ciao for now

It is coming to the end of 2009. I have decided that I will not be writing this blog anymore. It seems to have run its course, the original inspiration for it is no more, so it is time to move on.

Thank you readers. When I first moved here, writing the blog was very helpful in keeping me busy and sometimes clearing my head as I tried to acclimate and build some sort of life here in Australia. Getting comments from people let me know I was being heard, and I was not alone, even when I thought I was.

I hope you were able to be entertained as well as informed about my life here. I may start another blog, but it will have a different aim. I'll let you know.

I wish everyone good fortune and lots of love. Have a fantastic 2010, and beyond.

xo
alicia

work soon

I think I need to get back to work. I am starting to enjoy afternoon re-runs of "Murder She Wrote".

Today in the news it said that the average Australian worker works an extra 70 minutes of unpaid overtime each week, and that work is becoming a habit, that people do not know how to "turn-off" anymore, thanks to communication technology in the home, and the shifting of Aussie ways from a leisure to money making culture.

When I am not working I do have a hard time knowing what to do with myself. My thoughts run amok and I feel like I have to keep my skills going, so I often do something work-related, like learn a software or do some little project.

Most people I work with are like me, working as we do we get in the habit of extreme hours, and are so consumed by our work that we cultivate little else. Even people who have outside hobbies are often doing something related: making gadgets, working on a film or screenplay, taking photos.

The people I have worked with who have unrelated hobbies are generally doing something on the opposite end: bungee jumping, plane flying, hang gliding - something adrenaline pumping and fierce, something to prove they are brave and physical.

I could be doing so many things, noble things, creative things. I could learn a language. But in a traveling freelancing world it is hard to commit to anything that will be more than a few weeks. But I am about to have a part-time job here for awhile, so some consistency should arrive soon.

Yesterday was 93˚F, according to the news, but it felt hotter than that. We kept the house dark and closed, with fans running the air around. It was hard to focus, hard to do anything, including watch "Murder She Wrote". I ended up going to the grocery store. The air conditioning felt so good; I felt like myself for a half an hour.

By 6pm the heat was broken by a thunder and lightning storm. It's great when rain breaks the spell.

Just the same, we slept for most of the night with the air conditioning on (we have a unit in our bedroom).

I bet Australians would not work that extra time, and maybe be even less productive, if there was no air conditioning. And maybe then people would remember how to relax.

A hop over the puddle

I returned 3 days ago from being in New Zealand for a month. It was a great trip.

Darcy and I went over for a holiday. I had always wanted to go to New Zealand. In fact, 5 years ago I was deciding between a trip to NZ or a trip to Australia, as air fares were way way cheap and I really wanted to travel. In the end I decided on Australia as i knew a couple of people here, then I met Darcy and now here I am. How different my life would be if I had decided to to go to New Zealand instead. I have no way of knowing. But just the same I am glad I came here instead.

And just the same, New Zealand was fantastic! A very lush and green country, chock full of sheep and cows and pine forests, thanks to a heavy logging industry, feeding China. OK, the logging was disturbing. There is so much reforestation with North American trees that if i wasn't driving on the left side of the road, there would have been nothing to make me feel I wasn't back in new Hampshire. But it wasn't all that way. Once we got to the South Island, plant life seemed to get much more native, and it was really breathtaking.

We started in Auckland. Auckland seemed pretty cool, very spread out so we only sampled a tiny part of it. It is at the top of the North Island, with smaller islands surrounding it and heading further North. It is not very big, even though it is New Zealand's biggest city, about a million people. We were only there a day and a half, so we checked out design galleries, I met with a company there for future freelance work, and we ate some good Japanese food. Then we hit the road.

We drove past many many many many green fields full of grazing sheep and cows. Many. There are more sheep in New Zealand than I could have conceived of. And we only saw a portion of the country.

