Welcome to Townsville
Well, we’ve landed in Townsville. When I say ‘landed’, that should really read: we drove 2300km over 4 and a half, increasingly hot and boring, days.
And when I say ‘landed’ we didn’t exactly land on our feet. It was more of an awkward sprawl. Like when a rollerblader falls off the end of a handrail onto their head and breaks their collar-bone. That kind of landing.
We’re not too pround to admit that there’s been a couple of nights of sitting on milk crates with tears in our eyes, lamenting the lack of $$ and the abundance of bills. But the worst is over (let’s hope) and things are on the up.
And, as a way of keeping in touch, and not having to write 9000 emails and make 100 phone calls a week, we thought it would be easier, and more fun, to start a little web journal.
Just for the record. So far we’ve got a 3 bdrm first floor, Qlder style, apartment over-looking The Strand and the beach. It’s very nice, but also very empty. Our furniture arrives on the 4th of next month.
Zoe has accepted a casual position as the Marketing Officer at the Townsville Civic Theatre, a 1000 seat joint that has all kinds of concerts, opera, stage plays etc… I’m sure she’ll tell you more about it soon. It pays pretty ok, which is good because i’m a poor ass uni student on a scholarship.
My PhD is going very well so far. I’ve basically been designing the reserch layout and doing all sorts of paper work like ACEC, funding and that kind of thing. I seem to be ahead of where most people usually are after a month and am putting my public service cynicism to good use.
For those who care my project is entitled “Tropic Ecology of Freshwater Fishes of an Australian Rainforest River System”. In english that means “What fish eat what other fish, bugs and algae in a river that flows out of the World Heritage Area rainforest”.
To supplement my scholarship I’ve been pimping, I mean tutoring, in first year botany. It’s pretty fun, but hard because the students ask heaps of really curly questions about the details of anatomy and physiology and I’ve got NFI. Oh, well.
That’s the raw bones for now. Please come back soon as we’ll post every few days. Try not to be too critical (especially the older readers who are bound to say “Boring. Done that!”), but feel free to mail comments.
By the way “boris” is our imaginary dwarf schnauser. Long story… Please don’t tell others (eg. first year botany students) you know him 