Melbournite

I signed up for the 5K Run Melbourne racething this weekend. I've been running off and on a couple of times a week for a few months now with a few of my coworkers, which has been really good. Mostly fairly short runs, around the Tan (along with the jog from work about 4.4K), or down the Yarra and around across the Anderson Street footbridge and back (about 4.5K). A month and a bit ago I got sick and things got busier at work and it was a few weeks before we all started again.

So last week we went just that little bit further around the Yarra to Punt Road and back, and for the first time in years I did more than a 5K run. ...Barely. By my estimation on "Google Map Pedometer" it's about 5.2K. Huzzah! I can't believe I used to do that like five days a week back in cross country. Today the other two girls bailed on me, so for a change I decided I'd just go again myself. I'm usually horrible at getting up the motivation if no one is going with me, and will be far more likely to just stop and walk. But I surprised myself by running it in the same (if embarrassingly slow) time as when I was running with other people.

Anyway, at least I'm confident I can run the whole race I signed up for! It's listed as a "run/walk" so I guess no harm if I couldn't, but still. Kinda nice to know. Now I just need to get faster. And maybe more stamina and strength while I'm at it. :P I've gotten far better times on a 5k run when I was doing the PT course with Killer Hill on it, and the Yarra river run is just about flat as anything.

In short: Dang I'm out of shape. But working on it!

This morning, at about 7am, I was feeling very lost. And not in the metaphorical sense.

A couple of my workmates and I decided to get together for breakfast before work, which always makes a great start to the day. And while I don't often scooter in to work (uuuggghh traffic) I decided that if I'm leaving at 6:45, traffic shouldn't be an issue. So I draaaggged myself out of bed after the alarm went off the third time, and thought to myself, "Hey, last time I looked it up, Google Maps suggested a different route to get to work, via Kings Way, instead of my normal route. I think I'll try that this morning while there aren't many people on the road."

It all went peachy until step 7. Turn right at Sturt St, when I sat a little grouchy at the red right-turn arrow for a cycle of the lights before realising there was a little blinking "No Right Turn" sign above it. Whoops. Gee, thanks Google Maps.

So suddenly instead of going straight to work, I'm now on a City Bypass, which is not where I want to be at all (I would like to not be bypassing it, please!), and then I'm in the city on Flinders Street, and I can't turn right to get back over the Yarra river or make a U-turn anywhere, and Flinders Lane is one-way the wrong way I'd like to have gone, and oh goodness no I am not going to try a hook turn at this point. I'm starting to seriously think about pulling over to a sidewalk somewhere and then just walking my scooter across on the crosswalk... and then finally I'm going back across a bridge to the side of the Yarra I'd really rather be on, about half an hour later than I'd meant to be.


I had eggs benedict this morning, and a latte. It was delicious.

Things I saw today on my walk through the city:

- A man playing a harmonica and a resonator guitar across his lap
- A teacher's union strike
- A man walk up to a garbage can, pick up one of the cigarette butts resting on the edge and smoke it
- A piano sitting on the sidewalk, and a man playing it
- A guitar made of a piece of wood with holes in it

Edit: Here are a couple of pictures.

I thought about it a lot, and looked at safety statistics, and used vehicle websites, and my income level/savings/travel fund, and I wavered back and forth really much more than I should have, and then I made a decision.

So! I now own a Vespa.

I am ridiculously excited about this.

I don't have any pictures of my own but it looks like this. It's a used 2006 model that I got for a rather good price. 125cc, which is one step up from the smallest one you can get, 50cc, and means it can do 80km/h (~50mph) but not really more than that.

And my helmet? It has flowers.* Yes, flowers.

I've also got the rest of the gear - with armor for the joints, leather gloves, and kevlar in the bum and other critical areas. And a nice bright yellow L for my Vespa's bum to show the world I'm on my learner permit. :) I'm still working on the most critical part, though. Which is, of course, a name (suggestions so far have included Vinnie, Tony, Bella, Putters and Squiggles).

