'Diary' entry- First day of honours year

Totally unrelated, but here's a picture from before the wedding when we had to take down all our Playboy magazines so as not to offend the relatives...

After a delayed start to my year of hard work doing honours in nutrition because Gam and I were getting married, I finally put in my first day at the office. I'd already had a taste of what it was going to be like: I have a nice desk and a computer in a big room with two other girls doing PhD's, my supervisor is a cheery middle-aged pom with a boyish face who seems to take on a whole host of different roles in various organisations, the girl at the front desk is lovely and very helpful and everyone came across as incredibly nice and unpretentious despite being very much more advanced in their academic careers than I am. I knew the place would be insanely over air-conditioned, as all offices are, because last time I was in there wearing 3/4-length pants and a t-shirt I was shivering by the time I escaped.

Today I learned that even wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a jacket in that place didn't make me warm enough, and I was glad of the scarf Gam packed for me (he packed my entire bag for me!). One of the girls in my room said to me that she has a little heater, and offered to turn it on- I gather that she feels the cold too- but when the other girl showed up she said she was so hot she was sweating (how, for the love of god?) and so the first girl promised not to turn on the heater. It did seem so very wrong and wasteful to contemplate turning on a heater to counter overzealous air-conditioning, but when I'm cold I can't think of anything but how to get warm... I suppose it's a good thing that the other girl came along and put paid to the idea! I did stretches and leg exercises at my desk... probably my new room mates thought I was a freak, but it at least ensured I had blood in my fingers and toes most of the time. Still, I'm bringing in gloves tomorrow, and as soon as I can get some new ugg-boots I may well sneak them in too... Gam also bought me some comfortable covered shoes that are more work-suitable, so the uggs will remain a fantasy for the time being. And when I say a fantasy, I mean that when my toes got cold enough that exercises wouldn't remedy their woes, I sat at my desk and fantasised about having a brand new pair off ugg boots with that nice plush sheepskin interior that just cuddles your toes... ahhhhh... I also fantasise about a world where not every building is air-conditioned to 20 degrees or so... it's bloody insane! Anyway, enough about the air-con: I've only been there one full day, and I'm sure I'll need to rant about it again periodically.

And here's what we replaced the Playboys with: a bunch of magazines that someone fortuitously dumped in our recycle bin... we plan on sharing the love by putting them out for someone else to take!

Another thing I learned today was that nutritionists really do all eat salad for lunch. Ok, not all, but a lot of them did. I knew Gam would have a laugh about that one. He made me a beautiful spaghetti bolognaise with wholemeal spaghetti (my choice of pasta, not his!) which I took along in a little container with some raw zucchini slices so that when I heated the whole lot up the zucchini wouldn't be overcooked. Eating spaghetti isn't the easiest thing to do at the best of times, and it was a bit of a messy choice, but I managed. I did need to keep wiping sauce from my chin with a tissue, though.

The final thing I learned today was that I must never, ever leave my phone at home. I was running late for the CityCat this morning... my own fault, I spent 10 minutes trying (and failing) to find a bra that would hide nippleage under my top if the air-conditioning got really bad. I wasn't too worried, apart from not being able to contact Gam when I was commuting, because I have internet on my computer at 'work' and could contact him via email. Except Gam took matters into his own hands, went straight home after walking me to the CityCat, got my phone, took another CityCat to the city and tried ride to Herston... only when he was at Brisbane Grammar School his bike got a flat tire and he had to walk the rest of the way... at least a kilometre, probably more. And then had to walk back to the city to catch another CityCat home. Took him a good few hours, and I felt awful. Happy to see him, however briefly, but awful.

Also totally unrelated, a sneak-peek at the pink-tongued skink about which I'll be making a post. Isn't he (it?!) cute? So I thought, at first...

It was also pretty awful going away in the morning knowing that I'd be away from him for a whole day for the first time in ages. I'm not cut out for spending time away from Gam... I said goodbye at the CityCat stop in the morning feeling horrible about being away from him for the day and for forgetting my phone so I couldn't be in immediate contact, and because we'd got there in a hurry there was no time for more than a quick kiss goodbye before the queue started to move and I had to go. I looked back a couple of times in case Gam waved, but couldn't keep looking because the line was moving forward... I must have looked pretty damn forlorn, as once I'd bought my ticket some Irish guy approached me to tell me he'd seen me looking back at Gam... my initial reaction was sort of a 'WTF?', but he went on to say he thought I'd like to know that Gam had looked back too, but I hadn't been looking... I very nearly teared up at that, right in front of a complete stranger. What on earth is wrong with me these days?!

I'd also like to know what the hell is wrong with UQ. I sent in my enrolment application a month ago. The first one never made it from the student centre at St Lucia to the school of medicine at Herston, and the second one, which I filled out a couple of weeks ago and my supervisor has seen, signed with whatever it takes to say I've been accepted, hasn't eventuated into so much as an email or any acknowledgement to me that I'm in. Hence I can't replace my student card that expired in November 2007 and I'm technically committing a fraud every time I buy a concession ticket and could get busted... It got checked once by an overzealous CityCat ticket guy, thankfully just a few days after it expired- enough for him to insist I buy a full fare, but not enough so that I looked like a total scammer.