Filling in the gaps

Right, so my last proper blog was in August of last year... Almost a year ago. While I could use my personal laptop dying as an excuse - I've never been one for excuses so I'll own up to being lazy. (I have been using my work laptop at home anyways)

So where has the year gone? A lot has happened and it has gone by quite quickly, so I'll do a fast recap before hopefully getting on with things.

Ocean Swimming

If you thought it was a fad you would be very wrong. Last summer began with very cold water (think around 60 F) but gorgeous weather. I was a mentor with CanToo swimming this year, which meant that I was helping to support people with a goal swim of 2.7 kilometers and fundraising for cancer research. This is the same group which I was a participant in last year so it was good to participate again. All in all we did swims at least every other weekend or so, which is a great excuse to go to the different beaches around Sydney. My final total distance for races (not including the regular training) over the summer was over 22 kilometers (nearly 13 miles) out in the open water.

My favorite swims so far have been around Bondi and Manly simply because of all of the fish and the clear water. It's crazy to know that the beach which I call "home" has coral, tons of fish, and sting ray families - but it's something you have to experience to believe.

In August I'll be going to Fiji with some friends and I am planning on getting an under water camera before then to help capture what we see. Fiji will be a "swim safari" which essentially means we have a guide who will take us on a swim each day - at our leisure. :) this swim will maybe take an hour max, the rest of our time will be spent relaxing, soaking up the sun, snorkeling, enjoying drinks worthy of umbrellas, seeing the sights, and embracing the lazy pace of life. :)

Flatmate update

My last post was about my flatmate dramas, but I am happy to report that things have calmed down and my flatmate Ann has been here for almost a year and has no plans of moving. (yay!)

Work update

In January I was promoted to Manager so things have been busier at work. I'm still working at RailCorp and will unfortunately most likely be there till December. This will make it almost 2.5 years at this one client, with the same project. So you for someone who used to stay at a client no more than 6 months this has been quite a change...

Travel update

Over christmas I went to Europe with my niece Lauren and we did some traveling around central Europe (Zurich, Prague, Salzburg) and Spain. It was a great time and it just confirmed that I love Spain.

Right so those are the main highlights and I'll try to get in the habit of posting more often. :)

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Location:Clement St,Rushcutters Bay,Australia

New toys = easy blogging

It has literally been ages since my last post, however I have just received my new iPad which has a lovely app which makes it super easy to blog. :)

Long story short my personal laptop has been dead for almost a year (the technician said the parts had fused together as a result of the overheating...) and using my work laptop - well seems like work. So now I have a new way to go online without feeling like work.

More detailed posts to come. As the Aussies love to say - watch this space! :)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Continued Flatmate Drama

Ok so this one is very low drama as compared to the last one. However I am bummed to say the least.

My flatmate - Katie - who has been absolutely fantastic to live with, has moved back to Brisbane. This is brought about by missing her family and being offered a job back home. While this is sad and I think she should give it more than two months, I realise the desire and she hasn't been a jerk about it.

Luckily, I've had a great response to my post of the flat and found a new flatmate this weekend. So thus we start the cycle again. Hopefully my next flatmate, Anne, will last a bit longer.

Busy Busy Busy

Right so I'll try to cut through all the un-fun stuff (aka working way too many hours than reasonable) and highlight the key things from the last couple weeks.

Where I left off I had a weekend of a pub crawl with friends and coffee fest... that theme has continued for the last couple weekends.

Firstly there is a fantastically eclectic little pub in Darlinghurst called (very fittingly) The Local. Two weekends ago they had a Moose and Mounty beer fest on which myself and another friend supported our neighbor to the north in. Some of the beers were quite tasty, however some were just down right disgusting. The worst was one which was a smoked amber which smelled like a camp fire and tasted like a fire mixed with bacon... yuk!! The worst thing is that the taste stayed with you.

Afterwards, we headed to a couple of the local trendy bars after some yummy Mexican food. :)

The next week added some spice to the mix with my flatmate who moved in two months ago deciding she missed Brisbane and is moving back... more on that later. The work week was crazy busy with 3 major workshops and meetings which I helped with.

On Saturday we continued our AGSM drinking culture with a pub crawl through the Rocks. Saturday and Sunday were spent relaxing in the sun, showing the flat, and being completely useless. After busy weeks I get the urge to sit around and to nothing at all on the weekends - it's a nice thing to be able to do every now and then. I managed to balance it with a dinner with a group of friends on Sunday night.

While this blog makes it seem like I have at least a mild amount of alcoholism... while I wouldn't deny this I am taking at least a week off to just let my body recover a bit.

