It all ends

Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock would know that the eighth and final Harry Potter movie was released last week. The press has covered it exhaustively, from both a "Thank |God it's over" standpoint to a "wow, it's all so brilliant, you simply must see it" perspective. I've always been a fan, first of the books and then of the films. I was out at the cinemas last Tuesday night, watching the Deathly Hallows Part 1 in preparation for the latest movie. I was hardly alone. I think it would be rare to find a full cinema for a movie that's about a year old, without it having become a cult classic. Even more rare would be the look of the audience.

I know there are certain films shown in certain cinemas where people go along to participate and dress up. The Westgarth used to run the Blues Brothers regularly; the Moonlight Cinema showings of Grease end up attracting a huge crowd of fans. Rocky Horror Picture Show, in particular, is known for audiences in costumes not normally seen on the streets. Harry Potter seems to be in the same category. The hard core fans were out and about on Tuesday night, complete with robes (or rather, academic gowns, most often), hats, wigs, brooms and scars. My friends and I all felt very old as we got our money's worth out of the ticket just in watching our fellow audience stream in. We certainly felt a strange combination of under-dressed and old, sitting in our tame street clothes. There again, we weren't going to be backing up our 9pm session of the old movie with the midnight first screening of the new one. Part of what made us feel old was the realisation that, before we became mature adults and had to turn up in a reasonable state for work on a regular basis, we would have been in the midnight show. Sure, we wouldn't have dressed up, but we would have been there.

There's been a whole lot written about how many of the fans have grown up with the characters. They started out the same age as Harry when they read the first book, and have reached adulthood and maturity at the same time as him. Little has been noted about the generation of fans who measure their adult life in comparison of Harry, as well. Close reading of the novels will show that Harry, the character, should be about my age. The headstone on his parents' grave puts their death in 1982, meaning he was born in 1981. He, like me, should fall into the awkward gap between Gen X and Gen Y, forever feeling just slightly out of place with those on either side of the generation gap. We're too young to have children in tow when we go to these films, but too old to feel comfortable walking through Crown Casino dressed up as a death eater. But at the same time, the Harry films, at least, have coincided with some big things in my own life.

The first Harry film came out when I was 21. I was legally an adult everywhere, and taking my first steps into a properly grown up world. It was the year that they kicked us out of university to go and work for a while, to learn just how much we didn't know about being architects. I used at least part of my year to take my first overseas trip without adults - actually, my first since a trip to New Zealand as a three year old. I saw the movie alone, sitting in a late afternoon session on a miserable day in Cork, Ireland. I felt like a complete outsider as I sat there waiting for the lights to go down - although in Ireland, like the UK, they never go down completely the way they do in Australia, so it felt even more strange. Then, for a couple of hours, I was transported to places that had suddenly taken on a new meaning for me, given that I'd just experienced the wonders of Kings Cross Station, of London for the first time. The sense of wonder Harry felt when he arrived at Hogwarts for the first time was nothing compared to the awe I felt as I stood in a London phone booth (this was in the dark ages, before Skype, before everybody travelled with a mobile phone, hell, before my parents had worked out how to email) and told Mum that I'd arrived safely. She still remembers how excited I sounded, even after not having slept for almost 36 hours. I may have been ten years older than the fictional character, but I could relate.

Since then, the world has grown increasingly dark for both the fictional wizards and the real life me. We aren't threatened by an evil dark lord, but the rise of terrorism following September 11, less than a month before I made that first trip, and the current financial woes have cast a shadow over the adulthood of my in-between generation. We emerged from childhood into a world where we were told we could have everything, much like Harry discovering the wizarding world. The first years of the rest of our lives were bright, with sudden explosions of doom, until about four years ago when the first rumblings began. Around the time of Order of the Phoenix, actually.

So here we are, and Harry has saved Hogwarts once and for all. There's no doubting now that I'm all growed up, even if I do still have a liking for kiddie tales. Here's hoping that the lighter side of the final scenes of Deathly Hallows Part 2 will presage brighter times ahead for my age group, a lighter future for the Gen Yers who went to so much trouble with their costumes. One can only hope.

