tpyo B L O O G U M (original) (raw)
MON 16 AUG at 4:43pm
mood | creative
VACCINE BOOKED. FINALLY. My state opened it up to everyone over 16 today. There was one appointment available tomorrow when I started booking, but it was gone by the time I finished, so October it is. BUT I'M IN. WOO.
I was heading home on Wednesday and Jon asked if I was still taking this week off.
'Um... nooo?'
'I think you probably should. You've got a bit of leave piling up there.'
'Yeah, cos I keep booking holidays to Sydney that get cancelled by Covid.'
So I'm off this week. I plan to park myself in a café every day and writing a lot. Today I finished a chapter and wrote a page and a half of the next one and it was awesome. My laptop used about 20% of its battery for the whole time I was there. Going to a café and not looking for the table with a powerpoint is glorious. This thing still needs a name, tho. Something'll come up I'm sure.
Kinda want to book a night somewhere up in the Hills or down on the South Coast buuuut it's winter. But it's also my birthday. Going somewhere for a night would be lovely. But it's winter. Eh.'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
FRI 06 AUG at 8:19pm
mood | miffed
WED 18 NOV at 5:49pm
mood | scared
WELP all my pride of being the state that never actually went into lockdown has just dropped off a cliff. As of midnight, it's just me and the cat for the next six days, and then we'll see what happens.
For context, we got our first community case since April on Sunday, four new cases. Monday there were 17 and SA Health hit panic stations. Yesterday there were four and today there were two. It's linked to hotel quarrantine, specifically a cleaner who's had no contact with the guests, so they suspect they picked it up by touching a surface.
I'm scared! I'm scared that we've had to do this, but at the same time I'm pleased we've gone this hard to early. When Victoria exploded, they fartarsed around for, like, a month before they bit the bullet and shut everything down. SA Health not taking ANY chances. They're being paranoid of everything and I am okay with that. I'm scared, but I have a lot of state pride right now. All the other state premiers and epidemiologists and such are praising our government and SA Health, and in turn Marshall and St Nicola are praising us. They're going with the carrot not stick method, telling us they trust us all to do the right thing and praising everyone for going to get tested, all the associated businesses for having their Covid-safe plans.
It's such a wild contrast to Victoria, where DAndrews took forever to really do anything and then enforced his restrictions with fines of many thousands of dollars. All stick, no carrot, and that was a big reason why shit got so bad over the border.
I'm scared, but we're not going to be Victoria.
IN NICOLA WE TRUST.'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
TUE 27 OCT at 8:22pm
mood | bitchy
( CovidCollapse ) 'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
SAT 02 MAY at 12:37pm
mood | pensive
Good shit: We're up to 10 days in a row with no new cases here in SA :DDD Grand total of, like, 14 active cases, none of them in ICU. NT hasn't had any new cases in over three weeks, ACT has been declared COVID-free and across the whole country we're generally getting fewer than 15 new cases a day. Many states are rolling back restrictions, we're not because ours were never as stringent as the rest of the country anyway. Federal Government is looking at easing certain restrictions this Friday, but only if enough people download the COVIDSafe app. We're at 3.5 million and need roughly 10 million to cover 40% of the population, which is the target.
Less good shit: I'm now officially part time, working Monday, Wednesday and Friday until further notice, which cuts me by about $190 per week. It sucks, but I mean, anything to actually keep a job, right? My boss is even putting some of his own money into the company to keep us alive. We're not kidding ourselves that everything'll just bounce back to normal as soon as restrictions are lifted and everyone can go back to work. But I mean, the sooner the better. Idk how much longer my business can survive having no goddamn business. We had an almost all day meeting on Friday discussing how to come out of this with work, so we've been each put in charge of some sort of marketing-related thing/s. Cross your fingers for us, guys.
Fitness continues, though it's very suddenly become winter and it's making it hard to motivate to do the thing. Like, I'm still getting out and doing the thing, but I feel like I start halfarsing it and just getting it done, rather than fully going at it like I was in nice weather. I have to go for a run today and it's been on and off raining all day. Mostly I'm scared for my new phone. How do people deal with non-waterproof phones? This stupid thing, if it so much as sniffs moisture in its charging port, it won't charge. Like, running and holding it as my timer/tracker, my hand gets sweaty, and that screws it up for like three days. I feel like that's a design flaw. So now I put stickytape over the charging port whenever I go running now, ugh. Rain, though? I'm going to have to put it in a plastic bag and rubber band it closed. First and last time I buy a non-waterproof phone, I swear to G.
I made banana bread! It's perfect!'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
MON 20 APR at 8:06pm
mood | optimistic
I'm back at work! It's quiet, but I've got enough stuff to do to keep busy and not just sit on the ABC feed all day. Booze client has gone from two-week periods to one-month periods, which cuts the dollars in half from them, but such is life.
I've met my tiny babby niece on Thursday and she is adorable and I love her so much!
I ran in the Botanic Gardens after work today for 37 solid minutes and it was delightful!
SA has gone three consecutive days now without a new case! We're now part of the international flights repatriation thing, taking in flights and quarrantining them in hotels before they're sent home. We had two flights in today, so doubtless we'll have a bunch of new cases tomorrow(? Idk how long it takes to diagnose) but they won't be going anywhere so we coo'.
We're having a 'family dinnner party' in the not too distant future, cooking all the same stuff across our three households and then meeting up on WhatsApp video chat. Bearing in mind the new parents, we're mostly going premade stuff from the supermarket, with a filet mignon on the barbie (or on the Le Creuset for me, in the absence of an actual barbie), so hopefully it won't be too much for the two of them. I'm excited :D
MasterChef is on! It just feels like something normal right now, which is great. Restrictions will start impacting the filming sooner or later but for now, they're serving 1200 people a barbecue and it's just normal and I love it.
On my yearly GW kick! I've been gathering together dust for anti-death consets for one particular HM dungeon, and at the same time collecting jade for Riesling's very last elite armour set. See if I manage to achieve both before I get bored and set it aside for another year.
So yeah. Feeling good right now.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
MON 06 APR at 7:22pm
mood | hopeful
I'M AN AUNTIE! To an adorable little cherrub called Airlie, and about whom I've talked in a flocked post cos I don't want to release anything without Mumma's permission. But she's beautiful and I love her.
