Wearing Your Black Eye Like a Badge of Honor

(Or: Is This the Way a Toy Feels When Its Batteries Run Dry?)

Source

Today during a guest presentation at work, the speaker told our group that overseas Australia is known as the fight capital of the world..."If you want to go to a country and get beat up, go to Australia" is what he said news programs in other countries report about Australi to which I was very emphatically (and internally) nodding my head. He later wrapped up his talk by bringing it full circle back to this idea that Aus is a perpetual fight club by saying, "Other countries who think that of us are crazy. We are about being good mates to each other....blah blah blah....built of mateship.....help each other.....blah blah blah, mates." And I was thinking, "I think the foreign news stories have got it right about it here," but of course you can't say that as the only non-Aussie in the room!

For all the shit I get from Australians about our lack of gun control in America, I can honestly say I've never felt as unsafe in my life as I have living here and no one I know back home even owns a gun. Granted, I lived in a lot nicer neighborhoods than I do here, but even walking around big cities in the States I felt a lot safer than I do here in my home in Australia.

Before living here I guess I didn't realize the polite segregation that still happens in our society back home. There you have your ghettos, your working class neighborhoods, your middle class neighborhoods, and your upper middle class and then rich neighborhoods. I don't know if city planners here are just dumb or what, but you can have a decent middle class neighborhood and then someone will decide it's an awesome idea to stick a group of housing commission homes (Aus' version of the ghetto) or some kind of pub/club on the corner so you can never just have a safe, quiet neighborhood.

MOTH Dude and I currently live in a neighborhood I'd describe as working class with the immediate houses around us occupied by families and senior citizens. We could afford to live somewhere nicer, but we're saving for the wedding and just saving, in general, for the future so we don't have to buy a place in a neighborhood like the one we are in now. And really with housing commission blocks everywhere it doesn't seem like there are a ton of "nice" neighborhoods for us to move in to anyway. We could spend $100-$200 more per week (that's how rent is paid here, by the way-still find that strange) and we'd be having the same problems we are having now. I should know, my parents' paid a lot of rent money when I was living in a nice place in Newcastle during college and I was still woken up most weekends by people fighting in the street.

This past week I've had to call the cops twice and also heard a horrific story about an incident that happened to one of MOTH Dude's Uncle's friends. Last Friday night, MOTH stayed back at work to have drinks with coworkers so I was home alone and watching a movie in bed, when at about 11, I heard a couple arguing in the street. When I first moved to Australia, it would've been something I would've really tensed up over but now it's kind of a common occurrence so I kept watching my movie, figuring they'd move on. A few minutes later I could tell that the couple had moved in to the little park across the street from us and I heard the girl yell, "Ow, stop, you're hurting me!" so I paused my movie to listen to what was going on and the girl continued to yell this a few more times so I decided to call the cops in case the girl was really getting hurt. I heard her boyfriend tell her, "I'll pull you by your f*ing hair if I have to" and it sounded like that was what he was doing. I spoke to the cops, but at that point it sounded like the couple was moving on. The dispatcher said she'd still have officers come check the park to make sure everything was ok there. I waited 10 minutes at the front door and they never showed up. I looked out the window any time a car drove passed for the next 30 minutes...still no cops! Glad the girl wasn't getting totally beat up in the park or she would have been in serious trouble. It also made me angry because it was obvious that none of my neighbors had called the cops to report the incident, either, even though they were all home, including the family who lives directly next to the park where the girl's screams were coming from.

Tuesday night we ended up having a late night since I got dinner going later than usual and it took longer to make than it should have and we decided to watch a movie while we ate dinner which finished later than we had expected. So by the time we checked emails, MOTH did dishes, and I got settled in to bed to read for a few minutes and he jumped in the shower so he wouldn't have to before his 4:15 leave time in the morning, it was after 11. At some point a car pulled up, but I just assumed it was our neighbor pulling in to his driveway which is right next to our bedroom window and that he must be saying good bye to some friends. They talked on and on and on and I thought, "Alright, Dude, it's nearly 11:30 on a Tuesday night, wrap it up" but then when I really started listening the voices didn't sound like they were coming from behind my head, they sounded like they were coming from directly in front of our bedroom windows. I got up and went to our front room and peaked out of the windows and there was a station wagon with a bunch of guys standing around it, blocking our driveway. Out of all the places to park on the street, they didn't pull over in front of the park or the vacant block/nature strip next to our house or even properly in front of our house, they parked across the end of our driveway. Something about it creeped me out and I turned on the porch light so the guys got the hint, like, "Hey, we're in here, you can shut up and leave now" and they did get in their car, but then they just sat out there in the dark. I went in to the bathroom and told MOTH about them and when he got out he went to the front and peaked out, too. We turned off all the lights to try and hint at them again that we were there and were wanting to sleep, but the car just sat there and we were like, "Are these guys the dumbest/loudest burglars alive or what?" MOTH Dude decided to go out to our laundry room and make sure it was locked up and I sat on our bed waiting for him to come back in. As soon as he got out of the back door, the doors of the car opened and I heard people walking around in our front yard. I started to panic about them going in to the backyard where MOTH was but I couldn't move. Luckily, MOTH came back in and said as he was locking up, he saw the guys walking up the vacant block all the way down to the end of it where there is nothing, but easy access in to our backyard so I said, "Okay, I'm calling the cops." So for the second time in four days, I put in an emergency call and the dispatcher said she'd have someone out here quickly. We waited 5 minutes, heard the guys throw some cans and stuff on our lawn and then their car started up and they pulled away. I started to feel like an idiot for being paranoid and called the dispatch back and they said they would cancel the call out. For the next hour, every little cricket chirp or bat screech had me sitting up in bed and looking out the window to make sure no one was out there. When MOTH's alarm went off at 3:45, I had already been lying awake for nearly 20 minutes. As it got light, I was able to get about an hour's sleep before my own alarm went off. Not a fun way to spend a night and I was a zombie at work on Wednesday.

