Category: Blog

Booked the flights. I leave next week. It’s a secret, because work wants to deal with it in increments, but I figure nobody follows me here.

Or at least, if they do, let’s pretend they didn’t read this.

Anyway, I’m heading back home for the foreseeable future. Work has agreed to let me continue on for the time being, but it’s an awkward position and I’m not sure how long it’s going to last. I was initially hopeful it would work on an ongoing basis, but subsequent conversations make me question that. So we’ll see.

I fly to London on Thursday, then stay the night with Tom and Shashi, then fly to Melbourne via Perth on Friday.

Once I’m in Melbourne there’s a two week quarantine in a corona hotel where hopefully I’ll be able to work as normal and will not come down with the coronavirus. After that I’ll fly to Brisbane (tbd) and probably rent a place for myself.

I’m going to ship my bike and a box of personal belongings back separately. I might send them to Ryan, not sure yet. I requested three separate quotes but nobody has gotten back to me yet so I’ll have to chase them up.

I gave notice on my apartment, cancelled a bunch of services, will return my rental bike tomorrow, and I dunno. It feels like I have very few loose ends over here.

The main problem arrives when I deregister with the Dutch government. That means I lose my bank account, lose my Dutch tax number and lose my paycheck. So work has offered to register me at the office for up to three months, after which at this stage of negotiations I’m going to be out of a job. So that’s fun.

I will send another email tomorrow, probably, and be frank and upfront. Because I would like to keep working for them, but we need to be realistic about what that means.

Shawn is safe in Malta, but

My milk didn’t arrive. It was rejected by DHL and is sitting somewhere in a warehouse and now I’m out.

So I’m gonna head out for a quick walk to the supermarket. Might pick up a tin of Milo. Might not. We’ll see.

Shawn and I made pasta over video for our half year anniversary. I was extremely stressed and anxious about unrelated things, but there must be something cathartic about making a big old mess of flour everywhere because I was feeling pretty good by the time we finished.

No pics cos my raviolis were demented and I forgot to take a photo anyway. But I’ll definitely be doing it again now I know how easy* it is.

Finally pressed the button on a big Amazon order today. I’d been saving up to do it in one go and save on (free) delivery, but my toothpaste is almost empty so that pushed me over the edge. It’s arriving in three separate deliveries anyway, spread throughout the week.

I discovered almost by accident that I can order consumables as well as regular items, so along with a new tube of toothpaste I’ve bought ten litres of UHT milk. The thinking is that now I don’t have to lug the stuff back from the supermarket. I’m trying to keep shopping trips to a minimum, so this will leave more room for other items in my backpack.

This morning I woke up to a gloomy overcast, it seems the sunny weather has gone for the while. It’s nice because the cigarette smoker hasn’t been outside my window as much today.

I think I prefer the rainy days, they’re more cosy, although I realised today that compared to back home the petrichor has a very different, kinda damp smell. It’s not the same.

Right as the old construction site finished, there is a new one starting up across the road (yeah, during the “lockdown”). Even though I have noise cancelling headphones I can still hear it. There is so much dirt in my apartment I am vacuuming thrice a week and my Macbook has dust streaks coming out of the air vents.

I’ve had a mild sinusitis ever since the work-from-home order. My nose is full of crap and my sinuses burn, and it doesn’t help that there’s a dickhead sits outside my window on his Macbook smoking all day. If I catch it in time I can close the windows and keep it out, but once it’s inside there’s nothing I can do. It gets too hot to keep the place closed up in any case.

I’m pretty angry with my living situation at the moment because it’s quite literally toxic and I feel dirty all the time and I am so damn tired, but courtesy of global events there’s nowhere to go. I guess I’ll complain about it on the Internet.

We recently onboarded two new devs on the team (remotely!) and they’ve been fantastic. I was super pleased with how fast they picked up issues and started taking on tasks that would have otherwise bogged me down in minutiae. It was also a great feeling to see all our preparation pay off.

As a result of this in a place where I’m spending a lot more time doing philosophical work, either being asked how to solve a problem, or given a solution that causes more issues than it fixes. In these cases I can either propose a workable solution, or ignore the issues and do the bare minimum to get the change out the door. The third and more depressing state is when we literally can’t fix the problem because it is stuck in a tech debt dependency hell: something that is impossible to fix now without taking on the larger structural problems which we don’t have time to fix yet either. Business loves quick fixes, developers love abstracting problems away, but everybody hates being deadlocked by tech debt.

At the moment I’m struggling because I’m spending a lot of my time supporting the team and keeping a lid on our issues, while at the same time trying to manage a regular ticket workload. Obviously the latter is suffering, and I’m feeling anxious about that, even though I know these are unreasonable expectations to have for myself.

I suppose it takes some getting used to, and I’m sure as the new starters get up to speed it’ll be less of an issue. But it’s made me realise that my “architectural” role at a previous company really left me with some anxiety about the knowledge component in knowledge work, after 90% of our time was spent in planning and 0% of the work ever made it to production.

I should really write a post mortem on that.

I remember the first time I blogged with WordPress. It seemed so magical, but at the same time it was this discrete entity under my control. I owned the server and the database and could do with it whatever I pleased with not a care in the world. Occasionally someone would read my posts and occasionally they were immature, and I still regret some of the things I said. But it was exciting having my own little space in the world to make words.

Contrast that with now and this blog is just another amorphous cloudy glorb with secret inner workings that I don’t care to understand let alone do anything with. The magic has been lost amongst the noise and ads and monthly subscription charges. And that’s part of how we’ve gone months between posts, dear diary.

