Emerging from busy, busy
I stopped blogging for a long time because...well, life became normal more or less. Living in Australia was quite exciting for the first year, quite frustrating for the next few in trying to adjust to the new normalcy. In the midst of the adjustment, apparently my blog offended someone. I generally try not to offend people and was offended myself that someone could misunderstand me so. And decided it would be easiest to stop blogging. Nothing exciting was really happening anymore, it was just...life. The blog had started to document my travels, and while those didn't necessarily stop, my yearning to share what was going on in life somewhat diminished.
But I must say, things are changing yet again. Travels will start again soon (and to be honest, it would have been a good idea to write over the last year--we have traveled a LOT), and I like being able to look back at experiences, pictures, stories and relive the past a bit. I also know that I'll be quite out of touch with everyone for the months while we are traveling, so it's time to start writing again. I want to start writing again.
Lately, life has kept me running non-stop. The second (and final) semester of my Master's program started in March with a full-time course load. That was all fine until I started working nearly full-time, which has gone on for the last six weeks. Add to that the Centre for Refugee Research internship which hasn't quite taken up as much time as, say, another class, but has taken up the last remaining non-anxious parts of my brain and landed me in a near constant state of anxiety. There's always something to get done. Class readings have basically been non-existent for the past six weeks. My schedule has been pretty much repetitive. And full.
The last six weeks I've only been able to escape anxiety in sleep. And even then, anxiety abounds. The neighbor's baby is loud, though less so lately since they finally moved him to a room that's not right next door to ours. But then the upstairs neighbors have gotten louder in their morning routine, which starts an hour before ours, so I wake up with their noise and will myself to go back to sleep. Mostly unsuccessfully. So I've started wearing my earplugs nearly every night. I can't sleep through the morning without them, and sometimes even with them. The neighbor noise and anxiety wake me up. Marcus is worried I've become dependent on them, but I reckon I'll wean myself off of them. As soon as I release this anxiety. Which should begin now.
As of this weekend, I've decided I'm done with my assignments. One 2500 word essay, one 3000 word essay and a 4000+ word project design. They're all at acceptable levels for submission. Could I have done more/better? Mmm, not really under these circumstances. Are they all passable assignments? Absolutely. Probably distinction-level. I'm not 100% pleased with them, but I'm about 85% pleased with it. That's pretty decent. I'll print out my coursework submission sheets and plan on turning in all three assignments today. My last classes are tomorrow and the day after. Then I'm finished. Done. Master's completed in one year.
Then the day after my last class I fly out to Geneva. Sydney to Melbourne to Dubai to Geneva. It will be a long day of flying (it will be my longest set of international flights, ever, including the 9 hour layover in Dubai), but with potential upgrades to business or first class. Not to mention the fact that the flights are so, so much cheaper than anything else I could have bought due to Marcus's staff travel. Thank goodness for Marcus and his staff travel! They have allowed us to do a LOT of travel over the last year. Nearly every continent, in fact. Ironically the only continent we didn't visit was North America. We knew we'd be there soon anyway. Our first trip was last year to South Africa, stopping in Zambia and Zimbabwe while we were there. Then we went to Cairns, Adelaide and Melbourne (Melbourne a few times). We flew to Tokyo earlier this year for a long weekend, then to Chile, Argentina and Antarctica a few weeks after Tokyo. Another trip to Melbourne. We thought that would probably be all of our travels, but then I landed my CRR internship. So together, for our final staff travel trip, we'll spend a few weeks in Switzerland and France. I'll spend two weeks in Geneva attending the UNHCR Annual NGO Consultation Meetings as well as a few bilateral and side meetings with the CRR team. Then Marcus will meet me in Geneva and we'll train over to visit some friends in Zurich, a lovely Swiss/Colombian couple we met in South Africa. We adored them and thought we were too close not to go say hello. We'll spend two days with them then train over to Paris for the remaining days of our trip. We've booked in a studio apartment just north of Central Paris and the Seine, in high tourist area. We also booked in tickets to go to a concert of Mozart and Dvorak at the Garnier Palais. I'm pretty excited to wander around Paris for a few days and finally have a break from the mayhem of the last few months. It will, I can safely say, be well-deserved. I don't often say I deserve something, but I think this comes pretty close.
