Once again, it’s been a while since I last posted, but hey – that’s not really surprisingly. It’s been a very busy few months, mainly due to the need to finish off my master in traffic and transport engineering. The final subject was a research case-study project which was pretty exciting to do, but quite time consuming. My topic was road safety at tram stops, in particular comparing the safety at the new `platform’ stops with the older style safety zone stops around Melbourne. The project went well, although was hamstrung by a lack of data. It was difficult to get it all done in time, but it came out really well. I’ll post it here in a month or so. My supervising professor wants to convert it into a joint-authored paper for publication, which is pretty exiting!!!

I’ll need to figure out what I want to do next with all of this over the next 5 years or so. The extra knowledge gained through the masters is useful at work, but I doubt I will get an opportunity to fully use it unless the company gets a lot bigger very soon. I am still planning on heading overseas in early 2010 to have a change from Melbourne and explore some of the work, so I don’t think I need to figure out work/study plans just yet. Still, I certainly enjoy research and would like to do some more in the future. Whether this means doing a PhD in a few years…we’ll see.

Work continues as normal. A mix of road safety engineering and road design. Mostly small projects, with the typical cycle of quote, undertake and deliver. Another 8 or so months before heading overseas should be good, but I’m not sure that I would look for work in small consulting in a new position. There is certainly a large amount of flexibility as far as working hours and the like, but that cuts both ways – with an average of one night out looking at a road each week and an overnight country trip every couple of weeks.

Now that the study is all over there’s been an opportunity to get back to a `normal’ after hours life. I picked up a book called `the joy of laziness’ and am trying to implement it! Certainly feeling a lot less stressed and enjoying the chance to relax. I was certainly getting a bit tired and grumpy towards the end of semester. And my health was pretty bad too. I’m still not quite sure what’s going on with my asthma. Have had about 6 months worth of treatment from a respiratory specialist, but not much has changed and we haven’t made an real progress. Have had a lot of tests, most of which have said I either don’t have asthma, or I have some weird type of asthma that doesn’t act like asthma. Either way, still feels to me like I can’t breathe. It’s been good the last few weeks, but who knows how it will be next month. Frustrating!

Living in a one personal flat in the Melbourne CBD has been good. Nice and central and easy to get places, but living mostly (mostly) alone for 1.5-2 years running might be getting might be getting old. Still the regular frisbee crowd are great company and I see them 3-4 times a week, so its not completely quiet. The weekly Iron Chef cooking sessions are good fun too! I now know how to make apple pie, and how to cook with maple syrup – New Hampshire or Vermont

Anyhow, the footy’s over. Must go to bed as I’m flying to Birchip tomorrow! Still doing the flying lessons (when I have time) and am working toward my cross-country navigation endorsement. Should be fun.

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