Seventeen Kilometres to SLQ: The Logistics of Ironed Shirts. #blogjune
The State Library is seventeen kilometres away from my brothers house by bike. That means it is forty-five minutes away if I cycle or about the same amount of time if I catch a train(which was a startling fact to realise). The difference between the two transportation methods is that one is slightly healthier for me and the other means I get into work in dry clothes, don't have to worry about sweat, a change of clothing or what shoes I'm wearing.
I used to actually take my leather shoes with me to the city in my backpack and change into them when I was working, except for the facts that
Volunteers at SLQ don't get a locker however we do have access to a cyclist area with a shower, an ironing board and some other utilities which make it a bit easier to get into work without looking like I've just rolled out of a gym. Summer this year was terrifyingly hot and sweaty so I struggled every week to get in looking actually acceptable for work.
Pulling it off required a few steps:
Employees at SLQ have lockers so they could store their gear a bit more permanently, like towels, changes of clothes, deodorant, making cycling into work easier and more convenient.
I managed to make it work for the most part, the convenience of having a bike in the inner city is really unbeatable, you can just go anywhere in almost no time at all. But my knee has been hurting again for the last few months, been doing exercises on the regular to try and get it working again. I've been able to ride on the flat but haven't tried hills very much yet.
My Day.
Day three without the internet and I'm doing pretty well. I woke up earlier than I expected because my brother decided to wake up early and wanted to wake me up so he opened and closed every door in the house a few dozen times until the noise woke me up. Great way to start the day.
I made him breakfast, got him ready for the day and brushed his teeth and did the usual. After he was up and away I got myself dressed, watched some news and did the laundry. However the wet season is making it impossible to dry anything so I put the clothes in a basket and left them in my car all day to use the dryer in the afternoon. Once I'd packed all the clothes away I then drove to Oxley train station at nine am and somehow, through some miracle of god or accident of fate, I somehow got a carpark at nine am on a weekday in the regular carpark at a trainstation.
Everytime I go to take a train I always check at Oxley just in case there is a spot, I've been there every week for months and never found one. Today my patience paid off and it felt great.
I was headed into the city to conduct a tour of the Distant Lines exhibition at SLQ, I'm meant to do one every four weeks and this week it was my turn. Last time I did one I ended up mucking up a few bits here and there and I really hoped I'd do better this time around. I think part of the problem I had last time was that I showed up at nearly nine am and had to kill two hours waiting for the tour to start which meant I had a bunch of nervous energy that didn't help me.
Today however I showed up at a little bit after ten and spent the hour or so I had to wait going over my notes for a novel I'm working on(my NaNoWriMo attempt from last year, I still haven't finished the notes outlining the conclusion, driving me nuts trying to make the ending seen natural but it is convoluted and bugging me a bit). When it was time to start I ended up with a group of three people, a lady named Barb who I was talking to before starting to get a gauge on how blind she was, she's nearly completely blind and dying of something and was in surprisingly good spirits about it she wanted to see the State Library before she died(not expected to last out to November apparently) so she was there to see whatever she could, there was also a married couple called Bob and Karen.
I took them up to level four of the library, that is where I've found it's best to really start the tour, it has all the information on the home front and things happening in Australia and specifically Brisbane during World War I, I walked them through what we have and how it was all set up. Showcasing a lot of the little details put into the displays and also some of the historical details about the times which are typically ignored in a lot of the tellings of the war experience.
After that we went down to the main hall where I showed them the rest of the exhibit, the married couple basically gave up on my tour pretty quickly as they started to read all the little information notes and signs so I took Barb around the rest of the room, showing her what we had, some of the details put into things and the histories of some of the people showcased in the exhibit. All in all I think this tour went a hell of a lot better than the last one and I'm looking forwards to the next tour I'll be doing in four weeks time.
Once I was done at SLQ I had to take a train back to my car and missed one train by one minute because I stopped for food at 7-Eleven and the next train behind it was seven minutes late so I had to sit at Roma Street for twenty-two minutes with nothing to do and nothing to read except my own notes on a novel I can't work out an ending to.
Eventually the train showed up, I got to my car and then drove straight to School to volunteer for the afternoon.
I spent most of the afternoon just fiddling with the overdue notification system to see if I could get it to work slightly better than it was already doing. I think I've nearly got it working right now. Next week is the last week of term so all books are to be returned to the library before Friday.
There were a bunch of books on the trolley to be stacked but I'm not meant to do it anymore because the teacher who isn't a librarian who's just come back from Maternity leave needs something to do for two hours every morning. This means that filling the shelves is now her job leaving me with scant to do so I left a bit earlier than planned and went to my dad's place to use the dryer to get my and my brothers clothes for tomorrow dry, stopping off along the way to get a kebab.
Once the clothes were dry I went back to my brothers place and made dinner, this Tuna-Bake thing you get in jars, just add a can of tuna and some cooked pasta spirals and cheese and it's done in twenty or so minutes. I watched Origin after that, looking forwards to the final game in three weeks time.
YouTube Clip of the Day.
Why do I find this hilarious? I've watched this small clip a few hundred times now and I still crack up laughing every time.
I used to actually take my leather shoes with me to the city in my backpack and change into them when I was working, except for the facts that
- No-one looks at your shoes.
