Hello. My name is Zed and in my twenty two years and nearly eleven months, I have spent a reasonably large amount of time partaking in potentially hazardous physical activities (such as rollerblading down very steep hills and standing in moshpits) yet I have never broken a bone.

I am currently spending sixteen weeks in Melbourne. I have never been this far from home before, and it will probably be a long time before I can do so again, should I wish to. I am working full time, but, obviously, I would like to make as much of my free time here as possible.

In the middle of my eighth week here, I started to feel a bad pain in my left foot when I walked. I spent my eighth weekend resting it, and happily, in my forty-minute walk to and from work on Monday, it was slightly sore, but not too bad. Until I was about a minute away from "home", when it suddenly became excrutiatingly painful. On Tuesday, I decided to go and see a doctor. There is a doctor's surgery five minutes' walk from where I'm staying, but a minute into it, I realised I had to turn round and call my supervisor to ask for a lift.

Two appointments and three x-rays later, it transpired that I had a "marching fracture". These are very uncommon and caused solely by walking. Not walking too much; not walking in very big boots; just walking. And the only cure is to spend six weeks of resting it.

I have crutches. Sadly, crutches are deceptively difficult to use, when you have 1) a minimal amount of strength in your arms and 2) so little ability to balance you possess many unhappy memories of hopping around all over the place during those "now you will stand on one foot for a minute" exercises in PE lessons.

And even if I become grandmaster crutchwoman, one can only sensibly use crutches to a certain extent. So no wandering around Brisbane, Hobart or Auckland for me. No ghost tours, museums, galleries, wildlife parks, live music, clubbing and jumping out of planes for a while. (Yes, I thought it would be quite nice to do a parachute jump over the Great Ocean Road on my twenty third birthday.) I tried to walk down a flight of stairs in the hospital on Tuesday, and had to turn back five steps from the bottom and take the lift, it was that bad.

Even getting to work isn't easy. Taking the tram requires ten minutes of walking to and from the tram stops I'd rather avoid so I can conserve my powers to go to the cinema now and again, and my being a complete muppet makes this an undesirable practice too. This morning, I spent ten minutes waiting on the wrong side of the road. Then I missed my stop. Then realised I'd left my lunch at home. (Luckily my landlady found it, and dropped it off as she was heading in my direction anyway.)

But I shall survive. I shall work like mad for the next six weeks and weekends, and hopefully be able to take a few days off before I leave, so I can do what I've missed out on then.

And at least the weather is nice. I may be stuck in the middle of eighteen months of perpetual winter, but all the fools who remained in Britain this summer are alternately being baked and drowned. At least, they say they are. They might all be lying to make me feel better.

In other news, one of my six classmates - my group project partner, in fact - is coming to Kent in September to do a PhD under the same supervisor as me. What are the odds?

Anyway. Must get on. Noj (my brother) just got a first (the highest grade of bachelors degree you can get), which, of course, gives me additional incentive to get a distinction (the highest grade of masters degree you can get). I must I must I must!