Hi Marlis,
I hope you are
well and staying warm, I saw that the cold has really hit the ACT by now. Here
in Melbourne people are complaining about 3 degrees, ha! They have no idea
really 😊. The past few months have
been crazy busy, but at the same time quite uneventful, here’s my main
adventures of the past few months.
World Roundtrip already a year ago
On Facebook (I
know you weren’t on it then but perhaps you are now? 😊) you sometimes get these reminders of what you were doing 1,2,3 or
more years ago. During July I got these constant reminders of our round the world
trip last year. Some beautiful memories of Tokyo, Rotterdam and New York and it
always makes me want to travel so much more. A lot has happened since that time
and that always amazes me, how much can happen in just a year. We’ve been in
Melbourne for a year and 4 months now and it feel like so much longer. Still
haven’t really warmed up to the place, but made some new friends and met a lot
of really nice people, so that’s a good trade if you ask me. Of late, I do find
myself thinking of the ACT and the places and people there, after 3,5 years in
Australia there’s still not 1 day I regret moving here, but there are days when
wished I was still in Casey (who would have thought, hahaha) and the boring,
but beautiful and spacious surroundings, maybe one day…
Biking
I am now
finally a real member of the Melbourne Cycling Community as I got hit by a car.
Don’t worry, it wasn’t very spectacular so I am not a full member just yet. I
think that requires being thrown of your bike and traveling at least 3 meters
through the air and landing on a hard surface or into oncoming traffic. That’s
my next performance target! I was on Sydney Road, in the morning and this yahoo
needed to turn right and I though he saw me, but then he just turned and I was
there. I banged into his side, managed to stay upright and everyone in traffic just
froze. He was very apologetic and as I didn’t suffer any damages just wished
him a nice day and pedalled on. The look on his face was priceless, he probably
expected abuse but he looked so freaked out already I really didn’t feel that getting
angry was the way to go. See? All good! I cycle between 80 and 100 kilometres
every week now to and from work and there’s a couple of near misses every week
unfortunately. Mostly just people not looking out for bikes in their own world
with their thoughts and phones and radios, sometimes it’s me being stupid and impatient.
I get better at ducking and weaving but I guess it just comes with being on a
bike, at some point you’re going to end up on a car or the ground, my goal is
to postpone that as long as possible!!
Pluis
Our grumpy, fluffy
lady has recovered fully from her cold. We spend a bazillion dollars to find
out there was basically nothing wrong with her. Just to make sure we’ve now
been giving her antibiotics for weeks. I am not a fan, but Yumi wants to keep
going. There’s this story about that. A guy walks past a field and sees a man
throwing around white powder. He observes him for a while and then walks over
and asks him what he’s doing. The man says he’s dusting the field with elephant
repellent. The stunned guy exclaims that surely there’s no such thing. The powder
covered man gives him a smug look and says “Do you see any elephants, because I
sure don’t!”. That’s how I feel about the meds. We force a pill down her throat
twice a day for 10 weeks while there’s nothing visibly wrong with her. I hope
that when I am her age and need to be force fed medication, I’ll just be taken
to the woods and shot 😊. In the meanwhile she now
has gone back to the routine of back yard, front yard, growl at other cats,
sleep, eat and sit on Yumi’s lap, so I am thinking she’s good for a few more
years.
Yumi’s work
Yumi has been
really busy at work. Travelling all over the place (mostly to Canberra, go
figure) and doing important work to improve the disability sector. She’s
building quite the reputation and makes things happen that actually work in the
community that needs it so bad. She’s also made a really cool animated video for
one of her projects with a friend of mine, who is also working on making a
video of a change management article I wrote at some point. I’ll include the picture
and link next time, perhaps you can look it up sometime. There was talk of her office
moving, but now they’ve decided to stay in the same building, just a different
floor. Some of her colleagues have left and she is just soooo busy that three
out of five nights she just falls asleep on the sofa after coming home from
work. Can’t say I’ve never been there, so I’ll be the last person to judge, but
I worry about her not having any sort of other thing going on outside of work.
