i like this year. it is full of good things already, and we are only in february. i got married, i got my australian residency and now, two weeks later, i have got myself a fine new job to go to. it is a good one too, not just one of your run-of-the-mill crap jobs. it is just the kind of stuff i want to do, and i hope it works out well.
it is at a water engineering consultancy that primarily does flood modelling and analysis. i have got a couple of friends from university who work with this sort of stuff and i have been envious of them for a long time now. i start on march 1st and i pretty much cannot wait. it is a five week temporary contract to start with, so i need to do well if they are going to keep me on. time to work hard! i haven't worked for over six months, so i am really eager to get started.
i have got such a good run so far this year and it feels like everything is just falling into place. they are pretty humble things, just having a nice home and a job, but it is all i am really asking for right now. i just want to save money, get my career going and get into a normal life with rachel. that sort of standard grown-up's life you know. maybe in the future i can get myself some actual ambitions.
henry rollins is coming to sydney in april. i don't have tickets yet, but i really really want to go. i think he is a really interesting character, he's got a lot of opinions presented in a 'different' way and is also extremely funny. i don't care too much for his music; granted, i haven't heard too much of it, but it is not nearly as exciting as his spoken word stuff. on the album think tank, he's got a long piece called airport hell which is basically a 14 minute rant about how stupid people are and how obvious that is at airports. it always makes me laugh out loud when i hear it and i can't help thinking about it whenever i'm at the airport. you can find it on grooveshark. check it out!
the mountain goats are also coming to sydney in april. i predict april to be an awesome month. the latest tmg album, the life of the world to come, is really good and you should get it.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
i'm tired of the old shit, let the new shit begin
i wrote this when i was in auckland last november. i did not post it because i wanted to get everything over with first. now that everything is over with (high five!), i have a couple of short notes to post. here is one. for the record, we ended up having our wedding at leura cascades in the blue mountains, two hours west of sydney. there are some pictures on facebook. i might post some here one day, or i can send some to you if you ask me. we also got awesome rings with a meteorite inlay. the family illnesses ended up not great but could have been infinitely worse.
2 nov 2009
so the last few days have been quite overwhelming. a lot of things are up in the air and could end up being either good or catastrophic.
i prefer good.
i have had one of my biggest breakdowns in many years, though thankfully i calmed down quicker than expected. i am in new zealand. i booked the ticket about 25 hours before i departed. yes, this is visa and immigration business and they never fail to disappoint.
also stirring things up have been multiple sudden health problems in my fiancé's family, but it is not really my place to talk about, so i will leave it.
yes, fiancé! there are good things happening too, although if your idea of good is me moving back to sweden (and if so, i certainly appreciate the thought!), you might be disappointed. but yes, some sort of marriage event is coming up. it is incredibly awesome, but also feels just a little bit strange. i never thought i would get married, never thought i was the marrying kind, but when rachel asked i just felt that marrying her was something i really wanted to do. i did not expect that, did not see that feeling coming, and that makes it all the more amazing. i have never thought about how my ideal wedding would be, except my casual thought about how the only way i was getting married would be in vegas and it would be an elvis wedding. and that is not a bad idea, although somewhat impractical at the moment. also i never really had any relation to elvis, except that i like the song "a little less conversation".
some things i might want at my wedding are good music, not too many people and a kickass cake. but i might also skip any wedding event business and put the money into an awesome trip instead. these are both viable options. i don't want to spend too much money on it anyway. oh, and it just occurred to me that rings are an essential part of the wedding thing. i want something simple but sleek. i am not a bling man. not openly, anyway. and certainly not every day of my life, which is how often i will be wearing the ring.
so yeah, a lot going on. ups and downs. i hope the downs straighten themselves out soon.
