Today was a good day. I got a lot accomplished and tied up a few loose ends which always feels good. I got my health care sorted out. Now typically this is something you sort out prior to leaving home. And I thought I had. However, to save some money (approx. $340 AUD) I decided to come on a Work Holiday Visa instead of a Student Visa. Now I reviewed all the conditions and triple checked with the Australian Embassy to ensure that I was eligible and everything was fine. What I didn't check was the fine print on the "mandatory" Overseas Student Health Coverage. It is mandatory. For students. On a Student Visa. and only those on a Student Visa are eligible. I discovered my error on my 5th day here. So the last week has entailed many phone calls, meetings, lots of research, emails back and forth, help from my parents, a few tears of frustration, and finally several solutions. Everything moves a whole lot slower when business hours don't line up too. But this morning, with the generous help of my boyfriend, I finally called my provider and purchased health insurance to cover the remainder of my trip. And get this! after I receive my refund for OSHC, I'll have actually saved an additional $100 AUD!
Next I had meeting with one of the companies I am working for based out of Vancouver. I don't know exactly how I've arranged my life like so but I have multiple sources of income, all based in Canada, the have agreed to let me work remotely for them. This morning's meeting was with Once A Tree Furniture, with whom I interned after my first year of design school. They have beautiful stuff which you can check out here. So after a short meeting, I was set up to start some of the work for them. Working remotely often takes longer to set up but can be very beneficial in the long run. Check!
Next I did some work for my other boss, Prof. Catherine Dowling of Ryerson's Interior Design Program. I am her Research Assistant for the semester and thankfully she was also open to me working for her from Australia. Skype is one of my best friends out here for many reasons! No meeting with her this morning but I did some of my own work on the subject. I find it so interesting and a complete collision of my former career and my future career. I love the topic but I admit that I'm having trouble making myself just sit down and read the articles. I never was great at just sitting down and reading for hours unless its a novel and totally unrelated to school. But I will persevere! The project is still in its infancy but we are studying how design and physical involvement affect education and learning. So the idea of Kinesthetic Learning and how we can design the built environment to facilitate a hands on learning environment that gets the whole body much more involved. So we're studying both school design and curriculum design. Its still very open so I'll get to have a lot of influence over the direction of the research. Its also focused on Japan cause that's of personal interest to my professor.So I've been reading articles on everything form the science of how our brains and bodies work, to the study of children's development with toys. Its all actually very fascinating and I keep finding myself drifting into tangents around how to encourage creativity and the issues with our systems of evaluation in education. Tons to sink my teeth into.
Next I headed out for some errands. A few quick stops that also tied up some ends. So rewarding when you can check something off your list for good!
The weather has been really hot here. I'm talking around 36-39 degrees with a very high UV level. So I have to admit, I'm kinda hiding from the sun a bit and holding out for next week when temperatures are supposed to be in the 29-32 range. Trying to take advantage of the extreme temperatures, I spent the rest of the day working for both of the above companies and followed that with some cooking in my kitchen. I skipped out on going out tonight cause I've been out almost everyday and just needed a night to myself.
No grand exploring today but very productive and I'm a happy girl.
Miss you and love hearing from all of you!
Next I had meeting with one of the companies I am working for based out of Vancouver. I don't know exactly how I've arranged my life like so but I have multiple sources of income, all based in Canada, the have agreed to let me work remotely for them. This morning's meeting was with Once A Tree Furniture, with whom I interned after my first year of design school. They have beautiful stuff which you can check out here. So after a short meeting, I was set up to start some of the work for them. Working remotely often takes longer to set up but can be very beneficial in the long run. Check!
Next I did some work for my other boss, Prof. Catherine Dowling of Ryerson's Interior Design Program. I am her Research Assistant for the semester and thankfully she was also open to me working for her from Australia. Skype is one of my best friends out here for many reasons! No meeting with her this morning but I did some of my own work on the subject. I find it so interesting and a complete collision of my former career and my future career. I love the topic but I admit that I'm having trouble making myself just sit down and read the articles. I never was great at just sitting down and reading for hours unless its a novel and totally unrelated to school. But I will persevere! The project is still in its infancy but we are studying how design and physical involvement affect education and learning. So the idea of Kinesthetic Learning and how we can design the built environment to facilitate a hands on learning environment that gets the whole body much more involved. So we're studying both school design and curriculum design. Its still very open so I'll get to have a lot of influence over the direction of the research. Its also focused on Japan cause that's of personal interest to my professor.So I've been reading articles on everything form the science of how our brains and bodies work, to the study of children's development with toys. Its all actually very fascinating and I keep finding myself drifting into tangents around how to encourage creativity and the issues with our systems of evaluation in education. Tons to sink my teeth into.
Next I headed out for some errands. A few quick stops that also tied up some ends. So rewarding when you can check something off your list for good!
The weather has been really hot here. I'm talking around 36-39 degrees with a very high UV level. So I have to admit, I'm kinda hiding from the sun a bit and holding out for next week when temperatures are supposed to be in the 29-32 range. Trying to take advantage of the extreme temperatures, I spent the rest of the day working for both of the above companies and followed that with some cooking in my kitchen. I skipped out on going out tonight cause I've been out almost everyday and just needed a night to myself.
No grand exploring today but very productive and I'm a happy girl.
Miss you and love hearing from all of you!
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