Christmas KABOOM!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Much to my surprise, this is actually my fourth Christmas in Melbourne. I'm always surprised at how long I've been living here now. I remember when I first got here, the new Royal Children's Hospital was just starting to be built and was set to open in 2011. I thought that opening day was a lifetime away, but the Queen was just here the other month to officially open it's doors.

I also remember when I first moved here being told what I believed to be a tall story about how one year it snowed in Melbourne on Christmas Day. Yeah, right! It doesn't snow here in winter; there's no way it would snow in summer! Perhaps not, but if you look at some of the pictures of Melbourne this afternoon you wouldn't know it! Apparently someone decided to take one of the polar ice caps and just chuck it down on Melbourne. That's certainly what it sounded like in my apartment earlier anyways! There were some pretty big chunks coming down; unfortunately, as I live in a concrete jungle most of those big chunks broke up into smaller chunks as they hit the ground, so my pictures don't do the storm justice.

I've managed to do pretty well over the past four years, developing a community and a family away from my family. But this was the first year that I found myself without Christmas plans. Well, 'found myself' is a bit deceiving - it was a bit more deliberate than that.

My first Christmas here I was invited to spend the day with the family of a woman from my uni, who is now one of my thesis supervisors. It was a really nice Christmas, and I ended up staying overnight and for a good part of Boxing Day too! My second Christmas I made plans to have an 'orphan's Christmas' with a friend who was not able make it up to Sydney to see her family. We had a picnic lunch in Carlton Gardens and it ended up just being a really lovely afternoon. My third Christmas here my original plans *ahem* fell through, but I was taken in by my first flatmate - who is something of a big sister to me (though a very absentee one at the moment, for she seems to have disappeared off the earth). That Christmas ended up being really enjoyable and relaxing; though it helped that the next morning I was boarding a plane to Hawaii.

This year I thought I'd just see what the various people in my life were up to and just let whatever happened happen. And what happened is that most people I know here weren't orphaned for Christmas this year. Now, I'm sure that if I'd really wanted to I could have gotten myself invited over for someone's Christmas lunch. But I didn't want to. I wish I could be spending Christmas with my family this year, but that's just not possible - and spending it with someone else's family really just isn't all that appealing. When I realized I was facing Christmas alone - unless I started making the rounds with my best puppy dog eyes - I instead decided to embrace having the day to myself. And I'm glad that I did!

While I absolutely love Christmas in summer, it has a habit of sneaking up on me without me really realising. Especially since my family is so far away, so I don't have any of that prep work and planning to deal with. I put up some decorations around the apartment last week, and yesterday I broke out the Christmas music and baked a mountain of ginger snap cookies.

It was hot with humidity yesterday, and me having the oven on in our tiny apartment all afternoon was not exactly making either of us more comfortable. But, I had the tunes blaring and was singing and dancing along like, well, someone on a crazy sugar high, so I didn't mind the heat. I don't really know what the point of me making all these cookies was, given that nobody's really around to share them with. I made Coach take a bag of them with her this morning, but I've still got a mountain of them! A delicious, sugary, mountain...

Christmas is a time for watching movies, so once the cookies were finished Coach and I sat down and watched In America, which is not a Christmas movie, but has that same sentiment and is much more beautiful than probably any Christmas movie I've ever seen (though I've never see It's a Beautiful Life or whatever it's called).

Now, I have this Christmas tradition where I do not sleep at all on Christmas Eve. I actually out grew this a good ten years ago, but by that point I'd trained my family to be woken up at some ungodly hour so well that none of them are able to sleep past 6am and I hardly got any sleep anyways. True to form, I had trouble sleeping last night. I woke up a bit before 4am and went online for a bit - my Mom actually emailed me shortly after 4am to ask if I was up yet, which made me laugh. I did manage to fall back asleep though, to the sounds of low, grumbly thunder and dense rain on the tin roof. I didn't get up until 8:30, and was pretty dazed to find Coach already up and about - usually I've got heaps of time to wake up before I interact with anyone!

I made myself a coffee with eggnog in my special Christmas coffee mug (which, yes, I did bring out from Canada with me), waved off Coach and her brother, then got my computer up and called my Mom on Skype. There was some family over when I called, so I talked to all of them for a bit but it was too crazy so Mom said she'd call me back, and I went and got dressed, made breakfast, and put together a massive fruit salad for my picnic that afternoon. I talked to Mom for an hour, then let her go so I could get on with my own adventures before the severe weather warning came into effect.