My next blog will hopefully be about more happy topics. :)

Roller Coaster Week

This week has been a doosey. It started out with a weekend of great weather and fun times. Last weekend was the Aroma festival - which is a essentially lots of coffee, lots of chocolate, and other things which are very good to eat but bad for the waistline. :) They were also making a mural of Marlyn Monroe with different types of coffee so we were able to get a bit of art with the good eats.

Just some of the yummy stuff

The making of Marlyn

A great view - the Opera House and Camels... :)

After a great weekend the work week was a bit of a nightmare but I won't dwell on that - am moving onto the great weekend weather we had AGAIN.

Now I must say that it almost feels like the weather can't make up its mind. Today I was in a t-shirt and jeans, whereas during the week there were a couple days when I had to wear my big wool coat because it was so cold. However I'm not going to complain too much as long as the weekend weather is nice. :)

Yesterday I went and did a pub crawl with some friends from MBA school. We checked out an area of town which I've never really been to so it was good fun. As you do on a pub crawl, I drank more than expected but was luckily able to stay awake till past 10 - so a good 8 hours of moderate drinking. I must say I'm happy I can still hang some what like I used to.

Today I went to Bondi and had brunch with a couple girlfriends from work. Afterwards we walked along the beach and while we were very tempted to get in we didn't. If we had we would have missed the whales which were playing just off the shore.

Now more on Spain... as many of you might know my neice is going to study abroad in Spain from August till January. I've decided to go visit her over the Christmas and New Years break - YAY! :) I went to Spain back in the day but I think we spent maybe a total of 6 days between 3 cities so it was pretty hectic. As the details play out I will keep everyone posted, but for now am super excited!! :)

Knee Update

Right, so I realise it's been a while since I've done a update on my knee so here goes. In summary - all is going alright. Not fantastic but good.

There is still quite a bit of fluid which is limits my range of motion. I'm allowed to take my brace off when I'm at home or just around the office but still have to wear it in public or when I sleep. But I've become more ruthless with my physio as I'm past the point of caring and just want it to get better.

My physio is limited to 6 different exercises focusing on muscle strength in my quad and hamstring, but the thing that is really limiting me is the range of motion (hence the new approach). I can tell my physio isn't too happy about the lack of progress, so am taking the approach that as long as it doesn't hurt after I do the physio it should be all right.

I'm seeing the physio once a week and will see the surgeon next week - so hopefully I'll hear that all is going well.

On the work front things have been busy, busy, busy with me doing the work of a couple people until a new team member joins me. But I'm doing some really cool stuff which is exciting.

There are a couple other updates - Spain and Aroma festival on the weekend - but am completely knackered so will blog about those later.

Quick Trip to Melbourne

As a reward for a good year my team was flown to Melbourne for a day of some business and lots of play. After an early flight 6:20 AM we made our way to central Melbourne and a conference centre at Federation Square (think Trafalgar Square but in Melbourne).

During the day we were able to hear from the curator of the Tim Burton exhibit which is in town from the MOD in NY. After the talk we were allowed to go visit the exhibit which included many drawings, models, pieces and film strips from his variety of movies. While that type of thing is typically just up my alley - it's winter holidays for the schools so the exhibit was packed with kids and I was more afraid of getting a good bump and being knocked over. (My brace makes it easy to walk straight but any kind of sideways movement is increasingly more difficult.)

Later in the day we had an even more fascinating talk from Professor Mark Barry who is the architect working to finish the Sagrada de Familia in Barcelona. Now to provide the back story - I loved, LOVED this building and this architect when I was in Barcelona. He thinks so off the wall and creates things which you will never see anywhere else. Professor Barry spoke about how he is trying to work to determine what the original plan was for the building and then spoke about how they are going about putting that into place. With some of the modeling they are doing they are actually using aeronautical engineering programs.

The current schedule is for the Pope to officially open the main space of the church in November of this year, however there is a large central spire which isn't completed so the full building won't be completed until 2016 or so...

An inside picture of the church

After the day we had a great night out on the town only to realise that we were staying in one of the best hotels in the city. While we were sharing, the rooms were still absolutely amazing. We had a large bathtub which had a TV and windows to the outside. If only we weren't sharing rooms it would have been a great way to end a drunken night. :)

The Park Hyatt in Melbourne

I am now trying to figure out when I might be able to do another short trip. I'm trying to crunch the financials to see if I can make it to Spain for the holidays... but right now the potential outlook of being out of a large part of my debt by then is very appealing. Hopefully I'll be able to find a way to pinch some cash somewhere to make it happen.

After coming back yesterday I've had a relaxing and productive weekend. I finally bough a deck brush to clean the balcony - which was looking more like part of the bird's home than mine. I've also bought some paints and finally have an idea of what I want to paint for my living room and potentially my bedroom. :) Tonight I'm going to dinner at my friend Gloria's place, so will be trekking back to Kingsford - then it's back to work I go.