i've started the clear out of my stuff and i have to say, how much shit can one person possibly own? i know i'm kind of a pack-rat, but seriously people! i have things dating back to high school tucked away and it's been many many many moons since i was in that hell hole. heck, we had our class reunion last year and my school was in a different state. did i bring this with me or has it stowed away as a grim reminder of what i used to be like? or is it some physical embodiment of my past destined to haunt me forever? well i say fuck that nonsense and in the bin with you.
i have about four weeks left til i have to move out and as i work full time and have various social outings to attend to i must start this now. as of today most of my books have been shipped to my parent's house in ballarat. this is no small task. i have many a book, as all writery types should have. although it didn't take up as much room as i thought it would. perhaps i've lost a few to friends. oh well, if i don't read them now and didn't know that i'm missing them, i wont notice their absence in the future. i think in total i had about eight boxes of stuff shipped off. i hear you say, 'eight? is that all?' but when you consider that i still have plenty of things left to pack, sell and throw away eight was a fairly good starting point.
this week we had a hard collection rubbish day on my street. which was fortunate because we got rid of so much stuff. (by we i mean my cousin cass and i - we live together and have been doing so for about five or six years now) we have this cupboard under the stairs that is just this mess of crap that has never been touched the entire time we have lived in our house (i think this is our fifth year) and this week we finally got to clear it out. (big sigh of relief) what's strange though is that we found a tv in that cupboard and half a gym set thing from our old housemate, and he hasn't lived with us in over two years. we also got rid of a broken clothes dryer, an old mattress and half a futon. (these last things weren't in our cupboard, just taking up room in our garage - neither of us drive so our garage is more like a holding area for unwanted crap. a sort of limbo before we get the urge or energy to finally get rid of it)
i'm very excited now though, because most of what's left is to be kept. the only real concern is going through my clothes and finding out what i want to keep. this scares me as there is some horrible fashion disasters in there as well as things that really should have been thrown away years ago. i don't think i've ever gotten rid of clothes in my entire history of independent living so this will be quite the mission. i told you at the start of this post i'm a pack-rat. i do get these flashes of my future though, and i'm surrounded by a kajillion cats, stacks and stacks of old magazines and newspapers and clothes that went out of style more than a century ago that i can't bear to throw away just in case they come back into style. (NB in my future i've beaten cancer and death through breakthroughs in uber-modern medicine and live to be eight hundred. although eight hundred years of pack-ratting scares me. what wonders will i keep? shudder)
19 Aug 2007
14 Aug 2007
learning can be fun
i'm about a week and a half into learning german now and i have to say, coming from an english speaking background german is about 50/50 on the easy/hard front. i find that sentence structure is pretty well straight forward and very similar to english. this makes stringing words together into something that resembles communication quite simple, my only problem is remembering the damn words. the words themselves are what makes this learning experience so 50/50. there are some words that are very close to their english equivalents and i am finding myself making things harder for, well, myself. i keep thinking it can't be that easy, surely. and then i go and say something and find out that i'm wrong and it really was that easy. for the words that aren't anything close to english i have been getting most of them right, but unfortunately for me the germans are not afraid of big words. most of you that know me in real life and not from this crazy nerd-fueled computer world will find this most ironic and funny. for years now i have loved big words and now that i am faced with big german words i am at a loss. for instance let's take the word for economics - die Wirtschaftswissenschaften. it's such a simple small word in english and they've got some crazy-arsed dodecahedron of a word.
now don't get me wrong, i can't wait for the day that i can speak fluent german, cause it is coming. you can't spend a whole year somewhere and not learn the language. that's just a waste of a trip. for something comparative, my housemate pete is from ireland (german version = irland. see what i mean about some words and their english equivalents) and he has made an irish friend over here. now pete keeps getting asked out to the pub with this guy, but not just any pub, a goddamned irish pub! what's the point of coming over to australia and going to a pub that you could visit at home? what makes it worse is that this friend of pete's has made friends with a stack of irish guys while being here and that's all they do, go to an irish pub and listen to music from the UK while drinking pints surrounded by the irish. you may as well save your money, stay home and just have a bender. this is not what i'll be doing on my trip. i intend on pretty much becoming a german citizen while i'm there. that includes learning the language and culture, seeing the sights and running the other way every time i hear the words, 'g'day' or 'bloody hell, mate.' no offence australia, but if i wanted to hang with aussies i'd stay home.
