update on my way to brisbane (2nd time lucky)
Hey there Journal,
It's been a while since I've written, and indeed I haven't written much in this past few months - which have certainly been busy although I am still in good spirits and feeling positive about life right now.
What's consuming me/what feels important?
- Well, firstly and foremost, I'm in the process of moving house at the moment. More specifically, I guess I've effectively moved in with Miri now, having stayed in Balwyn North every day for two weeks now - and I guess I am starting to learn to call Balwyn 'home' now. That said, many of my things still remain at Alan Street, and probably will for some time yet - so I suppose whether or not I've moved depends on how you define the phrase.
So far, everything's been fairly easy - albeit there's a lot of logistics, and there probably will be for at least the next month or so to follow. There's been some late nights due to me moving things over slowly, lunchtimes full of organizing banks (for home loan transfers) and paperwork/researching with regards to property stuff. It's fair to say that I'm in the midst of 'settling down' into life in the east, however it's been a slow process.
Amongst this, life has involved a LOT of music. I've been practicing piano a lot in lieu of a wedding gig that Miri and I played at last weekend (Jordy and Jade's wedding), and it went relatively well - I was somewhat happy with my playing. In addition, my beloved band have done a few gigs to follow up on our Tasmania tour, and at the moment I also write whilst on a plane to Brisbane, for another large-ish "Green Music Australia" show up there tonight, with Mal and the band.
I do wish to elaborate on my band for a second here: I love them to bits... or rather, my love and affinity for the group is only growing. There's a few reasons for this: (a) Firstly, I feel like we've all been getting to know our music better, and with that we sit more comfortably into our parts for each song. (b) Mal's playing with us a lot these days, and that in itself is breathtakingly amazing. I feel like I have a strong, healthy working relationship (not to mention friendship) with Mal Webb, and it's always a pleasure to play with someone of his stature. In addition to Mal's sheer musicality, Kylie's musicianship is improving out of sight (it was always strong), largely because she's been playing a bucketload over the past 12 months. (c) that combined with some edits to our show which is helping to make it more fun / less boring / shorter for the audience... means that it's starting to really feel surprisingly... well... musical.
This afternoon, I'll happily be getting to know a Kurzweil PC88, which I am stupidly looking forward to playing - it's a delicious instrument. (a note on logistics: I mised our tintenbar gig and therefore one-half of our tour, when a jetstar plane spent five hours faffing about before cancelling itself yesterday afternoon, instead of flying me to brissy for the northern NSW gig. I was disappointed that I wasn't able to see Uncle Trevor and Aunty Nola (and Jill+Greg), however I can at still fly today and make the brisbane gig - and also catch up with Uncle Peter + my dear friend James, basically because I am rich (which is really what it comes down to. Flying and making music, after all, are two great privileges, and I never take them for granted. A quick aside: I did a recent online quiz to see how rich I actually am compared to the rest of the world
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-am-i/
, and I fell within the very top 5%. I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few weeks, ever since I took the test).
Cello (another luxury) is also coming along well, although still kind of slowly. My teacher is so, so encouraging and supportive, and that is wonderful - mostly because I find myself sometimes getting frustrated with just how 'slowly slowly' it is progressing. To be fair, life in 2017 has a huge breadth of things going on - perhaps an unprecidented amount - and so I need to be realistic about my ability to invest very little more than a few hours per fortnight into practice. Sometimes I feel like I am making notable improvements (certainly I'm started to get used to the idea of getting my brain to concentrate on bowing AND fingering at the same time, and apparently my fingers are starting to find their rightful places)... but other times it amazes me how often I play out of tune. A selfish, self-indulgent part of me likes researching new string technologies and theorizing which core strings combination will bring out the best sound for my not-quite-entry-level-but-kind-of-almost cello, and the utilitarian-humanitarian hates that I'm thinking of spending another ~$400 on myself. Maybe after tax return time, if europe doesn't completely blow my budget and there aren't too many surprise costs in the meantime.
The world's getting hotter, and I don't feel somewhat sad because like I am doing very much about it at the moment. (Although that said, I've almost completed divesting my home loan - which I know is a HUGE thing on-paper, and I'm also moving in with Miri and I look forward to greening our home soon, in other ways).