Upwardly mobile

I've been cruising real estate websites while I've been off work (the back injury is healing...so is the throat infection that I got from hanging out in doctor's waiting rooms too much). Part of this was looking for a friend who is genuinely in the market for a new house. The other part was me wondering if there was anywhere in Melbourne I could afford to buy a place. Turns out that the answer is no.

Drives me a little crazy to know that although searching all of Melbourne in my price bracket returns 8 pages of hits, not one of them is suitable. I don't qualify to live in student only developments - and my God, there are a hell of a lot of them, fully furnished one room and a toilet style - nor am I in the market for a car parking space in the city. So I started looking a little further afield. And then I found it.

I found a nice looking block of land on the Melbourne side of Bendigo. Or was it Ballarat? I can't remember now, and it's not vital. Either way, it's about an hour from where I live and work now. A little more research, and I found that I can build on the block for about my price limit. And building in a regional area, I could even get a bigger grant from the government. So there you have it. About an hour out of Melbourne, I can afford a house. Hell, I could maybe even save a little, based on what the mortgage repayments would most likely be, assuming I was earning the same as I am now.

But there's the rub.

There are next to no jobs listed in the country that I qualify for. Nor are there people that I know. Sure, I have ideas on how to meet people when moving to another place now. But do I really want to do it, just so I can have my own place? Surely there is a better solution out there...Trouble is, I have no idea what the hell it is. As a single person who doesn't work in a well-paid industry (or at least for a generous employer), and someone who hasn't managed to save due to a debilitating travel habit, I have no deposit saved. Property prices in Melbourne have risen over 100% in the past decade and, although the market has slowed, are still continuing to go up. So where does that leave me? Renting, that's where it leaves me. Until I decide that the country life is for me. Then? Well, we'll see...

The Art of Distraction

I've stuffed my back again. I must be getting old, it's happening more often than it used to. Now, something as simple as sleeping can have pain shooting down the back of my legs and radiating up to my shoulders. I've been using it as an excuse to avoid doing dishes (although interestingly, the number of dishes used seems to have multiplied in inverse proportion with my will to clean them). That little half bend at the sink had me throwing in the towel, before it had wiped a single plate. Tonight, I felt that I ought to bite the bullet and get on with it, before I ran out of tea spoons. Funny how they're always the first things to go.

Of course, my will to do the dishes actually increased when I realised how much study I had waiting for me. Because I've taken the masochistic jump and enrolled in that teacher training course I mentioned way back. Part time, I should be able to teach in three years or less, depending on how soon I get myself to a point where I can quit work and study full time. So in around 5 years I should be standing in front of my own class, then. Pfft. Like it will ever happen...But either way, it inspired me to wash the dishes. And now the spasm that caused in my back has me propped carefully on the couch with a comfy cushion squashed in just the right spot while I recover once again.

Of course, all of this is not just a distraction from the lock on my spine. It's to distract me from the fact that, once again, I'm waiting for a seemingly nice boy to get in touch with me so we can meet up and see if we're as nice in person as we seem via email. I'm sweating on my inbox like I never did over results for study, even though I know the boy - let's call him Ernie - is pulling midnighters at work for a week or two and is therefore unlikely to contact me. Either that, or he's miffed about certain parallels with Ray Martin that I jokingly pointed out. Actually, thinking about it, I probably shouldn't have done that. Just like I shouldn't have started writing about him, because now I'm going to get all paranoid that I've done something stupid, yet again. I need a "Quick! Look over there!" distraction. But when you're in your own head, it's a little hard. So I think I might have to get back into some of the things I've been putting off. I think I have some movement in my back again, and an airer full of clothes is calling me. And my new flatmate (did I mention that I have a flatmate now? All part of the trying to get to a position to fund full time study plan...as an added bonus, she's hardly ever here and when she is, she keeps to her room. The perfect flatmate, in many respects) gets back from a holiday on Thursday, so best not have my underpants on display in the living room. I don't think we know each other well enough for that yet.

Right. Arse off couch. Here we go.

Bugger.

Oh well, was worth a shot.

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.