Welcome to the Melbourne Community Daily Discussion Thread.
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I went and bought those Aldi coffee beans, gave my espresso machine a good clean and attempted my first coffee in a long long time.
Took 2 attempts to get the extraction right and it's not my sexiest milk pour but it was a damn fine cup of coffee ☕
Stupid work anxiety, I'm so close to the end - just the equivalent of two FT weeks of work and I can leave forever instead of being in this strange limbo - but I just can't sleep out of sheer dread. So much negativity instead of looking forward to new beginnings!
I was drifting off nicely to sleep with this book when I decided to switch off the lamp and remembered I needed to set the alarm... that woke me right up with a pang of realisation followed by a sinking feeling of sadness. I don't remember feeling this bad even at school. I'll have to will myself to sleep and work and find purpose through this quagmire of deep seated aversion!
E: I was up till 4:30 am. halp
It'll be ok, it's not long to go, just take one day at a time and deal with what comes when it happens.
Just think of the freedom after you're done and and what new opportunities await you.
I haven't set myself up very well for this first of the one-day-at-a-times, went to sleep so late I feel like a zombie today. I suspect what's making it hard to anticipate the future is that I could have freedom NOW by just walking away. I have to remind myself I'm doing this for my colleagues (and some money).
Ted Cat telling me he is starving and needs another tin of fish and some of those delicious turkey crunchies
Okay okay okay. I have accepted I've developed some severe anxiety/avoidance around work. This is a Thing. However, I don't need to fix it that immediately, that's why I'm on casual now and not doing ongoing jobs. I'm gonna roll with it and see the opportunities I have ahead of me instead. I designed this flexibility in!
Instead of feeling bad all day I can tick off some things that'll make me feel good. Yesterday I "accidentally" did a heap of long overdue clothes organisation. Today perhaps I can clear out the gross carport. And maybe get started on my very overdue Dead Plant Clearout. The graveyard stares at me sullenly.
I downloaded an app on my phone that allows you to block other apps and websites.
It also allows you to set it up so you cannot uninstall it if you get "cravings".
I blocked all socials and Reddit and honestly I feel so much better it's crazy. I love having my headspace free of outrage and negativity drawn from an online source.
Just made friends with a new resident magpie. Gave it a little mince (cooked from frozen with food grade calcium carbonate) as a once off bribe. I think it worked.
Flew off to its nest (you could here the little ones squawking nearby). Flew back realised it wasn't getting any more and just waddled around pecking at bugs right near my feet.
Eyeballs and scalp are safe for now.
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Ouch. I hadn't been to get breakfast and coffee from my old regular cafe downstairs for maybe 6 months. I used to get a bacon and egg roll + large coffee for $15 fairly regularly but now it's $21. Definitely an incentive to not do that too often. No discount for bringing my own cup like some cafes do either.
I'd say make your own but even my regular bag of coffee beans has gone from $12 to $15 :\ errything's going up...
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I've heard good things about the beans from Aldi. I might go for a drive and grab a bag now, give my espresso machine a cleaning and see if I can get back into making my own coffees. I was pretty good at it at one point.
Haha I just remembered this silly video I made back when I figured it all out, featuring yours truly with the sound effects over the music: https://vimeo.com/302551637
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Well it happened. It stung a little but not as bad as expected because I was expecting it and I've been dealing with it. Just need to not let it let me spiral too much and look forward and inward.
Thanks to being the only senior staff member in my area, I'm stuck working 12ers until my week ends, it's day one I'm ready to die.
In more exciting news I have like 5ish work days until I am a free man, no more shift work!
PSA 50% off Uber rides courtesy OzBargain: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/804283
If you don't want to open the link, go onto your uber app, then wallet, then scroll to the bottom under promotions and press "add promo code", and type AUS101, AUS103 and AUS112
Uber's caught on, they don't work now :(
e: might also be because I have some other promo code applied atm
Checking in - still feeling wiped after the effort to get the house to buyer viewing standard.
Found my ancient VCR (though alas not the remote) and have a stack of videos I never culled, so my plan is to go through those and go on from there.
Every time I open this website, on every device/browser, I've had to log back in for the last week.
Back at work now.
I totally forgot how to make my coffee when I'm at work and it tastes horrible, well more horrible than usual since I'm using instant nescafe, god their instant coffee sucks.
Body isn't quite adjusted to waking up so early in the morning, pray for me.
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My friend had to get up early (reason she's staying over is so she didn't have to get up even earlier to get to her work thing in South Yarra) and we stayed up until like 2:30 chatting. I feel for my neighbours because she doesn't have an "night time apartment" speaking volume lol
Anyway I think I see a nap in my future. Feeling pretty great to wake to a clean apartment though! Hope you all have as good of a Monday as possible.
