We’re coming home soon!

Finally, after eight long months, our time here is finally coming to an end. And now, as is my wont, instad of focussing on coming home, I’ve started worrying about all the things I never got around to doing. And all the things that I want to do before I leave. Y’know, the ones I probably won’t do because of Christmas, and the fact that I’m sick AGAIN.

Like seeing Maddie. Man, I meant to call her and email her so many times, and I put it off and put it off. And seeing Greg! What was that all about, huh! At least he came to my surprise party, which was, you could say, a huge surprise. And Kate. Oh, Katie. Kate left for Africa about the time that I arrived, and came back about a week or two ago. So I haven’t had a lot of time to see her either. And Nidhi! She’s not even in the country, I believe, which is sad.

I am a bad person.

Tim threw me a surprise party the other day, which was the best thing ever. He was all “We’re gonna go out to dinner for your birthday!” And I’m all “Yay!” So he blindfolds me, and Sarah drives us to the place (our car was unavailable, long story). It took about forty-five minutes, and I got completely lost. I had a good idea where we were for a lot of the time, but then she started taking some turns that were totally weird and I lost track of where we were. Anyway, we got there, and they were leading me toward the place, and they take off my blindfold and we’re BACK HOME. Man, I was so weirded out! I thought it was a big joke, that Tim was going to be all “Just kidding, I forgot to bring something, NOW we leave” but then we went inside and all my friends were waiting for me!

It was the best thing.

In hind sight, I’d been pretty dumb about the whole thing. There were a lot of clues I could’ve picked up on that I didn’t until it was too late. Such as the fact that nobody had asked me if or when I was having a party, and the fact that Mum had started cleaning the house for grandma’s annual visit more than a week in advance. But oh well! Maybe I was just sub-conciously willing to go along with it. In any case, I have the most wonderful friends, and the most wonderful Tim.

Speaking of cleaning, the other day Tim and I were cleaning out the back room of all my stuff accumulated over the last 23 years. We found some pretty cool stuff, and gave a lot of things to charity, so we felt really good about it all at the end of the day. We finally organised all our boxes to ship home, which cost substantially more than last time, but we have like, twice the boxes to ship home now. One less computer though!

In fact, neither of the computers we shipped over are getting shipped back. Weird.

Anyway, the point I’m getting to is, we found a lot of neat stuff, including some old journals and draft books from school. I would like to share some of the entries with you, ’cause they are weird and awesome. Debari, you love my stories, right? You are gonna LOVE these.

Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments  [ Leave your own ]

Hello!

I was reading through the archives of my old blog the other night, and it left me with a desire to put finger to keyboard again. What’s more, I yearn for the days when I blogged about whatever popped into my head while I was writing as well. My fingernails are inconveniently long for typing on my lappy keyboard though, so I don’t know how long I’ll stick with it.

Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments  [ Leave your own ]

I’ve had my learner’s license for a long time now. Some might say a ludicrously long time. Some heartless people may even laugh if I tell you I’ve had it so long that it’s expired once already and needed to be renewed. But let me assure you, it is not from being unable to achieve the ridiculously high number of recorded hours in NSW. It’s not from any retarded motor skills or eye condition. I have extremely good vision, in fact, and am a pretty skilled driver, if I do say so myself, if a little speedy at times. No, it’s none of these reasons. It’s mostly apathy, actually. I just never really bothered. And now that I have Tim to drive me every which where I can’t get at by public transport, I’ve seen even less reason to upgrade to being able to drive on my own. So, as I watched all my friends, from as early as our senior years in high school, more than 5 years ago, getting their P plates (we have two over here) and having their parents buy for them their first cars, because they’re rich, I’ve only had occasion to drive myself somewhere when it just so happened a parent or other full licensed driver was with me, and purely for my own driving pleasure.

But this extended period, I feel, has put me in a unique position to champion the rights and protest the injustices that are done to these poor L-platers, myself included.

Since we came to Sydney, my parents have given Tim and I use of my Mum’s car, as long as she isn’t working. This is very kind of her! It’s given Tim and I a lot of freedom, such as it is, to be able to get out of the house when we’re developing some nasty cabin fever. Until recently, I was doing all of the driving in these situations, as Tim has his full license, so can be my supervisor, and it was thought that he was unable to drive our tiny car. So, as you can imagine, I’ve had even more time lately to come to realise just what a large percentage of full-licensed, and -gasp!- P-platers hate and overtly look down on these poor people who are, for the most part, teenagers, who are just beginning to learn the ropes of being in a very serious, and sometimes difficult situation.

Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments  [ Leave your own ]

Good morning Cat-Dogs!

That’s right its morning here, almost 5am to be exact. Which I guess makes it morning over in Perth as well, and in like 50% of the world. But that’s not the point. The point is, I’m AWAKE. AGAIN. Tonight I realy can’t blame anyone but myself, I did nothing but sleep and drink tea and eat sugar all day, so I sort of saw this coming. Anyway, I figure, if I can’t sleep, BLOG.

My only problem with that, you see, is Tim’s ridiculously loud spacebar. I basically have to turn and see if he’s woken up after every word, which will make this post, at the very least, well thought out. Every space might be your last!

Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments  [ Leave your own ]

This morning, I’d like to tell you all a story. It’s a story about the single most inspirational man I’ve ever met. Despite the length of time since I last saw him, which is probably close to 4 years, and the fact that I’ll probably never see him again, doesn’t change the fact that he often comes up in my thoughts as a vague guideline to attitudes and life in general. I’ve probably mentioned him in passing to a number of you in the past, mostly regarding his unorthodox teaching methods.

You see, he was a lecturer at SIBT, a bridging institution with delusions of grandeur, that I attended for a year. His name is Aaron. I somehow never discovered his last name, perhaps he did that deliberately, most lecturers are all about the simple firstname.lastname@dumbuniversitydomain.com.au email addresses and things, but in any case, I never knew it.

Of the three trimesters SIBT was divided into, I was lucky enough to have three units, over two trimesters with Aaron as a lecturer. I’d heard of him from friends who had previously taken the units I was, and also been lucky enough to have him as a lecturer, but I’d always assumed what people had said about him was exaggerated. I mean, how good can this one guy BE, right?

The thing that probably needs to be mentioned somewhere, so here seems like a good place, was that SIBT is like baby-uni. The tutorials were about the same size, but instead of lectures with literally hundreds of people, you were reduced to classes of say, 20? Maybe less if it wasn’t a popular class. So when I say he interacted with you personally, he really did. He knew most every student by name, greeted them in corridors, and really made you feel like you meant something to him.

I realise, reading back, that a lot of the words I’m using and will continue to use might make it sound like a schoolgirl crush was going down. But I gotta tell ya, that simply wasn’t the case. I’ll be using a lot of these emotional words, because that’s what he did to you, he made you feel like an individual, not a faceless student, or a number. But I had nothing but the greatest respect for this guy.

I’m sort of all over the place with this. It sounded more structured in my head. But I haven’t even really started yet. This is kind of just backstory. I’ll understand if you wanna stop reading now.

Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments  [ Leave your own ]