White nights

I've got insomnia at the moment. Even though I'm ridiculously tired, my brain refuses to shut down for the night. The off switch is broken, even though the gears are moving slower. Or they're moving slower until I put my head on the pillow, at any rate. So what better way to while away the wee-sma's than blogging about it, and thereby sharing the pain with the blogosphere?

Have you ever noticed that you can't complain about being tired without someone in the room assuring you that it's nothing, compared to how exhausted they are/have been/were five years ago? Or is it just because of the people I work with that I'm thinking that? There's the middle aged Greek woman, who manages to complain about being happy, and the middle aged plastic surgery fan who is the stereotypical sales woman, right down to being in the process of trading her sports car for a four wheel drive that is unlikely to ever venture off road. She says it's to drive her dad and his friend around now that they can't do it for themselves. Anyone who has seen the elderly attempt to climb stairs will realise just how bad an idea is it to have a car they have to climb into. But I digress...

Not surprising, really. Lack of sleep does that to me. I should be happy and content at the moment. I've finally received the results of my thesis, and I passed. I weighed myself today, and have actually managed to lose a little weight - I could put it in percentage of my goal, but I won't, because that's a little depressing. I have had an almost moron free day at work, and have money in the bank (it was pay day on Tuesday). But it was also Valentine's Day on Monday, and the few morons who came in were spectacular (yes, I'm talking to you, Mr there-are-no-white-lines-on-my-street-why-are-we-so-left-out). While I should be thrilled with my thesis mark - it's a distinction, for anyone who cares, something I would have been thrilled to get in my architecture studies - I was a little disappointed; I have no right to be, when I submitted it knowing there were huge holes in both my arguments and my research, but there you have it. I think I know what I want to be when I grow up, and it involves more study, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it. But I've applied anyway, and now I'm trying to work out the logistics of maintaining a job while I study, getting through the study in as short a time as possible, and figuring out how the hell you can keep a full time job AND fit in the practical experience component of a teacher training course. Because that's where I want to get to. Teacher training. Only I'm not there. Nowhere near. And I haven't heard any confirmation about my application. And it's freaking me out. In fact, pretty much everything is freaking me out right now.

I spent some time looking into how much money I would need to buy my own property, and how much the banks are likely to loan me. And it turns out that I would actually need to have more money saved than I plan on borrowing from the bank if I'm to get my hands on anything halfway to what I want.

Out of curiosity - I was bored, the thought popped into my head, and my laptop was both there and on - I looked into going back to the UK. I find myself missing the crispness of a cold morning. I blame the humidity. Except that it turns out that they have put a stop to the visa that I had before, so I'd need sponsorship. And the only industry I'm trained for has gone down the toilet, so even if I did decide that I wanted to, I couldn't go back. And it peeves me no end. Except I wonder if I could...because I do have a letter...but then again, my visa expired, and...it's all so complicated and its so late, and...

It's the middle of the night and I'm lying in bed blogging. It seems the sky is falling in tonight. Except it's not. Oh, and I just found out on Sunday that not only is my sister-in-law pregnant, but so is another person I know. I'm not supposed to tell because she's only 7 weeks gone. But there you have it. That's another thing I have no idea how to get to.

I really shouldn't blog when the weight of the world is bringing me down. The sky isn't really falling. It's just another Melbourne thunderstorm in a summer that has already seen more natural disasters befall the world than I can ever remember coming so close together. Perhaps it's time to try and sleep again. I'm sure the world will look better tomorrow. It has to - it would be hard to look worse, right now.

Away from the bright lights

There's been a whole lot of attention focused on Queensland weather recently. And with the massive floods, followed by a cyclone, all within a month, it's little wonder. And it's not just happening in Queensland. Around the world, the weather seems to have gone just a little bit mad so far this year, much to the delight of certain media outlets who feed on the "thank god it's not happening to me" side of the public. And again, fair enough. I can see why the dramatic footage of record snow falls, landslides, cyclones, and raging torrents of flood water attract an audience.

The recovery process is now drawing all the attention here. The proposed levy to rebuild after the floods has been pretty well condemned by many - in spite of the fact that it averages out to less than a dollar a week for most people. The opposition leader has been condemned for attempting to cash in on the floods, running a party fundraiser on the back of the unpopular levy. We're being warned to prepare for sub-standard and expensive fruit and vegetables in shops, with the suggestion being that it's our duty to buy these goods to support the farmers in their time of need (although how we're supposed to know for sure that the damage was caused by floods I don't know; for all I can tell, it might just be that the grocers have found a way to get rid of damaged goods for a ridiculously inflated price). Volunteers are flooding into Queensland to get everything off the ground again.

Don't get me wrong about what's going to be written next. I feel for the Queenslanders who have gone through this. The loss of property and, worse than that, the loss of life, has been terrible. The state is understandably reeling from the events of this year and must be wondering what is going to hit them next. But at the same time, they are not the only ones who have been hit by this, not by any stretch. In fact, there are communities in Victoria that have been flooded out four times in the past six months - farming communities, who had weathered a seven year drought, only to be inundated when they just get a crop that looks good and is about ready for harvest.

And now it's come again. The two cyclones that have lashed the north of the country, weakened enough to be downgraded below cyclone classification, joined forces and headed south, where they ran into another front that was headed north. They all came together over Victoria for a weather event that seems to have had at least one meteorologist all but salivating. There are parts of my state that have had their annual rainfall come down in a two hour period. The Yarra might not have flooded, but the Lodden and Campaspe, the Mitta Mitta, and the Murray, as well as many others, are all up and about. There has been flooding in the north, the east, the south-east, flash flooding in Melbourne. No, there has been no loss of life, as far as I know only one serious injury when a girl was crushed by a falling tree. But please don't for a moment think that what has happened here is any less worthy of attention, because it's long term effects will be just as widespread. Perhaps the most dramatic photo I've seen was not a gushing torrent of water - although there are a few of them from a wide variety of places. It was a photo taken in Laverton of what looked like a swamp. It was covered in dead birds, who had not been able to withstand the winds that came through with the storms that hit the area overnight. Victoria has never known anything like it, and the forecasters say there is more to come. A quick look at the Sydney Morning Herald website, though, you'd think it was any other day. The weather is wrapped up in the fourth lead, a story which deals largely with the combined impact of cyclone Yasi on Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory before finishing by saying that the heat wave in Sydney is, in fact, unrelated. Surprise, Sydney-siders, it is summer, after all.

When the people who should be informed about events by media outlets like the SMH are complaining about the flood levy to rebuild Queensland, perhaps it might do to remind them of events on a national scale. Have a thought about the billions of dollars that could be spent here in Victoria, where the area responsible for fruit and wheat is doing it tough. When your bread costs more, think of the Wimmera and their six months of flooding that has wiped out the wheat crop. When you can't get grapes, think of Mildura's fields, currently under about a metre of water. Then look at the $1 a week it could cost to get Queensland on the road to recovery; wonder if any of that cash will make it to the areas that have gone unnoticed, because they have been overshadowed by the bright lights and the spectacle in Queensland. God knows half the people in Melbourne are barely aware of what's happening. How on earth would the rest of the country be expected to know?