We drove around Rotorua, where there are many geothermal springs, and we got to see boiling - and I mean boiling - water streams and water holes, and bubbling hot mud pools. We then went on to Wellington where I had another interview and we stayed with friends Kelsi and Malcolm. I met Malcolm while working in Sydney, and discovered that his girlfriend Kelsi is from Weare. Yes! From the town I grew up in! And she went to school with my brother Jack! Very very strange. They are a cool couple. Wellington is the nation's capitol, and as NZ's second largest city has a population of 400,000. Small country.

After a few days we took a ferry from Wellington, which is at the bottom of the North Island, to Picton, the top of the South Island. We spent a couple of days in the Marlborough area, a wine producing region famous for its Sauvignon Blancs, but for my tastes and Darcy's also makes some killer Pinot Noir. The best I have had in the Southern Hemisphere! We then traveled west along the coast, and experienced stunning terrain and trees. We cut through the mountains and reached Middle Earth. Big gorgeous snow capped mountains, with masses of rocky fields, windy fields and electric blue rivers at their feet. We took nice little hikes and enjoyed the fresh chilly winds. We also took a fun boat ride through a gorge, which I think is short for gorgeous! New Zealand is a very young land, they still have earthquakes and their native wildlife is unique and has evolved much less than surrounding islands (according to a tv show I saw once), and you can feel it in the freshness and power of the water, and see it in the bands of color on the side of a rock wall, or in the dramatic crevasses in a mountain created by a massive earth quake. The place is stunning and feels good.

We flew out of Christchurch, a small English looking city, but Darcy headed back to Brisbane and I went back to Wellington. The company I had met there asked if I could return for a 2 week job, so I did. It went well, and I enjoyed spending more time in cooler temps, but by the end I was looking forward to being in my own bed. I hope to return to New Zealand sometime soon. It was beautiful.


a green field and a rainbow, the first but not the last we saw of each;


a field with sheep. they cover the place;


some native trees;


naturally boiling pool;


steam from the hot springs near Rotorua;


leaving North Island;


me on the ferry;


South Island;


West Coast of South Island;


near the Marlborough Region;


Darcy in Arthur's Pass, or what we call "Middle Earth";


Gorgeous Middle Earth.

hellloooo

It has been awhile since I wrote, such a while that I don't know if any one is even going to read this, but I'll write anyway. Things have happened, but I didn't feel like writing about it. I still don't, so I will try to think of something else to tell you.

I have been working these past 2 months, and I have another month of work to go. It is for company down the road, a 30 minute walk, a 10 minute bike ride, or a 5 minute car ride. I have been either walking or driving when I am running late. Currently we are working on a commercial, but that is only a brief stint from the kids' tv show I have been working on the rest of the time. I am glad for the work, and how convenient it is. But I am sick of the behavior I experience in the room I work in. I work with about 10 guys, younger and older than me, and though they are good people, they are disgusting. They have belching contests, say gross things, tell offensive jokes, and use the word "fuck" after every three other words. In this description, I do not exaggerate. I have never worked someplace so unprofessional. I had to complain to the producer about one of the guys referring to the other female artist as "tits".

Negative bits aside, I have had overall a pretty good winter here. Winter is the best time to be in Brisbane, as it is only warm and not hot. That being said, today, in what is supposed to be the coldest month of the year, the temperature reached 31C (87). Tomorrow it is supposed to reach 34C (93)!

But like I said, negative bits aside, I have had a pretty good winter here. Having a long term job in my neighborhood has helped me to feel, for the first time, like I actually live here. I have been able to go to pilates classes in the evening, and am starting to know some names of classmates. Occasionally, I even run into someone on the street. I have become a little chatty with some of the workers of various local cafes, and my husband and I go out and meet people for dinner sometimes. It all feels like a little game almost, like this life is just a temporary situation something will happen and the bubble will burst. But maybe not. Maybe things will only get better from here.

I have noticed that the other blogs I used to read haven't been updated in a long time. I suppose that's all right, maybe these people have moved on to Twitter and Facebook. I haven't had time for Facebook, and when I do have a moment I don't have anything to share. And as for Twitter, you can keep it.

I don't know what else to say, but I hope I do soon.