...I came to Oz for the first time, and one year ago I moved into my house here (well, mine and the bank's). And, guess what, I still like the place! Amazing ;-)

Last week we had this slightly interesting public holiday. What for? Because of the Ekka (aka. Royal Queensland Show), a slightly rural multiday show spectacle. (Imagine Vienna being on holidays when the Wiener Messe opens. You can't? Well, this is Oz, not Vienna...)

All the usual suspects spent that day on the hill flying, and so did I. Not too bad, but not an especially good day for my flying either.

The semester is finally over for me coming Tuesday when the last exam takes place. Oh, how I look forward to spending concentrated time on research again.

What I'll also spend some time on is replacing my kitchen. Today I finished the planning, did some sketches of the layout to judge which variant to choose and so on. Now the spending starts :-/.

Amazing how fast that first year in my house went by; there's a fair number of things on the todo list and most of them have been there for...well, about 360 days, and I haven't really noticed. The upcoming anniversary made me take care of a couple of items, though, and a bit more push is starting to develop.

Last week I also finally discovered how close work is: walking takes about 11 minutes, driving about the same - in the car I've got to take a huge detour, while the walk is in a straight line: exit the complex through an inofficial door in the fence, walk through the park, cross under Bermuda St and enter uni. Brilliant thing to do, especially when it's sunny (ie. 330 days a year): the view towards the hills is great, the area is still open enough to be pleasant and life just feels good 8-)