In Rain and Regret

So you get another round of cheerful Little D today (sidenote: sarcasm!). Vacation posts to come soon.

You know what blog post I want to read from another expat? The post that says, "You know what? America is more awesome than Australia and I wish I could go back." It seems like everyone else thinks this place is all rainbows and puppies. How come no one writes the honest blog post that says "Today I didn't want to get out of bed because I'm sad that it's summer in the U.S. and freezing cold here and I really miss my family." You never see that post.

Well, I'm here to write it. America is better and I wish I was there right now. America has my parents. America has a higher standard of living, at least my American lifestyle did- no living in a tiny, cold shack. America has cheap baseball and movies. America has more variety. America seems to be more open minded, at least in Northern California where I'd be living does. America is bigger and has bigger things and faster things and better infrastructure.

If not for work, I'd probably not have gotten out of bed since we've been back yet. Is this fair to MOTH Dude? No, not at all. I DO realize that. I try to hide my sadness most days from him and sometimes I do a really bad job of it and I know it makes him feel bad, but I can't help it.

And, by the way, where is it written that just because we met here we have to stay here? That seems to be the consensus among his family members. I don't get the logic in that at all. MOTH Dude is a bit more open to change than they are and thank god because he'll have to be the one to move someday, not them.

We talk about moving to California or Hawaii in 5 years, but sometimes I wonder if I can make it another 5 years. It's only been about 6 and a half so far.

If I look at things objectively, I can see our 5 year plan is a good one since we both have decent paying jobs here right now and our current focus is saving as much as possible for the wedding and a down payment for a house, thus living in this crappy shack and paying the least amount of rent possible. After we get married then we'll probably take a year to just hang out and be married and then start trying for kids. I figure I should pop them out here since I can do it on the free health care system. After kid having (or shitting out kids as I lovingly refer to it), then we plan to move back to California.

I just worry we won't ever make it there. Then what will I do? I don't want to be bitter, bitchy, or angry (or crazy as my mental state from a month and a half ago shows I could easily by on my way to). I don't want to have that regret in my life, that we never moved back.

In saying that though, I don't regret moving here. I don't regret staying with MOTH Dude with the price tag of having to live here for a few more years. We've talked extensively about it and we love each other too much to walk away. Even before we were engaged we decided this.

And I know the U.S. isn't some magical land where all problems are solved and money grows on trees, or all rainbows and puppies, but I come from a really small family unit (me, Mom, Dad, Nae, and a crazy Gma a few hours away) and that's all of us there are in the world. I just don't like the feeling that I've abandoned the family for so long and I don't think growing older necessarily means you have to abandon your family. I know they don't feel abandoned, but what do you call it when you miss everyone's birthdays and all holidays and aren't ever there? I'm not a part of my family anymore except for that month a year I get to go home and I hate that feeling. My family is awesome and I want to be there for all the events, big and small. Even though our kids will have MOTH Dude's last name, I want them to know my family and be close to them because they are pretty rad. I want them to have the upbringing I had. I want them to have the privileges and experiences I had and I just don't see that happening in Australia.

Alright, so I'm feeling better now that I've spilled my heart and my guts to the internet so I'll stop now. I hope that at some point this post can help someone else, too, because they'll know they aren't alone in their craziness or sadness in missing home.

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...

Go Your Own Way, I'll Be With You. Make Mistakes and I'll Forgive You. Home Is Waiting Here For You When You Return

Six years ago, I set out to do a study abroad program for 4 months in Australia and I've never (permanently) left. Next week, my little sister sets out on her own journey, this time to South Africa with an open ended time line...might be two years, might be three. I am proud of her for living her dream, but afraid of what she might encounter. I'm fine with her being up close and personal with huge Great White Sharks, that doesn't worry me, it's the people that do. She has been mugged once already, I hope it's not a re-occurring experience for her there.

Because she doesn't need a lecture from her big sister and because I am trying not to be sad that she is leaving, rather than send her a big, smoochie boochie letter, I got her the sweatshirt pictured above. I hope she likes it and wears it all the time and thinks about me.

