Well, April looks like it's going to be considerably busy and stressful. The fact I'm updating LJ rather than writing an essay surely isn't doing me any favours either. However, I feel motivated to update, while I can't say I feel terribly thrilled about rehashing arguments on the Holocaust in Romania in the quest for a mark, so update I shall.
March quite unexpectedly proved to be a rather good month. To tell the truth, it was probably my best month of the fourteen or so I've spent in Melbourne so far. When it started, I can't say I expected that. It was stinking hot, I was feeling fairly lonely, and Mum was not in the best of health at all. But it turns out the Internet is more than just a vehicle for porn and flamewars, and I can largely thank LJ and Interference for such a good March - my mother's all too short visit also significantly contributed. From Interference, the Maj. is not just in one of my courses at university but in the very same tutorial (what are the odds, seriously), while outside of uni I've caught up with Ali and TE/Melissa a few times and went to the National Gallery with them. It's been terribly good actually getting out and doing things, and a group of us are going to the premiere of U2 3D next week. I must admit I really don't care too much about U2 3D - it's a sort of ridiculous concept and only one song in the entire setlist really leaps out at me as worth hearing, but I'm not going to say no to passing the evening with a cool group of people and music I'm sure I'll enjoy despite my skepticism.
Meanwhile, in quite a chance encounter, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
harmonybear/Kat and I bumped into each other over on ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
melbournemaniac. Would you believe there is another albino railfan roughly my age in Melbourne? No, I didn't either. But I'm not even joking. We've been out railfanning and tramfanning a fair bit the last few weeks. Most of it has just been around the central city, including one day when the routes 3, 64, and 67 tram lines were running via William Street to terminate at Dudley Street - I really wanted (and got!) photos of Z1s and As on a route normally run solely by Z3s and B2s. I've also ridden the Frankston - Stony Point line twice, once by myself and once with Kat; it's the only non-electrified train on the Melbourne commuter network. At the moment, it's operated by an A class diesel locomotive hauling either two or three of four MTH carriages, undoubtedly the most comfortable rolling stock of any suburban train. It's well worth the trip, especially as it's going to be replaced by Sprinter railcars rather soon. Kat and I are planning another trip later this month before the A+MTH are replaced, this time to photograph it between stations and also photograph the Long Island Steel train, which I frustratingly missed by a matter of minutes when we went down last weekend. Assuming I don't get too stressed over the next few days with essay madness, I'll post some of my pictures from my railfan adventures.
On another note, I'm considerably relieved with the very sudden departure of summer. Three weeks ago, Melbourne was melting in 40C weather. Today barely reached 16C. Looks like the coming few days are going to be rather pleasant and comfortable around 20-25C. Tomorrow evening, I hope it's fine as I plan to go out and do some more tramfanning, unfortunately without Kat as she'll be in Adelaide making me jealous by riding Adelaide trains. But it's the last weekday evening before the end of daylight saving and I don't yet have a photo of a 00 tram on the route 55. The 00 trams are return workings of peak hour trams that aren't rostered to actually run the 55 in the counter-peak direction; they are simply returning to Essendon Depot. Since they run in the evening and it will soon be too dark for my camera to produce worthwhile shots when the 00 runs, I'll go park myself somewhere in Royal Park, do readings, and photograph the parade of passing trams in the hope that at least one 00 comes my way when it's still nice and light. I do wonder if any counter-peak 00s run from Essendon Depot to West Coburg in the morning, but I'm never even remotely up that early to find out! I imagine they do, but I'll stick with catching the 00 in the evening for now. I don't think any of the Melburnians on my friends list or Interference would be terribly interested in joining me tomorrow, but if anybody is, let me know! I'm thinking about getting pizza.
And I think that's about it in news from Axverland. I've 3,500 words over two essays due in ten days, of which only 900 words are thus far written, and 4,000 words to do for the Royal Historical Society before the end of April. What fun. Have a good one, everybody.
