Fits and Starts
Or Fitnesses. Or something.
Today I started my new job. I had a week off inbetween, which was nice (and unusual for me), during which I recovered from the Blackmore's Running Festival Half Marathon (see previous entry) and lazed around getting nothing accomplished other than, by Saturday, finally having achieved sleeping in past my usual waking hour of 6 a.m. Sunday felt like it came too soon.
Today, however, my appointed hour in the CBD was not until 9 a.m., so I slept in by about forty minutes, went for a 5k run, had some breakfast, and still made it into the office by 8:30.
First days are all about orientation, and there was little enough of that, as the project proper hasn't really kicked off. That will change. I'm scheduled to head up to North Sydney a few times over the next weeks for training on the new system, and there are meetings and presentations to attend as well.
This is my first job since coming to Australia where I'm working close to home. Not only that, but by reason of being pretty much in the center of town, all the amenities I've been lacking heretofore are lacking no longer. Record stores, clothing shops, pharmacies, doctors, dentists, the post office, decent places to have lunch . . . it's all here. This could well turn out to be the best job yet.
27 September 2010
19 September 2010
Half Baked
I went to bed nice an early, but living in the precincts of Sydney University doesn't guarantee a good night's sleep, so about midnight there was a fair bit of very loud foot traffic returning from some exciting excursion or another, and it was all downhill from there. I was set to get up at 4:30 for my 6:20 start, but actually spent most of the hours wakeful with a bad stomach. When I did get out of bed, I realized there was no coffee and not much for breakfast, either. These things happen.
I filled my pockets with Gu and some money and headed out to flag a cab to Central Station (the buses don't start until 6 a.m.). And forgot my keys. Luckily, I keep a door key stashed, so I'd only have to climb the garden gate on my return. My impending lack of flexibility was dismaying but not daunting.
The race was good. I was finished with it by about 13k. After that I had to periodically walk a bit to relieve my cramping legs. Still, if not a personal best, all things considered, 2:07 (by my watch) is a result I can live with.
And it's not even lunch time yet. Perhaps a nice club sandwich and a quarter of a dozen schooners.
Update: 2:10 clock time, which pretty well tallies with my watch, as it took at least three minutes to get to the mats, but 2:00:06 chip time. I feel much better about my performance. A decent night's sleep would have made all the difference. And more consistent training.
I went to bed nice an early, but living in the precincts of Sydney University doesn't guarantee a good night's sleep, so about midnight there was a fair bit of very loud foot traffic returning from some exciting excursion or another, and it was all downhill from there. I was set to get up at 4:30 for my 6:20 start, but actually spent most of the hours wakeful with a bad stomach. When I did get out of bed, I realized there was no coffee and not much for breakfast, either. These things happen.
I filled my pockets with Gu and some money and headed out to flag a cab to Central Station (the buses don't start until 6 a.m.). And forgot my keys. Luckily, I keep a door key stashed, so I'd only have to climb the garden gate on my return. My impending lack of flexibility was dismaying but not daunting.
The race was good. I was finished with it by about 13k. After that I had to periodically walk a bit to relieve my cramping legs. Still, if not a personal best, all things considered, 2:07 (by my watch) is a result I can live with.
And it's not even lunch time yet. Perhaps a nice club sandwich and a quarter of a dozen schooners.
Update: 2:10 clock time, which pretty well tallies with my watch, as it took at least three minutes to get to the mats, but 2:00:06 chip time. I feel much better about my performance. A decent night's sleep would have made all the difference. And more consistent training.
08 September 2010
Minority Majority
Two out of three Independents newly elected to the House have opted to formally back Labor, so along with the sole Green elected, the ALP now have a minority government. It's a relief not to have Mr Rabbit as PM. It's frustrating to know that the Coalition will spend the next three years behaving with exceptional childishness, when they and their supporters (and the national media, perhaps especially) take the full set of pages from the USA's Republican and Tea Partier playbook to set themselves up as aggreived and disenfranchised. Already calls for a new election, branding of the government as "illegitimate", and smears and sneers thrown at the Independents are setting the Australian political conversation into a shouting match. Hip-hip-hooray for the Lucky Country, still "lucky."
Two out of three Independents newly elected to the House have opted to formally back Labor, so along with the sole Green elected, the ALP now have a minority government. It's a relief not to have Mr Rabbit as PM. It's frustrating to know that the Coalition will spend the next three years behaving with exceptional childishness, when they and their supporters (and the national media, perhaps especially) take the full set of pages from the USA's Republican and Tea Partier playbook to set themselves up as aggreived and disenfranchised. Already calls for a new election, branding of the government as "illegitimate", and smears and sneers thrown at the Independents are setting the Australian political conversation into a shouting match. Hip-hip-hooray for the Lucky Country, still "lucky."
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