Through the Years We All Will Be Together, If the Fates Allow

I've taken an unplanned hiatus from blogging recently . I've had things to write about, but not the drive to write them down. When I was unemployed and by myself all day long most days of the week, any little event seemed worth chronicling, but now that I have a job that I have to get up and go to I am too damn tired to write most nights once I'm home and I feel like the little things aren't as interesting to blog about (Do you really want to hear about my week on the phones like how one lady called me an idiot, another guy yelled at me and told my manager I should be fired, even though I followed privacy laws/company policy to a T, how I nearly acquired a Nigerian boyfriend, and how one lady turned on and off the water works and asked why I had brought up her baby that had died years ago from SIDS (which for the record, I obviously hadn't)? Hey, now that I've given the brief overview of my week on the phones, it actually does seem kind of entertaining!).

I guess the other thing that has kept me from blogging recently is that part of my tag line is about living Down Under and "having the time of my life." Recently living here has felt like more of a chore than an adventure. I'm not putting my degree to use, we live in a shack, I drive an hour to work one way while MOTH Dude takes the train two hours in the other direction everyday, and I'm missing my family like crazy.

Call me stupid, crazy, delusional, whatever, but I never thought I'd have to miss out on having the holidays with my family. Thanksgiving was depressing enough, going to work as if it was just any other day, and to think of Christmas without my family is like a knife in the heart (Oh man, sorry for sounding like some emo 15 year old, but that's what it feels like!). Add to that Nae's murky departure date for South Africa and I'm just a little ball of emotion thinking about my family right now.

The thing is, I've felt really guilty for not blogging, even though at this point I'm pretty well convinced I have about two readers-not even my Mom is following along these days! Most days, if I make it awake past dinner time, I do think about writing an entry but I haven't had anything positive to say. I think I just need to get through the holidays and I'll be better. Until I am, I'm giving myself the permission to take the pressure off. I don't have to blog if I don't have anything nice to say and maybe without the guilt, I'll suddenly feel like writing a whole lot again.

Fingers crossed I snap out of this funk sometime soon because, if not for MOTH Dude, the bumper sticker I keep seeing "If You Don't Love It (Australia), Leave It" is starting to make a lot of sense to me.

As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

Not a whole lot of time to go in to it in detail right now, but Nae announced to the family last week that she had applied and pretty much been accepted to a 3 year Masters program at the University of Cape Town to study great white sharks. While I am really happy for her and excited that she will finally get to live her dream full time, I'm also really sad. I obviously don't live at home, or anywhere near it, but I liked that she was there, close to Mom and Dad and keeping them young and on their toes. I worry about her safety down there and am glad to hear she is trying to work it so she won't actually have to ever live in Cape Town and actually go to school there, but instead work from the aquarium and research station that she was at a few months back. I'm selfish and am sad because I wonder if she'll still be home in May when we go back to visit and because I know her move means we'll get to talk to each other even less than we do now. I also feel badly for my parents because I think they are shell shocked by her announcement and secretly feel like bad parents because both their kids have decided to live thousands of miles away from them on completely different continents. I think the opposite is true, though. I feel like we are this super tight little family unit and it is because they are such rad parents who taught us to follow our hearts and dreams that I had the courage to make the initial trip down here and then the decision to stay and I think it is the same with Nae- if she knew she didn't have our parents' support and a safe place to return to if things didn't work out there, she probably wouldn't do something so huge to begin with. Anyway, still trying to digest it and will probably write more about it later when more of her plans are in place.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

I'm in a funk. I think 4 weekends, most of them rainy, has something to do with it. Being stuck indoors with nothing to do when you've been looking forward to the weekend the whole working week sucks and then I start to think of the perpetual sunny weather we have back home and how if MOTH and I were bored there, we could take off for a night or two in San Francisco at my parents' condo and catch a baseball game and soak in the jacuzzi and explore parts of the town we've yet to see. And then I think about how there are tons of restaurants to try and fun things to do in Santa Cruz within easy distance of our house and then I just want to pack up and go there today, right now, let's book the flights, and get sad when I know that we can't.