the tape and book that i'm learning my german from is very good though. it's a 3 month course which i am trying to cram into 2 months. i have so far completed section 1 and almost all of section 2 and started on section 3. how is this possible you ask, because i have been listening to this on the way to and from work everyday. the plan is, first week i listen to section 1 and occasionally hear section 2. then during the second week i listen to section 2 and, because i've already got a start on it, i start listening to section 3. it's working well so far. i can remember nearly all of section 1 and section 2 is holding. i've only just started section 3, but it seems to be sticking as well. i think it helps that i've started saying hello to people at work in german (customers, not other staff members - i work in retail and it's pretty common for german tourists to walk in) and i have some friends that work in a cafe in the city who are french, but speak some german so they're helping too by speaking it to me. although i will say, being yelled at in german for not speaking it first thing in the morning while you're waiting for your first coffee of the day is very startling. it's not a very pleasant language to be chastised in when you don't know what's being said.
*by the way, my sleeping pattern is fine. i think my brain and psyche have gotten over the shock of me doing this and given up trying to freak me out. either that or they're just as lazy as the rest of me. hehehe... or alternatively, me going into work early everyday trying to get more commission has started to wear them down. i think it might be the latter, but only time will tell. once i finish work and don't do so much we'll see if my sleep starts going to the dogs again.*
now don't get me wrong, i can't wait for the day that i can speak fluent german, cause it is coming. you can't spend a whole year somewhere and not learn the language. that's just a waste of a trip. for something comparative, my housemate pete is from ireland (german version = irland. see what i mean about some words and their english equivalents) and he has made an irish friend over here. now pete keeps getting asked out to the pub with this guy, but not just any pub, a goddamned irish pub! what's the point of coming over to australia and going to a pub that you could visit at home? what makes it worse is that this friend of pete's has made friends with a stack of irish guys while being here and that's all they do, go to an irish pub and listen to music from the UK while drinking pints surrounded by the irish. you may as well save your money, stay home and just have a bender. this is not what i'll be doing on my trip. i intend on pretty much becoming a german citizen while i'm there. that includes learning the language and culture, seeing the sights and running the other way every time i hear the words, 'g'day' or 'bloody hell, mate.' no offence australia, but if i wanted to hang with aussies i'd stay home.
the tape and book that i'm learning my german from is very good though. it's a 3 month course which i am trying to cram into 2 months. i have so far completed section 1 and almost all of section 2 and started on section 3. how is this possible you ask, because i have been listening to this on the way to and from work everyday. the plan is, first week i listen to section 1 and occasionally hear section 2. then during the second week i listen to section 2 and, because i've already got a start on it, i start listening to section 3. it's working well so far. i can remember nearly all of section 1 and section 2 is holding. i've only just started section 3, but it seems to be sticking as well. i think it helps that i've started saying hello to people at work in german (customers, not other staff members - i work in retail and it's pretty common for german tourists to walk in) and i have some friends that work in a cafe in the city who are french, but speak some german so they're helping too by speaking it to me. although i will say, being yelled at in german for not speaking it first thing in the morning while you're waiting for your first coffee of the day is very startling. it's not a very pleasant language to be chastised in when you don't know what's being said.
*by the way, my sleeping pattern is fine. i think my brain and psyche have gotten over the shock of me doing this and given up trying to freak me out. either that or they're just as lazy as the rest of me. hehehe... or alternatively, me going into work early everyday trying to get more commission has started to wear them down. i think it might be the latter, but only time will tell. once i finish work and don't do so much we'll see if my sleep starts going to the dogs again.*
10 Aug 2007
nearly finished the before part of it all
and the organisation continues, as of today i know have my tickets paid for in full and collected, along with my passport (such a pretty picture) and the hostel booked in frankfurt. it's kind of a relief not having to worry about any of this stuff anymore. all that needs to be done now is get my injections for travelling and get my visa sorted. i have to say, it's all coming along nicely. i think this kind of rushed organisation is a better way to do things for me. for years i've been trying to get away and travel the world, and every time i've tried to something got in the way. either the people i was intending to go away with changed their minds, money was never abundant enough or just the usual bullshit that stops you from doing anything you want to. but this... ah what a godsend! all in the space of about one month i've got it all sorted. who would have thought that i could do this? i can tell you now that i wouldn't have thought it was possible. sure i've toyed with the idea, there was a time when i wanted to go to japan and another when i wanted to go to the uk, but they never seemed to get off the ground. however now i find myself on the verge of a great journey. i don't mean this in a 'i really learned something over that summer' kind of way. i mean literally. i'm going to the other side of the world and i have no idea what i'm doing. now the fear is over with it's excitement and wonder that fills me.