Australia update: Our curve is definitely flattening. No further restrictions, though idiots in Brisbane/Gold Coast and Perth keep going to the beach without socially distancing, so Gold Coast beaches are now closed and the WA premier's threatening to close Perth beaches if Perthlings don't pull their heads in. But that's it. Sydney's epicentre is Bondi. WHO FRIGGING KNEW, RIGHT? Geeze it's almost like there were thousands of people gathering at Bondi Beach two weeks ago or something! Jeusm Christmas. Anyway. We're doing well! Australia cases are at... 5700 I think? We hit 5000 late last week so that's definitely flattening. Few enough people in hospital so the health system isn't overloaded so we've still only had the 40 deaths.
SA in particular, we recorded 2 new cases yesterday, and 2 new cases today. A third of all our cases came from the damned Ruby Princess, another third came from other cruise ships, and the rest has been mostly two tour groups in the Barossa (a group of Americans and a group of Swiss, for some reason, didn't know Switzerland was a thing until then) and this cluster at the airport. Still no deaths, GO SOUTH AUSTRALIA. Of all the places in the world to be through this, I feel so, so goddamn lucky to be here for it. I know, it's still shit. People are still losing their jobs, businesses are still shutting down, but it's shit the world over. Australia: super low morbidity rate, awesome healthcare, curve flattening and yet we still have reasonable freedom. We're encouraged to stay home, groups of more than two are policed, any business involving groups of people is closed, but we can still go outside. We can still go to work, still go shopping, still go visit people. SA is the only state not fining people for gathering with more than two people. This is absolutely the best place in the world to be right now. I swear that's not SA bias talking, it just IS.
THAT SAID. I'm now home. I have two weeks 'leave', after which, shit knows :D This is why I look for the positives. Today I was only in to set up the booze client's EDM which needed links that only became valid today due to this period's specials only just going online. Apart from that, we got one order for the entire day. Once the booze client's stuff goes out later this week, there'll be a whole lot more twiddling of thumbs. So yes. I'm off, unless something happens where I can go into the office and do something.
Going to make the most of it tho, as is my wont. I'll be making a list of things to do, like use up all the stuff in the freezer (mostly it's stock, so presumably a lot of soup and risotto will be happening) and clean the bathroom, maybe fiddle with my web folio because I'm not entirely happy with it anymore, contact the bank and ask them about worst case scenarios. Keeping up the fitness will be harder, because until now I've pretty much been doing it after work, so I've already been out of the house and go to the beach or the botanic gardens or somewhere to do the said fitness. If I'm at home all day, tho, making myself leave the house just for that will be Tough. I'll DO MY BEST. I'm about 1.5kg away from my first reward purchase, which is socks. Trust me you guys this is more motivational than it sounds. My fitness sockies have lost their elastic and one has a hole in the ball of the foot. I need new sockies.
I got my yuzu tree! Went down to McLaren Vale on Saturday to pick it up and went for a walk in Onkaparinga Gorge afterwards. I'm super excited for this thing, which is supposedly going to start fruiting by next season, so that's pretty awesome. I'm used to citrus taking two or three seasons to start fruiting, so to only take a year, that's kickarse. I want to put it in a pot so I can take it with me when I eventually get a house, so I'm now considering half-wine barrels. That'll be a thing for the list over the coming two weeks.
So yeah. Things are all right. Everywhere's shit, but I'm so bloody glad I'm here for it.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
TUE 31 MAR at 8:03pm
mood | sore
Booze client has sent through updated pricing for the next period, so we're still printing and I'm still doing their artwork, WOO. We stay open for another week! My café I'd been going to every day since last Monday in the interest of supporting for as long as I could shut up shop yesterday, tho. I at least got six lunches in there, tho.
Australia-in-general update: about 4500 cases and 19 deaths. SA in particular is at about 330 cases and the only state or territory with no deaths, go SA! Yesterday we only reported six new cases, but today was up to 32. Still, Australia is starting to flatten that goddamn curve. Hopefully. I mean, we've still gotta give it another week-ish until the effects of last weekend's (and subsequently, this week) restrictions actually materialise, but signs are positive. Also, yesterday the government announced a massive 'JobKeeper' grant, which equates to $1500 per fortnight per employee for businesses affected by the coronavirus measures, which we certainly are. The idea is of course to keep people in jobs, even if (like me) you're barely doing anything, but on the fabled 'other side' people are still in their job and can more easily bring the economy back. It also means fewer people in queues at Centrelink getting welfare because this is all being handled through the ATO instead. I got sliiiiightly teary hearing that one. It doesn't completely cover my salary, but I feel like it moves us more comfortably from 'when' we close to 'if' we close. I feel like we can get through this now.
I've started doing the Kayla Itsines fitness challenge this week, and my legs cane. Yesterday they felt like jelly and after today they hurt. Yesterday was resistence stuff for legs, so step ups, squats, lunges and so on, which I was going to do at the local gardens but they closed at 4 so I went to the beach. Today was 35 minutes of running, which I did not manage =( I've been trying to sort of work up to it through the last two weeks since Walk Week but the longest I've made it has been 26 minutes before breaking. Today I got to, like, 10 minutes. I'm blaming jelly legs. I'll get better!
Also, for the record, Adelaide beaches aren't crowded even in normal, peak-of-summer times. We Adelaideans generally like to have a good 10m between groups at LEAST, and frankly the bigger the space the better. Every time I've been to the beach these past two weeks I've seen, like, ten people between me and the distance. I've seen two ladies on benches, one at one end of the bench and the second at the far end of the bench next to it, having a socially distant conversation. I've seen people swerving to avoid other people. My local supermarket has hand sanitiser at every door and gloves to wear while in the store. On the escalator coming up the other day, I saw a bunch of three dudebros come in and each use their elbows to press the button and get sanitiser out without a word, except the one dudebro who went, 'Aww yeah, hand sanitiser!' I know people are big on posting about those flouting the social distancing but I like to notice the good. SA's the only state not enforcing fines for people breaking the 'no more than 2 people gathering' social distancing. Of all the countries to be in during this, I feel so, so goddamn lucky to be in Australia, and I feel like us and WA are doing the best here. Mostly us. We're doing SO much testing per capita you guys.
