internet) as we do nowadays and then found a GP nearby (we needed one anyway) to confirm my findings, which he did. I had to go and buy one of those donut shaped pillows that normally are for haemorrhoid patients, it works well enough, but it’s weird to sit on it and I do not look forward to taking it everywhere I go, but I will definitely need it on the airplane. Not sure how long it will take to improve, but apparently the last option is an operation. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

The business-Job search
After applying for some jobs, being rejected for all of them for different reasons and reading about 1,000,000 articles on the web on being self-employed I realised this form of business is not for me. I would not mind having my own business, but then I’d want to have a product, like being a baker, or a cleaner or woodworker, just selling my skills and knowledge are not what I had in mind. I am a bit disenchanted with the level of consultancy and change management I am experiencing here in Melbourne so far, but I’ll reserve my opinion for when I am working and more connected, so far I am not very impressed. Not sure why I did not see that before or in advance, but it is what it is and when we get back from holidays I’ll start looking at options of working as a contractor. I still like the flexibility of short term contracts, perhaps I will find something suitable once I’ve changed my mindset. I keep coming back to doing something socially engaging and cleaning things up, maybe I should work with people who have trouble cleaning their houses and organising their lives. I’d not be rich, but perhaps I’ll be very happy.

Family, friends and cats
Not too much excitement on the family and friends side. One of our friends gave birth to a healthy son, so that’s always a happy moment. Also, like his 8 year old brother, our 6 year old cousin is also tested as very bright and intellectually gifted so he’ll get more challenging school work and do an additional program to keep him entertained, everyone else is basically doing alright. We’ll see most of our family and friends when we get to the Netherlands next week and that will be really good. The cats are keeping us busy quite a bit. Pluis, the 12yr old lady cat is now on a diet (like me) and has one of those work-for-your-food activity dispensers. You should have seen the look on her face when I put it in front of her. She looked at it, at me, at it again, sniffed and walked away, hahaha. After 2 days she figured it out, but Spike never really got it. So now we feed him chicken every day (Pluis doesn’t understand what to do with THAT J) because we can’t leave the kibble out (Pluis will eat it all) and cat milk for his meds. He doesn’t gain a gram of weight though (like Yumi), so that’s good for his diabetes. We’ll see how it goes during our absence with the pet carer but there’s not much more we can do until she drops about 500-800 grams, which is a lot when you’re that small.

Well, I guess that’s it mostly on our side, I need to start preparing for the holidays now, but I’ll write again after we come back from holidays.

Be well and stay warm!


Gilbert

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