global warming newsletter

There have been a number of instances over the past couple of weeks when i felt the urge to report significant and somewhat exciting events on this blog. For instance, a while ago i was riding the elevator up to my floor when it suddenly halted to a stop somewhere between the 18th and 19th storey, thus FINALLY giving me the opportunity to press the emergency call button from inside the lift. Another significant milestone would be the completion of my lit and psychology essays, which doesn't sound like much unless put within the context of the 6 other assignments i have to do by the end of the month.

I should also probably mention that elisabeth is in town with her parents till Sunday, and when she arrived on thursday she contacted me and we met for dinner yesterday. She also slept over in the apartment, which was awesome and fun.

But the only event that finally got me to sit my lazy ass at the computer and type out a proper blog entry is this last one. Which just happened 30 minutes ago and in fact, is STILL going on right now.

So at about 1 o'clock i'm at the computer talking to some friends on msn and the weather seems to be nice and warm today. In fact, it's actually almost hot. I look out the balcony and see billows of dark smoke coming from a building far away, and at first i think it's a stupid factory releasing its exhaust gases into the atmosphere, so i call the company a bunch of shitheads and roll my eyes at its environmental apathy. Then I realise there's a possibility it might be a building ON FIRE, because the weather is pretty hot, and these random fires are pretty common in melbourne during summer. The more i think about it, and the more i stare at the building from where i am, the more i begin to think this is a more likely explanation for the smoke. Plus i've never seen smoke coming from that building before, and it's situated in the melbourne university campus area, which means it probably isn't a factory.

Anyway, I kind of ignore it because hey, I'm sorry, but there really isn't much I can do about it, and i continue to do my own thing. Even though it's only about 2 in the afternoon, the sky starts to turn a little dark and cloudy. I'm not exactly caring at this point because the weather forecast did predict rain and/or thunderstorms today. So yeah.

Then my retarded neighbour who lives in the apartment directly under mine starts smoking at his balcony (in case i haven't mentioned this before, this is something i realised 2 weeks after moving in. That my neighbour is a smoker and ALWAYS goes out to his balcony for a smoke at some point during the day), so i slam the balcony door shut just to prove a point, and i continue working at the computer. Then it starts to get stuffy in the apartment, so I open up the balcony door a crack and sniff the air just to make sure he's stopped puffing. I immediately notice the temperature is like 10 degrees cooler, and it's getting really windy and cloudy. I'm like, whoa cool, if that building is still on fire, it would be freaking convenient if the rain came now.

So yes. I'm sitting at the computer and i hear what sounds like rocks falling against the top of the building next to mine. It's really really loud cos the roof of that building is made out of some kind of metal and crap. So i walk out to the balcony to see what the heck is going on, and notice that the rain is approaching. I don't know about you but i've always loved to watch rain advancing towards where i am. It's thrilling. ANYWAY i'm like oh yay let's watch the rain come. But the raindrops i can see from where i am look weird. The drops are not tiny and numerous. They're EXTREMELY visible. I'm squinting and staring and suddenly, freaking HAIL starts falling on the balcony floor.

I'm like freaking out at this point so I jump back into the room and shut the door and the hail just starts going and going outside. The sky turns totally foggy and white and i can't see anything, not even the buildings next door. and yeah i got so excited i ran to the room to get my camera and managed to snap some shots of the hail before it completely melted on the balcony. i'll upload those later.

Anyway needless to say that building isn't emitting weird smoke fumes anymore. haha plus i can't even see the darn thing from here anymore. whatev. It's just raining really heavily now, and i can hear ambulance sirens from here whoa. yeah. so.... that's all. i thought it was cool. i'm going to start doing my work now. photos LATER.

-gretl