The frat house project is dead…

Posted on | August 8, 2005 |

…Long live the frat house project. Some of you already know that I have finally found a new home. My Dad breezed into town last week to drive a mean bargain on it, so it’s back to New Farm for me. The other weekend I actually found two great places in one day: a fantastic Art Deco apartment that would have earned me effortless Boho credentials for the rest of time; and after that the dream house I’d been looking for. However once Dad got here the Art Deco place had already been snapped up, then after driving past the second place spontaneously I realized the noise from Lang Park was going to be too much to deal with. So it’s a very large 70s apartment that I’ve settled on, which is great because the space will give me lots of different options.

A few things were working against the frat house idea. I started to accept that I’m a full time researcher, and that requires a fair bit of predictable quiet time, the promise of solitude. I’m not sure whether it’s just my personality that means I regularly need time alone to think or if my upbringing just made that the norm for me. But whatever the cause, it’s part of who I am and it’s vital to the work I do so whoever lives with me in future will need to get that. I also realised that the main draw-back as a solo home owner would be to have no-one similarly invested in the place (emotionally or financially) to help me look after it. A proper house would have left me feeling stressed about keeping it in good condition, and at the moment I struggle to keep the courtyard swept once a week. I’ve been planning my trip overseas recently too and it made me appreciate how much I’m likely to continue travelling in the future, so the worry of a house to maintain was starting to feel really impractical. But then the other day I also had a timely coffee date with someone I look up to who made me realise how much I can achieve in the next few years. For whatever reason - I’m sure she doesn’t even know the effect our chat had on me - her example made me think seriously again about an apartment, and one in New Farm. Once I recognised how much I was forcing Brisbane to have more options for me, when it’s really my own history with New Farm that I have to come to terms with, everything fell into place.

Category: Out in Vegas

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