2 nov 2009
so the last few days have been quite overwhelming. a lot of things are up in the air and could end up being either good or catastrophic.
i prefer good.
i have had one of my biggest breakdowns in many years, though thankfully i calmed down quicker than expected. i am in new zealand. i booked the ticket about 25 hours before i departed. yes, this is visa and immigration business and they never fail to disappoint.
also stirring things up have been multiple sudden health problems in my fiancé's family, but it is not really my place to talk about, so i will leave it.
yes, fiancé! there are good things happening too, although if your idea of good is me moving back to sweden (and if so, i certainly appreciate the thought!), you might be disappointed. but yes, some sort of marriage event is coming up. it is incredibly awesome, but also feels just a little bit strange. i never thought i would get married, never thought i was the marrying kind, but when rachel asked i just felt that marrying her was something i really wanted to do. i did not expect that, did not see that feeling coming, and that makes it all the more amazing. i have never thought about how my ideal wedding would be, except my casual thought about how the only way i was getting married would be in vegas and it would be an elvis wedding. and that is not a bad idea, although somewhat impractical at the moment. also i never really had any relation to elvis, except that i like the song "a little less conversation".
some things i might want at my wedding are good music, not too many people and a kickass cake. but i might also skip any wedding event business and put the money into an awesome trip instead. these are both viable options. i don't want to spend too much money on it anyway. oh, and it just occurred to me that rings are an essential part of the wedding thing. i want something simple but sleek. i am not a bling man. not openly, anyway. and certainly not every day of my life, which is how often i will be wearing the ring.
so yeah, a lot going on. ups and downs. i hope the downs straighten themselves out soon.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
new beginnings
guys i am starting up this blog again! I will try to make updates now and then and not leaving it for two years and stuff like that.
so i am just going to go through a little bit about what's been happening in my life lately. not the last two years though, that would be too much of an essay that i'm sure no one would get through. but the last few months have been pretty rough and also pretty exciting, and the day before yesterday i reached a new milestone in my life that i feel will make everything a lot easier in the future. i have been on my toes for months, nervous about the future, not sure what would happen and never really able to relax. but now! everything has worked out and i am relaxed and i don't feel guilty all the time and i can do stuff like updating this blog!
so the tl;dr version is that 1. i got australian residency. 2. i got married.
the long version starts with me coming back to sydney from sweden in mid-august. i had finished my six months at veolia in sydney and was looking for a new job, but did not have a work visa and would need sponsorship from an employer. i had done that with veolia, so i thought i would be able to again, but it was not to be. in october rachel and i decided to get married, and in early november we were going on holiday to melbourne and then my parents were coming to visit from sweden for the first time. now, my tourist visa was going to run out just before this, so i wanted to get it extended, but the immigration officer i met with was not forthcoming and pretty much told me to leave the country and come back. so i did.
i went to new zealand for five days, checked out auckland and some places around there. got back in australia, had a bit of a scare at the airport but it all worked out. now, time to work on the visa and plan the wedding. we decided to get married on january 2nd because it was an awesomely nerdy date (and we are both nerds): 20100102! palindrome date! win! we chose leura cascades, up in the blue mountains west of sydney, as our location. i might write more about the wedding in the future, mostly because i found some wedding-related blog posts by other people very helpful, but right now the visa bit is a lot more fresh in my memory and i want to get that out of my system.
the visa application procedure is really comprehensive, difficult, invasive, condescending and expensive. they want a bazillion certified copies of documents from both me and my partner. they also want evidence that we are in a "genuine and continuing relationship", meaning we have to prove that we share finances, that other people view us as a couple socially, the nature of our relationship and commitment to each other...a lot of detailed stuff. this is really hard to prove. who shares finances when they don't know if they'll be able to live permanently in the country together? ok so that was pretty nerve-wrecking stuff. but the real doozy is that they want a statutory declaration from both of you describing how you distribute housework in your relationship. yes, really! because this matters as to whether you are in a genuine relationship or not. they also want you to describe how you support each other "financially, emotionally and physically". yes really! they also want evidence that you kept in contact during times you spent apart, which for us meant all the e-mails we have written to each other. now, we wrote to each other pretty much every day and we have been apart for more than a year in total, so you can imagine how many e-mails there are. let's just say that i used up all our printer paper, went to buy 500 more sheets and then used up them as well the same day.
so in the end we had an application that probably weighed more than 5 kilos. i wish we had a scale at home, it would have been fun to know. on thursday, we went to lodge the application and have the interview. i had been really nervous for a long time, but as we got closer to the lodging date i felt better. we had a really good application, very comprehensive and well organised and i was pretty sure we were going to be fine. still, it's hard to relax when the entire future you've planned for yourselves is on the line.
