Photo Credits: Gordon Kang, @gdwkang

I am at work right now but I have to write this post. I am feeling incredible. I have not felt like this in what feels like an infinite length of time. I feel like I’m having an anxiety attack, but it’s not because I am in fear or danger. I feel exactly the opposite of that. Is that even possible? To feel so numb throughout my whole body, be detached, have my extremities prickly, with my heart racing, feeling light headed and feeling disconnected from my surroundings; all of this, but I am ecstatic right now. VERY overwhelming.

How?

Why?

Can I even summarise it in a short post? (Disclaimer: this turned out to be QUITE a long post; apologies!)

I just have to start off by talking about my Director who is looking after me during my time at Ratio Consultants here.

He is the engineer I got introduced by one of my TDG Directors back in Auckland. And I bravely called his office number up, one week in November at TDG. There, we had a solid phone conversation about my ambitions to experience working and living in Melbourne. From this call, I got offered my three week internship during the 2017/18 summer. He sounded so wonderfully welcoming and willing to have me on board, and so reciprocally I was as excited and keen for January 15th to come.

And it finally came, and I got to start working at this place. It was honestly amazing; the whole experience. The people here are awesome, the work-space is so modern and not suffocating at all, and thankfully from my working experience in TDG I was able to get right into the work they had lined up for me. And finally, I got to meet this amazing Director face to face.

Brett Young. Grew up and studied in New Zealand, worked at TDG for a while and then made the move to Melbourne. Right now, at an incredibly young age, he is already one of the Directors of Ratio Consultants and I can clearly see why.

It’s amazing here, and I don’t know how else to put it. There was something that I was concerned about before I started working here. I did not want to be a liability to this company and hoped to be an asset instead. With only being here for three weeks I was aware that it was an incredibly short time to train an intern up, and I did not want to be a hassle for these engineers to spend their precious time and resources on me.

Thankfully, I did not need any training to be able to do their work here. AND on top of that, Brett has been so generous to make independent time to sit down with me and TEACH me new and wonderful things about transport and traffic engineering in Melbourne. I was so grateful that he was catering towards my desires of working in Melbourne and letting me learn new things while I am here for a mere three weeks.

Just now he finished briefing me on a new project he wanted me to be a part of. I am not in full understanding of all this and many know how I am bad with words when trying to explain, so I will try to explain my story in the best way that I can.

So in Melbourne (or in other cities too, other than our NZ ones perhaps), I learnt that there is something called the “Green Travel Plan“. It is a document produced by a traffic consulting company for the workplace of a client who wishes to incorporate ‘green travel’ into their work lives. It offers alternatives for modes of transport other than driving to & from work. E.g.: bicycle, tram, train, bus, walking, etc. Not just this, but the plan also elaborates further on these individual modes. For  new staff to joinining the workplaces,it is like a physical brochure highlighting the alternative and convenient ways to travel to & from their workplace. Did I explain that pretty straightforwardly? I hope it was conveyed and explained the way I wanted to.

Isn’t this incredible?? It was a whole new world for me when Brett told me about this. But this, and so many other ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ engineering methods are already implemented into the worldwide civil engineering industry. Hearing about this for the first time made me so fascinated and excited. AND also (slightly hugely) frustrated at how New Zealand (or Auckland, at least) doesn’t seem to have something like this solidly implemented into their engineering practices.

Anyway, Brett told me about this Green Travel Plan (GTP) because he wanted ME to start one for Ratio Consultants itself. Ratio is moving office to a freshly developed, wider and more modern workplace in June down the road from our current office and Brett wants to deliver a GTP for his own employees. Isn’t this INGENIOUS? Applying something he produces for clients into his very own workplace!

And with such privilege, I get to be a part of producing this. I was so, SO excited.

He gave me the background to what a GTP consists of, and a great exemplar of one he produced for an apartment development.

And this apartment development is another revolution in my learnings too.

Brett introduced me to a project he produced his most ‘green’ GTP for.

It was for the first Nightingale Housing development, in Brunswick called The Commons.

He encouraged me to read about the Nightingale Housing model, and explained that he did the GTP for a multiple of their projects.

The Nightingale Housing model is a ‘set of systems and processes for housing provision‘. The full concept is explained in the image below.

And then I read about some of the individual projects where this model was used for. The most significant article was this one, about the timeline and story of Jeremy McLeod and his innovative projects; The Commons and Nightingale 1.

Reading this article itself was an eye-opener for me. It got me so excited at what was actually happening in the civil industry and the community in attempt to incorporate more ‘green’ and sustainable practices into our designs. This was pretty much my exact aspiration as an engineer. And the even MORE fascinating and exciting thing is that Brett himself was actually an active and influential part in this! I was in awe at this person called Jeremy, and was almost already fan-girling because I wanted to meet him and get to know this extraordinary guy and hear of HIS drive. Talking to Brett about all this was amazing, too. Everything he was saying, everything I was learning about this, EVERYTHING was just breathtaking for me.

This is why my body felt numb, my heart was pumping hard, my extremities felt fuzzy, I was feeling light headed, my hands were shaking. All symptoms of anxiety but for this situation, in a GOOD way.

Or maybe I had these anxiety symptoms, not because of discovering all this but knowing that I wasn’t a part of this revolution yet. Frustrated that I was powerless right now in my role, and that I am missing out in helping the world in the way I dreamed.

Either way, Brett offering to let me start this project and introducing me to this world was something that extremely stimulated my life passion and my DRIVE.

This model does happen to reach a soft spot in my heart also. Florence Nightingale was an important historical figure whom I loved and respected as I grew up reading about her, and to see a housing system adopt her values; it’s like putting two independent subjects I am passionate about and learning about the synergy of the results. In the article, I particularly loved its conclusion, “Why Nightingale?”. You can (/should) read the article yourself, and find out why at the bottom. Definitely an article worth recommending to read (especially more as a civil engineer); if you have a spare 5 minutes on top of the time taken to read this post (sorry if it took a while).

I was actually in a slump for the past three or four days as myprevious blog post could convey, but also for other things too. I won’t spoil this post with negativity here so I’ll skip all that part out, and just say that; amongst my days of lacking motivation in life and becoming blind once again, today’s briefing with Brett lightened up my pathway through my ‘tunnel’. It’s bright now. For now. With this new determination and motivation in mind, I will try keep it by my side and keep my tunnel lit up this brightly for as long as I can go.

As I mentioned (somewhere), everyone should have a drive in their lives. Mine is to help others. And today’s happenings added to that drive. It will keep me going for now, and it adds to my purpose in life. I am incredibly grateful for this kind of thing to be happening to me.