I should also mention how wonderful Marcus has been through all of this. I've not had much time to spend with him which is a big change for us. We spend most of our non-work time together, so this redirection of time hasn't been easy. I've felt guilty for not being able to spend much time with him, but that's never come from him. He's spent a few weekends away with friends and family so I don't feel guilty for having to spend so much time working and studying. He's made me dinner when I haven't had the energy and helped me with research and errands whenever they've been needed. He found the best search terms to use for my internship research. :) And booked in all of my flights, looked up accommodation and found travel guides for the upcoming trip. Surprisingly, I haven't cried nearly as much as I would have thought during this time. (Maybe I need to watch another really sad movie to cry. That could be a helpful anxiety release.) He's been a huge support to me during this time. I'm feeling pretty lucky to have him in my life.
So now to find a way to release the anxiety. Writing has always been my best strategy, and my dear brother recommended it for my anxiety release a few weeks ago. I enjoy writing in a journal by hand, but I find I can get my thoughts out much more quickly by typing. So here they are. The thoughts.
Oh yeah, totally forgot the addition to this anxiety--we're also leaving Australia at the beginning of August! So on top of school, internship and work, we have to plan our exit. Cancel bills, get rid of furniture and kitchen stuff, hand off good stuff to friends, recycle as much as we can, ship stuff to the states, and figure out what we'll keep at Marcus's mom's house. Yesterday we dropped off our TV from the 80's, our two old laptops and a bag full of miscellaneous electrical items to the City of Sydney's recycling depot. It was the best thing ever, there were five guys in front of the depot waiting to collect things from your car. We pulled in, grabbed our stuff, handed it off and were done in 60 seconds. So easy! City of Sydney does have some great green initiatives.
We'll try to Gumtree (Australian version of Craigslist) our furniture and dining table when we're back from Europe. Oh, bikes, too. We'll have one month to set our affairs in order... so that's an added anxiety, with people asking, "Do you have jobs yet?" No, of course we don't have jobs yet. Do people hire three months out? Silly question. We're spending about six months traveling first as well. We've saved and prepared for this, we're not going in blind. Yes, we're anxious about finding jobs. Yes, we're anxious about the move. But we're also excited. There's a lot going on right now. I'm nervous but excited about all of this. We'll figure it out, we're smart kids and we're lucky enough to have some great friends in Seattle that will help make our transition back easier. It will all work out well.
That's life. A lot going on, but time to let the anxiety go. I can't control everything. I can take a lot of action and I have reminders and steps in place to help me do that. Marcus is the best part--we get to go through this together, as partners. As soon as we're back from Europe, running is definitely resuming a regular spot in our weeks. I feel like there's a bit to work out of the system. It's not going to be an easy month. We have a lot of dear people we'll be saying goodbye to. Not permanently, but at least for a while. It will be emotional and, yes, busy. My 30th birthday is also just around the corner. There's a lot of reflection to be done there. It's been a hell of a year. And it's not even halfway over. But Seattle draws nearer every day. We'll be there in less than a year, which is insane. It's something we've talked about for so long and now the wheels are actually turning. One bit at a time.
But I must say, things are changing yet again. Travels will start again soon (and to be honest, it would have been a good idea to write over the last year--we have traveled a LOT), and I like being able to look back at experiences, pictures, stories and relive the past a bit. I also know that I'll be quite out of touch with everyone for the months while we are traveling, so it's time to start writing again. I want to start writing again.
Lately, life has kept me running non-stop. The second (and final) semester of my Master's program started in March with a full-time course load. That was all fine until I started working nearly full-time, which has gone on for the last six weeks. Add to that the Centre for Refugee Research internship which hasn't quite taken up as much time as, say, another class, but has taken up the last remaining non-anxious parts of my brain and landed me in a near constant state of anxiety. There's always something to get done. Class readings have basically been non-existent for the past six weeks. My schedule has been pretty much repetitive. And full.
- Monday: Study in the library from 8am-1pm. Drop off groceries for lunches and dinners in the work fridge first, then find my favorite table in the library (in the one section of the library where you can eat) and enjoy breakfast of yogurt and muesli and my thermos of black tea. The little joys amidst five hours of studying. Try to get as much done school work done as possible. Then off to work at 1pm (conveniently right next door to the library) and work in the office from 1-6pm, then off to the student call centre from 6-9pm in a dungeon-like room with no windows and howling a/c in the bowels of the business school building.
