Posted by alexandra_k on July 23, 2016, at 19:44:52
I moved. Down south... The southernmost city in the world... Only... I don't know that around 120,000 people (that might even include the 20,000 students) qualifies as a city, really. It isn't as riotous as youtube led me to believe. It may well be more riotous at the start of the year orientation in Feb / March, admittedly, and I'm also a few blocks away from where most of the action reputedly takes place. There have only been a few drunken groups yelling their way past at night. But the cold has them moving along relatively swiftly... It hasn't really been a problem for me.
I was lucky to find an old mansion (of which there are many) that has been nicely renovated into different flats (significantly less common). I have my own space about 3x the size of what I had before. Nice high ceilings. A sense of spaciousness, basically. Double glazing on the windows. Insulation. Heat pump. Fridge / freezer... All of that helps muffle / mask the outside noises.
I also got a grant to purchase some Bose noise cancelling headphones. They don't passively block or actively cancel people (particularly women) talking, particularly, but they do isolate or cancel people whispering. That means I can actually study in silent / quiet sections of the library where people are 'trying' to be quiet. They take the edge of the higher pitched tones, too, so I don't have a startle response to people when they are actively trying to be obnoxious. They help a lot, basically. They really weren't cheap... But they really have been worth it for me.
I'm just doing one neurobiology paper this semester. I needed a uni start date deadline in order to get moved... I didn't know whether it was possible for me to do it (which was why I hadn't done it long ago). Stayed for 9 nights in a motel... Anyway... I'm still waiting on my stuff to arrive... That's a bit odd, not having my own linen etc. Needed to spend quite a lot of time in at Work and Income making a case for this and that... There are government grants for moving... And there were ways of making it possible for me to live in a nice space (rather than paying 1/2 the rent cost to live in a horrible cold and noisy hovel with drunken teenagers) But I suppose they need to make people really work to access them or everybody would want that and the system would be overwhelmed / swamped such that it wouldn't be possible for anyone to do it.
Things seem much better for me here. I feel like I've come home to academia, again. I'm an anatomy major now and they really have an eye to anatomy as an art, here. We are located in the nicest historic buildings. Beautiful spaces that have a wonderful aesthetic to them. Steeply staggered seating for good acoustics. Lecture benches with an edge and a grippy surface so your stuff doesn't slide off. Art works all about the place. Artefacts. Rabbit ventilators and so on. It's just wonderful.
I'm looking forward to bio-mechanics. People have been doing models of joint angle changes through gait cycles etc... And apparently bio-anthropology is big here... Bones... Dating bones and stuff like that. So there are a couple papers I can do over there, too. I've been told that of course I can attend lecture classes I haven't enrolled in (how else are you supposed to decide what you like / want to do?) and I just feel really at home here. Easy to walk to art gallery / museum etc... Really nice stuff here... Even the colder weather suits me better than the icky humidity of before... I've even been getting to a bunch of seminars.. Meant to do that before but sensory defensiveness... Just always felt overwhelmed.
I really do think I am and will stay so very much happier here.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1090789
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20160101/msgs/1090789.html