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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