Matt Down Under
Ruby developer, founder of choc media, bushwalker, MacGyver fan and hobby photographer, German citizen and Australian Permanent Resident.
In 2008 I moved from Germany to Australia, the best decision of my life. On this blog you can find stories and photos about hiking in Tasmania and on the mainland, travelling, and life in Australia — my journey from Working Holiday to Permanent Residency.
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14 posts tagged Launceston
The next milestone
I’m back in Launceston, but only for the weekend. Right now I am sitting on the UTAS campus and wait for the last part of my IELTS English test, which is part of my visa application. I just finished the listening, reading and writing parts and now I have about two hours until the speaking part begins.
So far I have a very good feeling, I didn’t have any problems except the short time on the last part where you need to write two short essays to given topics.
I should have some credit for the speaking part by now, I don’t need to score the best possible grades anyway.
The only annoying thing is that it will take about two weeks until I get the results… :(
Gadget weeks
And now for something completely different: when I’m not in the forests I usually spend a lot of time with my MacBook. When people ask me what I’m actually doing I always say “computer work”. To prove that this is true and I’m not just wasting my time on facebook (like many others): check out the new website of my mothers business, I created a new design and included some nice functionality. Hard to believe this is realised with Wordpress once again, but it is becoming a really powerful backend for small websites if you know how to use it.
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Jobsearching weeks
There’s not much to tell right now. I am still planting trees in Launceston. A few weeks ago I decided to leave Tasmania by the end of July and booked a flight to Sydney for 3 August. But I’m currently not sure whether I will actually take that flight or not, my situation is pretty complicated at the moment.
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Diary of a treeplanter - Part II
The last few days were probably the best I had so far since I joined the treeplanters. It is winter in Tasmania, but the sun was shining every day this week, so bright and hot it felt like summer.
The work was great too. We had excellent working conditions on Monday and I managed to improve my personal record by planting about 2.500 trees on one day. Sounds quite a lot, but Sebastian and Izaac still planted about twice as many. On Tuesday Craig allowed me to drive the Gator, it’s a lot of fun driving that small vehicle through the mud, almost like driving a go-cart.
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Some news
I haven’t bought an iPhone yet, because the new 3G version is about to be released in the next couple of weeks, and it will also be officially introduced in Australia as well, so I won’t need to import it from the US anymore. As my plans are to stay in Australia, I’m currently thinking about replacing my prepaid Nokia mobile with a 3G iPhone that comes with a plan (=contract), if it’s not too expensive. I’m spending more and more money on calling people or texting friends, so a plan would probably be the better solution.
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A day in the life of a treeplanter
From now on I’ll try to write in English and I translated the rest of the website as well, excluding previous posts. I reckon there are more Germans that are able to understand English than Australians who understand German, so it’s just a gesture of friendship to my Aussie mates. I feel sorry for Sven, who was always complaining about anglicism in Germany, but if he will ever realise his dream of going to New Zealand he would have to get used to that language anyway…
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Kunst in Tasmanien
Wer sich schonmal gefragt hat wieso mein Hostel “Arthouse” heisst, hier die Antwort: es liegt sozusagen im Kunstbezirk Tasmaniens, in Reichweite zur Academy of the Arts der Universität Tasmaniens. Hier kann man zum einen Kunst studieren, zum anderen gibts immer wieder erstaunlich interessante Ausstellungen.
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Lebenszeichen
Hey! Mich gibts noch, auch wenn es manche Leute wohl nicht glauben und mir deshalb alle 2 Tage Nachrichten schicken, in der Hoffnung, ich schreibe zurück. Mein Computer nervt mich (hat nichts mit Apple zu tun MBA rockt), ich kann mich aber noch überwinden, zumindest meine mails ab und zu abzurufen und mir auf spiegel.de die Headlines durchzulesen, für die tägliche Bestätigung wie nervenschonend es doch außerhalb Deutschlands ist. Mir ist vorher nie aufgefallen, mit wie viel Müll sich die deutsche Öffentlichkeit beschäftigt. Hier bekomme ich zum Glück nur ein Minimum davon mit.