America, on the other hand, terrifies me. I mean, look at this shit, and Trump is proud of how America's doing? He is a horrifying man to have in control of America right now. 'We're leading the world in testing' OH MY GOD YOU LYING SACK OF SHIT. You were charging $1500 for tests for AGES. When South Korea was doing 20,000 tests a day, you'd done barely 5000 grand total. More than half of Australia's cases came from America. 'America sneezes and the world catches a cold,' and right now we're so goddamn scared of what's going on over there. China and Italy were/are bad, but America's the real one being held up as What Not to Do. Dunno how the rest of the world, especially the US itself, is reporting on that cos I've really just been stuck on the ABC the whole time but I'd be interested to know.
ENTIRELY UNRELATED I'm going to buy a yuzu tree this weekend :D I've been looking for one for ages, but they're so rare in Australia that you can only get them when they're in season, which I learned last year is now. So I just contacted one place that lists a bunch of uncommon citrus on their site, but not yuzu, in the hopes that maybe they do have them they just don't advertise. I just got an email back asking if I'd like them to label one for me to pick up asap. Hell yes I would. I'mma get that on Saturday. So that's exciting!
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
WED 25 MAR at 8:10pm
mood | scared
I'm scared. Not for the virus itself, but for everything surrounding it.
General Australia status: we're not in lockdown, but any business which revolves around gatherings has been closed. Pubs, gyms, cinemas, all those sorts of things are closed. Cafés and restaurants are allowed to do takeaway. Obviously social distancing is mandatory, with fines for anyone not observing that. Basically no gatherings allowed at all, weddings restricted to five people, funerals to 10 people. Retail hasn't been specifically mentioned as yet, but restrictions on how many people are allowed in rooms are applied there. Schools still open, though some states (not SA) have brought forward school holidays forward. Everything not specifically mentioned counts as an 'essential service' because people are earning money and staying in jobs and not getting into the million-people-strong queue at Centrelink.
So far, my business counts as one of those. We're still open, but I'm scared. Our major clients are booze and ice cream/hot dogs. The booze is the one that pays my salary every two months; lose them and, well... Jon says 'people will lose their jobs' but lbr it's me. I'll lose my job. Bottle shops still count as an essential service. This client works in 2-week periods for their promo/specials, and we typically do two periods at a time. I just finished doing the artwork for period 21+22, just got that approved on Monday, and they pulled period 22 yesterday. Today I got an email asking for one of their staff members to get trained on the EDM system (Electronic Direct Mail, all those marketing emails you get from companies you sign up for loyalty programs and such). I've been doing them for the past two years, but no more.
Until then, we'd been kinda cushioned a little bit, specifically because of them. Ice cream/hot dogs, who operate in shopping centres, fell off a cliff two weeks ago. Things have been quiet, but we're still getting orders from the medical clients, the major car servicing client, Government. Still keeping... busy is the wrong word, but still getting work. The booze, though... I'm scared.
This week, I've had lunch in the fridge at work but have gone to the café to get takeaway lunch every day just to support them for as long as I can. If I'm still coming to work on Monday I'll be amazed.
Still doing fitness, going for a run on the beach as long as I'm allowed to. Brighton, my closest, isn't a particularly busy beach anyway, especially late in March when it's only, like, mid-20s. Even in normal times you're typically spread out with, like, 20m betweeen people unless you're passing dog walkers and other fitness walkers/runners. Not at all like the dickwits at Bondi on Sunday. So anyway. I started last week running for as long as I could, which was eight minutes, then each day tacking another two minutes on. Today I got up to 26 minutes! Pretty stoked with self for this progress. I haven't at any stage given up and taken a break before the timer went off, go me. I need something to cheer and, y'know what, my own improving health will do nicely.
I'm scared.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
WED 18 MAR at 8:54pm
mood | calm
Life Update!
Have new phone, which is neither green nor waterproof, but it was cheap, so that'll do. Ankle also healed! I can do the fitness again! Which has meant Walk Week happened as planned last week! This was a thing I made up after having had this list of walks printed and mapped out for about two years now. I've done a couple of them here and there, but for Walk Week I made to do one a day for the week, particularly picking that week because of the public holiday Monday and also daylight savings is still in effect, making most use of time after work. The idea was to basically replicate as best I could when I was in Japan, where despite eating any deep fried dough on a stick that I came across, I still lost two kilos because there was so much walking.
Day 1 (last Sunday) was at Mount George and, because that went more quickly than I'd expected, the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens. Mount George looked gorgeous, stunning views across the Hills, but it was so close to the freeway that there was no point where I couldn't hear it. One of the best things about bushwalking is being entirely enveloped in nature, and when there's this constant sound of traffic it sort of takes the serenity away. Botanic Gardens were as delightful as ever.
Day 2, public holiday Monday, was Noarlunga South to Moana, which was suitably dramatic. I walked along the clifftop on the way south then along the very wide and occasionally very rocky beach on the way north again. These berries which I know nothing about were growing all along the footpath. I figured, if they were poisonous, they wouldn't be so prevalent so I gave one a taste. More like a tiny plum, with the shape of the stone inside, and somehow sweet, salty and sour all at once. Odd little thing.
Day 3, back to work and fitting my walk in before sunset, here's the Marion Coastal Walk. Everyone who's been a student in SA has been to this park. Just look at all the geology going on! Sugarloaf! Giant boulders dumped on the beach by an ancient glacier! Layering of sedimentary rock and folding and colapsing! Also nice sunset. Which mostly happened while I was on a sodding detour through suburbia while the footpath was under maintainence.
Day 4, Andrew's Walk in Andrew Perry Reserve, very close to work. This one was odd and I don't know how it made a 'take your breath away' list of walks. I'd made it barely a kilometre in and came up against a quarry that I couldn't get around. I tried following the creek but it was just suburbia, so I gave up and went to the Himeji Gardens instead. It's tiny and hence not fitnessy but it WAS gorgeous, so I felt better about that =3
Day 5, covering two closeby walks in the Adelaide Uni loop (not sure how that made the list, when the whole of Linear Park was already on it) and the Folks on the Hill walk in North Adelaide, an historic walk looking at some classic houses and buildings. I felt like a proper tourist in my own city doing this one! Right down to scaffolding covering one of the landmarks. If you've ever been on holiday with me, you'll know I'm cursed with this kind of thing.
