my apartment problem

The past few weeks over here in Melbourne was a little bumpy for me, mostly just trying to get a place was a major problem I faced. At first, I was supposed to stay with my friends; a guy and another two girls. However, when we include girls in the picture things usually don't go according to plan. They complained about the apartment we found too old- although it looked fine to me and the price was really cheap considering it's size. These fickle minded girls didn't help at all with the renting problem we faced. Probably because they had a place to stay and one of the girls was bunking in with a good friend of hers. They never did consider that I was sharing a room with my sister and sleeping on the mattress on the floor never did give me a good nights sleep.

Finally, after about two weeks of searching we found a place that was really nice on Wills Street. It had a jacuzzi in the master bedroom's toilet and I was taking the master bedroom. No qualms on that part, at least on my behalf. After actually being approved, the girls changed their mind. Apparently one of them had a problem getting out of her current apartment. The landlord didn't want the place to be vacant and asked her to get a replacement before moving out. Understandable from my point of view but why wasn't I informed about her situation in the first place?

I gave up on them right after that incident because I wasn't going to wait until god knows when before she actually gets a replacement. Look around again with my guy friend who was really flustered because the two other girls were actually my friends. I had two other incidents about my house mates to-be before this one but it will take quite awhile to explain the other two as well and I don't think I would want to include that part in this blog post.

Honestly, it wasn't easy to get an apartment and now after ditching those two other girls, I'm out to look for a two room apartment. Which just makes things a little harder because the competition for the two room apartments are really intense. Take for example my experience during an inspection on Russell street. There were so many applicants that the lift couldn't fit and only on the third round I was able to get into the lift. When I finally reached the apartment for the inspection, the application forms were all out and I had to go to Swanston Street, near Melbourne University to get a new one if I were to be interested. The place was really big and it felt really grand and the price was really cheap considering the size of the place and it had two bathrooms for a two room apartment. At the price of $420 per week, the place was somewhat a bargain to me. The other places that I have seen were really small and pricey. I'm pretty sure that if you were to see the place, you'd definitely be mesmerized and fall in love with the place. It was a warehouse concept thus, the ceiling was really high giving you a very spacious feeling. Everything was perfect about the place but it was impossible to actually get the place. I overheard a conversation between the agent and an applicant, she was willing to pay up to six months upfront to secure the apartment. I was determined to get the place and still handed in my application despite the terrible odds. I was supposed to get an answer by the end of last week but I am yet to get an answer till this day. Even an apartment that was super small, with the rooms unable to fit a table after a single sized bed an a wardrobe was added in, still had competition as well. Despite being really small and priced at $400 a week, there are still people willing to pay for the apartment. Having seen countless apartments my patience was running short and my hopes were pretty low.

Following that, I skipped class to get to an inspection last week and it turned out to be fruitful. I was scheduled for a private inspection and I had no time to waste as there was an open inspection the day after. I wasn't about to take the chances of fighting with 20-30 other applicants and took the first step to approach the agent before others could. Looked at the place and it was a pretty nice place. The smaller room was really small but my friend Jason didn't mind the size and was willing to take the smaller room despite the bigger room being twice as big. It was unfurnished and had no car park but the rent was only at $390 a week, prompting me and Jason to take it up for it is as cheap as it gets for a two room apartment in the city. Anyhow, we couldn't take the risk of waiting any longer as beggars cant be choosers. Upon leaving the apartment Jason met a friend who was also a tenant of one of the apartments in the building. Having Jason's friend as a reference we were given the place immediately despite the open inspection scheduled the day after. Our luck has finally changed and after a month of running around and headaches we finally found a nice place to ourselves.

After a couple of days, I went over to the agency to sign the documents and pay the bond beforehand. Upon reading the agreement I noticed that there was a car park space included in the agreement and without any additional cost. Having noticed the difference, I asked the agent about this and she said it was included. I wanted to tell her that I was told that there were no car park space included but decided not to as it wouldn't do me any harm. In fact, I was thinking of renting it out for 40 dollars a week to help on my rent. The apartment will be available by the first of September and I am trying to buy as many furniture from my friends as possible. Lucky for me, I have friend that can help me with both transporting and shifting the furniture into my apartment to-be. I have been waiting anxiously for the first of September to come since I first signed the agreement on Tuesday.

Interviewing my Lecturer

Today I was pretty much in luck- I got to interview our lecturer Lucinda Strahan in a group activity! I would start off with a little background of Miss Lucinda and will be talking a little bit about the differences in the lecturing styles in Malaysia and Australia. This is for all those people who are guessing the age of our Professional Writing lecturer- she is 32 ! If I had guessed, it'd probably be 25, really. She has been teaching for about a year in RMIT, mostly doing part time tutoring in Melbourne University for the past seven years. She started off doing freelance writing for Art and Culture but decided to do some part time lecturing after finding out that she needs more interaction with people. She chose RMIT for her first full-time lecturing because in RMIT, the work was more hands on as compared to Melbourne University where they are more focused on the theory part.

I find that the lecturers over here in Australia, namely RMIT because I am studying there, are more personal when it comes to educating their students. So far, my classes in every tutorial has been really personal and I feel that there is enough interaction between lecturer and student as compared to when I was in Malaysia. Back home, things were a little different because the lecturers were more focused on teaching a big group rather than personally getting in touch with a student. There are still lecturers in Malaysia that actually do more and actually get out of their way to help students. They are a rare group of lecturers but they do exist and always helped me with my studying. As for Lucinda, getting personal and interacting with students has always been something she yearns for. She will be there when students face really personal problems such as a death of a family member, break ups, arguments with their other halves and many other problems.

When I asked her if there is any students who actually gave her a hard time, she said that she never felt that the problems that the students face were never an annoyance to her. She even stays back in RMIT during semester breaks to deal with problems students face and enrolement issues. Having Lucinda as my lecturer cum tutor will ease my stay in a foreign country and keeping up with my studies should not be a problem at all.

My first attempt

There have been quite a few changes in everyday life since I’ve arrived in Melbourne last Sunday. Things are quite messy in my first week. Running around trying to get an apartment and the weather isn’t really helping at all. Finding an apartment was easy but actually getting it despite all the competition is pretty tough. Coming from a hot and humid country, Malaysia, I have yet to get used to the transition of a country that only has ‘summer’ into a new environment, which is as cold as a few degrees. I was here in Melbourne last summer and the weather was nowhere near as cold as the weather now in winter. Bathing is a problem, I assure you it is. All those problems aside I have been having quite a bit of fun over here in Melbourne. The booze here is really good and I can find them everywhere. Although there isn’t much nightlife here and shops close quite early as compared to Malaysia there are a few places that I can hang out when I am bored at night. There is one thing though that really bothers me. I don’t get to drive here! Back in Malaysia, everyone owns a car, be it big or small. Although the public transport here is really good, I’d still prefer to drive around the city. I’d have to pester my parents to get a car or I will have to walk around quite a bit. Having said that, the extortionate prices of the parking over here probably would mean that even if I had owned a car I wouldn’t be driving it as often as I thought I’d be. There are plenty of restaurants around the city but it really is better if I’d actually cook for a bit. Instead of eating out almost everyday, I’d have to learn how to cook if I want to stop relying on my sister’s awesome cooking.