Where we live on the Coast in NSW is so far away from everything else. We have to drive 20 minutes to find a restaurant that is not a pub or a step above a pub and there isn't like a great coffee house to go hang out at or a pier to walk on or a downtown area where we can walk around and kill some time and then try a new restaurant on a whim. We also find ourselves in the minority with our friends because they are all grown ups with kids, where as we don't have that sort of responsibility and miss the spontaneity of calling everyone up for a big night of drinking or doing something equal irresponsible. None of my close friends from back home have kids yet and so are always available at the drop of a hat to drive an hour and a half to find a really cool Korean restaurant we've heard about or to come over for a late night jacuzzi session. And don't get me wrong, I love all of my little "nieces" and "nephews" here and playing "Auntie D", I just wish we were on the same page as our friends or that they were still on the same page as us. (And friends reading this- do not take this the wrong way, I'm not having a go at anyone for being grown ups and having babies, I'm just saying I wish MOTH and I were on the same page-wait, not that I want a kid yet, but I wish that we were all experiencing all the same stuff at once-and yeah, I guess this still isn't coming out right, but I still love you guys and love our friendships so please don't read in to this any more than me feeling sorry for myself.)

I'm also in a funk because this weekend is our engagement party and you'd be right to ask, "Why in the Hell would that put you in a funk, weirdo?" Once again, the stupid weather- we're having an outdoor, Hawaiian luau themed party and it'll have to be postponed or people will have to huddle, shivering under tarps in our backyard if the rain doesn't clear out by Saturday (so far the forecast is saying it's here to stay). We've been so on top of planning for it and looking forward to having everyone over to help us celebrate and now we're both stressed and cranky that it's not going to work out the way we had hoped. I think we both need this party as a way of forgetting all the negativity that was involved when we initially got engaged and to remind us of just how many people are actually rooting for us. And speaking of people who are rooting for us- my parents and my sister can't make it out for the party, which is understandable, but I still really, really wished they could have been here with me.

So yeah, look at me...Little Miss Ray of Sunshine! Is it any wonder I haven't been blogging lately??

Sorry for the negative post. Fingers crossed for nice weather on Saturday so I actually have something interesting and fun to write about.

I'll Be Home for Christmas...

Except I won't be.

It also doesn't look like it is worth it for my family to come out here after Christmas to visit me either. I assumed there would be no way in Hell I'd be able to take a month off around Christmas being the low man on the totem pole at my new job, but I never imagined that from a week or so before Christmas all the way to the beginning of February would be off limits! But they are. I also found out that although I may only be scheduled for 20 hours a week, I won't ever be able to bang those out over, say, three 7 hour shifts; I'll be expected to work five 4 hour shifts. So if my family came out, I wouldn't be able to take a week or two off, like I was planning, to hang out and maybe go to Tasmania or drive the Great Ocean Road with them and I also wouldn't be able to get my work done early in the week on the other weeks they are here and then have Thursday and Friday to play tour guide.

I was so upset when I found this out on Tuesday. I've never not had a Christmas with my family to begin with, but I had prepared myself for that, and thought I'd just have a later Christmas celebration with them*, and then to find out that that wasn't really even an option, I wanted to cry. Then a few people in my training group start talking about how they were told we weren't allowed to take any time off over the next 12 months of our contract, I really did start to cry when I called MOTH on my lunch break to fill him in! I talked to the trainer later that afternoon and the good news is is that we are allowed to take vacation after we have been at the company for 6 months so yesterday I got her to block out most of May for me and that is when I will be going home. I can't believe I will have to wait a year (from when I flew out here) to see my family again, but I guess it's better than not being able to see them for a year and 3 months!

So yeah, not a good start to the week really, but I'm trying to deal with it and a lot can happen between now and December so we'll see what happens. On a positive, I already got paid on Wednesday and will be using part of that money to buy some more work clothes this weekend since I've realized 1) I don't have a ton of clothes to begin with and 2) Hardly any of the stuff I do have is "work wear". Tomorrow or Sunday MOTH and I are hopefully going to go have a look at a family friend's mother's car and hopefully it will be the one for me. All I know so far is that it's a late 90s Subaru, it's an automatic, and the price is right. MOTH and I have said for years now that we want a Subaru Outback when we can afford one so it'll be sweet to start working our way up through the Subaru models now!

