Back from Brisbane

I’ve spent the last 5 or so days visiting the House of Lesbos is Brisvegas and am now back home settling in before I head back to work.

I had a wonderful time staying with Becky and Bec as they showed me the sights and sounds of their city. We managed to squeeze five movies which I will attempt to summarise now:

1 - The Mist: This movie smelt almost as bad as the man in front of us who was massaging his feet throughout it’s painfully exaggerated running time.
2 - Alien Vs Predator Requiem: We weren’t exactly sure which was an Alien, which was a predator and which were the real life bugs that were eating our flesh at the outdoor moonlight cinema, but I stood and applauded anyway.
3 - Predator: Get to the chopper before the plot runs out!
4 - 40 Year Old Virgin: Jane Lynch was the star in our household.
5 - Lust, Caution: A walk down memory lane for the many elderly patrons in the cinema, not reminiscent of the ’40s, just of their now stale sex lives.

The ladies looked after me and showed me just a glimpse of what Queensland has to offer, including far too many news anchor men with moustaches. I also caught Phantom of the Opera in Brisbane and although we had the understudy for Phantom, the sound guy was nice enough to consistently play the wrong tapes so we at least heard Anthony Warlow’s voice coming through the speakers.

I came back home to a couple of days of domestic bliss before heading back to work on Friday, my first day as a permanent employee. After not hearing anything from the correspondence uni, I decided to give uni a break for a year and focus on other things. I found out a few days before I left for my holiday that when I returned I would be in one of the permanent roles. I’m still doing the same job, but now getting paid less for it.

A day or two after I returned home I had received a package from University of New England offering me a position in the correspondence Dip Ed. I looked it all up and decided that there just wasn’t going to be the time I needed to do the coursework, as well as the ability to do the large amount of prac teaching and the odd visit to Armidale for on-campus classes.

I always said that once I had a steady income (a prospect which seemed positively diabolical) I’d look towards moving out. When I broached the idea with my parents my mother tried to point out how difficult it will be with scares such as “You’ll have to wash your clothes and buy towels.” In spite of those seemingly insurmountable challenges, I’m quite excited about the prospect. On one hand I think of how it traps me into a working life for the foreseeable future, but on the other hand I am fairly desperate for space. It might not be my end goal just yet, whatever that is, but it’s either a stepping stone or a detour, I’m not sure which yet.

So far 2008 has already taken me down some new paths and changed my plans a few times. I don’t know where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing by the end of the year, but I’ll try to remember to write about it here.