Becstarr - Back from the South Coast

Been down the South Coast to Ulladulla to visit friends and futher onward to Bermagui to visit Joel's childhood rockpools and beaches. Camping, beach swimming, and kid-wrangling have meant that I have spent only about 2 minutes in the last 9 days thinking about work. Good stuff.

Anna : Dolphins!

Summer is slipping away down here in the southern hemisphere so beach time is seeming more precious. But the water has reached a wonderful swimming temperature and this morning we saw a pod of four or five dolphins swimming about 30 metres off shore.

Magical.

Becstarr : Goggling (under the sea...)

Hot weather is beach weather and the Christmas presents of flippers (half-length training fins, thanks) and snorkel mask are calling to be put to good use. Clovelly yielded lots of hot and cold currents and a giant blue grouper. Manly's Shelly Beach had a giant seaweed forest and penty of stripey fish, but not the weedy sea dragons we were hoping for... yet!

Evelyn - More Holidaying Goodness

Finally managed to get to the beach - went to Clovelly yesterday for a swim. Then had several meetings - for lunch/coffee/drink/dinner lined up - good day in all. Now spending the next few days with family getting ready for my parents 60th birthday celebrations

YL - 5 for the price of 1.

Who could resist a good bargain anyway? *chuckle*

1. Graduation was a day of silent victory for me. I felt like I was happy/pleased but I couldnt really cheer. I knew what I had gone through to be there that day ... and I think I just wasnt sure how it all added up. Dinner with family & people who made it imminently possible for me to finish this degree was lovely. I think everyone was happy and more so, everyone got along! I celebrated but it really felt like my heart wasnt in it. Hmm.
2. Work is blargy. I really dont enjoy working at any time (especially till 11pm weeknights) when I'm the only junior person covering the whole place! That's 200 beds. And more, I dont enjoy horribly menial tasks. There are jobs that do not require someone who spent 10 years at Uni to do! Argh. I do not want more random overtime!
3. I also resent being told that I need to have "better time management" when I express that there are more jobs than 1 person can do (re above comment) without being completely exhausted and unable to stop to eat/drink.
4. I miss being paid $22/hr at the labs. I now get paid $25/hr and $27/hr next year. The difference in responsibility is incongruent to the renumeration!
5. There's a beach 5min down the road from me, but with work - I've only been there once in the 6 weeks I've been here. That was the 1st weekend. I'm determined to go there in 1 hr before work!

Aussie Day: Sunburnt shoulders

Meant to head down to Point Perpendicular near Nowra for some climbing. Got stuck in traffic just past Wollongong, so did a u-turn and went to the beach instead.

Accidently got sunburnt at Windang beach.

Bumped into Surly at Bowral on Monday, who was doing the first coffee run of the day at 1pm or so.

Becstarr : Blue and green

Went to Coogee to ride the waves - along with a large chunk of the Sydney population, it seems! The queue for the changerooms went halfway around the block at times! (Tip: Use the Coogee Bay Hotel toilets instead). Water was lovely and fish and chips afterwards were just right. Came home and planted out the peas and beans we got the other day, digging up an ancient rusted foxtrap in the process (!).

Anna : 500

This is post 500! Well done all! Beach this morning, huge waves that made the first morning beach of the summer feel a bit EXTREME!! Got to try out the cars new stereophonic music magic-a-nator and listened to Triple J on the way home!

Anna : Beach experiment ... failed

The "Beach Before Work" plan this morning was a bit of a bust ... weather poor, water still too cold to swim, hangover smoothie seemed to suck my will to live and the bus trip back took 30 minutes longer than expected so I was late to work. That plus a heavy week at the gym makes a convincing argument to spend tomorrow in bed.

Anna : Working Through An Energy Crash

Having trouble getting stuff done at work today. Sending off mail but no one replies. Going to have to work on getting over my phone fear and start ringing people I think.

Procrastination of course is it's own reward. Flickr account back up and running and now hosting some great stills from the shoot on the weekend.

Big news of the day of course is that the beach water temp has hit 20 degrees! Sounds like it's time to reinstate pre-work swims!

Ben - bored

Ah, that happy moment after you get all of your work handed in! How quickly it gives way to the realisation that you have nothing to do.

Meh, holidays coming up, I guess there's the beach.

Ben - Summertime, and the living is easy

Went to the beach yesterday. Water still cold, but I did some sunbathing and took a nice walk out to the lighthouse, then around the cliffs. My home internet's down for the count, but I'm getting so much more work done I don't think I'll bother fixing it until the holidays.