*MOTH's immediate family doesn't celebrate Christmas for religious reasons so it's not a situation where you can say "Suck it up D, lots of people have to rotate Christmas between each spouse's family," there just won't be a Christmas celebration at all, at least not with his parents or brother, though I'm hoping he'll still want to celebrate with me.

Just Around the Corner There's Heartache.

Grrrrrr, f*ing grrrrr!

I just got a rejection letter from the university. I'm really upset. After having no luck finding a job last year here I thought coming across a job ad for an International Student Support Officer at my old university was serendipitous. I thought who better to help other international students than someone who has been one? Who better to help people work through their frustrations at being a foreigner in Australia than someone who still gets frustrated being a foreigner themselves? I guess the university didn't see that.

I'm embarrassed that I told everyone that I was going for this job because now they are all waiting to hear that I have gotten it and I haven't. What if Boyfriend's parents are right- "What if she never finds a job here?" My hope is feeling a little worn and I'm missing home right now and have visions of myself in some awesome job right now if only we were living there and not here.

Here's the thing, though- everyday is a choice. Today I'm going to choose to be sad and have a good cry about not getting the job I really wanted, but tomorrow crying and being sad isn't going to help me. Tomorrow I have to choose to move on, to put on my happy and determined face and start the search again. (Jesus, Allah, Buddha, and the Rainbow Serpent give me the strength to put on that happy face tomorrow, I'm gonna need it!)

If I Could, I Would Shrink Myself...And Remove Whatever Makes You Hurt But I am to Weak to be Your Cure

Last Thursday Mom and I got up bright and early and hit the road down to Orange County. I posted on my Facebook that I was going to be in town and got a few well wishes from friends to have fun while I was there and a teasingly angry email from my best guy friend from high asking why he hadn't been informed that I would be around and that we should head out and get a drink together. I hadn't made any solid plans to see friends, though, because the reason we were in town was not a fun one (it never seems to be these days!)- we were there because my Grandma recently found a large lump in her breast that turned out to be cancerous and she was being rushed in to surgery. She had had breast cancer about 8 years ago and on the other side, but this cancer is completely different.

Friday morning we got up and were at the hospital by 7am. Grandma seemed in good spirits considering and went in for surgery at 10:30. The doctor came out when it was done and Mom went over to see him. I thought he would just give her a general debriefing like I had seen other doctors come out and do with other patients' families so I opted to stay with our stuff and hold on to our seats. When Mom got over to the doctor, he directed her in to a small office and closed the door-"Ah, shit" I thought, this can't be good news. And it wasn't. Grandma had made it out of the surgery fine, that was one hurdle, but the bad news was that the cancer had spread in to both lymph nodes they had checked so they had had to remove the other ones and were going to process those to see if the cancer had spread.

Friday afternoon Grandma was pretty groggy, but not in a lot of pain because they had her on the good drugs. When we returned on Saturday morning, Grandma didn't remember that we had been there before and after her surgery the day before and she didn't think she had had the surgery yet, either. She told us that she was very unhappy because if she had had the surgery, she had heard it wasn't her doctor who had performed it, but an associate (which wasn't obviously the case) and she told the case worker who came in to the room to check on her just that (which we then had to correct). She was released Saturday afternoon and went from being in a lot pain and bitchy to being nice, happy Grandma who snuggled on the couch with me (a first in about 10 years since I am not the favorite granddaughter I once was since I am not skinny and Grandma has extreme disdain for anyone who is overweight) when she had taken some vicodin!

We left on Sunday afternoon to head to Cambria where we stayed the night to decompress after such a stressful weekend and Mom and I drove in two separate cars because Grandma decided she didn't want her car anymore and we took it so that Dad could sell it and make sure she got a fair price for it. It's a good thing she decided she didn't "want" to drive anymore because legally she can't. After getting in to two accidents in two consecutive Tuesday nights and taking out a total of 5 parked cars, her license has been revoked and her insurance is dropping her. We were just really fortunate that Grandma didn't hurt herself or anyone else.

