Queensland adventures

The proud owner of a new rental agreement

Last Saturday saw me sign on the dotted line of my very own rental agreement. I haven't had one of those in a very long while. It was quite interesting when I was filling out the rental application. Questions like "Previous landlord", "How long did you rent that property for?" and "Was your rental bond returned in full?". I had to explain myself ... I own a place (well at least half of it) so if you'd like to talk with the bank manager I'm sure that could be arranged.

Since yesterday morning I've been unpacking like a woman possessed ... My own place again - ah the bliss!!! More importantly, I'll be able to import Tosca back into my life again and have her grumpy little self around me! That's going to be next weekend (27th). I want to have a clean out of some of my stuff that I haven't used in a while, so if I can't remember what it's for, then it's going on the "to be sold" table. Tosca will like all of the action ... She's a busybody so will get amongst it all of the cleaning, boxes, nooks, crannies, bubble wrap, you know, the junk (I hope!!). If that fails, I'll bribe her with roo mince and some catnip.

There's an overlap of a week from when my shared accommodation expires and that I have the keys to this new place. So I'll spend all of this weekend and each day after work this week unpacking as many of the boxes that I can. The lovely lady - Andrea - who is minding Tosca has volunteered her husbands' and sons' services to help me move the big things next weekend (bed included) so I should be sleeping in my own place then.

Here are a few pics to show you where I'll be living. It's a good space - a little smaller than Cook St but definitely in the same vein. I think I'm going to enjoy it here :-)

(the double lock up garage)

(the front door complete with "Birds of Paradise")

(the kitchen - complete with gas cooking!!!)

(the view from my bedroom which comes complete with ensuite and walk in robe)

I've signed the initial 6 month lease and will give living by myself, in my own space, with my own cat, surrounded by my own things a crack in that time. There's room for a lodger if I need there to be and once I've settled in. There's 3 beds, 2 baths, big garage, a courtyard out the back and the property manager seems really approachable should I have any problems. All looks in order - at least it would appear that way.

So chin chin ... here I go ... Wish me luck!

Is it true?

I was debriefing with one of the "newbies" this afternoon. We were having a general bitch about the way that our respective classes/units were travelling, the problems, how they "should" be run as opposed to how they currently were being run, how our lives weren't running quite according to plan, and offering helpful advice to each other as to how to solve said problems. I was explaining how I'd had a series of pretty horrible students who were challenging absolutely everything (including whether they knew better than the ICU nurses with 20 years of experiennce managing acutely ill patients in one of the major hospitals up here), how the documentation wasn't cutting the mustard in terms of being able to capture these problems (students are much smarter now than they used to be ... did I just say that???? I think I did), how I was desperately looking for other accomodation as the circumstances are getting quite stiffling, and how I bought a punnet of strawberries over the weekend only to find that the ones in the middle of the pack were green, shrivelled and picked too early. Odette looked thoughtfully at me and said (as only Odette can say without it sounding or feeling like a total insult to one's intelligence and personhood) "It sounds pet, like you're not really used to not getting your own way". Then she said "Patience my pet ... it'll come" and I felt vaguely like a Frankenstein science experiment crossed with a baby academic. But I digress.

Her statement silenced me. Not because I was insulted. Rather I hadn't thought of it in these terms. It caused me to think about my successess and failures of times gone by.

I'm an excellent public speaker (modest too I hear you say), partially because the feedback about how you're doing is immediate. You get a really good sense, really soon as to whether you've "gotten your way". You can make changes now to fix those perceptions if they're not going to plan. To get your way with the crowd. I'm good at interviews for the same reason. You strike a balance between giving people what they want/need to hear, and giving actual (sometimes even truthful) information away about yourself in order to "get your way" - i.e. landing the job.

I thought about the PhD. I had troubles with Heather my primary supervisor because I wasn't "getting my way". Because she became incredibly overbearing in the last 10-12 months of the candidature. Because she wanted to write my thesis for me and I didn't really want her to. Because she made me feel small - really small - in terms of my own abilities and what I had/have to offer. And I bucked ... reluctantly at first but then more forcefully as time marched on ... because I wasn't getting my way.

I thought about arguments that I've had with friends and lovers, recently and in the dim, distant past. It's been because my values weren't aligned with theirs. Because what I thought was important and held in high esteem, wasn't important to them. Because the goals that I had seemed to get lost somewhere amongst the mess that was what these relationships has morphed into. Because I wasn't getting my own way (at least for some of the time and in the context of the balance that exists within various relationships).

So what does that mean for here and now? I suppose it's just an insight for myself to be aware of. I'm currently dealing with a series of circumstances (work and non-work related) where I don't seem to be getting my way. Perhaps I need to step back and examine what exactly it is that I'm upset about. To sort out whether I am angsty because I'm simply not getting what I want and I can't figure out how to make whatever obstacle is sitting stubbornly in front of me do what I want it to do. Or whether I am having to confront the fact that I could be better than I am currently in a variety of situations.

As I was writing my thesis on "transition", the uncomfortable period in between the highs is in fact the most important time - that is the transition. A time where you get to examine these niggling feelings about yourself, your place in the world and how you interact with those around you. I think I'm in one of those periods. I am recognising that there are some things that I simply don't do well, but that I think (I hope) I will be able to achieve. But as Odette has said, it's going to take some patience (and a truck load of hard work) to get me to that point. It's going to be a long haul job, isn't it? May I see the light sooner rather than later.