- Tuesday: Work from 8am-4pm, then skidaddle off to class from 4-8pm. Every other week I wait another hour or so for Marcus, who's on campus those days volunteering in the free legal clinic.
- Wednesday: Work from 8am-4pm, then off to class with my most scattered professor, who's a very nice man but who lacks structure. Before I got the internship, I had another class from 6-8pm. Then when the internship started, we had a few meetings at this time. That of course ran way overtime. Three weeks ago I had my Australian citizenship ceremony on this date. The week after that I managed to get in some social time and had dinner at a friend's house. And last week, relief, I got to go home and have dinner with Marcus.
- Thursday: A repeat of Monday, studying from 8am-1pm, then work from 1-9pm.
- Friday: My one full day of studying. Also the one day I try to sleep in, which has been less successful than I would have hoped. I'm so anxious about everything I need to get done that my body can't relax. So I get up. Study. Get as much school work and internship research done as possible. Then after Marcus is done with work, we tend to go out for dinner or a drink, then come home and crash.
- Saturday: Work from 10am-1:30pm in the call centre. I try to get as much work done as possible, but the last few weeks I've done internship research as well. I usually wouldn't do school work during work-work time, but let's fact it--I'm stressed. Something's gotta give! Then in the evening it's either dinner with friends or a quiet dinner with Marcus, crashing with dinner and a movie on the couch.
- Sunday: The last few weeks (pretty much since work started up full-time) I've met up with my assignment partner for my project design and evaluation class to work on our development project design. Conveniently, she lives a block away from me and we can rock on up to the Balmain library when it opens at 10am and smash our work in an hour or two. After this, usually some more study, but I also get to spend a precious few hours with Marcus, and try to distance myself from the anxiety for a while. Laundry. Shopping in preparation for the trip to Geneva, which has led to success for UN shoes (nice shoes, but need to be flat and comfortable since I'll be walking around cobblestone streets in them for two weeks) and a failure to find a suitable pair of skinny black pants. We did end up buying Kindles, though, which I think we'll love traveling with. I tend to travel with quite a few books, so the weight will be better as well as the ability to actually select what I read rather than reading whatever I can find in the book exchange.
The last six weeks I've only been able to escape anxiety in sleep. And even then, anxiety abounds. The neighbor's baby is loud, though less so lately since they finally moved him to a room that's not right next door to ours. But then the upstairs neighbors have gotten louder in their morning routine, which starts an hour before ours, so I wake up with their noise and will myself to go back to sleep. Mostly unsuccessfully. So I've started wearing my earplugs nearly every night. I can't sleep through the morning without them, and sometimes even with them. The neighbor noise and anxiety wake me up. Marcus is worried I've become dependent on them, but I reckon I'll wean myself off of them. As soon as I release this anxiety. Which should begin now.
As of this weekend, I've decided I'm done with my assignments. One 2500 word essay, one 3000 word essay and a 4000+ word project design. They're all at acceptable levels for submission. Could I have done more/better? Mmm, not really under these circumstances. Are they all passable assignments? Absolutely. Probably distinction-level. I'm not 100% pleased with them, but I'm about 85% pleased with it. That's pretty decent. I'll print out my coursework submission sheets and plan on turning in all three assignments today. My last classes are tomorrow and the day after. Then I'm finished. Done. Master's completed in one year.