I packed up my picnic basket, grabbed Greta, and headed off! I didn't really have a destination in mind; I just wanted to ride around and get some more practice while the roads were pretty empty. I decided I'd check out the Upfield bike path, since it kinda scares me and is the closest bike path to me. Turns out it connects with the Capital City Trail I normally ride on, so it's not actually that necessary for me to use it if I'm going south. Since I was on the Capital City Trail, I figured I'd head east and see what lay beyond Nicholson Street - the furthest I'd ever gone on that path. Pretty soon I was riding along the streets of North Fitzroy, which is handy to know. Or will be handy to know when I get comfortable with riding at night!

I got a bit turned around when I found myself at Rundall Station, which lead to me getting some experience with roundabouts! Ah, remember the days when I could only ride in a straight line? So much has changed since then! I made my way onto the Merri Creek bike trail and decided to head north and gradually make my way home. Again, I got confused about where the bike path was, so I went up St. George's Road...further than I needed to! And that's when it started to really rain. So I pulled over into Batman Park (not that Batman) and took refuge under a tree until the rain died down. It seemed as good a place as any for a picnic, and certainly at least the old man hanging out by the toilets drinking seemed to agree. I was going to offer him some of my cookies, but he was keeping a respectful distance and I decided I didn't really want to strick up a conversation with a random old man drinking out of a suitcase in a park on his own on Christmas Day.

The rain didn't last too long, and once it cleared up I made my way westward. I'd used my picnic time to look up a map on my phone and saw that if I continued down the street I was on I'd reconnect with the Merri Creek bike path again, so that's what I did. By this point the sun was out and it was getting nice and hot. Merri Creek is really pretty, so I decided to ride along it just a little bit more than I needed to to get home and take some pictures.

I made my way back home along the roads, which were empty. I even rode through all the intersections this time - though I'm still not sure how confident I'd be to do that with cars driving alongside me. Some people are idiots, and I don't really fancy putting myself at their mercy. I'm all about taking sensible risks. Like, I've realised my life will be a lot easier when I learn to stand up while cycling. So I spent some time this afternoon practicing. I can now stand up while I'm gliding, and it won't be much longer before I'm peddling as well.

Greta and I had a great time riding around the city. We were out for 2 hours, riding for most of it! I am becoming completely addicted to bike riding - figures! Once the crazy storms let up I think I'll figure out the best route into the city so that I can start riding into uni, seeing as that was the whole point of me buying a bike. Though given my adventures today and going to the gym yesterday, I may not be able to move for the next couple of days!! Ah well, not much stops me these days. I wanted to go out again this afternoon, but when I realised the weather warning was serious I changed my mind and watched Fargo for the first time instead (also an appropriate non-Christmas Christmassy movie, it it's way).

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas, and that you get to spend it doing the things that you want to do.

1001 Reasons

There's always 1001 reasons not to do something...

It's no secret that I've been on a pretty massive journey of self discovery and self transformation as of late. Over the past few months though, I've felt like all the 'theory' has been coming into practice. I've been trying to think about how to phrase it, and as I was confidently riding Greta home from a little trip to Carlton, I came up with it! But I will get to that.

I've been trying to really actively do new things and say yes to new experiences lately. It's involved a lot of listening to myself and taking chances. The events of the past few months have made me realise that you just never know what's going to happen in life, so you'd better make the most of it while you can. And so I have been!

Doing new things sounds simple enough, but the thing is, people are really great at talking themselves out of doing stuff. There's always 1001 reasons not to do something, so if you are going to do something new, the first step is to stop looking at the reasons (excuses) not to.

For instance, for awhile now I've been walking half way to/from uni through North Melbourne. It's a beautiful walk and I find it very relaxing. At the end of a stressful day it's a great way to unwind. At the start of the day it's a great way to just take some time for myself. Since doing the 10k for the Melbourne Marathon, I haven't had much motivation to run. I've gone for a handful of runs in the park, but without something to train towards, pushing through the pain and boredom of running in circles isn't the most appealing option. I often do things out of a curiosity to see what I am capable of, but even that was not be motivation for me; after all, I went from never running in June to running a 10k in October, I'm pretty freggin' capable!

