From Wednesday, August 4 at 1:30pm

I wrote this on a piece of paper (*gasp*) last week and am only now getting around to typing it up for this blog.

I'm sitting on the lawn with my back to the Quadrangle and the sun. The path to Victoria Park is ahead of me but I'm quite comfortable here so no reason to sit in the park. The birds in the tree behind me are screeching. A little earlier I watched a magpie chase a cockatoo out of that tree. The lawn is scattered with relaxing students, singles pairs or groups of three. It's a popular place to relax between classes. Unfortunately the sun keeps hiding behind the clouds and the wind picks up so certain periods of time are not so comfortable today. But when the sun is out, I like it here. My chocalate (glazed) donut is quite yummy, but I'm not sure I agree with the claim that Donut King donuts are "The Greatest Tasting Donuts in the World."

Yesterday was my day off. I slept in after a night where I kept waking up. I don't know why I couldn't sleep straight through, I fell back asleep quickly enough. the only really important thing I did yesterday was hand over my bond for my new place. I went to OZtalk expecting Ching to show up but she hadn't realised that this week her class would run to 5:00pm, when OZtalk finishes. The topic was Aussie slang, and while the guy talking about it was really amusing he didn't say much that I didn't already know and without Ching it was just me, and bunch of ESL Asian students and an Italian. The Asian students were pretty funny though. they'd repeat all the sounds, comparing the Aussie way to the American sound, and giggle and write everything down as though it was all a fascinating revelatino for them (and it probably was). I think I had more fun listening to and watching them than I did the presentation. As the clock drew close to 5:00, I was getting really worried about Ching. She was supposed to meet me at 4:00 and we had to leave at 5:00 to walk to the new house. She showed up breathless at 5:02 and we took off. [side note: I don't think the Coke tastes the same as in Canada... I could be wrong though, it's been awhile since I've had straight Coke]

We had a list of things to check at the house, mainly what exactly was going to be in the kitchen so we'd know what we'd need to get. We were planning to casually asked if he was planning to get a microwave, just out of "curiosity," because we'd noted that it was the one serious (and expensive) deficiency in the house. Imagine our surprise when we walked in and there was a microwave on the counter! There was also an electric kettle that hadn't been there before. "That wasn't there before was it?" We thought we might be crazy or dreaming. "Oh no, I just put it in. And the kettle. You won't have to buy much for this house."

Score!

Alright, back to real time. I should probably explain why we were at a new house in the first place. When we moved in to the first house, we were given the impression that Phil, who's on the lease, was going to be there until well after we were back in Canada. As it turns out, he's leaving at the end of August. Sharon was thinking about taking over the lease, but her credit rating is terrible and she'd never be approved. And Ching and I definately can't afford to put our names on a lease for a house we'd be leaving in under six months, with several empty rooms that may or may not have ended up occupied. That, and Sharon went totally psycho after we moved in, wrecking the house and smoking inside after swearing she only ever smoked outside. And then the washing machine, which was fine when we moved in, decided to work only with super hot water (very bad for clothes requiring cold water ONLY, which is most of our wardrobes) and sounds like it's about to explode during the spin cycles. Basically, it made much more sense to just move rather than stick around and pray, because that's about all we could have done. Fortunately, we found an adorable little house in Annandale, not too far away, and are totally in love with it. It's newly renovated, and the best part is that the rooms have actual closets with sliding, MIRRORED doors. We move in this weekend, starting Friday, but it will probably take several trips over the weekend to get everything shifted. The third room is now occupied by a postgrad business student from Delhi. We got along with him okay in the fifteen minutes we had to chat, so let's just hope living with him works out. We figure if he can make us Indian curry, we can forgive pretty much anything.