I’m thinking now the world’s changed I should write more. The closest I’ve come to keeping a diary is my alt Twitter, locked away for nobody but myself. But that tends to capture the worst of me for no real reason other than the convenience of shouting into the void. I sometimes miss composing the odd paragraph or two for the screaming abyss. So, I suppose, that’s this.

I also remember the first time I composed a blog post on my phone, the little T9 keyboard of my Nokia 6120c worn bare from the exuberance of modern technology. Now it seems so normal to lay in bed unable to sleep and swipe out a wanky obituary to good times past. I’m sure someday I’ll fondly remember these with the same tint.

I’m on the train to Maryborough now. At the last minute I decided to get the tilt train straight to Maryborough West rather than the slower, cheaper Gympie North train then drive the extra 45 minutes north.

I’ve spent the past week camping on Ben’s floor and as much as I love and appreciate that man, I’m ready for… camping on my parents floor. Okay, not much has changed there, but I’ll have a room to myself and I won’t be in the way all the time.

Living out of a suitcase is hard y’all! I wasn’t expecting it to be amazing, but after three weeks now I’m just about ready to head back to Amsterdam. I’m leaving on Sunday and I’m sure I’ll have changed my mind by then.

I’m of two minds about heading back to Amsterdam. On one hand it’s where my home is, but on the other I’ve lately not been enjoying my time there for reasons I can’t really put my finger on. I think the thing I miss the most is being able to roam anywhere and do as I please; in the Netherlands it’s either too cold or too crowded for outdoor activities. The second the sun comes out the entire country is out in force to sunbathe in city parks and dine crammed together on narrow city streets.

The other thing I’ve really missed is the food. I had a nightmare the other night that I went to a Dutch restaurant and they served croquette on mashed potato, the whole speaking indecipherable Dutch. I miss pub food, Asian cuisines, fresh vegetables. Arnott’s Shapes ffs. The only thing interesting about the food in Amsterdam is how expensive it is.

That’s not to say I’m not enjoying my time in Europe, but you know. I don’t think I’m going to stay there forever. I just don’t know where forever is going to be (or how long, given our current climate).

Yeah, I’m being a bit of a downer. I’m just exhausted at the moment, so hopefully a few nights with my parents should cheer me up.

Singapore was fun. I landed in Changi Terminal 2, and took the underpass to the MRT, where I found I needed to withdraw cash. A quick escalator to Terminal 3 and a Starbucks OJ later, I was downstairs again at the MRT.

The ticket machine was not good. The EFT terminal was broken or not in use, and it would only accept up to ten dollar notes. Thankfully my OJ split my fifty and I had enough cash to get me to the hotel.

The MRT trip made me feel all kinds of nostalgia. It was mostly empty, but I got to (kinda) watch the sun rise through the window. I had to transfer from the airport line at Tanah Merah, at which point the MRT was super full and I stood up most of the way.

As we arrived closer to the centre, things started to get really familiar. The thick jungle grass, the ERP tolls, the checkerboard kerb painting. This is the Singapore I remember.

My hotel was a block or two from the metro station and it was a great relief to drop my bags and check out the amazing views from the tower.

That morning I headed out and immediately stumbled on a Japanesse style pancake place, probably the most extravagant pancakes I’ve had in my life despite living in Amsterdam. Afterwards I realised that most places in Singapore only opened after 10am and changed my plan to just walk around the city.

I saw a lot of cool stuff including Raffles Hotel and the Fountain of Wealth, but probably the highlight of my day was heading to Giant Hyperfresh, a giant supermarket with a LOT of cool Asian goodies.

Heading into the trip, one of the pieces of advice I received was to take it slowly. Spend a few hours out, then retreat to the aircon to recover. I think my morning trip was too ambitious after the plane flight because I was thoroughly shattered once I got back to my hotel.

That evening after a lot of water and several hours napping, I headed out to Clark Quay, had a chicken noodle dinner, and walked the length of the quay taking time lapses and admiring the city.

As it was only a brief trip, the next day was my last day to see the city.

I started by heading out to Kampong Glam to check out the famed photogenic streets. I poked around the shops, and avoided the temptation to pick up tat, and thoroughly enjoyed the cosy streets, intense decorating, and colourful street art. I hadn’t been to this part of town the last time, and it shifted my perspective away from wanting to see the same old things to discovering new and exciting bits.

I found a nice Turkish restaurant to have breakfast. More specifically the man out the front gesturing to the menu caught my attention, then the laid back outdoor dining and large industrial fans maintained it. I was looking for breakfast, so the Menemen sounded great (it’s like shakshouka). The wait was fairly long, but it was worth it to sit in the shade and watch the hustle and bustle of the street. The meal itself was delicious and I would definitely recommend the place if you’re in the area.

After that I wandered a bit more, checking out the street art and the local shops, and finally the 7-Eleven for some fluids in the form of aloe drink.

The other thing I wanted to check out from my youth was the Sim Lim Square electronics emporium thing. It was a few blocks walk in the beating sun, but once I got there it was an immediate air conditioned blast.

Sim Lim was exactly what I remembered, except instead of PC components it was a lot more mobile accessories. My favourites were the vast displays of USB fans, and the little upmarket photography/videography shop.

I only ended up buying one thing, which was a nice pink aluminium iPad stand for my mum for Christmas.

After this I walked back to the hotel, realising I’d barely travelled a few blocks in my entire stay. There’s so much to do in Singapore, apparently, and I wouldn’t mind spending more time there in the future.