Winding Down or Up?
Things are a bit topsey-turvey here at the moment. I am not sure if we are winding down for the year or not.
Circumstances are certainly slanted to an end-of-year mode. The Uni students have all gone. They wrapped up their exams last week and checked out from the lodges and headed back to their corners of the country by boats, planes and automobiles (pity there are no trains here as I could have made a catchy name for a movie). The place is now back to being the sleepy place it seemed when I first showed up over 9 months ago now.
Anyway the biggest indication that the end-of-year has arrived with a vengeance is that our department had it's End of Year function last night. That's right our End-Of-Year-Function and it is only the first week of November. I am hoping that this is not our office Christmas party, but that seems doubtful as we were handed presents from the department for all the .. ahem .. hard work we have put in.
It is certainly a new concept for me if this was our Christmas party, considering at all the previous jobs I have had the Christmas party actually happened around the time that Christmas carols are getting belted out and fake plastic trees with tinsel and reflective bulbs looming large above us at all the shopping centres. Actually, I will be interested to see if this actually happens in SVS or Papindos come next month.
OK so it looks definitely like the year is finishing up then .. right? Well maybe not because DODL of course has to have a six-week summer session, which is strangely enough called Lahara. Of course what this means is that for a lot of this week I have been outside writing receipts again! God I hate registration weeks. It has been like de-ja-vu for some reason.
Anyway I am not too worried. It is now only 44 days till when I will back in Sydney, catching up with all the family, mates and the pubs.
For those that are thinking I am not hard-core enough to stay overseas for two years. So what! I have already done that, and in fact last time it was 25 months o/s, so I think I can at least allow myself the liberty of going back home half way through my stint.
Besides I fixed the flight back using my Frequent Flyer points. So it ended up costing me 30,000 points and K323 for the tax (around Au$120). A bargain. If you were to cough up the cash it will be close to Au$1500 return. And 30,000 points is the same as flying from Sydney to Melbourne.
The downside is that when I booked back in February (yes 8 months ago) because I was using the freq flyers I could not get the connections I needed for a direct flight, so I end up staying in Brisbane for 10 hours. Gives me time at least to head into the city for something I have really been missing .. a browse in a book store.
Ohh and as to my present last night it was a Sandwich Maker. Toasted cheese sandwiches here I come this weekend.