we got a very friendly and reasonable case officer, who was very happy about how well our application was organised. we had everything ready...birth certificates, passport copies, statutory declarations to left and right, a photo album, health checks, you name it. and after about an hour of handing over documents and being interviewed, i got the visa granted on the spot! it was amazingly exciting and i didn't know what to do with myself. i got there, i got my residency in australia, i can stay as long as i want to, i can finally work, i can leave and come back as many times as i want to, i can start my future. it feels like a new beginning, a new chapter of my life, where everything becomes easier. i have been worrying about this for so long and now it is all over. and i won.
so i am just going to go through a little bit about what's been happening in my life lately. not the last two years though, that would be too much of an essay that i'm sure no one would get through. but the last few months have been pretty rough and also pretty exciting, and the day before yesterday i reached a new milestone in my life that i feel will make everything a lot easier in the future. i have been on my toes for months, nervous about the future, not sure what would happen and never really able to relax. but now! everything has worked out and i am relaxed and i don't feel guilty all the time and i can do stuff like updating this blog!
so the tl;dr version is that 1. i got australian residency. 2. i got married.
the long version starts with me coming back to sydney from sweden in mid-august. i had finished my six months at veolia in sydney and was looking for a new job, but did not have a work visa and would need sponsorship from an employer. i had done that with veolia, so i thought i would be able to again, but it was not to be. in october rachel and i decided to get married, and in early november we were going on holiday to melbourne and then my parents were coming to visit from sweden for the first time. now, my tourist visa was going to run out just before this, so i wanted to get it extended, but the immigration officer i met with was not forthcoming and pretty much told me to leave the country and come back. so i did.
i went to new zealand for five days, checked out auckland and some places around there. got back in australia, had a bit of a scare at the airport but it all worked out. now, time to work on the visa and plan the wedding. we decided to get married on january 2nd because it was an awesomely nerdy date (and we are both nerds): 20100102! palindrome date! win! we chose leura cascades, up in the blue mountains west of sydney, as our location. i might write more about the wedding in the future, mostly because i found some wedding-related blog posts by other people very helpful, but right now the visa bit is a lot more fresh in my memory and i want to get that out of my system.
the visa application procedure is really comprehensive, difficult, invasive, condescending and expensive. they want a bazillion certified copies of documents from both me and my partner. they also want evidence that we are in a "genuine and continuing relationship", meaning we have to prove that we share finances, that other people view us as a couple socially, the nature of our relationship and commitment to each other...a lot of detailed stuff. this is really hard to prove. who shares finances when they don't know if they'll be able to live permanently in the country together? ok so that was pretty nerve-wrecking stuff. but the real doozy is that they want a statutory declaration from both of you describing how you distribute housework in your relationship. yes, really! because this matters as to whether you are in a genuine relationship or not. they also want you to describe how you support each other "financially, emotionally and physically". yes really! they also want evidence that you kept in contact during times you spent apart, which for us meant all the e-mails we have written to each other. now, we wrote to each other pretty much every day and we have been apart for more than a year in total, so you can imagine how many e-mails there are. let's just say that i used up all our printer paper, went to buy 500 more sheets and then used up them as well the same day.
so in the end we had an application that probably weighed more than 5 kilos. i wish we had a scale at home, it would have been fun to know. on thursday, we went to lodge the application and have the interview. i had been really nervous for a long time, but as we got closer to the lodging date i felt better. we had a really good application, very comprehensive and well organised and i was pretty sure we were going to be fine. still, it's hard to relax when the entire future you've planned for yourselves is on the line.
