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Year View| Summary| Highlights| Month View| Tuesday 8 April 2003 (Day View)

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08.04.2003 – Tuesday 8 April – Train accident

Centrelink

• I phoned Centrelink regarding a letter they’d sent me, saying I had to go in for an interview for intensive assistance. The lady on the phone said it is all sorted out, and I am now down as a full-time uni student, and that money would be paid today. I checked in NetBank and it has indeed been paid. $736.58 has been credited to my account, putting me back to $364.12 in the black. I’m very glad for this, as I was getting worried.

Train

• I was good today. I got ready with plenty of time to get to the train station. I casually walked down there, arriving with a good five minutes spare. Unfortunately the train didn’t arrive. Instead an express airport train came, and stopped. This was a bit unusual, violating the first rule of express trains – never stop at my station. Then, to make things even more confusing, everyone hopped off and practiced looking neurotic. About fifty of us found the stationmaster and asked what was going on. Apparently a bus hit a train at Sunnybank, so no trains are running on the Beenleigh line. We all waited around for an hour, during which time not once did the stationmaster get on the public address system and inform us all what was going on, people had to individually ask him. This meant that the crowd sort of surged from the train station and to the adjacent bus station and back again. A few people would start walking over the overpass to the bus station and everyone else would think they knew something, so would follow them, and then a little later they would all come back again. I thought it was very poorly handled, the way no one told us what was going on. Eventually, after waiting an hour, a train came and took us a few stations up, to Kuraby. Here we all got on a pile of busses, in my case a large articulated bus which hit painfully and loudly on all the speed humps. They drove past all the stations, letting people off, until we got to Rocklea, where the train met us again. From there it resumed its normal timetabled run. I got to uni just over two hours late and just in time to meet Silas.

Aid for the blind

• Silas and I walked to an Aid for the Blind op-shop in Fairfield, after a quick cup of tea at Silas’s place. Alas, the shop was no longer there, but luckily there were three smaller op-shops across the road, so after spending ten minutes trying to cross the road, we went to them instead. I bought a warm woolly jumper and Silas got a shirt. Then we both walked back to Fairfield station and I caught the train home – this time with no interruptions.

Night

• I watched “The Spy Who Loved Me” and quite enjoyed it. It’s a bit better than the past few I’ve seen. Either that or I was just exhausted enough that I enjoyed it more. Then, of course, I went to bed as I have an eight o’clock start again tomorrow.