To just pull up to someone's house and block their driveway when the whole street is wide open and full of regular spots to pull in to is just weird to me. As a teenager, I'd sometimes pull over with a friend to have a chat in front of a random house, but it was always in a spot in front of the house, not blocking anyone's driveway and we hardly ever got out of the car so the people inside the house would not be woken up by us.

Finally, the last concerning incident happened Sunday night: Before we got in to bed, MOTH said, "Oh by the way, Uncle B's friend left the local club the other night to walk his friend, who had had too much to drink, back to his house which was only about 300 feet from the club when people started harassing them from a car. They must have yelled something back and 3 people (including a girl) jumped out of the car and immediately knocked the drunk guy out and proceeded to beat and stab Uncle B's friend. He is now in a medically induced coma." The club they were walking home from is about 2 miles from our house and is in a really quiet neighborhood. I was shocked and felt sick to my stomach. Luckily, two women came out and stopped the attack and managed to get the license plate of the car and all 3 people who were a part of it are now in jail. The police think this attack is linked to another one that happened about 5 miles in the opposite direction from our house a few weeks back where a guy was walking home from another club and a car randomly pulled over and beat him with a metal bar. These people were just out cruising, purposely looking for people to hurt.

WTF?!!? I feel like at least at home if I got shot it would be because I walked in to the middle of a gang showdown or in front of a deer a hunter was about to take down, but here I am hearing about random, violent attacks like that one more and more often. I'm starting to get really paranoid. I'm afraid to go out in to our laundry room which is right outside the back door at night, even though MOTH has just installed a flood light for me. Every bump in the dark has me immediately awake and on edge waiting for someone to break in and hurt us, especially since for awhile we were having problems with people stealing stuff out of our laundry room or I'd go out there and notice something random was out of order or that the toilet in there had been used. So creepy to think someone was out there walking around our house while we were asleep!

My fears (however unfounded they may be) coupled with the stress I am feeling from work and my general blues from not seeing my sister in over a year and my parents in nearly a year have caused me to start compulsively picking at my arms in an attempt to comfort and soothe myself, something I haven't done to this degree since I was about 14 years old. My arms have multiple gaping, and in some cases, infected holes on them. I know they look awful and I know I should stop, but I haven't been able to. I've finally decided to cover the spots with bandaids and wear long sleeves so I can't get at them through the day. I still find myself unable to stop picking tiny little bumps I think I see on my shoulders before bed, though, but at least my arms are starting to heal. MOTH was getting really, really worried about me and honestly, I was starting to get worried about me, too.

I think I just need a breather. I need to get out of Aus for awhile. I need to see my family. I need to get away from customers telling me I'm incompetent or a f*ing asshole because they don't like the privacy laws I have to follow in dealing with their or their husband's or their grandma's accounts. I need to get a solid month's worth of quality sleep in a place where I can fall in to a deep sleep comfortably. I need to just get away with MOTH Dude and have some fun, rather than be like roomies who see each other at the end of a long day for an hour before passing out, which is how I feel our weeks are going right now.

I'm not sure what the solution will be once I get back here, but, for my sanity's sake, there may need to be some changes put in to place. Every day I wish the solution could be moving back to California, but that is not an option at this point so I'll just need to do a better job of sucking it up.

I also know this post has me coming off timid and weak and probably a smidge (or more?) crazy, but I'm exhausted and beat down to my core and beyond caring right now.

Four weeks from tomorrow I will be in Kauai and as I stated as my Facebook status the other day: "Hoping the next month will fly by and I'll magically wake up in a jacuzzi in Kauai with a mai tai in hand, hanging with my parents and Moth Dude."