Anyway, so that's news! And I have even more news! Tomorrow I get to use my "swim with the dolphins" gift certificate that my mom and sister gave me for Christmas. Thank you both so much! I'm planning on getting a disposable underwater camera so I'll have to see how that turns out. I have hopes for the weather, too - the weatherman has been going back and forth every day I check saying first, "warm" then "rainy" then "clear and mild" then "late showers" so I'll just have to see, I guess.

And yet more! Just about a week ago talk started (I say this because I'm not entirely sure who started it) about planning a trip to southeast Asia for late July. So I asked if I could get a couple of weeks off, and I'm planning on going with Joel and three of our friends through Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, which sounds amazingly cool. Angkor Wat just looks stunning. In fact, I just now got word from the last person who was had to make sure they could take two weeks off work, so it looks like it's a go! We just need to find flights - once we've got that locked in and don't have to worry about prices going up I'll breathe a little easier.



*They had it in pink (a rather tasteful pink even) but I decided against it. A little too girly for me.

Have you ever had some sort of computer problem, so you go online to look up the error message, and you get all excited because in the summary for the Google link it sounds exactly like your problem, but then you are disappointed when you click on it because it's just someone else with the same problem posting on a forum, and no one has an answer for them either?

So I just went searching for the answer to a problem... and found my own forum post.

That's just... so very sad.

Since getting my Kindle for my birthday (Thank you, Dad!!) I've been reading a lot more. I think the bonus of being able to pick up another 'book' that I have loaded on it right away, even if I'm on the train or elsewhere that I wouldn't have another physical book with me, definitely balances out the occasional times (twice, so far) that I've let the battery run out.

I've read about 10 books on it so far, and what I've really enjoyed are Project Gutenberg's out-of-copyright-and-therefore-free ebooks. When I first got the Kindle, I went to freekindlebooks.org (just conversions of Project Gutenberg books in a format for the Kindle), and downloaded anything that looked remotely interesting. Since then I've ploughed through Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Time Machine, David Copperfield, and I'm most of the way through Wuthering Heights. That's among more recent, paid-for books.

In non-book news though, I am spending Christmas here in Australia again this year, and yet again it's very weird to have it be 33C out (~91F) and Christmas not even a week away! Then again, compared to the snow in Washington... hm... maybe a hot Christmas isn't so bad. ;)

Copied from evilprodigy

Instructions: Bold if you've read, italicize if you tried to read, strikethrough if you hated, asterisk if you loved. [changing this to "underline if you loved" 'cause I think it's easier to see that way]

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
3. Dune by Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
6. Neuromancer by William Gibson
7. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom by Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight by James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway by Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big by John Crowley
32. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
35. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach by Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld by Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
49. Timescape by Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer


I'd really like to read The Left Hand of Darkness sometime.

So I've read through a number of books recently. Thanks to my sister, Jan, and zwol for the recs. The Historian, a historical/travel/vampire novel, which was surprisingly engrossing, though if I were to read it through a second time I would pay closer attention to all of the interesting places that the main character goes through on her quest for the ending of the story.

About A Boy and A Long Way Down both by Nick Hornby, were really interesting... though the last left me feeling decidedly ... something at the end of it, but I'm not exactly sure what it was. I think I liked the former better, though I feel a little bad for that, because it feels like I should like the more thought-provoking book over the fun one. But that's alright.

There was The Last Wish, which honestly I only bought because it was translated from Polish and I figured since they went through the effort of translating it it had to be worth something. And this may be unrelated but the video game The Witcher was based off of it. Might be why it got translated... I'm not sure which came first. Anyway! It was actually pretty good, the main character wasn't all that interesting but it was a new twist on re-imagined fairy tales, so I liked it.

And then there's The Eyre Affair, which I put off reading for a while because it sounded kind of dry and literary. Turns out it's somewhat literary... but mostly it was just a frolic through an alternate universe Britain which reminded me of a cross between a Douglas Adam universe and Alfred Bester's. I highly recommend Alfred Bester, by the way.