She’s not been to Kendo for months and that’s just shame as she really seemed to
enjoy it but cannot find the peace of mind to spend a few hours a week on
herself. She’s a big girl and makes her own choices of course, I’ll just be
Mister Supportive 😊.
My dad’s leg
It’s been more
than 3 months already and his leg is healing quite well. He can move about the
house, do chores and even walk without crutches but it’s slow going. The weather
seems to bother him a lot and him not being a sissy to begin with, it’s saying
a lot that he actually asked for his pain medication to be upped as he can’t
sleep on some nights. Perhaps he should consider moving to the Mohave desert,
less rain there 😊. We joke about it a lot,
but it’s really tough on him, such an active man with nothing but time on his
hands. As I know from personal experience, at some point you run out of things
to do and are left with your own thoughts too long. Doctors tell him it will be
October or November before he works again, he’s not liking that one bit. They’re
going on holidays to Spain at the end of September, so that is something to
look forward to, but still, would be good if he could get back into things. Their
personal situation hasn’t really changed, the house is still on the market, my
mom is working, one day at a time is the way to go for now.
The job at Deakin University
The past two
months have been quite the learning experience. I’ve done so much and poured a
lot of energy in things and it is starting to work, be it slowly. It’s a strange
sensation and experience when I feel that they are doing the absolute minimum
required to even be successful and most of them feel like they are making
massive strides forward. That’s not to say they are not trying, but they are
questioning the need and use of basically everything I want them to do, which
is a new experience. It’s like going to the shop to get your car fixed and then
arguing with the mechanic about every tool and repair she suggests. I mean, you
don’t have to fix your car,
you can also just take the bus and wave at those other universities as they
pass you by 😊. I guess they are trying and
they’ve seen a lot of change so there’s that and I might just need to be a bit
more patient. In a moment of frustration, I applied and interviewed for a job
(pays about 50% more) with Metro Trains, but I don’t think it’s for me. At the
very least I got to brush up on my interview skills. The next few weeks will
prove pivotal at Deakin I think. The busy work is slowing down, things are
falling into place and when I had the tough conversation with my two bosses
they basically offered to let me write my own ticket as long as I would stay. They’re
very good that way and I appreciate them even more for it. While all this
unrest goes on, I am happily connecting the dots with my newsletters, strategies,
workshops and checklists. We’re getting there, just not exactly sure where that
is, haha. The environment is nice, I sit at Docklands, right next to Southern
Cross station and the river banks, meet all sorts of interesting people and
learn a lot about everything education and university world. Like everywhere I’ve
worked, most people are very nice and collaborative and I get to visit the
campuses every now and then, which makes me feel inspired and very, very old at
the same time with all these 14-year old students walking around (I am sure
they are 18+, but they look 14to this old man 😊).
SES excitement
We had a massive
storm front blow over a week ago and I happened to be on duty so spent the
whole Saturday going from job to job with different SES teams. It was a great experience
because we don’t get too many call outs in our area and now we had 70! I am now
one of the most experienced people in the unit. We started with a team of three
and we took a tree of the road, than there was roof tiles, a shed with a hole
in the roof, a shed where the roofing was coming off, a church with loose
tiles, a few fallen over fences, loose signage, broken water lines and an
electrified tree (fire hazard). Some things you just can’t do anything about,
but it was a lot of fun most of the time driving around with the trailer and in
the truck, getting to be helpful. Some jobs you rock up, have a look and the
team leader would tell the people to just get a contractor out. The general
public sometimes feels we’re also there to fix windows, clean gutters, fix
their fences and such. Yeah, not quite, but nice try! We make it safe and then
move on. It’s only when people are old and not very mobile (so not you, with
the bricklaying your own garden path at 82 😊) or disabled in some way, that we can help with those chores. Then
this weekend we had a working bee event which was also a lot of fun, digging
holes for drainage, moving a sand pit, breaking down a practice roof and
pulling out weeds. We only had a few people and myself show up, but it was a
fun way to spend the Saturday morning and afternoon. My muscles are a bit sore
now, but I’ve brushed up on my shovelling and gardening skills so that’s a fair
trade.