Day 6, the Waterfall Walk at Belair National Park, which I'd kinda wanted to hold off on until there was actual water falling but I've run out of walks near me that I can do after work. This one was kind of disappointing because of all the weeds. That first one of the waterfall (well, cliff)? All the green at the bottom of the cliff, ALL down that valley, it's blackberry. Finally get out of the blackberry and up away from the creek and you get into the bush, then back down again at the end and there's heaps of hawthorn and olive trees. Belair National Park requires that you pay if you're going in with a car (I parked out the front because I'm here to walk, so let's walk through the park), which I'd always assumed went towards, y'know, protecting the park. It's still ridiculous since all parks are maintained by the government anyway. But to see all the weeds? Especially knowing they'd just done some burning off at the top of the hill in November, it was disappointing.
Day 7, my triumphant finale, Linear Park! Following the River Torrens from its mouth at Henley Beach into the city. I started feeling it by the time I got to the city, rested a bit for lunch, then the way back was made of ow. My feet absolutely caned. Left foot had three blisters, somehow the right had none. But I made it! And then Mum and I went out to dinner to Apoteca, not technically as celebration, but it felt it! We decided to have a girls' night out while Dad and Colin were having a boys' weekend in Melbourne. It was awesome.
So over the course of that week I walked 93.25km (on actual walks, I'm sure I cracked 100 by just generally getting around) and lost 1.5 kilos! Victory! I'm so proud of myself for achieving this, especially when it was looking like my ankle would be stuffed and I wouldn't be able to do it at all, so to actually do it every day... I'm stoked. I even felt excited to do each walk, even Linear Park, as intimidating as it was. MADE IT. Next challenge, I'm going to do the Kayla Itsines thingo, because shuddup that's why. Next two weeks I'm gearing up for that. I've been jogging on the beach to build up endurance and also make sure my ankle is indeed healed. So far so good.
In other news: the bleedingly obvious. Yesterday I went shopping for the first time since the panic buying started and... that was an experience! I already knew about the TP situation, obviously, and knew it'd largely extended to pasta and tinned food, though there was at least some of that still on shelves. Of flour, which I needed plain flour (or thought I did, turns out I already had a bag I hadn't yet emptied into the jar thank GOD), there was one 500g bag of fancy pants wholemeal self raising flour. Fresh veggies were all business as usual. Some of the missing stuff was weird, though, like milk. There were a few 1L cartons and half a shelf of Pura 2L but the rest was GONE. How even? How do you stockpile fresh milk? What are people doing, keeping it in the freezer? Milk doesn't freeze well, also it'd take up a hell of a lot of space. Also, I needed coathangers. There was one three-pack of fancy wooden ones for 6,whichiswaymorethanI′dliketospendoncoathangers.Whycoathangers?WentaroundthecornertoTargetandgotsomethereina5−packofwireonesfor6, which is way more than I'd like to spend on coathangers. Why coathangers? Went around the corner to Target and got some there in a 5-pack of wire ones for 6,whichiswaymorethanI′dliketospendoncoathangers.Whycoathangers?WentaroundthecornertoTargetandgotsomethereina5−packofwireonesfor5, much more like it. I did have to get the last two bags of fancy pants kitty litter, though. I'm sure Rory'll know the difference.
Finally, after years of meaning to do it and not getting around to it, I booked flights to Sydney to see Vivid! Vivid is now cancelled. Go figure. Still going to Sydney, though, and also Brisbane. This'll be happening for two weeks at the end of May/beginning of June, assuming Qantas and Tiger aren't both bankrupt and completely grounded by then, but y'know, playing it by ear. I might just have to wear a HAZMAT suit going to Sydney.
Watching sport with no crowd is weird. We had the first of three cricket matches against the Kiwis with no crowd, and it was so quiet you could hear the guys' pads squeaking in the stump mike as they walked out to bat. 'The crowd errupts!' cried Mark Waugh at the fall of a Kiwi wicket. 'Look at him, that one guy down there clapped... How'd he get in?' The next day the Kiwi government announced that anyone coming into the country after midnight that night would be subjected to a 14-day quarantine, so the Kiwis went home and that was the end of the series.
AFLW, which I've been going to every local match of this season, just watched on telly this time. For some reason the friends and family of the visiting team were allowed into the stands, so our home ground had about 20 away supporters, applause echoing in the stands. The mens' season is due to start tomorrow and, at this stage, they're still going ahead, but I mean the odds of the season actually getting to the end are pretty slim. If there's so much as one case among the teams they'll call it off, I'm sure. The women's game without the 10k-ish crowd noise is weird enough. Mens' game, with the 50k+ Adelaide Oval empty, will be surreal. The frigging MCG holds 100k and we'll be able to actually hear the players talking to each other.
This morning PM ScoMo put a level 4 travel warning for the entire world. That's the highest it goes. It's just a straight up 'do not travel.' We've never done that before. Ban on gatherings of over 100 people, but we've been very strongly reassured we're not going into lockdown. To have any real, lasting effect, we'd have to go into lockdown for 6 months, which isn't sustainable. Schools are staying open, because kids are pretty much unaffected by the thing and, if they were to close schools, it'd put more people at risk because who are the kids going to be staying with? At-risk grandparents. That, or parents are going to have to stay home to look after them, and the biggest thing is to keep everyone working, earning money and subsequently spending money to keep the country moving as best we can.
Work is... quiet but still trucking on. Printing isn't one of the vulnerable industries at this stage, we're still getting our orders for business cards and pull-up banners, but we've got time on our hands to prepare should we need to start working from home, setting up Microsoft Teams and OneDrive and accessing webmail and all that, if neeeded.
Laura's due to give birth next month, so that's super exciting :D The hospital's only allowing two guests sum total, Colin counts as one, so to be fair on everyone they're not having anyone else in the hospital and will just allow people to come by their house on case-by-case basis to see bub. So they'll basically be on their own lockdown, which is sad but necessary and, if I'm honest, probably a bit of a relief for them. Legit reason to stop the constant stream of people into their house to see babby!
I say I'll keep on top of DW entries but it never sodding happens. Still, at least I get around to it eventually? Right?
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
TUE 25 FEB at 8:53pm
mood | annoyed
My phone carked it :< After years of loyal service it's just given up the ghost. It was the perfect phone: green, reasonably cheap and, best of all, waterproof. I've taken it in the pool on multiple occasions, been running with it in the rain, swum in the ocean with it shoved in my bathers. Apart from that one time last summer that I forgot to dry out its headphone jack after swimming in the sea and the salt very quickly corroded said jack, it's been brilliant. This afternoon, though, dead. Functioned fine while in the sea (well, 'fine', with everything wet the touch response always takes a bit of effort to dry your finger off enough for it to register, but still, fine), fine when I got out of the water and dried it off to stop my fitness tracking, but when I got home, it wouldn't turn on again. I took the back off, where it's usually bone dry, and it was sodden. I followed this tutorial to take it apart and subsequently shattered the screen and possibly broke its earpiece, but I had fun taking it apart, anyway.
