OK, well the hangover hasn't kicked in, so I must be doing Ok. To give a quick run-down, Dad came over on Thursday to take a whole bunch of my stuff home. Things went fairly well, so that was good. I had spent most of the morning shifting my books downstairs after getting my painful tetanus booster and measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) shot. We packed my stuff away fairly quickly and then we went over to Queenbeyan to get my international drivers license and renew my Australian license so it wouldn't expire while I was overseas.
The drive home was uneventful, and I spent most of the evening shifting old crap out of my shed to make way for the incoming books. It was nice to be home, but I hadn't been home in Spring for many years, so it was strange to see the gardens in full bloom, naturally my hay-fever was terrible.
My eldest brother Ashley was home, but he didn't have much to say to me, and spent most of the time in his room on the internet. On the Friday he got a job offer to move (insert irony) to Canberra to start an IT position. I offered a few suggestions as to where was nice to live.
I spent much of Saturday going through my cupboards cleaning out old clothes and paper. My memory is quite good, and I could remember where and when I bought this shirt and that jacket, what I'd worn them to, and this made it hard to throw clothes out. Each piece had a story connected to it, and therefore throwing out that cloth mnemonic meant losing that story and in doing so a piece of my memories. Nevertheless, bags and bags of clothes made their way onto the living room floor. Harder again was going through the reams of paper in the wardrobe. So many memories; both painful and happy, were lurking in there under a patina of dust. Paper-cuts in my minds…
On Sunday, I finished seeing as much of the farm as I could before Mum and I drove over to Gundagai for me to catch the bus. Except it was 15 minutes early and we missed it! Ack! So, we had to drive to Canberra, which took about 5 hours out of Mum's afternoon, even more after we were held up by a big car accident outside of Yass. I was very appreciative for her driving me over, because she has to go up to Sydney today for the wedding. The big delay also prompted me to look into moving my Canberra-Sydney flight earlier to avoid similar delays.
So, at about 5:45 pm I gave Emma a call to find out when we were going to have my "DX farewell". Turns out it was to start at 6:30 pm! Ack! Shower and a very quick decision on what to wear, and I made it there only a few minutes late. We had dinner at Woodstock, and there was Emma, Chrissy, Ruth, Stuart, Maxx, Jenni, Andrew and Mishka. We had a good time, and I started on my first two Stolly's (got to love those alcoholic soft-drinks). After that we migrated to our usual haunt of Jackson's where for the first hour we had the place to ourselves, where we signed each other up for Karaoke and played pool. Chrissy (Karaoke Queen) sang "Eye of the Tiger", and then I got up to sing a rather croaky rendition of Elvis's "Can't help falling in love with you". I thought my voice had more depth then that, but I haven't used it in a long time, so I guess I've lost some of that deeper range, oh well. We continued with bad, pool, bad Karaoke and more drinks until about midnight when we went around to the Gypsy Bar. It was retro night and there were the usual mix of people and it was fairly laid-back and cool. I left with Stuart and Mishka at 2:30 am, and went home to crash. Tired and smoky but quite happy.
Today is Jules's birthday, so I need to go down and say hello to him, as well as do the usual domestic chores, email check-up and so on.
12:30 pm - Ok, so the hangover took a little bit to kick in. The good news is that my soon to be boss found an "efficiency" apartment i.e. a studio, close to the University for US$600 a month which will be available about the same time I arrive. The only problem is that they want a 12 month lease, which I'm not keen on, seeing that I haven't yet laid my eyes on it. Also, will the owners (who live on the same property) be happy with a 6 foot tall, butch dyke moving in? I asked him to looked into it a bit more, but nevertheless, it is good news. :)
10:45 pm - Another day where not a lot happened. Emma gave me a lift down to DX where we all sat around chatting, and some people worked on their armour. I had sushi for breakfast at about 2 pm, but I felt a bit off-colour for most of the afternoon. It was Jules's birthday, but I wasn't able to get through to him at home, and I didn't want to barge in on him and Susan. I called him tonight, and we hope to get together sometime this week.
So far this week, I've got dragonfly hunting with Jenni on Wednesday lunch and then an excursion to the land of margaritas and nachos (Montezuma's) with DX that night. Thursday lunch will be the farewell from the research group, with maybe seeing my college friends either Friday or Saturday night. Friday lunch my final hair appointment, Saturday lunch I'm seeing Maddy, and Sunday I go back to Tumut with the rest of my junk, to come back on Monday for the flight out on the Tuesday. Busy!
Two years ago, life was euphoric. One year ago, life was prosaic. Now life is hectic. What about a year from now?