First week at home

Most of my first week at home was very quiet. I did go and watch Tom play soccer for the Yass High team, which lost 1-0 to Moss Vale.

Beyond that I think the most exciting occurrence was winning a bet with Tom! Some time ago, he was given a very difficult puzzle. It is designed to look like you can put just one piece in to finish it, but in fact this piece doesn't quite fit and you have to rearrange everything to fit it in. Since there is really nothing distinguishing the pieces (they are just sea creatures, and each creature fits on a single piece so there are no hints regarding overlaps), it's very difficult to fit them all in. I bet him that I could finish it more quickly by writing a computer program than he could by hand. We made this bet some years ago, but I didn't hurry because I knew he wouldn't get around to finishing it. I was correct, and with some free time, I wrote the program and won the bet. I actually started with a correct but hugely inefficient method that would have taken many days to complete, but after realising a much better way the program took something like 5 seconds to run.

The prize was "a large amount of chocolate", and I (actually we - I suspect he has actually eaten more than me) have now finished two of the four blocks.

On Saturday I went to Canberra to see friends from university. We gathered for an afternoon of games, although in the end there was far more casual chatting than playing of games. It was really nice to see everyone again, as it had been nine months (that flew by very quickly). People have moved on to various different activities, though there's still a bit of a base around ANU.

On Sunday I went to Mass at my usual church from my undergraduate days. The congregation has changed a lot since I was there, and there was no-one there who I knew well (though there was someone who recognised me the moment I walked in and asked whether I'd like to sing with the choir - I felt very bad because I didn't recognise him). After Mass I walked back to Lisa's place in Bruce: I thought it would be quite a walk and was prepared to stop and take a bus part way along, but it was only 6 kilometres and took 50 minutes. I certainly wouldn't walk it every day if I lived there and studied at ANU, but I would cycle it.

After another game with Lisa and George, Dad came by to pick me up and take me to Nanna's 80th birthday party. Nanna was looking very well and happy and we were all glad to be able to celebrate with her. It was also good to see almost all of that side of my family at one event. After much talking and eating, we came home to a bowl of soup and an early night.