the first stop on this crazy journey is frankfurt. all i know about frankfurt is that it's about an hour north of where i intend to live for a while and looks like a very modern city. all the photos i've seen just show skyscrapers along a massive river or little quaint houses around a cobbled stoned courtyard. kinda what i imagine japan to be, completely modern and yet completely traditional all at once. i'll be staying here for 3 days in the frankfurt hostel. the address is kaiserstrasse 74 DE-60329 Frankfurt am Main, which i have to say means absolutely nothing to me. all i know is that after something like a 30 hour flight with a 7 hour stopover in hong kong, i get on a train at 7am and go 3 stops to Hauptbahnhof, which i think means some kind of train station. either way, when the sleep deprivation kicks in it's gonna be one hell of a ride just to get some sleep.
the first stop on this crazy journey is frankfurt. all i know about frankfurt is that it's about an hour north of where i intend to live for a while and looks like a very modern city. all the photos i've seen just show skyscrapers along a massive river or little quaint houses around a cobbled stoned courtyard. kinda what i imagine japan to be, completely modern and yet completely traditional all at once. i'll be staying here for 3 days in the frankfurt hostel. the address is kaiserstrasse 74 DE-60329 Frankfurt am Main, which i have to say means absolutely nothing to me. all i know is that after something like a 30 hour flight with a 7 hour stopover in hong kong, i get on a train at 7am and go 3 stops to Hauptbahnhof, which i think means some kind of train station. either way, when the sleep deprivation kicks in it's gonna be one hell of a ride just to get some sleep.
money woes
a few days have passed since i wrote on here last, so i thought i'd give you guys a quick rundown on my progress. it's completely and utterly official i am going. not only have i done what i said last time, ie bought tickets and insurance and what not, i have now told work i am going and put in for my annual leave. i finish work on the 14th of october, but i really finish on the 20th of september. that's when my annual leave kicks in. i was originally going to quit the retail 9 to 5 a few weeks before i go, but hey, annual leave gets taxed at some ridiculous amount when paid out, so my state manager has graciously allowed me take it as leave before i quit. yay for Matt. not only that, but he says he'll leave a recommendation for me to be rehired on my return from the land of beer and engineering. kudos to you, buddy!
it seriously looks like i'll have enough money now, cause i'll be staying at my parent's house in stink-town (that's ballarat for the lucky uninitiated) and i am told that i'm not allowed to spend any money there by my mother, bless her heart. that means 3 or 4 pays that will just be sitting in the bank. ooooh i can't wait to see the commission stack up. this puts to rest most of my money related fears. which if you read my earlier 'freak out' blog, you'd understand this means a lot. i am still concerned for the money i need to apply for my german working holiday visa, but baby steps timothy, baby steps. hopefully by the time mid-august comes around those fears can be laid to rest too.