Europe - that's a happening thing. Today I just messaged Amie (in London), and I also decided that I would book a car for my UK time (which will make life way easier during our time there). I'm yet to book the inter-europe stuff yet, although my accommodation is largely sorted. I'm a little concerned that my trip will be somewhat hurried, however I will be able to tick everything off my bucketlist, which means that it will be incredible). Of note, I'm particularly excited about being able to attend Edison'17 demoparty (in Stockholm), and also the Montreux Jazz Festival with claudio, in Switzerland. High on my bucket list is also my visit to Belgrade to finally meet Igor - I think Serbia's going to be fascinating.
Jeebus... we're starting our decent to Brisbane now - we left Melbourne 1.5hrs ago. Planes are amazing. For what it's worth: skyBus is amazing, too.
Miri's 30th happens next weekend, and I'm starting to feel really good about that - it'll be a lovely party, if a very big affair. When I initially moved into Miri's place (about a week ago), I was initially a little too concerned with 'doing everything' to make the party happen - and that meant that I found myself asking some important questions to myself about boundries and not falling into the habit of being the guy who's responsible for doing 100% of the housework/logistics. Here, my band and music practices have been really important acts of independence (almost?) - they've helped me feel more balanced and more 'like me'.
Something else that's been a defiant act of independence lately: is work. For the past few months, I've been on the development team with the UoM Linux SoE, and although I consider myself a 'junior' on this team (for I maintain that my linux skills are intermediate at best), It's been a pleasure to be a part of this team - and a very rewarding experience. Even though some members of my team are worlds more technical that I will ever be in this area, I think that they've been impressed with my work rate and my knowledge of greater university processes, and I hence feel like I've been able to offer something of value to our team dynamic. I especially feel like I have a great working relationship with Rob, who just happens to be the head of Unix Engineering. It's such a great experience to work directly with something you are passionate about - it really makes me want to re-commence my study and then reward myself with a centos tattoo.
Family stuff is largely faring well, albeit with two notable exceptions to this. Firstly, my Grandma is unwell, having taken a fall at easter time. In addition to being pretty injured, her dementia is starting to get more and more severe. Secondly, my aunty Kathleen's cancer keeps spreading, and continues to go from worse to worse-again. I feel like I haven't been able to pay much attention to the dogs during the past few days, and I hope that the weather is nice enough for me to spend a bit more time with them (and to walk them) during the coming weeks.
Time to shut down - a little turbulance on descent. Looking forward to music and friends over the next few days.
It's been a while since I've written, and indeed I haven't written much in this past few months - which have certainly been busy although I am still in good spirits and feeling positive about life right now.
What's consuming me/what feels important?
- Well, firstly and foremost, I'm in the process of moving house at the moment. More specifically, I guess I've effectively moved in with Miri now, having stayed in Balwyn North every day for two weeks now - and I guess I am starting to learn to call Balwyn 'home' now. That said, many of my things still remain at Alan Street, and probably will for some time yet - so I suppose whether or not I've moved depends on how you define the phrase.
So far, everything's been fairly easy - albeit there's a lot of logistics, and there probably will be for at least the next month or so to follow. There's been some late nights due to me moving things over slowly, lunchtimes full of organizing banks (for home loan transfers) and paperwork/researching with regards to property stuff. It's fair to say that I'm in the midst of 'settling down' into life in the east, however it's been a slow process.
Amongst this, life has involved a LOT of music. I've been practicing piano a lot in lieu of a wedding gig that Miri and I played at last weekend (Jordy and Jade's wedding), and it went relatively well - I was somewhat happy with my playing. In addition, my beloved band have done a few gigs to follow up on our Tasmania tour, and at the moment I also write whilst on a plane to Brisbane, for another large-ish "Green Music Australia" show up there tonight, with Mal and the band.
I do wish to elaborate on my band for a second here: I love them to bits... or rather, my love and affinity for the group is only growing. There's a few reasons for this: (a) Firstly, I feel like we've all been getting to know our music better, and with that we sit more comfortably into our parts for each song. (b) Mal's playing with us a lot these days, and that in itself is breathtakingly amazing. I feel like I have a strong, healthy working relationship (not to mention friendship) with Mal Webb, and it's always a pleasure to play with someone of his stature. In addition to Mal's sheer musicality, Kylie's musicianship is improving out of sight (it was always strong), largely because she's been playing a bucketload over the past 12 months. (c) that combined with some edits to our show which is helping to make it more fun / less boring / shorter for the audience... means that it's starting to really feel surprisingly... well... musical.
