a great illustration

here’s a great story to show the smallness of melbourne (and actually… the world).

a friend of mine in london is buying a flat in melbourne. i offered to go over and check it out so she sends me an email with the contact at the estate agent. it turns out the name of the estate agent is familiar to me. it’s the same agent that my x flatmates mentioned. the x flatmates that didnt want anyone to know they were gay, that were receiving late payment notices under the door but telling me everything was fine, that tried to screw me out of $200 because i didn’t give them their keys back asap (after my repeated attempts to return the keys).

and now i have the estate agent’s name appear on my computer. hmm. i might just have to have a convo with her about some of her tenants.

air NZ – $1236

from LA to AU, thru feb 2004 u can fly on air nz for U$1236 roundtrip. and then in april and may u can fly for $1120.

also, u can fly cheaper if u go to NZ first. then it’s U$1148 for the summer (my summer, ur winter) and $928 for april/may. but i doubt u can get a flight from nz to au for less than the difference in price so ur probably better just coming to AU.

rugby

the past, month (?), australia has been hosting the world rugby games. games were held in various cities including melbourne. a kiwi friend of mine is a big rugby fan. she took me to a pub a few months ago to watch the equiv of the superbowl of rugby for new zealand. i spent most of the time in another room eating (cause i was starving) but from what i did see, i liked it.

on saturday, we went to a shed. like an airplane hanger shed down by the river. it was pretty large and packed. we walked past the doors shortly after the game began and there was a line outside to get in.

it was a great game. i don’t know shit about rugby and had to keep asking questions but it rocked. it’s the brute strength of usa football, the blood of hockey, speed of soccer/footy and the boys wear tight clothing w/o padding.

woooo hoooo

i took pix. will post. but now it’s bedtime.

what’s important

last nite was the world rugby final. apparently 4.5 million australians watched the game. last wknd was the australian idol final (u know … that singing thing). apparently 4 million australians watched that.

btw, there’s 19 mil in the country.

danger danger

if you ever look at travel guides to australia, one of the things you’ll notice about every guide out there is the warnings concerning the wildlife. apparently au has the most deadly, poisonous and dangerous critters in the world. spiders, snakes, jellyfish, sharks just to name a few.

but hello, i live in the city and there’s no way i’m getting myself out camping in the wildlife where i’ll run into this stuff. so i havent paid much attention. except for when i was here on holiday and tried surfing, scuba, snorkel. then i was very aware of sharks, jellyfish (which i didnt see) and stingrays (which i did).

a couple weeks ago one of the girls comes into work and tells us how she woke up at 4am because her lip tingled. went bk to sleep and woke up again shortly after because she was in pain. when she looked in the mirror her lip was really swollen. so she goes to the hospital.

now, would u do that? i sure as hell wouldn’t. first i prob wouldnt even wake up to a tingle or a swollen lip. but if i did i’d think it was weird but i wouldnt end up going to the hospital.

turns out it’s good she did because she was bitten by a white tail spider. she spent like a day n a half at the hospital and it would seem they told her the following:

-it’s good she got there quickly so they could give her some anti venom shit
-they like to crawl in your throat and lay their eggs
-the typical human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime
-the white tail bastard causes this condition where ur skin falls off. ie it kills the cells. and apparently is v nasty.

she had to get a bunch of shots of stuff.

ok. HOW FUCKING GROSS!!!! can u imagine? i swear i’m buying a gimp mask or a fencing mask and sleeping in that from now on.

feels like christmas

early this past week, the weather was great. sunny and 80s. i think it even hit 90 one day. humid too.

i’m standing there at the juice bar with my coworker and she said ‘it’s starting to feel like christmas with this heat’.

that just struck me as funny.

salads

salad bars are everywhere in manhattan. every corner deli has the sneezeguard type salad bar which carries everything from fresh fruit to salad material to greasy chinese and fried bits. there’s also a ton of the ‘pot o salad’ type salad bars. here u grab a plastic bowl of greens (mixed or just lettuce or something fancy) and then tell the person behind the counter what you want in ur salad. you a flat rate for the bowl and x amt of toppings and then if you go over that number or want something special like meat then you pay extra.

i LOVE these salad things. at my last job i prob had salad 4 out of 5 days a week. here in melbourne i couldn’t find anything like this. no one had even heard of such a thing.

first i think it comes down to their definition of ’salad’. they think of salad like the brits do. it’s this thing that you put on a sandwich and it consists of soggy lettuce and maybe some soggy tomatoes and always corn. instead of saying ‘i’d like a ham sandwich with lettuce and onion and mayo”, you’d say ‘i’ll have a ham sandwich with salad’ (and butter. the brits love their butter on sandwiches. they even tried to put it on peanut butter sandwiches).

if you’re eating out, you can get a ’salad’ with your meal. and it’s generally a lot better than the lettuce tomato carrot crap variety you’ll get in the states. but it’s always seen as a side thing, not what you’d actually eat!