we got a very friendly and reasonable case officer, who was very happy about how well our application was organised. we had everything ready...birth certificates, passport copies, statutory declarations to left and right, a photo album, health checks, you name it. and after about an hour of handing over documents and being interviewed, i got the visa granted on the spot! it was amazingly exciting and i didn't know what to do with myself. i got there, i got my residency in australia, i can stay as long as i want to, i can finally work, i can leave and come back as many times as i want to, i can start my future. it feels like a new beginning, a new chapter of my life, where everything becomes easier. i have been worrying about this for so long and now it is all over. and i won.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
search engine humor station
today one person found my blog by googling "quotes about not wasting your life" and another person found it by googling "wasting your life, wasting your life". there is some truly delicious irony in there.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
culture vulture
i find myself listening to some absolutely spectacular songs and it makes me want to write. i find myself watching some spectacular tv shows instead of doing the work i am supposed to do and it makes me want to write this instead of doing the work i am supposed to do.
last weekend i played in a magic tournament in malmö and went for lunch with some of the other players and one of them said your university years are basically five years you spend having angst for the stuff you are supposed to do but are not doing. this used to be not true for me, i used to be the planner and the doer and i used to do my school stuff in the day so i could relax and do whatever in the evenings. not anymore.
but this has all been said before and there is not really anything for me to add.
there is a new bright eyes album out and it has the most amazing cover. you will have to check it out because i cannot describe it good enough to make it justice. it is reminiscent of those old black and white dotted 3d pictures that you had to focus your eyes beyond to be able to see and which i was never able to see, not a single one. and the album also comes with a light shade thing that you move over the cover to make out pictures in the dots, it is extremely awesome. however if you live in lund as i do you might not be able to since there is pretty much a void of music stores here. not that i have any right to complain since i pretty much stopped buying records in the city, it's all sonline or downloading. oh and the album is called cassadaga. and it is quite good, albeit not i'm wide awake it's morning good. that album has some of my favorite songs all time on it and i urge you to check it out. (side note: one of my housemates in vancouver had taken a course in czech and gone to prague with school. the course book was called czech it out. THIS IS FUNNY.)
so i urge you to czech out i'm wide awake it's morning because it is fantastic.
rachel went to see architecture in helsinki just before i got to sydney last time. i hadn't heard much of their stuff but they had this single that we never caught the name of but she was convinced they were singing party racist, or rather her best guess was that they were singing party racist, in the chorus. i was inclined to agree. now i have checked (or did i czech?) it out and apparently the answer is heart it races. this is a big letdown, as i would much rather they were singing about party racists than some heart that is racing.
on a different note, my laptop is obviously singing on the last verse. i am not sure if this expression exists in english, but either way it is a win-win. there is some kind of glitch in the power adapter thing and it is hard to keep the battery charged and it could just die on me any day now. not a good time, mr. computer, not a good time at all. if only you could have waited for a few months, then i would (hopefully) have had some sort of income and be able to get a new one. but not now. my total amount of income right now is zero. i need to earn some dollarz somehow.
tomorrow i will be seeing the cat empire IN CONCERT in copenhagen. THIS IS AWESOME. the cat empire are some of australia's finest when it comes to the musical arts and you can find some of their work at their myspace page. honestly, it is tough to describe their style but it makes you happy and it makes you dance and that should be enough for most of you to give them a go.
ok this is a pretty weak post all in all, especially after not having posted for such a long time. i just feel that i am not really experiencing any new and interesting things these days, i am just stuck with my thesis writing and internet addiction and neither is going very well and so i do not see myself getting anymore interesting anytime soon. and i really do not want to reiterate all my problems with thesis writing or internet addiction because it has been said and said again already and there is not much to add.
so over and out for now. there will be more posting though. do not count me out yet.
oh and please watch weeds. it is a phenomenal show. it has awesome music, deals with stuff that are common in the real world but not on tv, is funny, is done in a very stylish and cool way, is fairly out there and sometimes disturbing and does not shy away from profanity or nudity. also the episodes are 20 minutes long which is just perfect for people with attention spans comparable to mine.
last weekend i played in a magic tournament in malmö and went for lunch with some of the other players and one of them said your university years are basically five years you spend having angst for the stuff you are supposed to do but are not doing. this used to be not true for me, i used to be the planner and the doer and i used to do my school stuff in the day so i could relax and do whatever in the evenings. not anymore.
but this has all been said before and there is not really anything for me to add.
