day four - the beach

saturday 04 august

adrian took me and the boys to the beach.  well a few beaches actually.  we drove up the one freeway for the length of it (it's not long and basically goes next to downtown and up north for about 20 minutes) and saw one beach.  then drove down and played at another.  went through a grocery store (that had flats of irn bru and other UK products) and stopped at cemetery to see kangaroos and then to one more beach.

the kangaroos were pretty cool.  they were just hanging about in groups.  by what adrian was saying probably half of the people visit that cemetery for people and half for the kangaroos.  i got pretty close to one until adrian's son ran up to give me some blue stones.  didn't see them run, but just stand and hop about.  pretty sweet.

PHOTOS: http://blogographannex.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/beach-roos.html

was a very nice afternoon.  we managed to avoid the rain by traveling north and then coming back south.  made a sand castle on the beach and saw some of the coast and the area north of perth.

really looks like a spread out non-congested south florida to me.  and while we were pretty much the only ones on the beach (as it's the dead of cold winter here) it was nice.  a bit cool to actually go in the water, it will be nice when it's slightly warmer.

day three

friday 3 august

meant to go to campus all day but slept in. because i was able to sleep. finally.  that was nice.

probably should have gotten to campus earlier than i did because it became a run around with problems.  my computer didn't have internet and taking care of my health care payment (because of their mistake) involved a lot of going back and forth between offices on campus.  so it really wasn't all that great of a day.

eventually did get internet back after two calls to IT late in the afternoon and actually almost got stuck in the building when leaving at 6 so clearly staying past business hours on a friday is not a good plan.

did go by the close grocery store.  while it was pretty strange to walk in and hear matt nathanson singing on the radio while i stared at the vegetables, i found it small, limited, and expensive. so i'm going to try walking to the one on the other side of campus and see what my options are (hopefully better).

made some dinner and watched some tv.

day 2

i wasn't able to sleep much last night - was awake for longer (even trying to watch tv/listen to music on my ipod to assist in falling back to sleep which didn't apparently help) than the past few general awake in the middle of the night episodes.  so i've spent a very sleepy day 2 on campus.

i checked out of the hostel at 10 and hauled my luggage to campus via train and bus.  interestingly, while i took the 99 bus from campus to the train station yesterday, it is the 98 bus to go in the opposite direction.  at least a guy told me that prior to boarding the wrong bus.

spoke with mom via facetime and then got fed some leftover gathering food by adrian while we chatted for a bit. that was nice. then spent a few hours setting up/organizing my computer/inbox/emails/apps/charging my ipod etc.  no real hard work done, but the stepping stones to getting organized (and downloading some files) in order to make that happen.

left to walk to move into my place and got there before the guy so i had to hang out until he came home from work.  walked around the neighborhood in the meantime and passed by the closest grocery store which is next to a liquor store and post office.

went back to campus after getting keys and dropping off the little bags and worked on this blog until adrian was ready.  went with adrian to his house to have dinner. a delicious curry.  hung out with the kids - made a brio train track and got schooled on games on the ipad.  it was lovely.  and then adrian drove me and my giant backpack home.

it's super easy to unpack when all you have is basically two backpacks.  the closet looks really sad actually.  but i guess not having to purchase or build furniture is a plus on that end.

perth: day 1

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. 

australia

a new blog for a new phase of my phd.
(a continuation from http://psychedmusicphd.blogspot.com)