Then the day after my last class I fly out to Geneva. Sydney to Melbourne to Dubai to Geneva. It will be a long day of flying (it will be my longest set of international flights, ever, including the 9 hour layover in Dubai), but with potential upgrades to business or first class. Not to mention the fact that the flights are so, so much cheaper than anything else I could have bought due to Marcus's staff travel. Thank goodness for Marcus and his staff travel! They have allowed us to do a LOT of travel over the last year. Nearly every continent, in fact. Ironically the only continent we didn't visit was North America. We knew we'd be there soon anyway. Our first trip was last year to South Africa, stopping in Zambia and Zimbabwe while we were there. Then we went to Cairns, Adelaide and Melbourne (Melbourne a few times). We flew to Tokyo earlier this year for a long weekend, then to Chile, Argentina and Antarctica a few weeks after Tokyo. Another trip to Melbourne. We thought that would probably be all of our travels, but then I landed my CRR internship. So together, for our final staff travel trip, we'll spend a few weeks in Switzerland and France. I'll spend two weeks in Geneva attending the UNHCR Annual NGO Consultation Meetings as well as a few bilateral and side meetings with the CRR team. Then Marcus will meet me in Geneva and we'll train over to visit some friends in Zurich, a lovely Swiss/Colombian couple we met in South Africa. We adored them and thought we were too close not to go say hello. We'll spend two days with them then train over to Paris for the remaining days of our trip. We've booked in a studio apartment just north of Central Paris and the Seine, in high tourist area. We also booked in tickets to go to a concert of Mozart and Dvorak at the Garnier Palais. I'm pretty excited to wander around Paris for a few days and finally have a break from the mayhem of the last few months. It will, I can safely say, be well-deserved. I don't often say I deserve something, but I think this comes pretty close.
I should also mention how wonderful Marcus has been through all of this. I've not had much time to spend with him which is a big change for us. We spend most of our non-work time together, so this redirection of time hasn't been easy. I've felt guilty for not being able to spend much time with him, but that's never come from him. He's spent a few weekends away with friends and family so I don't feel guilty for having to spend so much time working and studying. He's made me dinner when I haven't had the energy and helped me with research and errands whenever they've been needed. He found the best search terms to use for my internship research. :) And booked in all of my flights, looked up accommodation and found travel guides for the upcoming trip. Surprisingly, I haven't cried nearly as much as I would have thought during this time. (Maybe I need to watch another really sad movie to cry. That could be a helpful anxiety release.) He's been a huge support to me during this time. I'm feeling pretty lucky to have him in my life.
So now to find a way to release the anxiety. Writing has always been my best strategy, and my dear brother recommended it for my anxiety release a few weeks ago. I enjoy writing in a journal by hand, but I find I can get my thoughts out much more quickly by typing. So here they are. The thoughts.
Oh yeah, totally forgot the addition to this anxiety--we're also leaving Australia at the beginning of August! So on top of school, internship and work, we have to plan our exit. Cancel bills, get rid of furniture and kitchen stuff, hand off good stuff to friends, recycle as much as we can, ship stuff to the states, and figure out what we'll keep at Marcus's mom's house. Yesterday we dropped off our TV from the 80's, our two old laptops and a bag full of miscellaneous electrical items to the City of Sydney's recycling depot. It was the best thing ever, there were five guys in front of the depot waiting to collect things from your car. We pulled in, grabbed our stuff, handed it off and were done in 60 seconds. So easy! City of Sydney does have some great green initiatives.
We'll try to Gumtree (Australian version of Craigslist) our furniture and dining table when we're back from Europe. Oh, bikes, too. We'll have one month to set our affairs in order... so that's an added anxiety, with people asking, "Do you have jobs yet?" No, of course we don't have jobs yet. Do people hire three months out? Silly question. We're spending about six months traveling first as well. We've saved and prepared for this, we're not going in blind. Yes, we're anxious about finding jobs. Yes, we're anxious about the move. But we're also excited. There's a lot going on right now. I'm nervous but excited about all of this. We'll figure it out, we're smart kids and we're lucky enough to have some great friends in Seattle that will help make our transition back easier. It will all work out well.
That's life. A lot going on, but time to let the anxiety go. I can't control everything. I can take a lot of action and I have reminders and steps in place to help me do that. Marcus is the best part--we get to go through this together, as partners. As soon as we're back from Europe, running is definitely resuming a regular spot in our weeks. I feel like there's a bit to work out of the system. It's not going to be an easy month. We have a lot of dear people we'll be saying goodbye to. Not permanently, but at least for a while. It will be emotional and, yes, busy. My 30th birthday is also just around the corner. There's a lot of reflection to be done there. It's been a hell of a year. And it's not even halfway over. But Seattle draws nearer every day. We'll be there in less than a year, which is insane. It's something we've talked about for so long and now the wheels are actually turning. One bit at a time.
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