If you ask me, this getting old thing doesn't sound like too much fun! I am feeling really badly for my Mom,too, because she is getting all of my Grandma's drama dumped on her. I don't mean to make it sound like we are cold, heartless people-the cancer stuff is a not drama at all and we are concerned for her about that, there is just a TON of other stuff that is drama, plain and simple, and, thus, avoidable that I'm choosing not to air on here that my Mom has to deal with in regards to Grandma all the time and it is definitely taking a toll and wearing Mom down.

We don't know the results of the other lymph nodes they removed yet, but we should know by the weekend so I'm sending some positive energy in to the universe that the cancer hasn't spread and I'd appreciate any positive energy or prayers you could send up for her, too.

Valentine

Will you be my valentine if I'm a world away?

So....another curveball. I am still heading back to Australia, I'm just not exactly sure when. Originally I thought I could get a work and travel visa for another year, but I can't. So then I said, "Ok, I'll go over on a tourist visa and get my spouse visa granted while I'm there on the other visa" but today I got back a notice from the Immigration Department stating they needed some more info from me before they'd grant my long stay tourist visa and that oh, p.s. on a 12 month visitors visa like that, they attach a stipulation that says you can't apply for any other visas while you are on that one so I'm back to square one. That means that I will have to apply for the spouse visa from here in the States and then wait for it to be granted before I can go to Australia again. The process can take anywhere from 1-6 months, I think, depending on how long it takes for you to gather all of your documents (like fingerprints that you have to send to the FBI for a criminal history check and that can take 10 weeks to be sent back) and send them in and then have an Immigration Officer assess them. Ugh!

I wish I would've known it was going to be months instead of days before I saw Boyfriend again and then I would've given him a few extra hugs and kisses before he left. We are both upset at the prospect of not seeing each other for awhile. I'm feeling sick to my stomach right now to be honest and really, really bummed. Not the Valentine's Day I was hoping for!

I'm going to try and stay positive. We have a lot of the paperwork already collected and I sent off my finger prints last week, thinking that my Mom or Dad would be sending them on to me in Australia. It is also cheaper, I've heard, to apply outside of Australia for this visa. And while I won't get to be with Boyfriend, I will get to spend more time with my family. I think I will start job hunting again so that I can earn some more money to bring back with me when the time does come.

I'm not so cheesy to say "absence makes the heart grow fonder." There is no positive to being away from Boyfriend for however long it ends up being. There is also no positive in missing out on seeing my favorite band, Brand New, for the second time in Sydney when I have tickets.

Sorry this is a Debbie Downer post. This afternoon I was totally going to post pictures of the cute little Valentine's surprises I made for Nae, the Camp Counselor, and their other good friend, D.C. Hope your Valentine's Day was better than mine!

Teach Your Children Well

...and then trust that you've done a good job so when they are in their 20s you don't second guess every big decision they try and make.

Big , big, big stuff is going down right now and I wish that I could say it was all happy big stuff, but it's not. Boyfriend is going back to Australia tomorrow night and the reality is I might not be following him out on Monday like I thought I was. After an amazing two months together in California I don't think this is how either of us saw the last few days playing out. We are happy and in love, but we've got some naysayers trying to put a damper on the love and happiness. I'm willing to prove the naysayers wrong; I'm just waiting for Boyfriend to figure out whether or not he is. When he lets me know, I'll let you know.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. My stomach is in knots.

It's Gettin Hot in Here

It's Saturday about noon here. I've been up since about 7am since Boyfriend had to be ready for Bob to pick him up at 7:30 for their one night trip to Queensland. I've been very productive and have called my Mom for our weekly chat, done laundry, and laid out for about 10 minutes. I couldn't stay out there any longer, it was too hot and I was sweating already! Boyfriend sat out for about 30 on Thursday and he got burnt enough so that it is still red two days later.

