Journal Entries
Friday 15 September 2000
Posted Sep 15, 2000
So that was the Opening Ceremony...
!
I liked the impromptu (at least to all of us) 'celebration of 100 years of female participation in the Olympic Games', but my favourite bit still has to be the beginning of the performance by the marching band(s). Amid the clamour of the drummers could clearly be heard the crowd bawling 'Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!' That just about made my night...
. The welcome and smoking ceremony by the Aborigines from Arnhem Land was the only bit that made me cry, though, although the march past by the united Korean team also came close. Maybe I'm getting more somnolent in my old age...
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Latest reply: Sep 15, 2000
Wednesday 13 September 2000
Posted Sep 13, 2000
The Olympic Games football kicked off tonight, and Australia was beaten, marginally, by a flukey Italian team with a lucky goal. I suspect the Australians are in for a lot of that sort of thing over the next couple of weeks...!
I had one of the most disconcerting experiences of my adult life at the gym, this afternoon. I was talking to one of the other gym regulars while warming up prior to the evening aerobic class, and he stopped me as I was engaging in conversation to inform me that he was ‘not gay', with the clear implication that he was working under the assumption that I was, and that I was conversing with him for the sole purpose of cracking on to him. I was somewhat stunned, to put it mildly. His suspicion and hostility were overwhelming, and I simply had no idea that people would even be able to form that impression of me. I was very nearly choking on my own bile as I listened to the poor guy apologise for his gaffe, once I had corrected the misapprehension. The apology was almost more offensive than the misapprehension itself, given my friendship with a lot of gay people and my limited understanding of the issues involved, but by then I couldn't really trust my own judgement about what was right and what was wrong in sociability. I just smiled, nodded, and backed cautiously away. I am now very confused, and I don't like being confused like that...
On a more positive note, the weather today was fabulous, clear, bright and warm, and C.I.T. have evidently been given the go-ahead for the Fitness Instructor's course, as the bill for the course appeared in my letter box. I am still unsure about C.I.T., though, and I will have to ring up to be sure the course is really happening before I commit money to it...
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Latest reply: Sep 13, 2000
Monday 11 September 2000
Posted Sep 11, 2000
I've rung the Tenants' Advice Service, on the recommendation of my housemate, and they assure us that we can win any conflict with the estate agents over whether or not we should be allowed to keep living in our house. I am sure that they are right, but I want to avoid conflict if possible - I'd prefer to be able to preserve my bond, and my own self-image as a good tenant. It's reassuring to have somebody indicate that they believe in me, though.
The weather has been good. Sunday was a beautiful day, although it's meant to rain again today. I didn't ride around much, because I was too busy being disturbed about the prospect of being kicked out of the house, but it would have been a perfect opportunity, I suspect. I think, from the synoptic charts on the weather maps, that next weekend will also be OK, though, and the opening ceremony for the Games will turn out all right.
I had a long and involved chat with Anya, yesterday. Anya's another of my friends from the gym, and she's a good reminder that, even when things are at their worst so far, they can happen even worse and in even greater numbers to others! Because of the lovely weather yesterday, though, we sat in the driveway, under the sun, for an hour after coming back from Hudson's café, before I even thought to invite her in for some more coffee. We had a nice, long chat about life's exigencies - of which she seems to have a fair few more than me - drank some coffee, talked some more about astrology, Taoism and life's chances and vagaries, and then she went home. Beautiful day! It was a relief to be able to talk about something so straightforward and interesting, with an articulate person in my own dining room, and my dining table had not ever been used like that - as all dining tables should be used - before.
It's clouded over again, though, and the rent's due. Why are Mondays like this?
P.S. The estate agents rang me back and told me that ‘the owners' have allowed us to stay, on the condition that we finish fixing the problems. Like, ‘duuhh!'. Re-inspection's on the 27thof September. Glory hallelujah!
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Latest reply: Sep 11, 2000
Friday 8 September 2000
Posted Sep 8, 2000
The really interesting news today was not the interview - which I really quite enjoyed, as a conversation between professionals, even if I didn't actually get the job (I won't really know until next week, but I think I was not up to what they wanted, even if I did have cogent things to say about most of what they asked!) - but the re-inspection of our place by the estate agents: I think I might have been evicted, for the first time in ten years of house renting!
