Friday June 24, 2011 End of the first work week

Friday June 24, 2011

Today Theresa had her day off and thus I took the bus into town. The bus station is only a block away from the house and buses run in the early morning very frequently – overall 6 buses between 7 and 8 am. The ride takes about 30 – 40 minutes passing Howrah (pronounce Harah), Rosny and heading over the River bridge into Hobart. In the city center one connects to the University bus which is another 10 15 minute ride. With connecting directly from one bus to the other I caught today the 8 am bus filled with school kiddies and myself the only adult passenger. I was sitting in the front of the bus and three girls were sitting opposite to me. It was the birthday of the one sitting in the middle. It was exhilarating watching them as the birthday girl was unpacking one small present after the other. Lots of insider jokes I guess. One of them, even I got the joke. It was a pair of extraneously large fake golden plastic earrings and she not even had her ears pierced. With this nice entertainment on the bus the day had started very well and I was ready to rock and roll.

The day was packed with more organizing, some great discussions and catching up with my colleagues, a good bye party for Sue, a luncheon seminar from a Thomas a visiting scientist from the AWI passing through on the way to the IUGG meeting next week. The last hour of the afternoon I spent running errands, getting information on medical insurance from Medibank, depositing some money on my bank account and I almost would have gotten my drivers license though I was missing a bit of paper with my current local residential address on it.

Well a couple of things I will now have to deal with first things on Monday – signing up for Medicare, signing up with Medibank for the medical insurance and than getting my driver license.

After running the errands I headed back to the Uni and the IMAS bldg. Every second Friday one of the student clubs holds a beer hour and today was the second Friday. A great opportunity to meet more of my colleagues and others working in and around IMAS (Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies) and ACE (Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre). A beer later and several pieces of cheese, chips and crackers later, I hitched a ride back to Tranmere with Sue.

Another successful day and my first workweek have passed.