there is a new bright eyes album out and it has the most amazing cover. you will have to check it out because i cannot describe it good enough to make it justice. it is reminiscent of those old black and white dotted 3d pictures that you had to focus your eyes beyond to be able to see and which i was never able to see, not a single one. and the album also comes with a light shade thing that you move over the cover to make out pictures in the dots, it is extremely awesome. however if you live in lund as i do you might not be able to since there is pretty much a void of music stores here. not that i have any right to complain since i pretty much stopped buying records in the city, it's all sonline or downloading. oh and the album is called cassadaga. and it is quite good, albeit not i'm wide awake it's morning good. that album has some of my favorite songs all time on it and i urge you to check it out. (side note: one of my housemates in vancouver had taken a course in czech and gone to prague with school. the course book was called czech it out. THIS IS FUNNY.)
so i urge you to czech out i'm wide awake it's morning because it is fantastic.
rachel went to see architecture in helsinki just before i got to sydney last time. i hadn't heard much of their stuff but they had this single that we never caught the name of but she was convinced they were singing party racist, or rather her best guess was that they were singing party racist, in the chorus. i was inclined to agree. now i have checked (or did i czech?) it out and apparently the answer is heart it races. this is a big letdown, as i would much rather they were singing about party racists than some heart that is racing.
on a different note, my laptop is obviously singing on the last verse. i am not sure if this expression exists in english, but either way it is a win-win. there is some kind of glitch in the power adapter thing and it is hard to keep the battery charged and it could just die on me any day now. not a good time, mr. computer, not a good time at all. if only you could have waited for a few months, then i would (hopefully) have had some sort of income and be able to get a new one. but not now. my total amount of income right now is zero. i need to earn some dollarz somehow.
tomorrow i will be seeing the cat empire IN CONCERT in copenhagen. THIS IS AWESOME. the cat empire are some of australia's finest when it comes to the musical arts and you can find some of their work at their myspace page. honestly, it is tough to describe their style but it makes you happy and it makes you dance and that should be enough for most of you to give them a go.
ok this is a pretty weak post all in all, especially after not having posted for such a long time. i just feel that i am not really experiencing any new and interesting things these days, i am just stuck with my thesis writing and internet addiction and neither is going very well and so i do not see myself getting anymore interesting anytime soon. and i really do not want to reiterate all my problems with thesis writing or internet addiction because it has been said and said again already and there is not much to add.
so over and out for now. there will be more posting though. do not count me out yet.
oh and please watch weeds. it is a phenomenal show. it has awesome music, deals with stuff that are common in the real world but not on tv, is funny, is done in a very stylish and cool way, is fairly out there and sometimes disturbing and does not shy away from profanity or nudity. also the episodes are 20 minutes long which is just perfect for people with attention spans comparable to mine.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
imagery
ok so i'm just gonna post some pictures from recent times. there have been an adventure or two and i really should write more but sometimes there's just no energy or motivation for it. so join me on this trip to Picture Towne, Australia.
first, a penguin! straight outta st. kilda pier in melbourne. it has always been my dream to add penguins to the list of animals i've seen, and while i have seen them in zoos and aquariums before, that just doesn't count according to the rules set up by the protagonist and börre in "naive. super.".
these are some white cockatoos, also from the country of melbournia.
this is a gajillion of lightbulbs with one that's actually working somewhere in the middle. spotted at a bar named the container bar and yes, you guessed it, the furniture is all made out of shipping containers.
gymea lilies can grow pretty tall.
those koreans sure know how to make fish ice-creams. and i sure know how to eat them. i wonder if i can find these anywhere back home, those asian stores sure have a lot of good stuff that you don't know is there. i mean seriously, fish ice-creams! so good!
snakes ahoy! it is the land of snakery after all. apparently these sometimes go crazy and bite you, or so i was told by the keeper shortly after holding it.
it's a shingleback! a bluetongue lizard. and it's not looking happy! or maybe it is? i don't know.
so yeah. flight home on the 14th. see you soon, sweden.
first, a penguin! straight outta st. kilda pier in melbourne. it has always been my dream to add penguins to the list of animals i've seen, and while i have seen them in zoos and aquariums before, that just doesn't count according to the rules set up by the protagonist and börre in "naive. super.".
these are some white cockatoos, also from the country of melbournia.
