bahuma: the blog

It was a little overdue (ok, 11 months overdue) but I got my work physical done today.

I had it done in Tassie so it was a little bit of a challenge to make the physical match what I used to get done in Hershey. Everything went fine and I am happy to say that I am still awesome at the spirometry test performing at 115%

Naturally come the pee test I always have trouble providing a sample when called upon. I totally forgot about the need to perform until I was walking down to the medical place. I stopped off at a store and bought a 750ml bottle of water and drank that. Upon arrival I drank another 2 cups in the waiting room. After another 4 cups in the secondary waiting room and doctors office, I was ready to attempt. After a few minutes I had enough for the test – woohoo!

Now naturally, after drinking over a litre of water and only providing 50ml for a test, I had a bit of a backlog. A few minutes into the walk home, my bladder informed me that it was time to go again. I was just at the loo dammit.

Anyway, next stop was the blood place. The doctor ordered tests to match the results from the ones I used to get in PA. For some reason the US tests give results for Carbon Dioxide. This threw everyone as no one had seen it. Books were searched and databases queried but no one was sure about how to do it. The nice office ladies ended up ringing the lab and it looks like they will have to figure it out when my half a dozen blood samples arrive.

Not wanting to waste a beautiful day today, I wanted to do something a little different for a couple of hours. I headed out to Pontville to visit Grandma and the other relatives that are buried there. It was a nice trip as it was the first time I had seen Grandma’s grave 100% finished as the statues on the pillars too awhile to be ordered and delivered.

I was really happy when I saw the finished result. The ornaments are so very grandma. They look like something she would wear as a brooch / pendant on a jacket or shirt. We had a nice chat and I promised next time I will bring her a beer

Today is one of the days of the year I look at things and thank whoever listens to my thoughts for what I have and how I could easily be much worse off.

These thoughts are triggered by the loss of a friend. 8 years today a beautiful young woman was taken from this place and I hope she knows that I still think of her. Howard’s facebook pretty much sums it up:

Even 8 years on, the thought that she is gone, still brings tears to my eyes.

I feel like every time I sit down and blog that I need to make excuses about how long it has been or why I haven’t written anything for so long. The funny thing is that I don’t have an answer. I have heaps of time to do it, stuff does happen so I am not dead boring and I have an audience (Hi Mum!).

Some of it comes down to me not being able to talk openly about some things and feelings that are floating around my head and once it is here, it is open for all to see. I guess I am growing up (scary thought).

So, what has been going on… let’s see, where to start. How about a jump back to March.

March saw me frantically pack up my apartment in Hummelstown PA, throw a cubic metre (or meter) worth of stuff onto a boat and fly back to Australia. My plan to move back to Australia was in motion but it was not all smooth sailing. It was much harder than I thought to shut down such a big side of my life and switch it back for a life back in Australia. I have so many good friends state side who I miss and will continue to miss. One thing I don’t miss is the BS associated with working as a UXO geo for a company that refuses to learn from its mistakes. I still believe I did my job well and the people I worked with were fantastic but the group made to many mistakes on some projects which meant we were always working to try and fix them.

I do believe I made the right decision to move back and I am happy that I have but I now need to settle into a new position. I have been working “part time” (full time with light weeks being subsidised from a huge band of comp and holiday time) from home on select projects that lended themselves to having split roles. Working remotely is great when the data is collected during the day US time and then I grab it in my morning so that by the time the field teams are awake and ready to go again, I have done my stuff and they have maps of they did yesterday and are aware of any issues. Working from home (for me) has its disadvantages though. I miss the social aspect of work greatly. As I said, I worked with some fantastic people and I was spoilt. So I have started looking for work and I have some applications in and I have fingers crossed that everything works out nicely.

In April Ally, Ellen and I jetted off to Hawaii for our Hawaii 2009 reunion tour. Corny name but our one major family holiday was in 1989 where we all came to the US via Hawaii for a few weeks and did the touristy things in LA like Disney Land and Universal Studios. It was the first time we had all ‘hung out’ in our adult lives and it was a great trip. The wedding was beautiful.

May, June, July, August were pretty routine. Working some, thinking some, working some more, thinking some more. I had a few things floating around my noggin and it took me a long time to work some things out for myself. I never knew some things would be so hard.

My birthday came and went in September. I actually had my second birthday in a row in Australia which was awesome. Our standard trip to the Indian Restaurant occurred and the food was good as usual. September also saw the first anniversary of Grandma’s death. It was a good day but a sad day. I still miss her so much but no one lives forever.

October saw more jetting around. Work came up in Hawaii and I was asked to go and help with. I stopped by Queensland on the way to catch up with family. The job took 3 days and was pretty smooth. I had a couple of days to myself to soak up the sun but my tan is still non-existent as I learnt from my mistakes in April and I applied ample sunscreen.

And now it is November. I am currently sitting on the couch in my aunt’s house back in Queensland. Outside the sun is shining and the trees are softly swaying in the breeze. The second trip was not really planned but
became a good option when I discovered that it was very difficult to get a flight back to Hobart after arriving on an International flight into Sydney at 4PM.

So what will the rest of November bring? Who knows? I am hoping to hear back about a position in a couple of week’s time and I will go from there. Any Geo related job around that I am interested in does require me to move. I think once this all happens I will feel much more settled as I will have a clear path forward and will have goals to work towards.

If anyone out there is still reading, thanks for listening