Mar 14 - A Convivial Commute

  Today was the big day, my first public transport commute into the city.  The morning commute started as I left the house at 6:50am and walked to the bus stop.  Mere minutes later I was on a 902 bus headed for Springvale train station and minutes after alighting the bus I was on a limited express train to the city.

Yep, it was still on the dark side of morning.

  The train was pleasantly uncrowded.  I got a teensy bit annoyed at a fellow commuter for taking up two forward facing seats, one for her and one for her bag.  I thought on a morning commute train that sort of behaviour is pretty inconsiderate.  If it's lunch time and the train is empty, fair enough if you don't want someone sitting next to you there are plenty of other seats then, but not during morning rush hour.  I prefer to sit forward facing and was instead forced to sit backwards, but since I was planning on reading it made little difference overall.  I finished my book on frugal living, read the first short story in a 93 story anthology then window gazed for the remainder of the trip.
  When I got to Melbourne Central station I was delighted to find stickers of the 'Dumb Ways To Die' plastered all over the place.  The song (click here) was stuck in my head all day as a result.  There are certainly worse songs to have stuck in your head, Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins for example, or Ricky Martin's Living Lavida Loca.
  I dawdled a bit on my way from the station to work to enjoy the relative stillness of the city before 9am.  It's only 350m or so from the station to work but I probably took five minutes to do it.  Door to door, my morning commute took one hour exactly.  That is only ten minutes more than driving, and it was cheaper and infinitely less stressful so I will be trying very hard to make public transport my primary choice for commuting from now on.

The Shot Tower

The still majesty of The State Library

A pretty wrought iron bench with giant metal sunflowers.

   It was a deadline day at work today and I also had a couple of meetings which chewed up valuable time.  Still, the deadline went well, I think 'Sales' is the first thing that will be under control in this role but that's mainly because it wasn't that out of control to begin with.  More invoices tomorrow I suspect, and I shall have to tackle car park invoicing and receipting too.
  Today the job felt a bit overwhelming, my desk is drowning in a sea of paperwork.  Sure I know where everything is, I just don't yet know what to do with all of it!  I am not going to waste time worrying about it though.  If I still don't know what to do with it in three months time, then I'll get worried.
  One of the meetings today was good though, it was an old friend now working in our payroll dept. who had come out to show us the new whiz-bang electronic payroll system.  We were on a very outdated paper based system prior to this so it's all very practical and useful and gives you more control over everything.
  When I logged in after the training session to have a play and submit my first electronic leave form, I noticed that my start date with the company was also displayed.  Today as it turned out, was my seven year anniversary with the company!  It was on this day in 2006 that I first joined the weird and interesting world of shopping centre management.  I haven't loved every day, but I have loved it overall, and still do.
  Seven years is a pretty cool anniversary, as it now means they have to pay out long service leave if I quit!  Woohoo!  You don't get to take any long service leave until your ten year anniversary (at which time you get 13 weeks off!) but after seven years they have to pay you out any prorata entitlement, which today should be around 9 weeks.  Now there's a comforting nest egg of a thought.
  Pretty soon quittin' time rolled around and I hurried off to the train station thinking that at 4:30pm I might just beat the bulk of the rush.  No such luck.  When I arrived at the train station the 4:43pm Pakenham line limited express train was running 7 minutes late.
  A young girl grumbled good naturedly to me, "I don't know why but they are always late on Thursdays!"  I noted that for next week.  Thursday might have to be my working late night!
  The Pakenham train was then announced as being 9 minutes late, then ten minutes late, then cancelled.  The the Cranbourne limited express arrived and it was so full I couldn't get on it and didn't want to try.  Then the Carrum train was stuck on the platform for 5 minutes, then finally I got the next Pakenham limited express and was stuck in it like a sardine for the whole trip back to Springvale!
  The one saving grace of the trip home was a lovely girl who works at Supercheap Auto in Yarraville.  She was nearing the end of her commute and we chatted about being stuck and personal comfort zones being relative and swapped stories.  We had a lovely little mini friendship squished together in the chaos.
  Door to door the evening commute took an hour and a half, but the half was all standing waiting on a platform so the actual traveling bit was still only an hour.  It was not so horrible that it's put me off but I am very grateful that it wasn't hot today.  That would've been awful!  So the public transport commuting had ups and downs, but I think overall it's the better way to travel so I am going to stick with it for a while.  I may even buy a monthly myki pass.  I've been investigating myki fares online  and I think overall that's the cheapest option, even if I drive one day a week it's still cheaper than paying a daily fare.  It would be even cheaper if I lived in Zone 1 of course, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

  Today's food was:

• Breakfast was two slices of toasted Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds Bread spread with Meadow Lea margarine and Vegemite.
• Morning snack was an apricot.
• Lunch was a 300g chicken and corn soup with two slices of toasted Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds Bread.
• Afternoon snack was a Granny Smith apple, cored and sliced.
• Dinner was two garlic and herb kangaroo kebabs (200g raw weight) with about 120g Moroccan salad.
• Dessert was a 40g Cadbury dark chocolate Bubbly bar.

   I'm off to bed now so that I can be well rested for tomorrow's commute.  Hopefully I'll manage it a little better.  Definitely looking forward to the weekend at this point.  Time to catch up on all that sleep I didn't get in Brisbane.  Thank heavens for comfy beds and lazy weekend mornings.
  Jess