Hit it!

I had a dream that I was playing tennis in the Australian open, except that instead of a racket I was using a wooden spoon. I wasn't very good.

I'm home for three days, catching up on sleep, watching fish videos, recharging camera batteries and readying myself for another four days in Apollo Bay. I imagine that this is largely what my life will be like for the next four or five months: home for a couple of days a week, gone for a few weeks a month. The transition back to home hasn't been especially smooth. On the boat, it's Go Go Go and I'm in charge, making lots of snap decisions and generally running the show. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out why coming home has met with a few hiccups.

Today is the Australia Day holiday, which I am celebrating in true Aussie style: by doing nothing much at all. Actually, I'm at work and planning to meet up with Z and friends in the park in a few hours. We finally managed to find a frisbee and I'm looking forward to running around like an idiot for a bit. And drinking some beer. At least that part of the day will be true to the Aussie spirit.

Just peachy

It's raining peaches in Melbourne - well, in our yard anyway, thanks to the neighbours' tree which has leaned well over into our back garden. Last year we didn't get any ripe peaches - just a few rotting in the garden beds. This year's a different story. I've been picking a few every now and then, letting them ripen to a delectable sweetness on the kitchen counter. On Thursday I went out and picked everything I could reach, which was enough to take a big bag next door, put two bags in the fridge, pack a third bag for the weekend, and stew enough for ten servings of delicious, cinnamon and rum flavoured fruity goodness. There are still more on the tree. Anyone want some peaches?

We spent a very relaxing weekend with friends A and M whose baby F is just about the cutest kid I've ever seen - but only because I haven't seen your child lately. We were down at Venus Bay, about 2.5 hours southeast of Melbourne on the coast. The weather was not so great, though I did manage to go swimming twice. The second time was very brief and afterwards my skin burned with an icy fire. I felt so alive.

Tomorrow, I'm off down the coast in the other direction to do a week's worth of work in Apollo Bay. Even though there's a good amount of stress and worry to my days, I have to admit that my life is pretty awesome. Peaches and beaches. It doesn't get much better than that.

Shiny, purdy, new

Since that last post, things have taken a turn in the upward direction. Sure, it was hard to go down, but I'm talking really UP. By Wednesday evening I had figured out that much of the problem lay with my laptop - at 3.5 years old, the DVD drive is not working consistently, the power cord is befracked, and the touchpad is wonky. Z and I decided it was time to get a new computer, but that we would wait another six months or so to save the money by buying one in the States. In the meantime, I would buy a new DVD drive for a couple of hundred bucks. I explained all this to my supervisor on Thursday morning when I ran into him in the hallway. His response? Just buy a new laptop - and get reimbursed from the grant.

Say what?

Yes indeedy. I'm getting a free laptop. And it's much, much more of a laptop than I would ever buy myself because the grant will pay for it to have all sorts of fancy media capacity - extra RAM, a super fast processor, a big hard drive, and lots of dedicated video RAM. And yes, I can now use RAM in a sentence, and most of the time I'm doing it correctly.

And I should be thrilled and happy, right? Part of me is - we'll call this part the little person sitting on my right shoulder. And what is the little person on my left feeling? Schizophrenia? Well, yes, but also mild disgust at our consumerist society. Despite my best efforts to avoid the quick thrills of retail therapy, new and shiny things are appealing. When I find myself attracted to new things, I feel like I've been sucked into the world in which happiness can only be found in a new pair of shoes or a new kitchen gadget. I don't like that world nor do I want any part in it. These two little people do battle over my head which leaves me feeling a little woozy.

I swear I can hear my dad reading this while sighing with disappointment and telling me to Just Get Over It Already and enjoy the new laptop.

Which I will. In a couple of hours.

Woot! Woot!

Sucky Suckity Suck

I am having a very bad day. It's so bad that it's hilariously funny; I find myself sitting in the computer lab, shivering with cold from the overzealous air conditioners, laughing hysterically with tears streaming down my face. Thanks to Kevmo for providing the comedic interlude. He's had two coffees and a coke and is pretty funny to chat with. He's also helping me figure out this motherfucking shit stinking bitch of a problem that I'm having transferring my movies from miniDV tapes to DVD. I've already enlisted the help of my dept tech guy, a coworker who does this sort of thing, and friendly BennyG whose credits include a real, honest-to-god movie. BennyG talked to people who know people who know this shit and we concluded that I have all the right equipment and that none of it works. At least I'm now able to capture movies from camera to PC, a process that took two weeks to figure out; two weeks of reading manuals that said things like "Simply plug in the iLink cable" or "If you're having connection problems remove the iLink cable and plug it back in". Yeah thanks a lot fuckwad. So no problem capturing movies. Now I'm having problems burning DVDs that my computer can read. It used to work just fine and occasionally still works - but then it doesn't. And the swearing begins. It is the most frustrating thing in the world. Kevmo suggested, "For your phd you could make a fish art piece scaled with corrupt DVDs of all the data since you couldn't deliver the real project due to technical difficulties." I think that might be the most awesomest idea I've ever heard. I just need to transfer over to the Faculty of Art.

Meanwhile, the bike shops weren't open for a week meaning that I still haven't been able to get a new bike "iron" to replace the one that broke, meaning I still have a flat tire. It's been two weeks. I tried to fix it again this morning using a spoon - and then I broke the spoon and the second tire "iron". I rode in on Z's bike which made me appreciate my bike more and realize just how desperately Z's needs a tune-up. It changes gears all on it's own; what a clever bike!

Arrived at work to discover that student email is down. Still down. It's been at least FOUR days. It's only email. Or perhaps I should say, we're only students. I'm sure there's an explanation of the problem and an estimated fix time - in my inaccessible inbox.

I think I need a beer. Or five.

Surviving

We spent new years eve day huddled in the front room in the dark, curtains drawn, playing scrabble and drinking frozen fruit shakes. I felt a bit apocalyptic, justified by the fact that it hit 45C (113F) yesterday according to the Abruzzo club sign. Our lovely brick house stays a good ten degrees cooler than outside, maybe a bit more in the hallway, which is great but means that it's still 35C (95F) inside. Who knew that hot could feel so cool? Around 4:00 we ventured out in search of real air conditioning, choosing to see the French film Tell No-One (Ne le dis à personne). The film was very good - and did I mention that it was air conditioned?

Stepping back into the furnace afterwards was literally breathtaking; I could feel myself cooking. At a friends' birthday in the park a few days ago we were chatting about growing up in Australian summers. Someone remembered that we used to put the sprinkler on in the back yard and spend the day running through it. With the current drought, no-one even owns sprinklers - or if they do, know that they will face a neighbourhood lynching committee should they use them. There are other memories and survival tactics from childhood - like the closing of curtains and doors, mango in the freezer, a love of bathroom tiles.

Last night at 10pm we were still sweating, sitting on our neighbour's porch drinking various alcoholic concoctions and talking about the intensity of the day. It wasn't any cooler when I went to bed at 3am. Thank god I bought us a fan a few weeks ago.

Today is meant to be cooler but I just stepped outside to water the very withered tomatoes and got slammed by that wall of heat that only 100+ days can deliver. There's a cool change coming this evening when we'll finally be able to pull back the curtains, open the windows and doors, and emerge from our cocoons to enjoy the 24 hour respite from the heat.