(kind of an aside here… a few months ago i waited on a couple from CT and she ordered a salad and he a bowl a soup plus their entrees or mains as they say here. i brought him his soup and noticed she kept looking at me so i went over. she wanted to know where her salad was and thats when i realised a cultural difference. here u don’t have salad as ur appetiser. it would always be served with dinner).

so anyway, there’s no where u can get a good salad from here. until just a few weeks ago. now i’ve found 1 place that does the whole ‘u pick ingredients’ thing. i checked them out today. they don’t have the greenery choices like u would at home. the greens looked very lettucey and kind of icky. and they didn’t have as many choices as at home (i noted a lack of stilton, walnuts, grapes, bacon bits and a very small selection of dressings).

but here’s the great thing… (and after bashing the brits, you’re the ones that will love this)… the place is named…. TOSSERS!! i swear to god. ill have to take a pix!

coffee

ever since i was sick a month or so ago, i’ve cut down on my coffee intake. i realised i had been drinking probably 5 cups a day and not always eating incredibly well and figured i should do better.

but lately i’ve noticed i’m losing energy pretty quickly in the evening. definitely by 10p i’m feeling it and normally i wouldn’t go to sleep til at least 1a and more like 2-4a. tonite i was at my computer at like 5p and was thinking about a nap. not good.

there’s another coffee thing going on. melbourne has a great cafe/coffee culture. there’s all these cool places tucked away on laneways and it’s pretty much all good coffee. there is no such thing as the pot of coffee that sits there for hours. in fact, there’s no such thing as a pot of coffee. it’s all espresso machine stuff. because of this and because of the poor student thing, i haven’t been going to starbucks that often (my addiction since it was the only place u could get good coffee in london and there were 30 million of them around in nyc). the last few times i have gone, i wasn’t that thrilled with the taste of the coffee. oh no! another assimulation issue.

although tonite i noticed they had the xmas decorations out, were playing xmas music and YES they now have the gingerbread latte!!!! which i love so guess ill be there a lot more in the next couple months.

meeting with finance teacher

i know i haven’t finished my note about the finance exam and why i’m pissed off but here’s the updated bit…

I met w the finance teacher yesterday morning. it seems i got 40.5 on my test n u need 50 to pass. At least i got to look at my test.

I did rather well on the essay question about leasing n security types. I did ok on the inventory mgmt question. i used the wrong number in an equation n then used the same number several times over b/c answers build on other answers so i lost pts for that. Only 1 formula did i totally screw up. The leverage question i did pretty crap on so ill be reviewing that tonite. he asked if i missed that class. Um no i was there 4 every class. And then we get to the cost of capital question. This is the one i knew less well and ran out of time on so with a 6 part question i think i did 1.5 parts. This is one of the questions he said i did v poorly on. Well no shit. Told him i ran out of time n he told me fridays test wont be as long. Hmm. Wonder if that means less parts to each question since hes said its covering the same topics.

i also got the speech bout how last semester no one was allowed to retake. N how not everyone is retaking esp if u didnt show up 4 classes. keeping up standards n such. All reasonable n i appreciate the chance to retake but im still pretty nervous. also wondering why there is a change in policy. Found out today about someone else who will retake on friday. n realised they hv us in the auditorium so i guess there is a reasonable number of people who failed.

I talked to a classmate who failed n had to retake the accounting class last semester n has now failed the test again. this person gets 2 retake the acct test but i wonder what happens if they fail that too. Thats my biggest nightmare- go thru this again n not pass. Is there a patron saint of financial mgmt i can light candles or pray to?

air nz – $998

these are still very good deals kids. so fucking pack your bags!!!!!!

U$998 up til dec 5 and then jan & feb for U$1236. and you can stop over in nz or even tahiti.

go here and book by the 18th of nov