Here's hoping for nicer, saner things to blog about soon...

I'm Writing Again, These Letters to You Aren't Much I Know

Hey Guys, just a quick update. I now have an email address for the blog that you can contact me on with any questions, comments, opinions, rants, raves, or whatever you might have: lilDdownunderATgmailDOTcom (Boyfriend says I need to write it that way, so spammers trolling sites looking for the @ symbol don't find my address and start flooding my inbox with spam). I finally realized I should get one after a lovely reader named Liz sent me a comment today asking for some advice on a potential move to Australia and I had to email her back with an email from an old account with a name, if not explained, sounds emo and dumb, but actually has to do with bodyboarding. Anyway, so as to never have to feel dumb and explain that email name again, I created the lilD one. Depending on Liz's questions and her permission to use them, I might post up a question and answer thing on here about moving to Australia since I know a lot of my readers find me through the expat blog network and might be having her same thoughts/questions about moving to Australia. Hope everyone has a great weekend and as always, feel free to leave me comments on here or send me an email about things you'd like to see me write about (whether it be boys, travel, things to do when you are unemployed, or whatever) or just questions you'd like me to answer for you directly!
xoxo Lil D (haha, P.S. We just got Gossip Girl here two weeks ago and Boyfriend called me gossip girl today as I spent all morning reading celeb goss so it was funny when I just realized that I ended the blog the way they end the Gossip Girl episode each week! I'm a dork, I know!)

It's time I got back to the Good Life. It's time I got back...And I don't even know how I got off the track

So Friday was pretty uneventful. I think Boyfriend and I just worked and hung around the house. Saturday was housework day because we have a property inspection from our real estate company on Wednesday and I don't think we've mowed our lawn in about 3 months. We had clover that was so big and bushy it was halfway up Boyfriend's shins and other funny tufts of grass that stuck out like mini mohawks around the yard. Our yard gets really jungly and it is a really big yard and it is a pain to mow, but we made an awesome team of me going nuts and hacking the crap out of stuff with the weed wacker and Boyfriend following behind me with the lawn mower. It looked so nice out there once it was all mowed and the weather this weekend was like perfect spring time weather ( in the 70s, which blows my mind because technically we should be having weather similar to what it would be like in February back home right now) and we laid out under the trees listening to the kookaburras and lorikeets after we were finished.

Because of the warm weather we have been getting, lots of flowers are starting to grow around our place.

We thought we just had weeds growing in the little garden area underneath our kitchen window, but all of a sudden I have a bunch of freesia in bloom and it smells so good everytime I walk by!

Our bananas are also starting to get a little bigger. We've only got 11 real baby bananas right now, but lots of blooms underneath those that might turn in to bananas? I can't tell at this point.

These leaves are from a plant called "monstera deliciosa" and their flowers are huge and white and look like lanterns. Apparently you can eat the fruit off of them so we are going to try them next time they fruit.

And this is the big gum at the end of our property. It always has a kookaburra or two or a few lorikeets on it. A pair of lorikeets actually live in one of the holes in the tree and they typically sit in the tree and screech at me while I hang out our laundry. I tried putting out some oranges right below their hole to see if they would come down and feed, but so far they haven't. There is another big gum tree a few houses down from us and bees have moved in and created a hive in one of the tree's holes. It is so neat to walk down and see!

It's been great having Boyfriend here with me. He has totally stepped up and stepped in to the role of the live-in Boyfriend. He helps make dinner, he does yardwork, and he buys gadgets that we need for the house that I wouldn't think to get or am just too lazy to look for. It's been nice to have him here all the time and to have had him make the transition so smoothly. Our parents still aren't too stoked on the situation, but it is really working out well for us and we are really happy together.

Unity, As One Stand Together

So really, who knew it was going to be this hard to find a job?? Back home I see that others my age are in a similar situation...moving back in with parents and working shitty retail jobs until the economy changes and they can find work in the field they got degrees in. Living in a foreign country and being jobless and slowly running out of money comes with its own challenges. Mainly how do I continue to live in that foreign country without much money and what to do about the boy I've fallen in love with?

Boyfriend and I are your typical first children...we strive to please our parents and avoid doing things that would disappoint them. That is, until now. We are also both fairly traditional people for our age. We had always said through four years of dating that we didn't want to live together before marriage. After discussing it for a few months and my bank account shrinking further and further, we realized that we didn't want our relationship to have to end because I was having trouble finding a job. Why should we be punished personally just because I was suffering financially? Things between us have been going well and we don't want it to end until we've exhausted all of our possibilities.

Boyfriend struggled and stressed trying to work up the courage to tell his parents that he was moving out and in with me. He put it off until the very last minute, the day I had to tell my real estate agents if I'd be moving out. He did it and it didn't go over very well. His Dad said he didn't and wouldn't accept it and he said his Mom didn't say much. It was horrible for Boyfriend and he was really upset. I felt really bad for him, but also was thankful that he had gone through with it and obviously really wanted me to stay.

