day 1 was a pretty eventful day. in a positive surprise, i was able to accomplish a ton of my to-do tasks in one day. it was pretty incredible actually.
so today i saw two houses with rooms to rent. and then we drove by a third house only we didnt see it so threw that out of the decision process. also the guy was slightly awkward and definitely couldn't handle driving in the rain. i decided to go with the first place as it was a guy who's going to give me a room with a double bed and a little dresser with my own bathroom and we'd share the living/kitchen/laundry. he works for an airline so it's not like he's young but he has wifi internet in his house. the second option (not taken) would have been with a mom and her 14 yo daughter and dog. while not necessarily issues and the room was nice and had bedding and whatnot i would have been sharing the bathroom with the kid (not a huge thing but something) and she was not offering internet in the deal and was going to need the bus to go anywhere. with the first one i can walk to an edge of campus and from there take buses places. curtin is not on a train line only buses sadly. so perth is super suburban. so i'm not really excited about this but he was flexible with time and i only have to hand him two weeks rent tomorrow (the lady wanted like a 6month commitment). so i view this as me 1. not in the hostel and 2. a place to try. it's a furnished room with no additional bills and he also travels with his job so sometimes it'd just be like it was my home. while i wanted to live with people to make connections i'm trying to view it as possibly temporary. and we'll see how it is. it seems like i'll be in a suburb somewhere and i'm not sure the guy who was showing me the places understood that i'm cool with the bus as long as it gets me places but i can always see if something comes up later. the flexibility of this guy seemed right oh and he also seemed to completely understand that i needed to find something quick and move in because i'm moving in tomorrow. the hostel did not refund my money but gave me a voucher for 2 nights which i can 'sell' to a backpacker. so i got a 56 dollar voucher that i'm not advertising on the board for 50 bucks. i hope someone takes me up on that because losing the 6 to get 50 seems just fine.
otherwise, i managed to get myself enrolled (i'm apparently a provisional whatever until i go through candidacy - which just sounds like official paperwork/presentation bs but they like forms and procedures at curtin). and i got a student card. and i got my public transport card and enrolled in the system as a student to get a nice discounted price. here you have to 'tag in' and 'tag out'. i even rode the bus and transferred to the train to get back to el sketch hostel from campus, so look at me using public transport already. the discount is nice considering that's been the only thing that i haven't felt is crazy expensive. (it cost me like a dollar to get back from uni to the hostel).
i also opened a bank account with the bank on campus. and didnt even have to put any money in the account. and it was after i called the guy about the room so i even had an address to have my debit card sent to. so that was cool.
and i turned in some other paperwork. and met adrian's pa. who is going to possibly be an issue. she wanted to schedule me to come back and see him. i don't think she understands my 'pop in to adrian's office' way of working. but his (large) office is just down the hallway from my (shared yet much bigger than HWU) office. i have a feeling i may just either book a ton of time through her and then ignore her or use technology and walk down to his office without going through her. she was a bit intense.
AND my new imac was there and even let me log in and use the internet. so that's pretty great.
sadly i made the 'mistake' of walking through coles - the grocery store chain - this evening to look at stuff. the prices are pretty crazy high sounding. perhaps part of that is because it's listed in dollars. but also it's just high. it's slightly better if you would think of pounds, but it's going to be expensive to be here.
and i got a new sim card. there's no nice super cheap prepaid plan that i saw right away so i might have to do some further research. but at least the guy at the store (on campus) talked me through all of the stuff and was really helpful. (unlike the international office who when i went there to ask about telling the visa folks my new address didn't know the answer. clearly they're to be avoided.)
speaking of campus, it's a legit campus. i sort of got an FIU vibe when i first got there because of the palm trees i think. but there's lots of buildings and people were playing some sort of mass role play zombie thing through out the day today.
oh and it poured for most of the day. in fact my feet are slightly wet as it started pouring again as i was walking back to el hotsel-o from getting my dominos pizza. yes, dominos; and yes, that disappoints me.
