So, during the first week of international orientation week, they tell you that it is very common to feel homesick, and on the reverse very common to at first feel an elated state quickly followed by a crash - the Honeymoon phase of moving into a new country/new culture/new area/new experience. I mean, they tried to back it up with all this hoopla about how it was psychologically proven or something like that, but me of course I'm sitting there thinking "Yah right. Who the heck would want to leave Australia after being excited about it for a month" I think it helped that when I initially got here in February, I wasn't all that pleased anyways. It was kinda weird to be living out of a hospital, trying to find somewhere to live and having to tell your story to every person you met, an almost exhausting excercise when done often enough. Who would ever want to talk about themselves that much, but when you don't know someone, and they don't know sports, what the heck do you talk about? Culture and Canadian culture is me. Moving on...So there I was sitting there thinking No friggin' way, not gonna happen, not me. Then, Saturday we went surfing in Australia - the pinnacle of any Australian trip. I'd actually forgotten this, but in the hardcover book I have that I jot down important stuff; triathlon training, books I've read, quotes I connect with, people's addresses, directions to someones's cottage (originally I'd written that it was Nash's, then made a whitty comment about how somethings were clearly more important than others, but then I realized the directions lead you nowhere near Wiarton/Owen Sound, so I've partially omitted my comment). Well, accompanying all this hardly categorized random information is a life's To Do List:
- Sky dive
- Go to France for the French Open and Tour de France in same trip (yes, it is possible)
- Cycle the red woods of California
- Sleep under the stars in Africa (maybe I'd consider a mosquito net, see malaria)
- See Newcastle United Game at St. James Park
- Ski Marble and Sundance (and after what everyone has been telling me, Cdn Rockies are a must as well)
- Surf in Australia
- Train hard enough to qualify for 2012 London (this is completely unattainable as I'm slowly, painfully, frustratingly realizing, but I'd settle for my professional card...)
Thats the entirity of the list, and there's other stuff I've been meaning to add but that is all of it at this current moment. 1/8 done as of last Saturday (although with my weak performance because I really don't know all that much about what I was doing on that ocean until about 15 minutes before we left where the light bulb went on, I'd hardly call that successfully completed). So getting back to the point...
There is clearly no way I was dipping out of this honeymoon phase. I don't know if it was the three days, almost four, of crappy.cloudy.WEAK.spitting weather (I would never call it rain) or if it was just the psychologists in the world proving themselves right, but I hit this slope on the downward. I couldn't believe it, but Sunday and Monday were filled with such disdain, such unexplainable melancholy. Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but I was easily aggravated and just didn't want to see or talk to anyone or do anything. And I couldn't put my finger on it either, I was just pissed for no reason. Little things were really getting to me, but hopefully I hid that the best I could. I know this will make some people back at home happy; I even started missing some of you people I flew across the world to get away from (kidding, of course). Specifically (she really wanted a shout-out) my mom. But that's mostly because she doesn't even attempt to email me because she has nothing new to say, haha.
Well, as you can probably guess from the context of most of this post, I've ridden myself of this funk. I don't know whether it was me just getting some peace and quiet for today, or getting in the outdoor pool and getting a great workout in the sun, or just the phase had run its course, but I'm better now! Still of course miss people from home, but won't be making anymore late night calls as they cost me way too much money, all for some trivial Disney information. Good 'morrow folks.
*Pictures can be accredited to Pam, the first two from the Adelaide Cup which I just posted to show people back at home how Canadians should dress all the time, and this one because its just fun to climb stuff.