The story, for posterity, goes like this(#). The agents last came to inspect the house three weeks ago, as I noted at the time. They asked us to fix the hole in the wall, which was expected, and which, ultimately, we did. They also asked us to remove the cobwebs around the walls, and to put hotplate protectant on the stove. These we also did. This is where the story is complicated, though. The re-inspection date arrived without me having noticed it had come, requiring me to beg a week's extension as we hadn't even started fixing the hole in the wall at that stage. The week's extension having been granted, I think expectations may have been raised that a really superlative job would be done on the stove and the cobwebs, rather than the casual application of protectant and wipe round the walls which I thought were warranted. In any case, the wall-patching job was not entirely complete by the time the agents came, either, as the plaster used to fill in the hole had not been able to dry in the cold, damp conditions which set in last night (maybe an omen? *note to self: hindsight 20/20...;- )*). All together, I think the inspecting agent went to some lengths to demonstrate that she was somewhat disappointed with our, and specifically my, efforts. The question of why this slight disappointment should necessitate eviction, however, has been shrouded in bureaucracy and "notices to improve". An exception could not be made for our case, evidently, in spite of the simple fact that the "notices to improve" were entirely arbitrary to begin with (move the car off the front lawn, clean the stove, brush away the cobwebs, fix the hole in the wall). It seems very much as though we are being eased out of the property because we are not paying the agents enough, and in spite of the deficiencies of the house itself, about which I was unable to get a word in to the agent today. Rumours of house sales have been floating about, and we've been receiving offers to buy (which we, unfortunately, can do nothing about: I'd love to sell somebody a lemon like this place...*vindictive, I know, but the b******s should be the ones who pay, not me!*) in our letterbox...
All in all, a slightly disappointing day, but my expectations were not overly high to begin with! I am more disappointed about the likely missing out on the job than I am about the house, given my ongoing dissatisfaction with my housemate and my domicile. The portended eviction is more of an inconvenience than a heartbreak, but it's still a bit of a nuisance. I am slightly annoyed that our extremely good rental record and general compliance with everything that has been asked of us have not been taken into account, and I am only a little excited at the prospect of trying to find another place to live, but at least it will get me out of here! I may finish up having to crash at a friend's for a while, though, and house rental is certainly not value for money round here at the moment.
The trials sent to try us, I suppose...
(#) Bear in mind that, although I am trying to make this account as objective as possible, most of the data informing it are generated from my side, and hence the account is doubtless somewhat skewed. The mere fact that I've been unable to find out what the whole story is, however, suggests a sub-agenda about which I can only speculate.
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Latest reply: Sep 8, 2000
Thursday 7 September 2000
Posted Sep 8, 2000
Rain, rain, go away... The rain is coming down in soft torrents. It's grey and horrible. Apparently the temperature outside is only around eight degrees C. The wind is gone, but Canberra can still be a bitch, like that.
We've nearly fixed the hole in the wall. It took a bit of fiddling, which my flatmate did, seeing as he has the experience at that sort of thing. Ultimately, however, with a bit more Spakfilla and a little patience, the filling job was done. We're sanding it down before the agent comes to look at it tomorrow, but if the agent complains about the quality of the job, I think I'm just going to move.
Interview tomorrow. I was invited in to the Memorial today to have a chat with one of the people who'll be interviewing me, and in the process met another of the people who'll be on the panel. I also saw the Reference Centre for the first time, which was interesting. The documentation of Australians in the various conflicts in which they've served is extensive, and filed and sorted well. Most enquiries at the Reference Centre are apparently personal - people looking for information about cousins, uncles, fathers etc. and what they each did in ‘the war' - whichever war that happens to be. The film and photographic collections are also quite extensive and interesting, but I suspect that the most useful collection of the lot is the cartographic one - trench maps, battlefield schematics, operational plans, etc. Some of the more recent of these are still classified material, too, which is interesting. I was intrigued, although not really surprised, by the close relationship of the Memorial with the Australian Archives, and their extensive interdependence.
The Memorial's web site is one of the keys to its access. The web site is here:-
http://www.awm.gov.au/
and allows searching of all the relevant catalogs. More information is continuously being added to the site, and in many respects it is at least as relevant a reference work as the ‘Guide itself, although with a more graphic interface. I like the prospect of working within such an ‘information-heavy' site, where the quality of the answers that the service provides is at least as important as how fast they're given. There should be more like it.
It will be interesting to see how this interview goes, but I'll be sure to let people know...!
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Latest reply: Sep 8, 2000
Hypoman
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