Japanse New-Girl Monkey Network
Hello from the Future
Well, I'm in the "future" compared to folks back home, anyway. They're still having their Saturday evening as I type this. It registers logically, but even knowing that, it's hard to feel the distance from home, because it's really to vast even to only comprehend the other side of my own planet.
The days have been blurring by. I've been a slack little blogger, haven't I? Partly to blame is limited internet access. I don't know how Mike does it, with his little 486 and dialup access. I have added another pound of respect for the guy. It's hard going from ADSL back to a 56K modem. A much needed lesson in patience, methinks.
Another lesson: finding a place to live. This is much more difficult in a huge metropolitan area like Sydney and its attendant suburbs than it was in Oak Harbor, or Bellingham, or even Tacoma. A couple of weeks of trekking around on foot and via public transport has finally yielded two decent possibilities within the budget and a ton of places that are just utter holes. I swing from disgusted to positive and back again. Overall, I think, an upward progress, though, and I'm hopeful about these last two places.
I'm now 25 years old, jobless, in a new city, in a new hemisphere, with a small anchor of support. Inside my head, every day, I am a high school student on summer vacation. Culture shock has yet to sink in, because I'm simply on an extended holiday. It's a good feeling, though. Stresses and worries have shrunk down to small things, like where to eat lunch and when the ferry is going to arrive. I needed that.
My birthday felt overshadowed by New Year's, but it was still a good time. At least, it was interesting. Adam's friend Emmanuel invited us aboard the family powerboat to go out on the harbour and watch the New Year's Eve fireworks. However, the wind whipped up terribly that evening as we attempted to board from a dock near the Opera House. After we were ferried onto the boat by Waterways through semi-serious chop and even some whitecaps, we went to pick up one last group of people. This is when disaster, or, as Emmanuel put it, "a combination of the wind and my dad being an idiot," struck. First we struck a pylon, then another boat, cruch. After much embarrassment, we managed to pick up the last couple of people from the dingy and speed away with our tails between our collective legs and a big streak of the other boat's paint in the scratches and dents on the starboard side. Oops. After that, things settled down somewhat, and we spent most of the rest of the evening dodging food and beer being blown over by the wind. The 9pm fireworks, the big display, were canceled due to the weather, but the midnight display was still pretty amazing. The water and wind now calm, we motored slowly through the massive boat traffic toward Darling Harbour, the lights on the Harbour Bridge spelling out "P E A C E." It felt hopeful, but painful at the same time, because we're so far from peace.
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