And that is it for now! I think I may start reading The Control of Nature after the success of The Eyre Affair (thanks zwol, sorry for doubting your taste!).

After that, I think I will need more recommendations!

I haven't updated my journal in far, far too long. So, here's a try. I moved into a new apartment a couple of weeks ago in St Kilda. It's just off the intersection of two streets with a lot of eclectic shops and interesting places to eat, but my apartment is on a side street that's still a bit busy but a lot smaller. And I'm back from the street a bit so I don't hear all the traffic. I am absolutely loving the quiet after 6 months in the city. It already feels like home here. And there's a bus that takes me straight to Joel's house, not even 20 minutes door to door - - if I time it right. ;)

Work is going pretty well, it's getting busy now that we're nearing the end of the Australian financial year. It has begun to invade my dreams though... I fell asleep sideways on the bed playing computer games, and when Joel woke me up to get me to move I grumpily informed him that it wasn't my fault that people hadn't included their savings methodologies and how was I supposed to know what they were?

Oh I am going to see Tiesto in a couple weeks. I have no idea what it will be like but is apparently supposed to be awesome.

Um... other than that... I am starting to make plans for visiting Canada this winter. And by this winter I mean June/July sometime. Crazy seasons! I've actually got winter and summer pretty clear at this point but goddammit Easter should be in spring! The in-between seasons just mess me up.

...There's probably more to write about, but I can't think of anything at the moment.

I went paintballing for the first time on Saturday, it was a whole lot of fun. I added a few new bruises to my arms, though they gave me a padded vest thing to wear, like they gave to all the girls. A small part of me was thinking, Hey, they guys don't wear these. But a much larger part was thinking, "I have no idea how much these paintballs are going to hurt when they hit..." so I wore it.

After I got over the initial fear of Oh crap people are shooting at me, I got into it and enjoyed myself quite a bit. I was a little frustrated at one point (ooh if I could get my hands on whoever it was on the other side who shot me in the ass twice as I was walking off the field from already getting shot...!) but that was just the one time, and shooting people was a good way of getting over it. :P

It was like a real-life FPS. Very neat!

...My legs are really sore now. And stairs hurt.

Aww, I feel like I should play this game again, because I know way more countries than this, but for a first attempt:

57

My washing machine has been broken for a while. It only uses hot water unless I turn the hot water completely off at the faucet, and the final spin cycle is broken, so unless I get my clothes out of the washer after the first rinse they come out steaming hot and sopping wet. And trying to wring out steaming hot clothes is kind of painful. I told my landlord about this last week and he said since it's an old washing machine they'd just replace it, and he'd contact me later with the details.

I got a call during my lunchbreak today, but I didn't recognise the number and I was at lunch with a couple of friends so I just let it go to voicemail. Then, as I was about to head into the elevator (which has horrible signal) I got a call from my landlord, and tried to answer it but it ended up disconnecting and going into voicemail too. I listened to my messages back at the office, and was kind of surprised to hear one of them was a delivery guy saying that he was going to be at my house in a few minutes. A quick watch check followed - that was half an hour ago.

I was about to call my landlord back to figure out what is going on when my phone rang again - it was the delivery guy, and they were at my house. I said I'd be there in ten minutes, quickly told my coworker why I was running out of the office right after getting back from lunch, and booked it over there.

Taking out the old one and putting in the new one wasn't as easy as all that, though, because to get the old machine out the guy had to actually lift it up and over the sink, because it was wedged in and couldn't slide out. And that meant taking down the dryer that's hanging above the washer. So, washer down, old machine lifted out, new machine dropped (gently) in, and washer put back up.

And now I have a new, working washing machine! Hooray!

There were a few mosquitoes outside yesterday evening, but I didn't think too much of it. That is, until I looked at my feet just now and counted all of the lovely presents they left me in the form of bug bites. I'm glad I was wearing long pants - I've got a dozen bites on each foot alone. Itchy...

