One Yrrrrr

This week is our one year anniversary of being in Oz.

Or should I say “1 year in Melbourne”, considering how little of this big island I have yet seen. (Outback photos still to make it onto here)

ONE YEAR! OMG!!!! …. Naaa, not really. So be it. One year. That’s nice.

I am more amazed that it has been five years since Brett Kebble off’d himself in that group-murdering sort of way. Allegedly.

This week of 2010 I am overwhelmed with too much information from too many angles. I am not keeping up. 2 jobs & a volunteering thing that can’t be cut off. Too much in the news. And too many people with too many social requirements.

A 2009 year ago I was freezing my fat arse off, mind-numbed, jumping between reading novels, staring at FRIENDS episodes, feeling kinda lost, kinda isolated in some distant suburb in a bigoted expat strangers’ home, searching for apartments in areas that were alien, and occasionally spamming people with my CV.

Not much has changed on that CV spamming front. Or on the looking for apartments. Except now I know what streets we are dealing with here!

But finally my head is allowed to work in one of my two city offices (HA! How fancy does THAT sound!). ((It should not sound that fancy. In fact it should not sound fancy at all)).

I am starting to lessen my hold on information flows from the west. Slowly slowly I am allowing my inbox to pile high rather than send back random waffle, just to stay in “touch”.

I love that I can walk. Walk everywhere. And that I can read every morning on a train to the city. That lunch is Mongolian Beef on Noodles for cheap cheap. Or just sushi rolls. If nothing else, when I move on, I will miss the $2 sushi rolls!

I am not completely settled & at ease. And I still don’t have any of those incredible in-town friends that are important to living. I still reflect too often for it to be healthy. But at least I was given time to reflect in the past 12 months. And wow did I. I had several years of slow-moving career to reflect over & kick up a few gears & goals. And past social turbulence to iron out into deeper understanding. Yes, I do feel so much wiser & in control. And I like that feeling.

I have achieved one goal of using the time in a “politically quieter” corner of the world to up my ante on other global issues. Fas.cin.ating. It comes highly recommended. The national anger & knee-jerk reactions that lunge out of the wrestling match that exists between SA politicians and SA media don’t cloud my global information consuming & I can start to apply perspective to issues back “home”.

I have been exposed to a very ugly side of South Africa… hiding out here in Australia and on the world-wide-web. White supremacy at its ugly racist “forgetful” best. “I don’t see why they say Apartheid was a crime against humanity, its not like we did anything that bad”… And for once I was dumb struck & said less because I knew “he” was saying this statement to me because he knew I did not agree with it & he was trying to stir me into an argument.

…back to happier things… blinkers blinkers…

My partner seems more relaxed. … incredible amounts more relaxed and in philosophical control… life in the middle of fkc-off nowhere for a coupla months will do that to one. It will also grow you a beard that you refuse to shave off. . . ….. that beard mention is still related to my partner. To him. Not me.

I now comfortably refer to my partner as my partner. That’s how you do it in Oz.

He cooks. I clean. Because I once was too feminist to learn how to cook, “cause I wasn’t going to be any man’s cook!!” … which apparently has meant I am now one man’s cleaner. I need to have a chat with those feminist mentors of old! I have had to face up to some ridiculous feminist notions here & just get on with making sure our “walk-in-cupboard” home functions. Cause I can burn as many bras as I like, but that doesn’t appear to cause dirt to bugger off, sheets to hit the Laundromat, or paid-for groceries to appear.

We have progressed to being able to afford more than 2 beers in a night! Now THAT was a momentous occasion for me! To turn down invites cause there is just too much going on. And know what’s what and when that what is where’ing.

I tried to get jobs in other industries. And failed amusingly miserably. I still wish to get the hell out of this industry cause it seems obsol-patronising-elete out here.

I found a coffee that I can drink daily (double macciato). Even if I have yet to find out how to spell it.

I did not write a groundbreaking novel from my unemployed couch.

But I did scrub a bath clean of its years of pink mould.

Voila! One year!

Do I like Oz? Well, it’s a big island. A bit tough to generalise into one sentence sum-up. I hate their media. It could possibly be the death of all that they hold dear. Their politicians forgot to mature out of the high-school debating club. Their footy rocks my Collingwood socks (except for when I am listening to why it is a superior sport to the one I am watching on a tv at the time). And their people in this here Euro Town, at least 90% of those I have met, really are gorgeous. Generous interested bunch who speak a funny language.

[I’m trying to get into the juggle of 2 jobs, 2 computers, 2 internets. Daily blogging is collateral damage as a result but will also up its ante all in good time].