Working Holiday in Melbourne- Part 2

How fast time flies when you're having fun SO BUSY YOU CAN'T EVEN HAVE A JOG!

To be honest I could get up earlier and jog before work but... but... well, there's always a reason, right?

Anyway the reason for my packed schedule is a combination of having kind-of sorted my life out as I intended to in my last post, and also just being so overwhelmed with how much there is to see and do here that I am scared (yes, terrified) of missing out of anything I'd regret! YOLO induces FOMO- fact.

The view from my friend's city pad I stayed in before sorting my life out

A couple of days after my skills test and interview at a temp recruitment agency (Shave HR), I got my first gig working for the Australian Red Cross processing donations for the Queensland Floods, Tasmanian Bushfires and other disaster appeals. It isn't the most... challenging work but I'm always keen to try new things and learn new skills, even if it leads me to the conclusion that I do not want to do this kind of work- I need more stimulation! Though I have made some wonderful friends, gained useful office experience and I do love the notes the elderly tend to include with their donations reading "God Bless the work that you do in times of crisis" and such like- I'd consider working for a not-for-profit again, even if just for those snippets of joy that brighten my day and all the other amazing things about working for a charity, like staff who bake cakes...

I also found a flat! Gumtree is such a great resource for people on a WHV, there are a few other flatmate-finding sites but Gumtree really is the monopolizer of all things free, cheap, short-term and occasionally odd. Amid the ads for 'free rooms depending on what you're willing to do' (GULP) I found a fully-furnished room for short-term let in the cool hipster suburb of Brunswick with a lovely housemate, goldfish and many terrariums. Happy days!

Chinese New Year Market on Southbank

Between work, shopping and exploring the city with my new and old friends it's hard to find time to look for The Job, but I'm working on it. Melbourne has so many festivals and events on during summer (which is drawing to a close here) that I've been spoilt for choice- more on that at a later date! I have had fabulous times at the St Kilda Festival, Chinese New Year celebrations and the Queen Victoria Night Market recently, but I do tend to oversubscribe myself to things I want to do!

St Kilda Festival for my second year in a row- sang along to Pez's Festival Song, fest so apt!

Take last weekend for instance; between after-work drinks in the city (including the cool but crate-clad Section8 and $12 jugs at La La Land), Mexican fare from Guzman y Gomez (bit obsessed with this place atm), laundry, groceries, Skype dates, a jog, some op-shopping in second-hand stores, a rad festival party in St Kilda, a wonderful free outdoor symphony orchestra concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, the artsy White Night festival that took over the CBD, all-you-can-eat Indian, garage sale browsing, markets and a movie marathon- who even has time to check out the pre-Savers sale stock you want to buy never mind job-hunt!? Well, I fitted that in too and got some bargains on their 50% off night on Monday!

Repeat after me: I-Must-Be-Less-Sociable-And-More-Disciplined... but doesn't Live-Life-To-The-Fullest have a better ring to it?

Enjoying Mozart and wine at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl

Quote of the Day...

"To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."

Walter Pater, in his conclusion to his canonical The Renaissance encourages aesthetes and decadents alike to grasp fleeting moments with passion and intensity, to capture and preserve the richness of time in flux, and to take pleasure from those tiny perfect moments that are all to easily lost in everyday life.

Quote of the Day...

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

Albert Einstein- Amen

Quote of the Day, 20th May 2010

Lord Henry, in Chapter 2 of Wilde's glorious Dorian Gray, says;

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

Yesterday I bought many packets of biscuits and a couple of bars of chocolate to contribute to my friend's BBQ snacks. I knew they were looking at me, they were teasing me and so I ate them.

This meant that I had to walk to the supermarket again to buy more, but at least Lord Henry would have been proud!

Quote of the day, 5th May 10:

"Variety in the spice of life"

I have recently watched the 1997 biopic of Oscar Wilde's life, and this line in spoken by Jude Law playing Lord Alfred Douglas.

I'll gloss over the fact that it was said in the context of Bosie seeing rent boys as well as his lover, Wilde...

Quote of the day, 2nd May 10:

"Because life without experience, is not experiencing life..."

(Me, because it is my motto and it is true. NB: also good for peer pressure).