My friend had to get up early (reason she’s staying over is so she didn’t have to get up even earlier to get to her work thing in South Yarra) and we stayed up until like 2:30 chatting. I feel for my neighbours because she doesn’t have an “night time apartment” speaking volume lo
Don't want to be rude here, but like... you feel bad ok great, what are you doing to prevent this situation that's 100% in your control? Sorry if that's offensive, but put yourself in your neighbors shoes. You'd be pissed at you.
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I was very aware of it and tried a few things to mitigate it but she's not used to having to regulate her volume so she'd ramp up when she got excited about something and I'd have to give her the "keep it down" hand signals. Other than that, just closed the balcony door and window, myself spoke in low volumes to try and set the tone and when it got to midnight I moved us from the lounge into bed hoping that'd quiet her down a bit and it did a little but she's just a loud talker.
Anyway, it's one time I may have (I'm not even sure if I did) disturbed my neighbours in many years of living here so I'm sure they can forgive me for a couple of hours as I've forgiven others for their rare disturbances.
I've made some good progress on the garden today, and the first load of soil is being delivered tomorrow morning. I have purchased myself the finest cheapest garden cart money can buy to haul it all around to the back yard. As the only place I can dump the soil is on the driveway which blocks access I will be extra motivated to get it moved, as I will be unable to leave until a large part of it is gone. I've bought 2m this time and estimated I will need three all up for the new beds, plus maybe another one for the other bed for the lemon tree and a couple of other areas. All going well I will be able to get the second load on Wednesday and have it all moved before the predicted showers set in.
keen to hear what you think of the cart.
Been thinking of getting one but the wheelbarrow still works hrmm
It depends a lot on what sort of things you are moving around, and where. The wheelbarrow can carry more soil each load, but I have to manouver down a narrow path down the side of the house and through a gate, so the smaller more stable cart makes that much easier.
The other cart which I killed the tyres on (and which also has a lot of rust) is one of the mesh side ones like a little trailer. That has been really good for moving things like bales of hay and bags of soil, and has a surprisingly small turning circle. If you need to lift heavy things on and off a lot that style could be really good, especially as you can open the sides so you don't have to lift over them. You can get solid liners for them so you could probably use them for a small amount of mulch or something, but not for lots of soil.
I have one of those as well, but they're fussier than my dumper. Gotten a lot of use, but they do rust out on the hinges :/ It's nowhere near as old as the beast and already heading out.
try one of these. I've legit had mine for 14 years. I've eventually had to replace the tyres - did that actually late last year - but my god, I have NOT been kind to that thing and it has held the fuck up. I've filled it with dirt, gravel, bricks, drunken friends, I've rehydrated coir blocks in it, used it to drag pots and bags of mix over all manner of surfaces, I've left the damned thing out in the middle of the yard to fill with water with zero shits for over a decade and last weekend I used it to move a literal ton of 7mm finings to fill the greenhouse bed. Those tyres? Literally replaced them because they lasted so long they died of old age. Fantastic beast. And you can't beat that dumper.
New toy has already been aquired. The box from the garden cart is sitting on top of the bench, and she has been spending some time doing strange cat things in there.
Fortunately this just clips back on. I did have to find the ball as she had a great time batting it across the room and under some furniture. It's a bit of a fluke, really - the bar on the bench seems to be the perfect height to go under the ring and pushes upwards on it when she hits the whole thing against it. I don't think she knows how to repeat the action. Hopefully.
A new uni subject which starts next week opened up today, which usually means you can look through the unit information, see what the assignments and when they are due. Someone messed up and all the dates are for the last semester, and all the content is already available. I presume it will get fixed soon, but it does mean I got a sneak peak at the content - there is a lot of material to read. It looks really interesting though - the course is "Living with Fire" and the assignments focus on doing a bushfire risk assessment for your own or someone else's property. I'll do my sister's house, as she backs onto a National Park and actually has some risk from bushfires, which I don't.
At uni I was always in two minds about the drip feeding of unit info and content.
I'm sure there's a reason for it but to this day I can't help but think why not just release the whole thing at once before the unit begins.
I like the "slow release" in that it pushes you to cover each section thoroughly instead of rushing ahead more superficially. But I think it is better if most of the reading is available straight away, so you can do a read through of all the information first, then focus on the content more deeply as the assignments and lectures are released. Which is how it tends to work when you have a textbook for the unit, but as all the content is online for these subjects you can't really do that.
Yep. Online content wasn’t a thing in my uni days, but especially for the Literature subjects with bloody fat novels I’d read everything before semester started, then do a speed run on the actual assigned week. You pay attention in a different way the second time through.
I love when content is available early. I had a unit like this earlier in the year and I really appreciated the approach.
Hanging out with a friend and feeling super self conscious for over sharing about things. Worst timing ever being due for my period.