the only thing that truly gives me hope is that i have quite a substantial amount coming to me in the next few months. i have (and i type this not to brag, but to explain everything. my hope for this blog is to be completely honest with you all and that means telling things i normally wouldn't or shouldn't), an inheritance of a couple of thousand, my pays and annual leave which total again a couple of thousand, money from the selling of my beautiful tvs and white goods and things (and if you know me, you know how hard it is to let go of those things. sigh i'll miss you both you beautiful hunks of plastic and LCD crystals. although i have made an executive decision to keep the PS3. i just can't do it. and i know my brother will keep it safe for me in the fear he might have to pay me money if he breaks it. that boy is the tightest fucker in the world, and he's only 14), and my bond coming back to me. all up i think i hit a ballpark of about $6000 - $8000. unfortunately i wont have all of that with me until the week before i go, which means saving like a bastard for this damn visa. i get my inheritance in about a week or two, but that goes straight to the delightful skye at flight centre for my ticket. she is awesome, she got me so excited about europe and saved me about $500 at least on my airfares and insurance. (if you're planning on going anywhere see her down hardware lane in the Melbourne CBD - shameless plug over)
the other good news i received today was that my credit cards are able to be upped from their pissy limit to something more substantial. also that i will not have any problems if they get stolen or frauded on. apart from them assuring and reassuring me that i can dispute heaps of stuff when it happens, my travel insurance covers it anyway - to a certain point. damn fine print.
anyway, that's it for now. sorry this blog wasn't as amusing or angry as any others, but hey, it can't all be climax and we aren't jack bauer all the time. plus you guys need background info and character/trip development or you'll feel jibbed later when something related happens and the pay-off sucked. just like when ron dies in the latest harry potter.
ps my sleeping patterns have improved slightly. i no longer wake up screaming about nazis and calling people jerrys. i just kind of whimper and go foetal. hehe... nah, that's an exaggeration. it's impoved heaps, though i'm still not getting a full night's sleep. last night, for example, i woke up at 11:30pm, 1:00am, 2:30am, 5:00am and again at 10:00am . most people would probably shrug this off and say, 'tim, your sleep's always been screwed so shut up your whining, bitch.' but to them i say, 'fuck off.'
pps ron doesn't really die. or does he...
it seriously looks like i'll have enough money now, cause i'll be staying at my parent's house in stink-town (that's ballarat for the lucky uninitiated) and i am told that i'm not allowed to spend any money there by my mother, bless her heart. that means 3 or 4 pays that will just be sitting in the bank. ooooh i can't wait to see the commission stack up. this puts to rest most of my money related fears. which if you read my earlier 'freak out' blog, you'd understand this means a lot. i am still concerned for the money i need to apply for my german working holiday visa, but baby steps timothy, baby steps. hopefully by the time mid-august comes around those fears can be laid to rest too.
the only thing that truly gives me hope is that i have quite a substantial amount coming to me in the next few months. i have (and i type this not to brag, but to explain everything. my hope for this blog is to be completely honest with you all and that means telling things i normally wouldn't or shouldn't), an inheritance of a couple of thousand, my pays and annual leave which total again a couple of thousand, money from the selling of my beautiful tvs and white goods and things (and if you know me, you know how hard it is to let go of those things. sigh i'll miss you both you beautiful hunks of plastic and LCD crystals. although i have made an executive decision to keep the PS3. i just can't do it. and i know my brother will keep it safe for me in the fear he might have to pay me money if he breaks it. that boy is the tightest fucker in the world, and he's only 14), and my bond coming back to me. all up i think i hit a ballpark of about $6000 - $8000. unfortunately i wont have all of that with me until the week before i go, which means saving like a bastard for this damn visa. i get my inheritance in about a week or two, but that goes straight to the delightful skye at flight centre for my ticket. she is awesome, she got me so excited about europe and saved me about $500 at least on my airfares and insurance. (if you're planning on going anywhere see her down hardware lane in the Melbourne CBD - shameless plug over)
the other good news i received today was that my credit cards are able to be upped from their pissy limit to something more substantial. also that i will not have any problems if they get stolen or frauded on. apart from them assuring and reassuring me that i can dispute heaps of stuff when it happens, my travel insurance covers it anyway - to a certain point. damn fine print.
anyway, that's it for now. sorry this blog wasn't as amusing or angry as any others, but hey, it can't all be climax and we aren't jack bauer all the time. plus you guys need background info and character/trip development or you'll feel jibbed later when something related happens and the pay-off sucked. just like when ron dies in the latest harry potter.
ps my sleeping patterns have improved slightly. i no longer wake up screaming about nazis and calling people jerrys. i just kind of whimper and go foetal. hehe... nah, that's an exaggeration. it's impoved heaps, though i'm still not getting a full night's sleep. last night, for example, i woke up at 11:30pm, 1:00am, 2:30am, 5:00am and again at 10:00am . most people would probably shrug this off and say, 'tim, your sleep's always been screwed so shut up your whining, bitch.' but to them i say, 'fuck off.'