so today i saw two houses with rooms to rent. and then we drove by a third house only we didnt see it so threw that out of the decision process. also the guy was slightly awkward and definitely couldn't handle driving in the rain. i decided to go with the first place as it was a guy who's going to give me a room with a double bed and a little dresser with my own bathroom and we'd share the living/kitchen/laundry. he works for an airline so it's not like he's young but he has wifi internet in his house. the second option (not taken) would have been with a mom and her 14 yo daughter and dog. while not necessarily issues and the room was nice and had bedding and whatnot i would have been sharing the bathroom with the kid (not a huge thing but something) and she was not offering internet in the deal and was going to need the bus to go anywhere. with the first one i can walk to an edge of campus and from there take buses places. curtin is not on a train line only buses sadly. so perth is super suburban. so i'm not really excited about this but he was flexible with time and i only have to hand him two weeks rent tomorrow (the lady wanted like a 6month commitment). so i view this as me 1. not in the hostel and 2. a place to try. it's a furnished room with no additional bills and he also travels with his job so sometimes it'd just be like it was my home. while i wanted to live with people to make connections i'm trying to view it as possibly temporary. and we'll see how it is. it seems like i'll be in a suburb somewhere and i'm not sure the guy who was showing me the places understood that i'm cool with the bus as long as it gets me places but i can always see if something comes up later. the flexibility of this guy seemed right oh and he also seemed to completely understand that i needed to find something quick and move in because i'm moving in tomorrow. the hostel did not refund my money but gave me a voucher for 2 nights which i can 'sell' to a backpacker. so i got a 56 dollar voucher that i'm not advertising on the board for 50 bucks. i hope someone takes me up on that because losing the 6 to get 50 seems just fine.
otherwise, i managed to get myself enrolled (i'm apparently a provisional whatever until i go through candidacy - which just sounds like official paperwork/presentation bs but they like forms and procedures at curtin). and i got a student card. and i got my public transport card and enrolled in the system as a student to get a nice discounted price. here you have to 'tag in' and 'tag out'. i even rode the bus and transferred to the train to get back to el sketch hostel from campus, so look at me using public transport already. the discount is nice considering that's been the only thing that i haven't felt is crazy expensive. (it cost me like a dollar to get back from uni to the hostel).
i also opened a bank account with the bank on campus. and didnt even have to put any money in the account. and it was after i called the guy about the room so i even had an address to have my debit card sent to. so that was cool.
and i turned in some other paperwork. and met adrian's pa. who is going to possibly be an issue. she wanted to schedule me to come back and see him. i don't think she understands my 'pop in to adrian's office' way of working. but his (large) office is just down the hallway from my (shared yet much bigger than HWU) office. i have a feeling i may just either book a ton of time through her and then ignore her or use technology and walk down to his office without going through her. she was a bit intense.
AND my new imac was there and even let me log in and use the internet. so that's pretty great.
sadly i made the 'mistake' of walking through coles - the grocery store chain - this evening to look at stuff. the prices are pretty crazy high sounding. perhaps part of that is because it's listed in dollars. but also it's just high. it's slightly better if you would think of pounds, but it's going to be expensive to be here.
and i got a new sim card. there's no nice super cheap prepaid plan that i saw right away so i might have to do some further research. but at least the guy at the store (on campus) talked me through all of the stuff and was really helpful. (unlike the international office who when i went there to ask about telling the visa folks my new address didn't know the answer. clearly they're to be avoided.)
speaking of campus, it's a legit campus. i sort of got an FIU vibe when i first got there because of the palm trees i think. but there's lots of buildings and people were playing some sort of mass role play zombie thing through out the day today.
oh and it poured for most of the day. in fact my feet are slightly wet as it started pouring again as i was walking back to el hotsel-o from getting my dominos pizza. yes, dominos; and yes, that disappoints me.
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