So now I'm in the market for a new phone. I highly doubt I'll find that holy trinity of cheap, green and waterproof, but I can dream. Or just find another Motorola G3 on ebay. I've done that before, when the headphone jack died, with the intention of using its headphone jack to replace mine, but I've just been using the extra phone in the car for music. It came from Brazil, tho, so my Aussie sim card won't work in it, sadly.
ALSO. I have a bung ankle. This was from Wednesday two weeks ago, now. Running on the beach, doing my sprints as I've been doing for a good chunk of February, and I stepped in a footprint, rolling my ankle. It felt so innocuous at the time, just a bit of an, 'ooh,' bit of a sting, and I kept going with just a twinge, figuring it'd work itself out. Once I got back to the car, it had swollen up to give me a not insignificant cankle. After a week of no improvement, I went to the doctor and was told that yep, that's normal, this sort of injury usually takes 4-6 weeks to heal.
D:
This sucks balls. I've been doing so well with the fitness! Going to the beach after work for most of February to do sprints on the beach or go swimming if it's been warm enough. If I made it down every day for the month, I was going to reward myself with Copenhagen ice cream on the 29th and it was going to be awesome. I've been gearing myself up for self-imposed Walk Week! For the second week of March! When there were going to be no committments from Sunday through to Saturday, no footy or cricket, no family dinner and even a public holiday Monday, so I was going to go on a bushwalk (or similar) every day after work with the last of daylight savings... That's not happening now, cos the stupid thing'll only be at 3.5 weeks by then and not up to bushwalking. It STILL doesn't feel any better than day one.
But eh. New tech is exciting, my phone was getting somewhat slow and only just lasting the day on battery anyway, so that's fine. Ankle will heal, and I can't feel it at all when in the water so I can at least still do fitness while it's summer. I'm just piling together eeeeverything to give me motivation right now. For every 5 kilos I'm buying myself a fitness reward. 85kg will be new socks (I know, thrilling, but that should've happened this week if not for the goddamn ankle, and my sockies right now are so threadbare in the balls of my feet that one of the four has a hole there), 80kg will be new shoes and 75kg, my goal, will be sexy activewear from, like, Lorna Jane or Seafolly or something. Because screw you I'll have earned it by then. Anyway I'm compiling pictures of all these things as motivation. Also, a list of things to ddo to mix it up, such as Walk Week, which will now have to move to the end of the year (booooo), interesting places to do the fitness (like the beach! Or the botanic gardens, along the Torrens, look up other places...), do like a gym/yoga/pilates/whatever trial month to see what, if anything, I'm missing there. All that stuff. So I'll get back there. Just frigging annoying right now.
Time to look at new phones. Yay.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
TUE 28 JAN at 9:16pm
mood | hopeful
Happy Australia Day two days later! This summer has been absolute balls and I feel like Australia Day this year was really all about the CFS volunteers et al. One of my Dad's mates is a CFS volunteer and has been doing stints in NSW, obviously Cudlee Creek and over to Kangaroo Island. The amount of time these people are sarificing to go into the teeth of these bastard fires time and time again is just insane.
Alex was over for a bit of a whirlwind weekend from Sydney, landing on Saturday for a 30th birthday on Sunday then off again that night. I picked her up from the airport Saturday morning and we headed up to LOT.100, which I've been meaning to do... well, since it opened, really but especially this summer. It's a sort of Hills booze collective place, joint cellar door between these five beverage companies: Hills Cider Co for the cider (my favourite cider), Mismatch Brewing for the beer (they have fruit flavoured beers!), Adelaide Hills Distillery (who make 78 Degrees gin, among other things), Ashton Valley Fresh for the non-alcoholic juices and, most importantly, Vinteloper for the wine. Vinteloper was one of the wineries that lost every single vine to the Cudlee Creek fires and, like every other business affected, they haven't been asking for donations but instead just saying BUY OUR STUFF. GIVE US BUSINESS. So we went there to do just that :D LOT.100 itself is perfectly fine, though from the pizza oven you could see one of the hills behind them was distinctly more brown than others, so that's terrifying.
So yus. Got a pizza and a cheese platter for lunch, a glass of rosé and a glass of red, then two bottles of shiraz, two of rosé and one of pinot gris to take home, along with some cider and beer (both flavoured with Davidson plum, aww yeah).
We then Googled antique shops in the general area and cruised up to Birdwood via Woodside and Lobethal, straight through the middle of the fireground. This was the first time I'd been through the fireground since the bushfires and my god it's terrifying. Entire hills behind Woodside burnt. Trees literally right on the edge of Birdwood turned to charcoal. One house that was just a few bits of corrugated iron sitting in ash. Acres and acres and acres of brown vineyards and burnt orchards. Entire chunks of forest where the road went through it with the trees completely black right up to the very top, their leaves bleached white to ash, and just imagining these towering walls of fire reaching that high; and then, right in the middle of it, a house still with its rose bushes out the front. This is the stuff that always amazes me in bushfires, the stuff that doesn't burn. Just imagining the inferno the fieries had to deal with, and they saved not just the house but the roses. I dunno that just... feels more real. They're volunteers. This isn't their job, they're not just getting it done and moving on, they know the roses are just as important to save, cos that's life. To whoever lived there, they love their roses. It just touches me to see that.
Every time we saw livestock we cheered them. Well done, cows and sheep, you survived a bushfire! Cos there were plenty of photos during the fires of livestock wandering the streets after the owners just opened the gates to give them the best chance at survival.
The gum trees, of course, will be fine. Give 'em six months and they'll all be covered in fluffy green pompoms cos that's what they do, but the rest is going to take years to rebuild. I still need to sit down and figure out exactly who I want to donate to. Red Cross just kinda puts it all into general revenue so your dollars aren't necessarily going to end up with the people you're donating to, so that bugs me. I want to go directly for KI, since it'll be a while before I can take leave to get over there and spend money on the island. I've been up to the Cudlee Creek fireground and spent money there, going to the T20 Showdown this Sunday (it's Crows vs Power but they're playing cricket I can't wait) but still need to work out an actual solid donation.