pps ron doesn't really die. or does he...
it begins
So it's official, i'm going to Germany. to be honest with you i am shitting myself. now i know alot of people are all like, 'it's character building', 'you'll meet heaps of new friends', but until that happens i literally have to check my 'reg grundies' on the hour every hour. last week i went and reapplied for my birth certificate (my old one has worn away with age - something akin to paper mache) and it kind of struck me then that i was doing something massive. today, however, i sent off for my passport, paid for my medical and travel insurance and put a deposit on my ticket - this is where i got scared. or to be more honest terrified. there is no going back now.
i don't know what to do there, except drink beer and not talk about nazis and jews, apparently the former's bad ettiquette. i've checked out a few tours, but i don't think i want to spend 5 hours on a bus travelling past things that look cool, only to stop off at some european devonshire teahouse with the blue rinse set. that however is secondary to my fear of flying and a growing insane paranoia that i will not have any money once i get there. this is what keeps me up at night. 'will i have the cash to see out a year?' 'will i be able to pick up the german language when all i know now are stupid sayings and swear words?' 'will my flight be high-jacked or worse, be sat next to child?' (incidently my travel insurance pays $1000 a day if i am taken hostage, but only for 8 days total. which does nothing for my irrational fear. if it's included in the insurance then it must happen!?!)
over the past week i have been waking up throughout the night with an impending sense of doom. i can trace this sleeplessness back to the 20th of July, which is, you guessed it, the day i got my birth certificate in order to obtain a passport. i can only dread what is going to happen now i've organised everything apart from my visa. which leaves me in another bind. what happens if they don't allow me a young person's working holiday visa? (as long as i'm not 31 i'm counted as a young person which is nice) what happens if i can't scrape together the $4800 i need in order to prove i can survive? i can't reschedule my flight and i can't not go. i've worked myself up into such a frenzied state of excitement and fear and trepidation, not to mention i've told the world what i'm doing. there's no turning back from this. my only sanity lies with a few valiums and a large bottle of scotch. which by the way i'm paranoid about taking on the flight because i'm scared that i'll pass out in hong kong and miss my connecting flight. the only question left to ask is, 'when did my anxiety take over and let me become Woody Allen?'
*i'll get back to you on how the sleeping pattern goes now - my guess is not very well*
i don't know what to do there, except drink beer and not talk about nazis and jews, apparently the former's bad ettiquette. i've checked out a few tours, but i don't think i want to spend 5 hours on a bus travelling past things that look cool, only to stop off at some european devonshire teahouse with the blue rinse set. that however is secondary to my fear of flying and a growing insane paranoia that i will not have any money once i get there. this is what keeps me up at night. 'will i have the cash to see out a year?' 'will i be able to pick up the german language when all i know now are stupid sayings and swear words?' 'will my flight be high-jacked or worse, be sat next to child?' (incidently my travel insurance pays $1000 a day if i am taken hostage, but only for 8 days total. which does nothing for my irrational fear. if it's included in the insurance then it must happen!?!)
over the past week i have been waking up throughout the night with an impending sense of doom. i can trace this sleeplessness back to the 20th of July, which is, you guessed it, the day i got my birth certificate in order to obtain a passport. i can only dread what is going to happen now i've organised everything apart from my visa. which leaves me in another bind. what happens if they don't allow me a young person's working holiday visa? (as long as i'm not 31 i'm counted as a young person which is nice) what happens if i can't scrape together the $4800 i need in order to prove i can survive? i can't reschedule my flight and i can't not go. i've worked myself up into such a frenzied state of excitement and fear and trepidation, not to mention i've told the world what i'm doing. there's no turning back from this. my only sanity lies with a few valiums and a large bottle of scotch. which by the way i'm paranoid about taking on the flight because i'm scared that i'll pass out in hong kong and miss my connecting flight. the only question left to ask is, 'when did my anxiety take over and let me become Woody Allen?'
*i'll get back to you on how the sleeping pattern goes now - my guess is not very well*
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