I told Nae before I told my parents. I wanted to wait to tell them until after Boyfriend had told his parents, just to make sure it was really, really happening. Well Nae didn't know this and was telling our godsisters about it and my Mom overheard. Nae says her reaction was "What??!!" Followed by "She's a big girl. She can make her own decisions/mistakes" When I spoke to her on the phone, she said it isn't what she and my Dad want for us, but Boyfriend and I are both adults and it is our decision to make.

Other than that conversation my parents have been fairly quiet on the issue. Last night we went to Boyfriend's parent's house and I felt like I had been ambushed. We were having a quick dinner there and then all headed out to see a family friend perform in a play. Once again, our situation was brought up and we were told how much they didn't like it and that if she was my Mom she'd want me home and I'm just not finding a job. Boyfriend stood up for us again. When she left the room, I was quietly crying. Then she popped back in to the room to announce to us that even though she had asked us whether or not we planned to get married, to not get excited about that either, because she didn't think we were ready and basically it wasn't her condoning that idea either! Then she left again and I broke down crying. I asked Boyfriend if we could just go home and he said he wished we could, he wished we hadn't gone over there at all, and that he really didn't want to disappoint the family friend by not being there (especially as our seats were in the front row) so he gave me a kiss and told me how sorry he was and I wiped off my face and put on a neutral face for the rest of the night.

There had been discussion last night, as well, about how Boyfriend was going to get to the train station each morning. They don't want him leaving the pick-up truck at the station and I don't have insurance so I can't drive it to drop him off and pick him up. They said they'd be picking it up this (Sunday) afternoon. Boyfriend does have his own car, but it's a classic car from the 1960s, and sad to say it but the area is so ghetto that he's afraid it'll get vandalized if he leaves it there while he is at work. So it's 9:30 Sunday morning here and I'm waiting til about 11am to try and call Croc and some of our other friends to see if they have any old bombs that we could rent from them each week for now just to be driven to the station and back each morning. Boyfriend is even talking about riding his bike to the station in the morning (no idea how many miles that even is and considering it's winter, it would not be a fun ride at 6am).

We get it, they don't like the situation, they're going to make it hard on us, hoping that we will give up and Boyfriend will come home. I really hated that I had to be a part of the reason that Boyfriend's parents were disappointed with him. Boyfriend is still really bummed about the whole thing but strong in his conviction that he wants me here and wants to be with me. I told him to look on the bright side of all this; that I guess it meant his parents really love him and can't bear the thought of him not living with them anymore.

My parents said to me before I left, about being out of school and really being on my own for the first time, that this point in your life is supposed to be uncomfortable and a struggle. They weren't saying it in a mean way, just that this is the time when you really find out who you are and figure out how to make your life work for you. Boyfriend and I are in the struggle right now for sure. We've got each other's back. I hope that we make it out the other side of the struggle and will be devastated if we don't.

Kind words, thoughts, and prayers are much appreciated right now.

Empty Apartment

I hated living in the dorms so my 2nd year in Australia I decided I would find a place to rent. I went and saw about 15 different places, and yeah, I was pickier then than I am today, but I did put in quite a few applications and just didn’t hear back on any of them. S’s parents were nice enough to let me live with them for about a month. I finally ended up living in what we think was probably a converted garden shed or green house. I was too picky in the beginning and ended up with the crappiest place I had ever seen. It was a “studio” apartment and it was pretty miserable going. At this point I was getting serious about school (which by the way confuses people here as school is ONLY grade school and high school and college has to be called uni for anyone to know what you are talking about). S, the Red Head, and I went camping again and S and I went to lots of shows together. It was nice to have a real bed to sleep in with S, rather than the single bed that is universal to all dorm rooms. I went home on the winter break to a beautiful Californian summer. Mom, Dad, Nae and I went to Yosemite for 5 days or so and it was good fun. I hadn’t been to Yosemite in probably 10 years, then I went twice in a year, but it is such a wonderful place that I could go twice every year. Dad drove back home and Mom, Nae and I went to Santa Cruz. But first we did an overnight trip to Berkeley so that Nae could see Radiohead and we could visit our Mexican sister, BCova. I got to go to a baseball game with my Dad (Go Angels!) and that was fun. I love the Angels and I love that it is something that my Dad and I bond over. I headed back to Australia and to face the rest of the winter. I hated where I lived, it was tiny, falling apart, there was cockroaches (just a fact of life in most homes in Australia, no matter how clean), and I had noisy neighbors who were just study abroad students who lived like 10 to a house and were constantly rotating in and out. The one redeeming factor was that I had a really cool young couple living right across from me and they had a cat Chloe who became as much their pet as mine for the time I was there.