Anyway. Sidetracked. We visited three different antique shops, specifically looking for jewellery because Alex loves her some antique sparkles, and finally found some proper vintage stuff in Birdwood where I enabled her into buying a ring. Cos it was pretty! And the fire was RIGHT THERE at the end of the street! And it's not like it was hellishly expensive, and it was pretty! So she bought it. I'd seen a necklace of freshwater pearls out the front, all in different colours, and then inside found some earrings of the same multicoloured freshwater pearl variety. So I got them both.
We've also decided our next girls' trip will have to be KI. SA Tourism Commission has ditched the current campaign in favour of #BookThemOut and, ngl, made me tear up first time I saw that. I've always been a parochial South Australian, always try as much as possible to buy SA stuff, and this just makes me want all the more to go do SA things.
Vinteloper's first vintage back had better be called 'Phoenix' or something I swear to G.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
MON 06 JAN at 2:15pm
mood | cheerful
Happy New Year! I feel I can more properly say that now because on Friday night, I took myself down to the Horizons coctail lounge overlooking the (highly smoke-affected) sunset and I finished Silent Harmony. I feel like, since beginning of NaNo, I've kinda had just EVERYTHING on hold in favour of finishing this thing, so now I have it really feels like a new year. I was just thinking earlier today, with some actual nice weather this week, I'll be able to take my laptop to the botanic gardens as I've always planned to do and do some wri--no, wait, there's nothing to write. WELL THEN.
Random old dude came and tried chatting to me when I was literally five paragraphs from the end I MEAN. I know I'm on my own in a cocktail bar on a Friday night but PLEASE. NO.
Just as I'd finished and was posting my margarita of triumph to Instagram, another random sat down to start chatting, this time an Aboriginal chick. One of the most interesting conversations and fascinating people I've ever met. She started out by saying how I looked intelligent, because of the Word doc and clearly not being on Facebook or whatever, so I said YEP just finished a novel I've been working on since I was 18! So we got to talking about how words and language are sexy, and how cats are better dependents than children, and how nice it is just coming down to the beach and getting a cocktail/wine. She's a nursing technician mostly working in elective surgery but sometimes shoved into Emergency, so with my sister-in-law as a nurse we talked a bit about how you see the best and worst of humanity in a job like that.
Came back around to language again, which led into herritage, me being of bog-standard white Aussie nothingness while she was brought up in a Jehova's Witness family. WTF says me? Cos that's weird enough normally, let alone Aboriginal Jehova's Witnesses. Oh yeah, says she, because I was adopted into an English/Irish family. Well, 'adopted,' cos I was one of the Stolen Generation, and oh dear my glass is empty, lemme just go get a top-up, can I get you another one? Oh, no, I'm driving and this is my second cocktail for the evening already and also holy shit???
JUST
CASUALLY DROPPED IN THERE. STOLEN GENERATION.
FRIG
I swear she was about my age, but nope, 46. She's since found her biological family, including two or three siblings, and SEEMS to have a good relationship with everyone. Including the English/Irish Jehova's Witnesses. Like, all through our conversation she used 'Mum' to refer to either or. idk it was in parts refreshing and disturbing to hear her so casual about it? Like... I've never met one of the stolen generation. The only time I've ever encountered them has been on TV, when they're generally very angry and bitter and, in a lot of cases, guilt-trippy. So to meet someone who's just chill with her life, it's like... idk. Good onya for being able to get your shit together, thank you for not having a chip on your shoulder towards all white people even tho you have literally the best reason in the world to be pissed at white Australia... yeah. I said none of this at the time because I was still in the middle of processing HOLY SHIT and by then conversation moved on. Like I said, just casually dropped it in there.
More casual chat, how scary bushfires are, how I live in the Hills and have my own place, she's living in a Housing Trust home which I thought was... odd, for a nursing technician? Dunno how much they earn but I would've thought it could fund a rental place. Turns out she's recently (I got the feeling no more than a year ago) gotten out of an abusive relationship, and left with just her car and the cats. She went to get Government support and they've given her the Housing Trust home, which I was pleasantly surprised by. She did the heartbreaking thing of not blaming him, or rather, trying to blame him but feeling guilty for doing so. He had scizophrenia, but chose to take marijuana instead of his medication, and that made him paranoid that everyone, especially she, was out to kill him. Like, driving past roadworks and saying she paid them off to make him crash into the roadworks and die, that kind of thing. Bashed her up badly, hence the finally getting out.
So I told her she was incredibly brave. For getting out, for asking for help after it, for keeping herself on track and holding down the job even in the midst of all that. Just, so brave.
She said she still felt guilty for leaving him, cos he was unwell. He needed help.
Yeah, I said, but it's not your job to care for him. It's not your fault. It's not your job to look after him.
It was like a lightbulb moment for her. She just looked at me for a moment and went, 'Nobody's ever told me that. That it's not my job.'
GIRL. GIRL. I can't even. I'm glad she's finally heard it, at least? More importantly, she was very drunk by this point, but very much of the thinking over her words and still making intelligible conversation kind of level, so hopefully she remembered it the next morning, too.
So there you go! That was the night I finished Silent Harmony! Most fascinating conversation ever. You go, girl.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
TUE 31 DEC at 7:40pm
mood | rejuvenated
"A Reduced Threat has been issued for the Cudlee Creek fire which is now Contained."
FUCKING CONTAINED. I'm so happy. That last incident update made me teary to read. Incident/advice/warning updates are more like this sort of thing. Y'know, fire is here, travelling that way, crews in attendance, locals advised to be vigilant/activate their bushfire action plan/it's too late to leave. That sort of very official, warning kind of thing. That last one is just throwing so much praise and thanks at the fieries and locals.
'Monday's excellent outcome' like... You guys, yesterday was as bad as the day it started. Hot and windy and scary, and shit was already on fire, but none of it got out. They did so much for like the full week prior, earth moving and backburning to get a damn perimeter around this thing, and they did it. It's fucking contained I'm so goddamn happy.
Fieries, man. Fieries.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
SAT 21 DEC at 9:46pm
mood | calm
Three weeks ago it was still winter. I was at the cricket and it was cold and wet and everyone was in winter gear, complete with Crows scarves and beanies cos Cricket Australia doesn't make scarves and beanies. Last week it was spring! We got, like, a solid six days of spring this year. That's a lot of spring because spring is a lie. It's winter up until mid-December, then you get a week of spring, tops, and then BAM you're on day four of 40+ and everything's on fire.