Currently watching: Last Exile, an anime which is at times almost frighteningly cute. Basic plot seems to be: a pair of teenagers pilot a "vanship" and act as couriers in a war between two countries I know much about yet, except that they have airships. That's really enough to hook me right there.

Currently reading: Red Seas Under Red Skies, the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora. It follows the activities of Locke Lamora and his partner as they steal, lie, and generally find their way into and out of trouble.

Currently listening to: Alive 2007, by Daft Punk, the album release of the concert I went to go see a month or so back now.

I really should get back into the habit of updating my journal more, but there's not a whole lot to talk about, really... I've been going to the beach, kayaking, hot tubbing, playing board games and card games and all sorts of stuff. But while I really enjoy all of that, it's not really eventful as such, at least in a write-an-entry-about-it kind of way. In a couple of weeks, though, I get a three-day weekend and Joel and I are planning on going to Mansfield for hiking and scenery and (possibly?) horseback riding. We'll see, it should be fun!

Oh, and here are a bunch of pictures I took of caves, sea lions, the Great Ocean Road, and finally Paul's Place, a wildlife park thing where I got to hold and feed a kangaroo, and pet emus. Holidays were fun!

Well, I'm on Kangaroo Island now. It's a fairly big island off the coast of South Australia, near Adelaide. We road-tripped our way out here over a couple of days, because taking the coastal route it's a pretty long drive. But the scenery was beautiful, and we saw the Twelve Apostles, and got to Kangaroo Island via a ferry a few days ago. Yesterday we went out to a wildlife park thing, which was very cool. I got to hold a kangaroo and feed it, and had a big long snake on my shoulders, and saw a sheep get sheared and petted emus and all sorts of things. It was very hot (still is hot, actually), but a lot of fun. Today we went to a dairy that made yogurt and cheese from sheep's milk, and we stayed there for a bit because it was nice and cool inside. The free samples of cheese and yogurt helped, of course. Anyway, tonight we're having lobster for dinner (yum!), and then a few more days on the island, hopefully to include some beach time.

It's actually starting to feel like Christmas here, despite the warm weather. I have a very small (fake) tree with fiber-optic lights, and it has wrapped presents and packages beneath it. There were even thunderstorms this afternoon, so it felt like a winter's day when I was inside looking out... even though once I got outside it was still very warm out. I can't wait to have time off, tomorrow is my last day at work for two weeks! I get the feeling everyone at work is just holding out for time off at this point.

I have gotten a chance to spend some time with my mom and Kaci which has been very good. On Sunday my mom and I just chatted for a while, catching up on everything. And yesterday we all went out for dinner at what turned out to be a really yummy Chinese place. I'm definitely looking forward to spending more time with them when I don't have work every day. And my sister is coming tomorrow! She'll have had a loonnng flight and traveling time by the time she gets here, but hopefully her jetlag won't be too bad. And she gets to stay at my place and have me show her around the city. Lucky her! ;D

Christmas Party

So I tried "lawn bowling" for the first time at my work's Christmas party. It's a game where you try to roll a medium-sized ball towards a very small ball, except the medium-sized one is shaped oddly so it curves as it goes. It was interesting. They randomized the teams so I was with a few people I didn't know and one person I sort of knew, but it was still fun. Occasionally it seems like they use any excuse to get drunk here (or at least some people do... but I guess that's not so different from other places). I heard that some guy fell asleep on the lawn and was woken up by the sprinklers at 10 in the evening. For myself, I left fairly early, after my team won (by one point! it was almost me that got the last point but I was barely further away than the other team's... Oh well). We still won, and I still had fun.


Concert!