this is a gajillion of lightbulbs with one that's actually working somewhere in the middle. spotted at a bar named the container bar and yes, you guessed it, the furniture is all made out of shipping containers.
gymea lilies can grow pretty tall.
those koreans sure know how to make fish ice-creams. and i sure know how to eat them. i wonder if i can find these anywhere back home, those asian stores sure have a lot of good stuff that you don't know is there. i mean seriously, fish ice-creams! so good!
snakes ahoy! it is the land of snakery after all. apparently these sometimes go crazy and bite you, or so i was told by the keeper shortly after holding it.
it's a shingleback! a bluetongue lizard. and it's not looking happy! or maybe it is? i don't know.
so yeah. flight home on the 14th. see you soon, sweden.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
procrastinatin' like hamlet
things are working out. i thought they would, but they actually worked out faster, smoother and better than i could have hoped. my australia journey started out low, with the sky opening and massive amounts of rain starting to come down just a minute or two before i was going to leave for the train to the airport. so i had to get my rain gear out of the bag, and i couldn't bring my hat, and i missed the train. i felt like shit when i was running up the stairs to the platform, because if there's one time you shouldn't miss a train, it's when you are going on an interhemispheral flight on a sunday and the next train doesn't leave for thirty-five minutes. i still had decent time, but missing that train meant that i had used up my buffer time for "things that can go wrong" for that part of the trip, and if the next train would be delayed, i would be in serious trouble. fortunately, it was not and the rest of the trip worked out way too well.
on friday, around noon, i applied for a tourist visa for australia. that's two days before i was leaving. now, i already had a working holiday visa that lasted until mid-september, but i would like to stay longer than that and i wasn't sure how difficult it would be to extend my visa from australia. because of this, i contacted the closest australian embassy and they said it was possible to get an extended visa as long as i applied before my current one expired. what they didn't tell me was that applying before going to australia would cost me exactly $0, whereas applying whilst in australia would cost $215 (that's for the exact same type of online application). i didn't realize this until i rummaged different official websites for the third or fourth time, on friday, around noon. my flight was on sunday. i applied for the visa, but for it to be valid it had to be granted before i got on my plane to australia. fat chance, i thought. australia is 8 hours ahead of sweden in time, so when i applied it was 8 pm there and a weekend coming up. then i started thinking. why is it that i can't seem to get things done until the last possible second? i do this with everything. i waited way too long with getting my ticket, resulting in having to pay extra and getting 18 hours in bangkok. i needed to buy an mp3 player and new headphones, but i didn't look into it until wednesday, meaning it was too late to order them online and i had to settle for worse and more expensive options locally. and i only had to buy one because my old one broke and i haven't pushed enough on the manufacturer to get a repair and now it was too late. and i only booked a hotel in bangkok they day before leaving, meaning i couldn't be sure i would be able to get a room at a good place.
when i booked the plane ticket and found out that my three days of procrastinating had cost me so much, i felt awful. when i realized that my procrastination when applying for a visa extension would cost me a totally unnecessary $215, i felt awful. why is it that i can't seem to learn the lesson? why is it that i find it so hard to do everyday stuff like this, that i know needs to be done at some point? and i know i'm not the only one who's like this, why do people just not learn the lesson and start living happier and more efficient lives?
this time, like most times, things worked out better than they should have if i was to learn some sort of lesson. my visa was granted on saturday, i got the e-mail at about 4 pm, which means that it was midnight in australia. my visa was granted at midnight on a saturday in australia. i find this very amusing. my hotel reservation in bangkok came through within a few hours, not that that ended up mattering anyway, because i was able to get on an earlier flight in bangkok and cut down my idle time there from 18 to 2 hours. i spent most of it going back and forth on horizontal escalators (i know that's a contradiction, but whatever they are called - you know those things they have at airports that make you feel really jet-set because you are walking at lightning speed) and then went through the usual security thingamajig before boarding the plane with a giant smile on my face. i had considered the possibility that i might be able to get an earlier flight, but i couldn't count on it, i couldn't expect it or i'd be crashing hard if it wasn't possible. they took care of my baggage and everything, it was really smooth.