Often on my walks I thought that it would be perfect to run home from uni. It's about 6k, the first half through North Melbourne, the second half through Royal Park. The problem was, there was 1001 reasons for me not to: I have a ton of books to carry home from uni, I'd have to change my clothes, it's getting really hot out, etc etc etc. To my credit, I was working out solutions to these problems. But it still involved me putting the actual running off for some other day.

And then, a couple weeks ago, I just said fuck it. You wanna run home from uni, just make it happen. So I did! I have been playing social netball Wednesdays at lunch (if you don't know what netball is, neither do I, and all I can tell you about it is that it is the most absurd sport I've ever seen) so I was already bringing in my running gear on those days. And surely I could just leave the books at home for one night? All I really needed was my phone, my wallet and my keys, and I have a bum bag for running with those anyways.

So, a couple Wednesdays ago, I just did it! I had thought that the run was going to be mostly downhill - it's not. The first time I did it was killer. Turns out, there's a big difference between going for a run first thing in the morning in October and going for a run in the late afternoon in December - a 10-15 degree difference!! By the time I get home I'm drenched in sweat and exhausted. But it feels so good to just have a cold shower, pop on my pajamas, and spend the evening relaxing. It turns out, all those reasons not to do it were pretty insignificant. I've run home twice now, and the second time was much better. It's a really good challenge, and it's practical, so I plan to continue doing this once a week - provided it's not too hot. Sometimes reasons not to do something AREN'T excuses!!

Another big new thing that I've been up to is riding Greta. We've been getting along much, much better as of late. Over the weekend I went for a bike ride with my new friend - whom I shall refer to as Trouble - and her bike, Sabina. Sabina and Greta really hit it off, and I know Greta is excited to go play with her again! :) Trouble and I have also really hit it off, but that's another story for another time and probably another place!

Since I'm feeling more confident, I've been wanting to just get out and ride places more. Now that I'm on Christmas holidays, I figured I'd ride down to Carlton today and do a bit of shopping. I was nervous about going that far, but determined to just do it. I also wanted to ride on the road for a change, get a bit more practice riding in traffic. So this afternoon I got my stuff together and went to get Greta. I'd had some problems with her tyres over the weekend, and when I checked the back one, it was completely flat. Turns out, I'd split the tube!

At first this sent me into quite the panic. I don't know anything about bikes and I had no idea what would be involved in fixing this problem. I was upset because both my plans for that afternoon and my plans for Christmas Day were suddenly changed. But after sending a few frantic text messages, Hubby came through and advised me it was something that was easily fixed. So I took Greta down the the bike shop around the corner and $20 later, good as new!

And so off I went! I rode along the street until I got to the bike path, then took the bike path through Royal Park to the zoo, rode around the zoo, then popped out a side street and made my way along the Melbourne Cemetary, where I rather randomly ran into one of my friends from uni! All of this was new to me: I'd never been down these paths before, I didn't know what to expect around the next corner. And while I was nervous about it, this is where that shift comes in:

It's not about having confidence in my ability to do something, but having confidence in my ability to be OK if things go wrong.

I'm still a beginner at riding a bike, and I know that sometimes I'll get freaked out or lose control. But by trusting that I can manage whatever comes up along the way, I can just get on with living my life. Whatever happens, I can deal. Knowing this has made me much calmer about, well, everything. It makes saying yes to new experiences a lot easier, given that I'm not worrying about what might go wrong along the way (within reason, obviously).

My ride with Greta today ended up being really great! It didn't take very long to get down to Carlton, and it didn't take long to get home either. I took a different route home, riding up Rathdowne St to Capital Trail. I rode on the street, along side the cars, stopping and starting at the traffic lights. And I was fine! Not only that, but when I got to Park St, the Taco Truck was set up and people were wandering down to have a picnic along the bike path. So I rode over, parked Greta, and bought myself a chicken taco - which was pretty darn tasty! Afterwards I continued on the bike path, and I was actually able to make it all the way up the steep hill that every other time I've gone on I've had to stop and walk part way up. I didn't actually have to stop at any point, and was able to weave my way between pedestrians, oncoming bikes, and road traffic without incident. I'm feeling pretty darn confident to ride all over town now!

After all, whatever happens along the way, I'll deal.