- They weigh only a bit less than a water-bottle.
- They were uncomfortable to walk around in after cycling.
Volunteers at SLQ don't get a locker however we do have access to a cyclist area with a shower, an ironing board and some other utilities which make it a bit easier to get into work without looking like I've just rolled out of a gym. Summer this year was terrifyingly hot and sweaty so I struggled every week to get in looking actually acceptable for work.
Pulling it off required a few steps:
- firstly I had to make sure I had all my clothes as well as a belt(I forgot my belt one uncomfortable week and had to hitch my pants up every couple of minutes all afternoon)
- I had to have a backpack which could hold not only the clothes but also a towel(usually just a small tea-towel to save on space and weight)
- I needed space for my comic books as well as something water-proof to hold them in in case it rained
- I had to have some cash on hand for when my bike broke down or crapped out on me(the chain broke a few weeks ago while I was riding, the tyres pop every now and then, bikes have a lot of scary ways they can just stop working)
Employees at SLQ have lockers so they could store their gear a bit more permanently, like towels, changes of clothes, deodorant, making cycling into work easier and more convenient.
I managed to make it work for the most part, the convenience of having a bike in the inner city is really unbeatable, you can just go anywhere in almost no time at all. But my knee has been hurting again for the last few months, been doing exercises on the regular to try and get it working again. I've been able to ride on the flat but haven't tried hills very much yet.
My Day.
Day three without the internet and I'm doing pretty well. I woke up earlier than I expected because my brother decided to wake up early and wanted to wake me up so he opened and closed every door in the house a few dozen times until the noise woke me up. Great way to start the day.
I made him breakfast, got him ready for the day and brushed his teeth and did the usual. After he was up and away I got myself dressed, watched some news and did the laundry. However the wet season is making it impossible to dry anything so I put the clothes in a basket and left them in my car all day to use the dryer in the afternoon. Once I'd packed all the clothes away I then drove to Oxley train station at nine am and somehow, through some miracle of god or accident of fate, I somehow got a carpark at nine am on a weekday in the regular carpark at a trainstation.
Everytime I go to take a train I always check at Oxley just in case there is a spot, I've been there every week for months and never found one. Today my patience paid off and it felt great.
I was headed into the city to conduct a tour of the Distant Lines exhibition at SLQ, I'm meant to do one every four weeks and this week it was my turn. Last time I did one I ended up mucking up a few bits here and there and I really hoped I'd do better this time around. I think part of the problem I had last time was that I showed up at nearly nine am and had to kill two hours waiting for the tour to start which meant I had a bunch of nervous energy that didn't help me.
Today however I showed up at a little bit after ten and spent the hour or so I had to wait going over my notes for a novel I'm working on(my NaNoWriMo attempt from last year, I still haven't finished the notes outlining the conclusion, driving me nuts trying to make the ending seen natural but it is convoluted and bugging me a bit). When it was time to start I ended up with a group of three people, a lady named Barb who I was talking to before starting to get a gauge on how blind she was, she's nearly completely blind and dying of something and was in surprisingly good spirits about it she wanted to see the State Library before she died(not expected to last out to November apparently) so she was there to see whatever she could, there was also a married couple called Bob and Karen.
I took them up to level four of the library, that is where I've found it's best to really start the tour, it has all the information on the home front and things happening in Australia and specifically Brisbane during World War I, I walked them through what we have and how it was all set up. Showcasing a lot of the little details put into the displays and also some of the historical details about the times which are typically ignored in a lot of the tellings of the war experience.
After that we went down to the main hall where I showed them the rest of the exhibit, the married couple basically gave up on my tour pretty quickly as they started to read all the little information notes and signs so I took Barb around the rest of the room, showing her what we had, some of the details put into things and the histories of some of the people showcased in the exhibit. All in all I think this tour went a hell of a lot better than the last one and I'm looking forwards to the next tour I'll be doing in four weeks time.
Once I was done at SLQ I had to take a train back to my car and missed one train by one minute because I stopped for food at 7-Eleven and the next train behind it was seven minutes late so I had to sit at Roma Street for twenty-two minutes with nothing to do and nothing to read except my own notes on a novel I can't work out an ending to.
Eventually the train showed up, I got to my car and then drove straight to School to volunteer for the afternoon.
I spent most of the afternoon just fiddling with the overdue notification system to see if I could get it to work slightly better than it was already doing. I think I've nearly got it working right now. Next week is the last week of term so all books are to be returned to the library before Friday.
There were a bunch of books on the trolley to be stacked but I'm not meant to do it anymore because the teacher who isn't a librarian who's just come back from Maternity leave needs something to do for two hours every morning. This means that filling the shelves is now her job leaving me with scant to do so I left a bit earlier than planned and went to my dad's place to use the dryer to get my and my brothers clothes for tomorrow dry, stopping off along the way to get a kebab.
Once the clothes were dry I went back to my brothers place and made dinner, this Tuna-Bake thing you get in jars, just add a can of tuna and some cooked pasta spirals and cheese and it's done in twenty or so minutes. I watched Origin after that, looking forwards to the final game in three weeks time.
YouTube Clip of the Day.
Why do I find this hilarious? I've watched this small clip a few hundred times now and I still crack up laughing every time.
Click to view