March 28th, 2013
Look, it's been a really long time since I last posted and I'm sorry for that (I'm not). I'm probably going to combine a few posts I've got half written, so this may be a long one. Or it may not; I may split them up after writing.
I've been in Australia for over a month now. I'm still living in Discovery Hostel. I don't recall exactly what I've said about Discovery in the past, but I'm not thrilled with this place. That's not fair. I'm not thrilled with how my life here has progressed. It's not Discovery, it's that I'm still jobless and unwilling to get an apartment without a job that can sustain it. I figured that by now I would have had a job, or at least something to do during the day. One thing I've learned about myself in the past is that the less I'm doing, the less likely I am to do more. If I have endless free time, it remains just that, free time. I've gone through cycles like this one in my life a few times before and I know that I have to be proactive about making myself occupied. Sure, being free to do whatever I want is quite enjoyable, and it's allowed me to be very carefree, but it comes at a cost. I'm not sure if I've ever actually been depressed before, but I can tell you the times in my life when I had nothing to get up for weren't pleasant.
What's really stunning to me is that I've been in Australia for more than a month, and I'd spent two weeks on the west coast in the US before I came, putting me at a grand total of more than 6 weeks away from home. I've never been away for so long. The longest I've ever been out of Minnesota is probably less than two weeks, and even then it was a child and I knew I was going to be coming home shortly (side note: I don't know when I was away for 2 weeks as a child, but I know we had family vacations at least that long so don't ask me where I went...). All of this is to say that I'm not homesick at all. Sure there are a few specific things that I miss, most notably Taco Bell (sorry family), but as a whole, I feel very comfortable being away. Obviously, technology helps with that. I can call anybody in the states for dirt cheap if not free and the time delay isn't horrendous. Additionally, this place really isn't all that different from home. It's a bit bigger of a city, and sure I'm surrounded by people who speak funny, but I can understand them, and it's still a modern city. In fact, when I went to Adelaide a few weekends ago I was struck by how remarkable similar to home that city was. Just the parks and the nature. Adelaide is smaller than Melbourne, and I didn't notice it at first, but I did after spending the full weekend there. On a map, the streets are about as numerable, but the blocks are smaller. And while it was quite busy in certain places, I know that I went during the Adelaide Fringe Festival and realistically the city is has a lot less to do than Melbourne.
Melbourne has a lot going on all the time though. Makes me really wish I had an apartment and wasn't at the whim of a hotel. Luckily it's less busy than it was during the Grand Prix, but having to renew weekly and dealing with the influx of new people each week is exhausting. And I will relish having a room to myself. I have a lead on a room in a house that's significantly less than here, and evidently not too far out in the boonies.
Ugh, no matter how I put it, this whole piece feels so fucking inconsequential. "This is my life" "This is what's happening" "I can't get my life together to leave this shitty place that gives me a place to stay and makes life easy"
What a crock of shit.
Yes, this place is different than home. I'm enjoy myself immensely when I'm not going in complete shambles about my finances or feeling like a giant turd for not finding a job. I spend my days watching tv on my computer and looking at Cracked articles. This isn't a different situation than from home. All I've done is change the setting of my misery from a cold home where I can easily find a job and a warm, but turning colder, place that I sit around doing the exact same shit I would back home but jobless. This isn't some ideal paradise I've found myself in. I can barely even find ways to destroy my taste-buds in this crazy place. The grocery stores don't sell "hot" salsa; only mild and medium, which are even milder settings than they are back home. The only reason they don't have a hot here is so that people can feel like there's another level out there and feel secure in their mediocrity.
At the center of my disheartment (no matter how I try to make a form of "disheart-" work, spell check says I'm wrong, so disheartment (no spell check I don't mean "dish heart") stays even if it's not a word. Deal with it) is the dilemma I find myself in every day: I have enough money to survive for 2 months if I do nothing but stay in the city and live as cheaply as I can until I find a job, but as a result I don't do any of the things that brought me here in the first place. I STILL HAVE YET TO SEE A FUCKING KANGAROO! I've used up more than a full month of my year here and what do I have to show for it? Fucking nothing. I've made friends with a bunch of foreigners who have come and gone. Fucking great. I don't have the energy to keep doing that. I'm sick of temporary friends.
Ok, that was very sad that last paragraph. I have been doing things here, especially regarding comedy. I guess that'll be in the next post. I'm just frustrated because I went downstairs to the bar for "Date Night" with free wine and cheese and I don't know anybody and I can't bring myself to try. Also they dole out the wine and cheese in "tastes" and I'm still hungry and not drunk. I bought bottle of brandy because I was feeling too poor about going to bars and not buying alcohol. But they don't let you drink in the rooms and I have no good way to pour the brandy into my flask.
Holy fuck this post has gotten long. I really need to shorten it. But I will probably just post it.
D'oh!
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