One Cold July's Morning ...

Being back in Perth has its advantages - and its disadvantages. Since I've returned home, I have caught up with most of my friends within a week thanks to a nice housewarming party on Saturday evening. Unfortunately as I was having dinner with my family later that night, I could only stay one hour, but in that time I managed to muck around with their dog Loki, play Time Crisis 3, play a little Go and down a beer (only half an hour before I drove home, but I was relatively fine).

On the downside, I received my first semester results last night. It's too depressing to go into here, but suffice to say I will find the rest of my holidays severely restricted by my parents' determination to get me studying again before second semester commences and I return to Canberra away from their watch. I don't blame them; I was very disappointed too. I passed everything, but at this stage I need to be aiming higher to achieve the exemptions from the Actuarial Institute examinations, which I'm told would be significantly harder.

And to top this all off, there's the possibility I may want to start something up with someone here. The whole long-distance thing has me hesitating, but if we make it clear at the outset that this will start casual, we may last till the end of the year when I return for three months (as opposed to the three weeks I'm currently here). But organising all this given my parents will now be watching me like hawks will make this that much more interesting.

And as for the title ... well, it's just a lot colder here than I remember Perth ever being in July. I'm told it even recently went negative, which would be a first. Then again since I've spent the majority of the last 18 months in freezing Canberra, it's not too tough dealing with it; what is tougher is handling our dog Oscar who will paw at our windows at night if he's not let into the garage, out of the cold.

I guess even dogs need their creature comforts. And they don't have to deal with statistics examinations. At times like these, I really envy my dog.