Early Summer in Melbourne

Melbourne is prolly the only Australian city with the most erratic climate and temperament. Winter set its foot and draped the city with temperatures never more than 20C, and when spring has supposedly tempered its way through in September, it still felt like winter up till October, even though the occasional warmth graced by the sun managed to provide us with 25C to 30C temps.

And so it was a surprise to me when summer knocked on Melbourne’s door early yesterday, when two nights before we were actually shivering whilst playing our choi dai di/Big 2 (trivia: Ivan found a Facebook Big 2 game WTF) and Heart Attack card games and sipping our goon. It was so hot that today, quite a number of people in Walsh Residence today has decided to purchase fans.

I am not one of them ‘cause I’m financially prudent like that, but we’ll see how long I could go with my heater which has a function to blow out thin slices of cold air (it’s currently being dangled on top of my chair’s armrest, with the cool air blowing directly towards my body). We’re not provided air-conditioners here, much less fans or ceiling fans.. so we’ll see how long I could last.

Today’s temperature hovers max at 32C. Funny how when I arrived in winter I was bitching about the cold, and right when I finally got used to it, I think I’m going to start complaining about the heat, despite prolly living in that kinda temperature all my life in Malaysia—the only difference is it’s dry here, as opposed to being humid back home.

I woke up late today at nearly 2pm after sleeping at 4am+ last night; had initially set the alarm clock in my laptop at 9.30, and I woke up feeling surprised that the music file I had set it to (which Matt sent to me, with the title of “Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too” wtf) didn’t sound. Turns out that I had set it to 9.30pm instead of 9.30am fml. -_-

Ethan, Desmond, and I lazily went outside to eat a late lunch at Subway along Swanston St—it was my first time having a foot-long sandwich ($7 for the ham sandwich) and it wasn’t too bad. Later on we split up as Ethan wanted to head over to the 2nd hand shop near Flinders St to check out hat prices, while I tagged along with Desmond to BigW as he wanted to get a fan. He allowed me to inherit the fan from him (which costs about $25) when he goes back to Brunei late November, which means my summer in December wouldn’t be that awful after all. :D Apparently I could just pass it to Ivan when I head back in early Jan.

Went to Flagstaff Gardens with Ethan at about 5.20pm, myself armed with a Gabay’s Copywriters’ Compendium book I borrowed from the library last Friday (along with 4 other copywriting books) to read beneath the shades of a tree on the soft grass, enjoying the sunshine. The experience was slightly marred by flies/bugs/insects flying around, possibly attracted to the sweet summertime grass.

I dozed off for a bit—it was a great place to sleep, except when the sun descended slowly and threw its rays onto us.

A bird nearby.

A napping Ethan.

A feather lying on the grass.

Another look at said feather.

And with the arrival of summer, it’s inevitable that people start shedding more clothes and opt for either no shirt (for the guys) or tanktops (for the girls) and frolick in the sun.

We were there for only about 40 minutes before we started to head back.

We also started preparing our dinner late at about 8.30pm, Ethan cooked minced beef with cubed potatoes while I cooked my chicken with ginger (using sesame seed oil and some Chinese cooking wine) under Desmond’s guidance wtf. We also made honey & ginger drink for ourselves as we have an excess of ginger… no thanks to me purchasing 500g of this particular vegetable from the market ‘cause I didn’t realise that was a tad bit too much. It was pretty pricey too at about $10/kg.

A little unchronological, but we cooked dinner together with Wilco yesterday, the HK dude who has repeatedly asked us to lower our voices/sounds as he sleeps early and never participates in our activities (lol). Apparently he was leaving next week and would be moving out, so he had wanted a Final Dinner with us.. we even invited Mike over to eat, and I thought the entire dinner experience was somewhat.. awkward. Desmond and I (or rather, just Desmond lol) prepared ginger & chicken soup with chicken drumsticks and it was actually pretty good.. I only bought the ginger as Ethan mentioned it being good for my flu (which has now let up, it’s only the cough that remains) and now I don’t know how to finish the ginger by the end of this week wtf.

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Found some gelato actually being sold in Woolworths a couple of days ago, so I bought 4 boxes (under the 4 for $10 promotion) and shared half with Ethan. Each box has two smaller tubs of about 125ml, and I thought that was a pretty sweet deal. Finally, some pleasure food for my lactose intolerant self.

Which reminds me, I have yet to eat the dark chocolate I bought a week or two ago—it’s milk-free!

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A week to go and I’m afraid of all the possibilities. Afraid of losing touch, and all the camaraderie I’ve built up with the Walsh St Boys, and I wished I didn’t have to go. I half-regretted this NZ trip I pre-planned, and I wished I had planned the trip a little later when I could say the last goodbye to the last person leaving and not be the first who leaves.

Sometimes I wished I hadn’t known them this well so I don’t have to go through this endless cycle of meeting and disconnecting with people. I would’ve have been reasonably happy on my own, completely isolated from everyone in my own solitary world.. but all the good times I had with them triumphed over that, so I suppose it’s worth suffering through this emotional turmoil I’m bound to have. In the end, I guess I don’t want to be replaced in their minds, and I hope we don’t slowly disappear into our own worlds and be pushed away altogether.

But inevitably, if past experiences from primary and secondary school are a good indicator (save for the u8 gang), the disconnection and awkwardness would eventually occur. But maybe, just maybe, tertiary, overseas life would be sufficiently different enough to not relapse into this same terrible conclusion.