It has been beautiful summer weather through the day here, but at night it gets cold and it gets cold fast. On Thursday night I went out back to try and see a huge possum that had just jumped between the roof of our house and our laundry room roof and I could see my breath and it was only 6:30!

Tomorrow I've been invited to go 4 Wheel Driving at Stockton (or as we all call it now thanks to Croc's nephew: The Big Sand) with Croc, the Teacher, the Soccer Player and the Hairdresser. We are leaving here before 8 and then will pick Boyfriend up at around 12:30 from one of the parking lots because he is flying in to the Newcastle airport and it is only about a 10 minute drive from there out to the sand dunes. It should be another fun day, but it's supposed to maybe get in to the 80s tomorrow so that sand is going to be hot, hot, hot! I'm bringing hats, sunscreen, and plenty of water. Hopefully going tomorrow will motivate Boyfriend to finally upload those pictures from our last trip there so that I can finally post them for you guys here.

Hope you guys have a great weekend!

As a sidenote: I didn't hear one mention of Sept. 11 here yesterday which seems kind of sad, like the whole world has forgotten already, but I guess life goes on and if it's not your own country that was effected maybe it's easy to forget? Do we, as Americans, do anything to remember the Boxing Day Tsunami? Or China's Earthquake? Or the anniversary of the start of the Genocide in Rwanda? When put in that context, I understand why yesterday was just another day here; there are enough tragedies that have happened in our world that we would probably have to have a rememberance day for some event every day of the year. But as an American yesterday/today home time is one of those days out of the year where I was personally effected in some way by the event so I take time out to remember and reflect on that tragedy. On the anniversary of the tsunami, earthquake, and start of the genocide people in other countries are remembering how they were effected then, and in a sense, even if it's not on the same day, we are all connected by our loss and by our hope for peace.

I Just Ain't the Same Without You in My Life

As I write this I'm still a big, teary, snotty ball of a human. "Has something happened back home?" you wonder. Nope. "Has something happened between Little D and Boyfriend?" you might be thinking. Nope, again. What has happened is I made the mistake of watching the Will Smith movie Seven Pounds. If you haven't seen it: DON'T! I was sobbing so hard through the end of it that they were like waves rolling through my body. I'm going to spoil the movie for you if you haven't seen it, so stop reading if you don't want to know. In the end Will Smith's character is wracked with guilt over a car accident that he caused that killed seven people. To make up for what he has done he sets out to change seven good people's lives. He repays them each with a pound of flesh, which is a reference to Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". In Will Smith's character's case that pound of flesh is literal as he ends up killing himself by taking a box jellyfish in to the bathtub with him. He saves seven lives through organ donation, but makes the ultimate sacrifice and repayment of his wrongs by giving up his own life in order to do so.

I thought Seven Pounds was going to be a feel good movie and it was in the sense that seven lives were saved through the sacrifice of one man, but I hadn't read much about the movie and didn't know there was a suicide in it. This week has been pretty rough because it was the two year anniversary of Uncle B's passing. I forgot on the actual date and I usually email my pseudo cousins then and let them know I'm thinking of them and their Dad and that he hasn't been forgotten one bit so I was feeling awful about that and then my little cousin tells me no one even brought up the anniversary on the actual day so I felt even worse for her and her brother. Then I got to talking to my Mom about how the anniversary had just passed and was sad realizing that two years have passed and it still doesn't seem real. So I've just been thinking about him this week and missing him and his crazy antics and missing the little cousins and feeling super bad for them and I just didn't need a suicide movie on top of it, I guess. If you're feeling sad it really isn't the movie for you!

Anyway, I'll just close this by saying that we still love you and miss you Uncle B and I wish you were still here to inspect my boyfriends for me and call me a Rugrat and yell our last name over the fence when you wanted our attention and stop in for dinner at our house unannounced whenever it suited you and make fun of some of our prissier neighbors and I wish you were still here for your two great kids because they still really needed you and would've been so stoked to have you at their soccer games and wrestling matches. We'll never forget the fun times, the laughter, or the craziness and drama you brought to our lives. Rest in peace xoxo Oh yeah and "Stussy Rat Patrol" for life/forever!