10 year anniversary
On 30 June, we
celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary with a very nice dinner at Hellenic
Republic. As you will understand from the name, it’s Greek food and so very
good. Every dish is just the best possible taste you can think of for that recipe
and it’s excellent every time. It didn’t disappoint this time as well. I got
Yumi a nice new diamond ring. Not that she asked for one, but it had been 10
years since the last one and it seemed like a good moment for it. The buying
experience was a bit weird though. The salesman was just like a used car
salesman, but he knew his job so well that I didn’t mind too much.While he was
talking I was just continuously thinking that I was so happy not have his job,
which seems to consist of telling people half-truths, talking fast and waving
your hands around for dramatic effect. I just wanted a ring, I got a bag full
of paper work, extended guarantees (at no extra charge because we are friends
now…) and a whole range of things I just tossed in the bin. Sheeshhh, I thought
I’d be in and out in 5 minutes as I had done my research, took nearly 45
minutes! Oh well, she loved the ring. 9 October will be the 20 years together
anniversary and my birthday, so we made big plans and then just dropped them
all, too hard. We wanted to go to Perth, but actually want to travel the West
Coast and see the country, so that dropped off, then we thought of diving, also
didn’t pan out. Eventually we’ll do something, but it’ll be a last-minute thing
and probably just in Melbourne. Yumi travels so much already that staying at
home is the new luxury.
A bit of culture
The National
Gallery of Victoria has multiple locations across town and a few weeks back we visited
the one on Collins Square, it’s partly indigenous art, partly other stuff. Most
of it doesn’t make any sense to me, but the indigenous collections were very
different in a good way from what we generally saw in other places. There were
also photo expositions and I just love photography and the storytelling that
goes with it, although some of it was so dark and obscure that I just gleaned
over it and went back to a lighter display, none of that depressing stuff for a
Saturday morning! In the same building, there’s also a glassworks gallery and
those pieces were just stunning. We visited the glassworks in the ACT a few
times, thinking of buying something and liked their collection but this shop is
at least 4 times the size and half the price. We’ll go back again and maybe
pick something up later.
Agile11
Remember how I
wrote about that work experiment with the collective of consultants, the 100
day experiment/ Well, that ended this week and it was pretty good, I learned a lot
about new technology, roles in teams, agile methodologies. I also met 15 new
people and liked most of them. In the end, there was a lot of unnecessary
drama, with people leaving because of various reasons, not getting along,
bruised egos and personal expectations. Also, the founding members almost
filing for divorce, yikes. We’re not yet sure of what’s next, but there are a
lot of opportunities. I regularly wrote a blog over that period of 100 days and
it turned out to be 16 pages of confusion and hard questions. At some point, I
just had to call them out that while they were saying that they wanted to change
things, they were fussing over coulour schemes and sweating the small stuff,
not great. I’ll see where it goes, the whole experience has given me lots to
think about, which is always a good thing for me.
Thinking of
moving house…some day
We’ve been
keeping an eye on the market for a while now and decided we want something
smaller a while back, now it’s just a matter of when and where. We’ve made list
of things we want and it shouldn’t be too hard. Closer to or in the city or
farther away with really good public transport, one less room, no garden, a
balcony with a view that is not boxed in, a bath and lots of light. We’ve seen
many houses like that in the past few months and I reckon that before the end
of the year we’ll be moving some place new. This house is not bad, but it’s
big, expensive and the student neighbours on one end and the deaf, wood burning
neighbours on the other are starting to get a bit ordinary. We’ll shop around
some more and then we’ll land on something.
That’s me done
once again, stay safe and warm and you’ll hear from me again in a month or two.
All the best!
Gilbert
