The problem with being in the city

Today I'd like to highlight one of the major problems with being a tourist in the city. Carrying things. Yesterday we went to the Queen Victoria Market in the pouring rain, necessitating a raincoat along with my fleece, gloves, and scarf. This raincoat ended up stuffed inside my large purse which was already weighted down with the following:

• Water bottle - hydration, clearly important
• Notebook - for all the info and blog notes
• Granola bars - for snacks
• Wallet - for money and cards
• Knitting and knitting book - for the train ride
• Sunglasses - in case the sun comes out
• Pens - for writing stuff
• Phone - for calling people
• Mp3 player - also for the train ride
• Tissues - for my sniffles
• Cough drops - for my throat
• Map - for finding my way
• Banana - for lunch
• Camera - for photo-documentation
• Alfalfa sprouts - also for lunch

Then we went to the Queen Victoria market and I added to my burden:

• A heavenly 20-cent orange
• A passionfruit
• Numerous souvenirs

Unwieldy to say the least. The boys opt to carry their bookbags everywhere. However, they do not appear to be immune from the "but I'm going to be in the city all day so I should bring this also" problem. Jared went to pay at a restaurant the other night and the following items had to come out of his pockets before he found his money.

• Wallet
• Large ipod
• Chapstick
• USB drive
• Mints
• Pen
• Notebook

All this makes me think that it would be truly useful to be a marsupial and have a nice little built-in pouch for carrying all my stuff around.

Make-a-plan Monday

Today we made a plan for the rest of the week. We set up meetings with Malcom, other post-grads in his Bible study, and with other leaders in Christian Union. I also set up an academic meeting with a researcher at the Division of Primary Industries. I also got to go to Sandy's women's post-graduate bible study, where we examined Daniel 1, a great study for graduate students.

One of our concerns so far has been getting information about grad student life. Mike gave us a research tool called "Decoding Your Campus" - a guide to finding out all about the geography, demography, social and spiritual landscape of an undergraduate campus. We looked it over and decided that there would be a lot of value in finding out this sort of thing for the post-graduates. However, we recognized that every lab or program would probably differ, at least on the social and spiritual landscape areas.

So yesterday while Ash went back to work on some other stuff, Jared and I walked down to the botanical gardens and the Shrine of Remembrance, then walked back up into town to catch a bite to eat at a cafe with good seating for working. We fashioned a new survey, one that would hopefully tell us what we need to know about post-graduate life and spirituality. We also hope that this survey will get us into some good conversations with post-graduate students. The plan is to set up a table in a central area with a sign that says "Post-Graduate Student Survey." Candy will be provided.

Today we will visit the Queen Victoria Market - a large open-air shopping facility that's been around since 1878.