i should probably try hard to find some sort of structure to my life that would make it harder for these situations to occur in the first place. i'm not sure how to create it yet, but i need as much assistance as possible with getting things done in time. i'll try to learn the lesson even if i managed to get out of it this time.
so i got to sydney monday evening instead of tuesday lunch, which made everything a lot better. it was also infinitely better to arrive in the evening than at the ungodly time of 4 am, which i did last time. rachel picked me up at the airport, we took a cab home and had turkish apple tea and tim tams and i patted the cat and i felt so at home and so in love.
on a different and more humorous note, someone yesterday found my blog when searching for "+calculon +pirate +hamburgers" from google in chile. i hope my post answered all their questions. at least it's more likely than the personed who found me after googling "bra adventure".
on friday, around noon, i applied for a tourist visa for australia. that's two days before i was leaving. now, i already had a working holiday visa that lasted until mid-september, but i would like to stay longer than that and i wasn't sure how difficult it would be to extend my visa from australia. because of this, i contacted the closest australian embassy and they said it was possible to get an extended visa as long as i applied before my current one expired. what they didn't tell me was that applying before going to australia would cost me exactly $0, whereas applying whilst in australia would cost $215 (that's for the exact same type of online application). i didn't realize this until i rummaged different official websites for the third or fourth time, on friday, around noon. my flight was on sunday. i applied for the visa, but for it to be valid it had to be granted before i got on my plane to australia. fat chance, i thought. australia is 8 hours ahead of sweden in time, so when i applied it was 8 pm there and a weekend coming up. then i started thinking. why is it that i can't seem to get things done until the last possible second? i do this with everything. i waited way too long with getting my ticket, resulting in having to pay extra and getting 18 hours in bangkok. i needed to buy an mp3 player and new headphones, but i didn't look into it until wednesday, meaning it was too late to order them online and i had to settle for worse and more expensive options locally. and i only had to buy one because my old one broke and i haven't pushed enough on the manufacturer to get a repair and now it was too late. and i only booked a hotel in bangkok they day before leaving, meaning i couldn't be sure i would be able to get a room at a good place.
when i booked the plane ticket and found out that my three days of procrastinating had cost me so much, i felt awful. when i realized that my procrastination when applying for a visa extension would cost me a totally unnecessary $215, i felt awful. why is it that i can't seem to learn the lesson? why is it that i find it so hard to do everyday stuff like this, that i know needs to be done at some point? and i know i'm not the only one who's like this, why do people just not learn the lesson and start living happier and more efficient lives?
this time, like most times, things worked out better than they should have if i was to learn some sort of lesson. my visa was granted on saturday, i got the e-mail at about 4 pm, which means that it was midnight in australia. my visa was granted at midnight on a saturday in australia. i find this very amusing. my hotel reservation in bangkok came through within a few hours, not that that ended up mattering anyway, because i was able to get on an earlier flight in bangkok and cut down my idle time there from 18 to 2 hours. i spent most of it going back and forth on horizontal escalators (i know that's a contradiction, but whatever they are called - you know those things they have at airports that make you feel really jet-set because you are walking at lightning speed) and then went through the usual security thingamajig before boarding the plane with a giant smile on my face. i had considered the possibility that i might be able to get an earlier flight, but i couldn't count on it, i couldn't expect it or i'd be crashing hard if it wasn't possible. they took care of my baggage and everything, it was really smooth.
i should probably try hard to find some sort of structure to my life that would make it harder for these situations to occur in the first place. i'm not sure how to create it yet, but i need as much assistance as possible with getting things done in time. i'll try to learn the lesson even if i managed to get out of it this time.
so i got to sydney monday evening instead of tuesday lunch, which made everything a lot better. it was also infinitely better to arrive in the evening than at the ungodly time of 4 am, which i did last time. rachel picked me up at the airport, we took a cab home and had turkish apple tea and tim tams and i patted the cat and i felt so at home and so in love.
on a different and more humorous note, someone yesterday found my blog when searching for "+calculon +pirate +hamburgers" from google in chile. i hope my post answered all their questions. at least it's more likely than the personed who found me after googling "bra adventure".
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