This afternoon, I'll happily be getting to know a Kurzweil PC88, which I am stupidly looking forward to playing - it's a delicious instrument. (a note on logistics: I mised our tintenbar gig and therefore one-half of our tour, when a jetstar plane spent five hours faffing about before cancelling itself yesterday afternoon, instead of flying me to brissy for the northern NSW gig. I was disappointed that I wasn't able to see Uncle Trevor and Aunty Nola (and Jill+Greg), however I can at still fly today and make the brisbane gig - and also catch up with Uncle Peter + my dear friend James, basically because I am rich (which is really what it comes down to. Flying and making music, after all, are two great privileges, and I never take them for granted. A quick aside: I did a recent online quiz to see how rich I actually am compared to the rest of the world
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-am-i/
, and I fell within the very top 5%. I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few weeks, ever since I took the test).
Cello (another luxury) is also coming along well, although still kind of slowly. My teacher is so, so encouraging and supportive, and that is wonderful - mostly because I find myself sometimes getting frustrated with just how 'slowly slowly' it is progressing. To be fair, life in 2017 has a huge breadth of things going on - perhaps an unprecidented amount - and so I need to be realistic about my ability to invest very little more than a few hours per fortnight into practice. Sometimes I feel like I am making notable improvements (certainly I'm started to get used to the idea of getting my brain to concentrate on bowing AND fingering at the same time, and apparently my fingers are starting to find their rightful places)... but other times it amazes me how often I play out of tune. A selfish, self-indulgent part of me likes researching new string technologies and theorizing which core strings combination will bring out the best sound for my not-quite-entry-level-but-kind-of-almost cello, and the utilitarian-humanitarian hates that I'm thinking of spending another ~$400 on myself. Maybe after tax return time, if europe doesn't completely blow my budget and there aren't too many surprise costs in the meantime.
The world's getting hotter, and I don't feel somewhat sad because like I am doing very much about it at the moment. (Although that said, I've almost completed divesting my home loan - which I know is a HUGE thing on-paper, and I'm also moving in with Miri and I look forward to greening our home soon, in other ways).
Europe - that's a happening thing. Today I just messaged Amie (in London), and I also decided that I would book a car for my UK time (which will make life way easier during our time there). I'm yet to book the inter-europe stuff yet, although my accommodation is largely sorted. I'm a little concerned that my trip will be somewhat hurried, however I will be able to tick everything off my bucketlist, which means that it will be incredible). Of note, I'm particularly excited about being able to attend Edison'17 demoparty (in Stockholm), and also the Montreux Jazz Festival with claudio, in Switzerland. High on my bucket list is also my visit to Belgrade to finally meet Igor - I think Serbia's going to be fascinating.
Jeebus... we're starting our decent to Brisbane now - we left Melbourne 1.5hrs ago. Planes are amazing. For what it's worth: skyBus is amazing, too.
Miri's 30th happens next weekend, and I'm starting to feel really good about that - it'll be a lovely party, if a very big affair. When I initially moved into Miri's place (about a week ago), I was initially a little too concerned with 'doing everything' to make the party happen - and that meant that I found myself asking some important questions to myself about boundries and not falling into the habit of being the guy who's responsible for doing 100% of the housework/logistics. Here, my band and music practices have been really important acts of independence (almost?) - they've helped me feel more balanced and more 'like me'.
Something else that's been a defiant act of independence lately: is work. For the past few months, I've been on the development team with the UoM Linux SoE, and although I consider myself a 'junior' on this team (for I maintain that my linux skills are intermediate at best), It's been a pleasure to be a part of this team - and a very rewarding experience. Even though some members of my team are worlds more technical that I will ever be in this area, I think that they've been impressed with my work rate and my knowledge of greater university processes, and I hence feel like I've been able to offer something of value to our team dynamic. I especially feel like I have a great working relationship with Rob, who just happens to be the head of Unix Engineering. It's such a great experience to work directly with something you are passionate about - it really makes me want to re-commence my study and then reward myself with a centos tattoo.
Family stuff is largely faring well, albeit with two notable exceptions to this. Firstly, my Grandma is unwell, having taken a fall at easter time. In addition to being pretty injured, her dementia is starting to get more and more severe. Secondly, my aunty Kathleen's cancer keeps spreading, and continues to go from worse to worse-again. I feel like I haven't been able to pay much attention to the dogs during the past few days, and I hope that the weather is nice enough for me to spend a bit more time with them (and to walk them) during the coming weeks.
Time to shut down - a little turbulance on descent. Looking forward to music and friends over the next few days.