Tina's wanderings around the world

Sydney has been awfully rainy this winter and spring, which means there's been a plethora of umbrellas making their way about town. Yesterday was one such of these umbrella days, and I found myself swinging the umbrella to and fro as I walked home. Sydney umbrellas are not the little shooka umbrellas where you press the button and they shooka right on out to protect you from the rain. Sydney umbrellas are the old man umbrellas that you could use as a walking stick--there's no shrinking those suckers! And, well, they need to be because when it rains here, it's usually accompanied by wind. And the little shooka umbrellas get rocked by the wind and have a tendency to break and fall apart. Hence the proliferation of old man umbrellas. This city is a bustling city with lots of walkers on the streets, which means that when it's raining outside and everyone has a giant old man umbrella, you have to be careful. I'm conscious sidewalk walker at the best of times, trying to ...

On occasion, I have those days where I feel 100% wretched. Last week ended with said wretchedness, a slow spiral into an abyss of self-pity. Do you know those days? They're usually the ones that end in tears, refreshing, cleansing tears. Only two days ended in tears, and they were sort of forced just to get the yuck out of my system. Work was boring, and I felt isolated in my tucked away little corner. Marcus was leaving town for the weekend. My friends were busy. The "Australia hates me and I hate Australia" feelings started to rise, though thankfully they went away without getting to an alarming point. This country has certainly been a hard one to adapt to and my efforts don't seem to have paid off as much as I'd like...but I persist. I've been trying to stop the self-pity and try to look at things from another angle, but haven't read nearly enough positive-thinking self-help books lately. :) Though when these shite days do roll around, you can be sure t...

Yesterday was the first day back at work after daylight savings kicked in. My body was a bit cranky at the early wake up, but was delighted at the lasting sunshine in the sky still there when I walked home after work. Maybe I'll go for a run? Maybe a little bit of yoga? Yeah, the body is definitely in need of a bit of physical activity. Get ready to rumble! Umm, the rumble has been delayed. I got home and went to the bathroom (gotta take care of business), only to find it covered in water. The ceiling was leaking in a few different spots and the lights refused to come on. Bad news. I called the building manager to arrange for a plumber to come out, then went upstairs to see if they had a leak, an overrunning faucet, or any awareness at all of our predicament. After a ring and two knocks, the less than impressive neighbor opened the door. Nope, no awareness and certainly no help in finding a remedy for the situation. So I showered by candlelight (which was quite nice, actually) and ...