Tonight was the Daft Punk concert, and it was sooo much fun! I went with Joel and Matt, and it sounded like they both had a great time too. There were awesome lights with their signature (I think) pyramid thing and it was a great show, and even though I haven't heard a lot of their stuff I still recognized a whole bunch because they mixed things together, and even when I didn't recognize anything it was still awesome music and I could watch the lights and feel the beat. At the end they left the stage and everyone kept cheering and shouting "One more!" and after a really long time (I didn't think they were coming back) they got back on stage and they were in suits with red outlining lights, and played another song that led into "One More Time." People were dancing so much I could taste the dust kicked up. It was really fun. Things like that just make me want to give everybody a great big hug. It just puts me in a wonderful, everything-is-awesome kind of mood.

Quick status update: This week will be eventful! Wednesday afternoon is the Christmas party for my group at work, Thursday I'm going to go see Daft Punk in an outdoor music thingy, and Friday my mom and Kaci arrive! It's all very exciting. :D


In more rambling news, I've been thinking about categories, and how I try to avoid being categorized. For example, and here's a big one, I dislike being put in the category of "girly." I don't mind being girly, or putting on makeup, or shopping for shoes or clothes. It just bothers me if someone draws other conclusions from that, say about my technical knowledge or something. In fact, I used to avoid appearing girly at all costs (which is why I say I used to be a "wannabe tomboy"), I think because I didn't want people to make other assumptions about me.

Recent example: The other night was a really pretty sunset, but was rather chilly outside. I was hanging out with a group of guys, and we went outside by the pool, but a couple of them (I didn't know them too well) were making noises about wanting to go back in because it was cold. One of them looked at me, and said, "You're a girl, aren't you cold?" As in, being of the more fragile gender, of course I would want to go back inside. And, as a matter of fact, I did kind of want to go back in, but what does that have to do with me being a girl? I'd be damned if I was going to say so I wanted to go in after that. I seriously thought about shoving him into the pool he was so conveniently standing next to, and in fact made a mock shove before deciding that would be a bit more rude than the situation warranted. It was probably a holdover reaction from my wannabe tomboy days, anyway.

I realize that might not be the best example of what I'm talking about, but still. I don't mind people acknowledging that I'm of the female persuasion, though I kind of dislike when they go out of their way to be polite solely because of my gender yes I'm looking at you veritaslox because that's a little silly. I like the people I've been hanging out with, 'cause they know I'm a girl and I can act like one occasionally, but it's not a big deal and I don't feel catered to or anything. This isn't very unusual - I think probably most people I know act like that - but it's all the more appreciated when I come across someone who just randomly makes assumptions about me because of my gender.

This applies to all sorts of other things too. Just because I larped doesn't mean anything about my mental stability, and just because I sometimes play tabletop RPGs doesn't mean I have bad personal hygiene. The gender one just comes to mind more often. ;)

Wednesday evening I went with Bryn and Cassie and a friend of theirs who was visiting from Sydney to the Queen Victoria night market. It was crowded with people and very artsy and there were silly things for sale and neat things for sale, and I bought a few of the neat things.

Thursday I went to the game night for the first time in a while, and stayed through one fairly short racing game before feeling a little funny and deciding I wanted to leave. I think it was good to meet some people but I don't think I'll really be going back there that much... I can't pinpoint why, and I can't be bothered trying to think too much into it at this point in the evening, but I'll try to think about it later.

Yesterday Joel and I went to go see Spamalot! It was very silly and quite a lot of fun and I enjoyed it immensely. And then people came over to my place and we watched a movie and hung out.


I've been a little divided lately, like half of me is grounded in everything that's going on here and all the stuff I'm doing, and the other half is sort of head-in-the-clouds and not paying attention to anything. Orr... maybe it's just late and I'm whinging. :D

Weekend is over, time to start another week!

Here are a few pictures from walking around last weekend. Joel and Matt and Alex climbed a tree, but I declined because I was wearing a skirt and didn't want to look silly by completely failing to be able to climb the tree. Sad. But we did all roll down a big grassy hill later, that was fun.

That's it for now; I need my beauty sleep. :P