Hey look everything's on fire. Must be summer. IT WAS WINTER THREE WEEKS AGO.
The Advertiser is Helpful. (I mean, they're not wrong. Also lol 'cool in the night' that very night it was still 37 at midnight.)
Mostly, though, fire. I'll just preface all this by saying I'm safe, my family's safe and I promise if I'm ever in a danger zone I'll evacuate (as will be described below) but yes. For now, my bit of the Hills is fine and dandy.
So, fire. NSW has had it shit for ages now, and that's undoubtedly what's been making international news, but we sadly got our bit yesterday. Catastrophic fire conditions (which is the worst) which doesn't necessarily mean something will catch fire, it just means that if something does catch fire it's going to be a shitshow. We've been through plenty of catastrophic days where no catastrophe actually eventuated. Yesterday, manymany things caught fire. Big ones on Yorke Peninsula, in grasslands just off Main North Road, stuff on Kangaroo Island which seems to have been worse today than yesterday, started by dry lightning.
The big one, though, has been the Cudlee Creek fire, which I'd been monitoring all morning, then we went to end of work/pre Christmas lunch at a pub whose aircon was not coping with its fourth day over 40. Those poor waitresses and kitchen staff, omg.
For the record, I live in amongst all those little greyed out <!&rt; marks in the bottom left of those maps. The red indicates the warning area, where you should really be evacuating, and the hasshed-ut bits indicate the fireground. Individual icons indicate reported incidents--exclamation points being small, localised things (like a house alarm, tree down, car accident, that sort of thing), fire is when general nature is on fire and (not visible here, but they'll come in a sec) little houses with fire are buildings on fire.
So that was how it was developing yesterday. Started the top left of that red blob, north-westerly blew it south-east and devouered Lobethal and Woodside, then a cool change hit and brought with it cool winds (it only got to 23 today), fuck-all rain, dry lighting that started the fires on KI and a change in wind direction, so now the goddamn thing looks like ( thisCollapse )
Or even more specifically, this. The fireground is the size of Adelaide. Those little pockets there, if you zoom in on Woodside, for example, are where the fieries have managed to keep it back from the actual townships. Yellow means it's downgraded from 'Emergency' status to 'Watch and Act' status, which I'm unclear on because the latest report from the CFS says it's still uncontrolled so idk. Maybe it's just because the conditions aren't nearly so bad as yesterday. Also this from my favourite insta, which is terrifying.
I wish I'd taken a screenie of this before the cloud came over. You could see the plume of smoke on the satelite image from the fire, but I mean... you have to zoom in to see it. Pan west and the shit that's going on in NSW right now is horrifying. If you look at that in daylight (ie not the infra red overnight) then all the dirty-looking cloud cover you can see over half the country is smoke. Cricket match I was watching tonight from Canberra was abandoned because smoke blew over the ground and it looked like this. Victoria is not on fire and yet Melbourne looks like this.
I think WA is okay. They seem to be not on fire. Well done WA!
Oh also, Cudlee Creek was started by a tree falling on power lines. Not fire bugs, thank god.
But yes. In closing, I'm safe. The cool change is now blowing the fire in the complete opposite direction from me (on that map above, I'm around about where the lone greyed out <!&rt; is in the bottom right-ish). It'd have to get through the whole Crafers/Stirling/Bridgewater area, which is much more heavily populated than where it is now and hence much easier for the fieries to navigate by road. It'd also have to jump the freeway, the big red wiggle going through said Crafers/Stirling/Bridgewater area. So yeah, I'm safe and I promise I'll tell you if ever I'm not ♥
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
FRI 29 NOV at 8:25pm
mood | creative
NaNoWriMo 2019
I'm 1500 words off of winning NaNo with Steel with a full Saturday still to play with, so I thought I'd take a bit of a break to... write about writing. YEP. I was going to go to the cricket this evening after work, but the weather is shit. It's cold and wet and there's no heating at the Oval. Despite that, it's day one of the Test and we've already had half the attendance of the entire Gabba Test, and they had gorgeous weather. Suck it, Brisbane.
Anyway. I've tried NaNo once before with SH, I think it was during Tarnish, and failed horribly. Last year I challenged myself to 60k, despite being in Sydney for the first three days of the month, and still finished I think with like two days to spare. The pressure is so much more with SH. I feel like I have to make it good. It's not just a fun romp through the desert/forest/ocean/castle/whatever. This is the last novel! Shit's gotten real!
Also, if I do manage to get a full chapter done and posted tomorrow, I'll have written 11 chapters in a month. Even if I don't get that full chapter done tomorrow, there's nowhere near 11 chapters left in the book.
...
8DDD
I am on a rollSteel right now, and there are a few things I'd really like to make happen before I go anywhere, just some cute little flavour touches. For each kingdom, I'd like to make up, say, ten of the following to have as things to pick at whenever they come up in-story:
Animals (mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and insects. Maybe 2-3 of each)
Fruit
Vegetables
Meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, nibblies/snacks; 2-3 of each here, too)
World history would also be useful. Outside of what Yan was up to, I've really got nothing. Comes from living in a country with almost nothing recorded prior to about 200 years ago, I think. I'm not used to a thousand years of history. The more I've written of ancient history, the more tempted I am to make the founding of Raykin into a NaNo. Watch this space.
That's all I wanted to mention. Lessee about that final 1.5k...
EDIT 11PM WON NANO 50k :D
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
FRI 23 AUG at 8:12pm
mood | accomplished
I'm calling that done :D
I'm SO PROUD omfg. Rather than challenge myself on the technical aspects (like galleries and jQuery and php and whatever else I've been learning) this time I challenged myself with the design. Every page is laid out differently, relating to exactly what the page does and the content on it. A big trend in graphic design right now is for things to be a little off-kilter, which is of course really easy to do in print--you just move boxes around with the click of a mouse--but doing that with html where everything lines itself one after the other by default, it's a bit more fiddly. I'm so stoked with how it's come up.
Mobile is less varied, because of course there's a lot less screen real estate to play with, but the background for each page are different and the borders of images are still wonky :D
The only little thing I'd like to change and can't quite figure out how to is with the fanart gallery. Images that are too large shrink to fit the box, which is fine, but images that are smaller than the box grow to fill the box, which I don't want. In reality, though, there are only half a dozen images that small anyway, so I'm over it enough to call it done.