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

Have you guys ever watched this show? The acting is horrible, the story line is horrible, the messages it portrays are horrible...but I can't stop watching this train wreck! Basically, the story goes that the chick in the picture has sex one time (at band camp, no less) and gets knocked up. She's, also, only 15. She decides to keep the baby and along the way gets married to some dorky boy (still at age 15) from her class who she's dated for all of about 3 weeks. I guess on the season finale, she had the baby.

I was out of the loop, having only seen this show once at Nae's house with her, Boyfriend, and the Camp Counselor, and then a few more times at Mom and Dad's with Nae. I saw that the show was coming back last week and decided to start watching it again. On the first episode of the season some ultra-Christian girl decides to lose her V-card to her college boyfriend. She tells her parents of her plans and they are unhappy. She isn't on speaking terms with her Dad in the episode because of her sex plans and she doesn't speak to him before he's off on a week long business trip. She ends up having sex that night and of course her Dad's plane ends up crashing and he is killed without her speaking to him. Her Mom comes home crying and the girl says, "Don't worry Mom, I just had sex." And then her brother with Down Syndrome yells at her that she's killed their father by having sex.

Ummmmm, awesome! Hahaha, so basically the message of this whole entire tv show is anytime you have premarital sex you are going to F* up your life in a big way....you're either going to get pregnant or kill your Dad. How did her having sex bring that plane down I wonder? I had to stop watching the second episode of the season to post this because they are still going on about how she killed her Dad by having sex. And now they are also blaming her friend who is sexually active for making "sex look like fun so Grace would want to do it, too." Really, Secret Life, really?!? This show makes my blood boil because of it's stupidity and the messages it sends to teenagers and yet I still can't stop watching it. Yes, I think you should be in a committed relationship and use birth control before you start having sex, but everytime you do "it" someone's not going to die and you wouldn't get knocked up if you had proper education about birth control. As an adult, I can laugh about this dumb show and the hysteria it perpuates about teen sex, but if I was watching this as a teenager, I'd be really scared about having sex (even more scared than I already was from my Catholic religious education on sex) and I guess that's their goal?

But hey, here's an idea....more education, less hysteria!!! Abstinence Only Education is not working and has not worked. Let's empower kids with knowledge. Kids are horny, they are going to have sex for the most part anyway, so let's give them the education where they know how to do it safely and so that they know where to get help and what kind of help is available to them if they do get in to trouble along the way.

I've got my fingers crossed (but won't hold my breath) that one of the adults on the show finds some sense and tells this chick that having sex does not bring down planes. How would the mile high club exist if it did?

I.O.U. One Galaxy

The posts are slowing down. There are some things going on right now that I'm not sure I should write about, it's been an ongoing thing for the past couple of weeks and it will be going on for a while longer (could be months before an outcome is reached). I am not sure whether I will post the blog I wrote about it or not. My life is a waiting game....awaiting the answer to this decision, awaiting a job or at least an interview. It's kind of a blah time right now. It's still an adventure though because I just don't know how it is all going to end up. Ugh. Whoa is me, I know, how boring to read. You (who you are, if anyone, I don't know) come here to read about love and adventure and all that good stuff I promise in the heading and instead end up with this pity party. Oh well, everyone has them sometimes.

In happier news, Boyfriend is supposed to be coming over tonight with a delivery from that Mexican food place I wrote a review of in the last post! CAN NOT WAIT! Also, my parents sent an Easter package that includes those much needed bras, aforementioned in the great birthday bra debacle post from earlier, and candy! It might even get here today so that Boyfriend can bring it over when he comes tonight. That would be so much win for one day! It is also sunny out today and I was finally able to do laundry again after a week and a half of humid, overcast, or rainy days (man, I hate not having a drier)- hooray for clean underwear! Haha! So I guess they aren't big exciting things that are making me happy today, but they are really awesome little things that make the day brighter when I reflect on them and not on "the deciding" Anyway, tomorrow or later tonight I'll post about my trip to Africa and that'll put us back on track to what this blog is all about.