Chapter 56 - New Digs

In which our hero moves house three times in two months and is way too busy for blogs ... 

So it goes like this. The new semester began on March 3. On March 2, I moved out of Sarah's house and temporarily into my friend Rachel's house. I basically wanted to be closer to uni. As lovely as the kids were, and as much fun as it was to play on the trampoline, and play hide and seek in the dark, and build things out of LEGO, and wooden blocks, and all the other fun stuff, it was also a bit too much madness when I needed to focus on school work, and I felt like I was losing lots of time to travel to and fro. I seriously agonised over the decision for months. I knew that Sarah and the kids would be sad, and I knew I'd be sad. And they were, and I was.

So moving day was the day before classes started. Glen and Christian came and packed all my stuff into Christian's car, and we brought it all to Rachel's. I was super tired, as were the boys, because the night before we'd just done the Amazing Race, which was basically a scavenger hunt around town. I also rode my bike from Sarah's to Rachel's, which made things extra tiring.

Now, Rachel and I had already agreed that this would just be a temporary arrangement. So I spent many stressful non-class hour looking at housing notices and trying to find suitable accommodation. During O-Week, which was the week before moving to Rachel's, I was sitting in the caf having lunch with a classmate, Neil, and he mentioned that he and his wife, Leonie, were looking to rent their spare room, so naturally  I jumped at the chance -- it would mean I could live with someone I knew, and I wouldn't have to keep looking for a place to live. The only hitch was the room, and whole house, were under construction, and wouldn't be ready for a couple weeks.

So all this time I was living with Rachel I had Neil's place as a hopeful backup, but time was moving on and I hadn't heard from him that the room was ready. So I kept looking, but to no avail. I really just didn't want to live in a share house that a thousand people had lived in before me, and that I'd have to share with five or more other people, no matter how close to uni it was. After three weeks Rachel told me that a friend of hers was coming to visit, and she needed a place to stay. So I called up Neil and finally was able to see the room, and agreed to move in a week later. So there it was. One house move, lived with Rachel for a fabulously quiet four weeks, then a second house move, and in with Neil and Leonie, who were lovely and welcoming.

However, the minute I arrived, Neil basically said "Don't get too comfortable. We've just had a fight with the landlady, and we're all moving together as soon as we find a place." GAH! Have I mentioned that I hate moving? Cuz I hate moving. So that was that. I didn't unpack more than I needed to. Three weeks later it was Good Friday, and they'd found a place and we'd all moved. Christian came and helped in on Friday, then my friend Chris showed up in the evening, had dinner with us, then slept on the couch and helped move more stuff on the Saturday. So third house move. And final, so far. We're still there. It takes me about 15 minutes to ride to uni. I have a nice big table to work on, and there's a nice sea breeze coming in off the Broadwater. I can walk to Australia Fair shopping centre in about 20 minutes, or to the Broadwater Parklands in about 10. It's a great location. The only problem is that the downstairs neighbours smoke, which wafts in the windows sometimes, and the upstairs neighbours like to talk loudly in the middle of the night.

Also, I live in an apartment, for the first time ever in my whole life. And here's the best bit: There's a sort of median thing between the two lanes of our street, and it has some of the awesomest trees ever:

That one that's nearest ... that's my tree. It's got a perfect sitting and reading a book branch.

Now, here's the internet situation. Back at Sarah's house I'd been buying my internet monthly on a USB thingy that I just plugged in to my computer and recharged. Like a pre-paid phone. However I stopped that some time in November, I think, because I figured I could save money by just going down to the library to use the computers, and also it would force me to get out of the house. It also made it difficult to sit on the edge of my bed and type up my thoughts and adventures in the form of a blog, as I'd been wont to do in the past. At Rachel's there was some internet, but it was hers. She had a similar situation, where she didn't have internet hooked up to the house, so she was paying a monthly fee for a little wi-fi contraption. She said I could use it, but since it was limited I didn't want to waste it, so I only checked my mail if I needed to and that was it. Then when I moved in with Neil and Leonie it was back to no internet. They had their own USB thingy, so I'd have had to start recharging mine again, which I didn't want to do. And again, since classes were back on, and I was at uni every day anyway, it seemed reasonable to just do all my internet business at uni. So long story short, I haven't had internet at home properly since like November, and as a result I've gotten out of the habit of writing blog posts.

Now, as to why I'm so busy. Back in January I went in to the Student Guild office and said "Hi. I'd like to be useful during O-Week." So they took my name and email. Then sometime in February we got emailed a little questionnaire thingy asking when we were available for O-Week, and if we wanted to do more volunteering during the rest of the semester. So I filled it out, saying yes, I'd like to do more stuff. So that's basically it. I joined the Guild Crew, and I've been very busy. Between that and classes and homework and frequent trips to the cinema and what with being fully out of the blogging habit, that's why there's been no posts till now. I do feel bad, but I'm also enjoying  myself a great deal.

The other thing, too, well, two other things, is the initial sort of wonderment at all the different and amazing things has worn off, because I'm used to a lot of it, and it's also to the point now where there's so many things to tell you that I don't know where to start, so it seems easier to just not do it.

Here's a picture of a dog that I met on a walk from the first house I lived in with Neil and Leonie to Harbour Town Shopping Centre:

He had a very waggly tail.