WOO!
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
FRI 26 JUL at 9:14pm
mood | creative
My poor melty Europeans :< 40+ sucks enough when you live in a country prepared for such occurrances. I think I've given all my hot-weather advice over the years. Best thing is having a cold shower with just a liiiiittle bit of hot in it, enough that you can stand under it but that it'll still cool you down. Get the water especially where your blood vessels are close to the skin--armpits, scalp and butt-crack. I swear to god, cold water down your butt-crack when you're roasting hot feels sooooo good. Stand there until you're bored shitless and go back to bed. Bonus points if you don't towel off before you get there.
Also frozen grapes are great. And leech off anywhere that has aircon--shopping centres, libraries, cinemas if this thing's still going by Tightarse Tuesday. Keep the curtains closed and everything electrical turned off except the fridge. Ideally don't cook anything, either. Salad is friend. Then as soon as it gets cooler outside than in, fling eeeeeverything open and douse yourself in insect repellant.
GOOD LUCK, LOVELIES.
Meanwhile, we're having the most piss-weak winter I've ever experienced. Regularly getting days of 20+, delightful sunshine, spring blossoms are already coming out, very little rain, haven't even been tempted to use the heater all winter, eastern states remain in a hideously crippling drought... It's July. Usually I'm sick of winter by about May, but this winter has barely even felt cold. I'm kinda scared for this summer now. If northern France and the Netherlands can hit 43, shit knows what's going to happen here. We hit 48 last summer. LET'S CRACK FIFTY CELCIUS. WHY THE FUCK NOT.
In not-weather news, bloogum is progressing nicely! I've done the Yrae Chronicles, Cork's Crew and old fiction pages, so I'm a little over half done. Seem to be getting one page done a week, so I might have it finished in a month or so, that'd be nice.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
FRI 12 JUL at 10:43pm
mood | chipper
It's happening again :O None of the links work yet except those that link out--tpyo, Fig Jam and [Snapshot Henchman]--but the splash functions! Hooray!
Saw Toy Story 4 on Tuesday with new frand! I think I have a new favourite Toy Story, maybe. Best line: 'I think Daddy needs to say some Words now so we'll just go over here, okay, Sweetie?' I want to start using that phrase in my daily life. 'I need to say some Words now.'
Pixar fangirl 4 lyfe.
Which all leads me to: NEW FRAND!
Her name's Alice and she has the most adorable and photogenic three-year-old you ever did see, called Laszlo. I met her on Tinder and we at the very least clicked as friends, if not anything romantic because 'narti does not do childs. Met for coffee/hot chocolate back in... March, I think? YES because we went to the AFLW Grand Final. Anyway yes, we've been to do fun things pretty much weekly since then. Gone to the zoo, went to a Cabaret Festival show called The Swell Mob which I didn't do very well at because it was a sort of... interactive performancey thing? Idk. Like all the characters were LARPing, so I feel Sallie and Ku would've done awesomely at it but I just didn't know what sorts of questions to ask and who to talk to and what was going on. It was fun but I know I didn't get as much out of it as I could have.
Alice plays AFL herself so I've gone to see one of her matches en route to Victor Harbor where we got ice cream and played minigolf, gone to a community screening of Wall-E which was... an experience XD It was in this little country hall, the kids all had a costume competition where they dressed up as robots and gave a fashion parade during the interval--yes, there was an interval--and it was all rather odd. She's from the UK originally, moved to Perth as a teenager and hence picked up on Fremantle as an AFL team, so we've been watching the odd Freo match up at my place.
She's a love, as is Laszlo. Srsly perfect small child, which really does just confirm to me that I don't want one myself. He went bowling the day we went to see Toy Story 4 and got to choose a prize from a cabinet at the end, and picked the sparkly tiara, which he was trying on while watching the movie. He sits and pays attention to the entire movie while watching and gets totally invested when characters are sad, while other kids twice his age are climbing over the seats. He carefully pats the cat, I've seen him throw one hissy-fit (because I wanted donuts and bought donuts, and he didn't want donuts so he didn't get donuts. You bet I was thinking of the 'why my kid is crying' tumblr) and the rest of the time he's got the biggest grin and is always excited to see me. At the end of Toy Story 4 as he's hugging his Woody toy I asked who his favourite character was, to which he answered, 'Mummy!'
But everything still gets planned around the small child, which is ttly fine in a friendship but I couldn't deal in a relationship. Having to either plan around his bedtime, which activities are going to be fun for a 3-year-old, how much time he can deal with, or alternatively when Alice's mum's free to take him. Basically, child must always be entertained, and everything winds up being about the small child. I need way too much me-time to be able to deal with that day in, day out, no matter how perfect the kid is. So yes. Happy for a friend to have a small child, not for a significant other.
MEANWHILE. This is the most piss-weak winter I can remember. It's July and we've had, like, four days over 20. WINTER. We're at least still getting reasonably steady rain and I haven't needed to water the garden, but the rest of the country isn't doing so well. The drought in the eastern states scares me.
But my back's healed! So there's that. And bloogum's finally getting a makeover. Maybe I'll have that done by the end of the year. HHHHHHHHHAH.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.
MON 08 JUL at 9:43pm
mood | accomplished
Tax return done! This year, I think due to my pay rise back in January, I'm getting about triple back what I normally get. This, plus the aforementioned pay rise itself, almost makes up for the extra $10 a week I'm now paying because they dropped the HECS* threshold. All that research and waiting and shitting myself to get that first pay rise in five years, completely wiped out in one fell swoop. Thanks, ScoMo**.
On the plus side, my back is all but healed and my computer is fixed enough that I can function as normal. Acrobat is one version behind but I reeeeally couldn't give a shit.
* Higher Education Contribution Scheme, now actually called HELP (Higher Education Loan Program) but screw you, it was called HECS when I got it so HECS it shall remain. Prior to last Monday, you didn't have to start paying it back until you were earning at least 55kayear.LastIheardtheyweredroppingthatthresholdto55k a year. Last I heard they were dropping that threshold to 55kayear.LastIheardtheyweredroppingthatthresholdto50k. It's actually now $43k, so I have to start paying it back.
** Scott Morrison, current PM.
'narti originally stuck this at Dreamwidth cos she lives there now.