Adjusting in June 26-7-04

Original email June 26, 2004


So i've been in Australia now officially longer than i ever was before. long enough to know which side of the stairs to walk up and how to hail and ride a council bus. buses in this city are strange to me. they're massive and slow and they stop to let people get on and give them money, but here ends the similarities to all buses i ever knew. these buses are all painted with yellow kites and blue stripes. the kites signify that the bus runs completely on natural gas. the people who ride them-- day and night -- are of many ages, but mostly young,well-dressed people going to and from work. couples and friends catching rides into the cities (at this point my husband would like to point out that actually there is only 1 city here not cities pural like St Paul/Minneapolis) on friday and saturday nights so they can party and not drive home. on saturday afternoons, there's heaps of pre-teens and small families riding into southbank in the city, to swim in a questionable, little man-made lake beside the river. of course, there are people of all walks and ages of life, but these buses are not merely the place for the poor that they are in Minnesota.

All public transport here is interesting to me... especially the city cat -- the ferry that goes back and forth along the brisbane river. danny & i and our friends wayne & kate were out last weekend with very little money and lots of want to play...so $3 and we went for a ferry ride. under the stars, the wind rushing at us, arms around each other, riding on a fast boat. (ok, a fast-ish boat). perfect cheap date!

but our favourite mode of transport at the moment is our new old car. (stellar compared to our old old OLD pile-of-something-that-was-still-trying-to-be-a-car!) This one is a beautiful Subaru -- silver and shiny. we like driving up and down long and windy roads now...getting out of the city a bit, just driving together. it's good to be in a real car again! she drives smoothly, accelerates quickly, and doesn't make terrifying noises. :)

our car also has heat -- something i didn't know i would covet so much of you minnesotans...

turns out this place i'm learning to call home is becoming both more strange and more comfortable all the time -- predictable one minute and mysterious the next.

it's june and it feels like october...october in a little aparment built for perpetual tropical summer with no heating system. october with sunny blue skies in the day time and a fresh dewy cold outside in the morning. it even smells like october -- warm homemade apple crisp at mum's house and wood fires on the crisp breeze at night. even i am wearing jumpers (sweaters) and jackets, some days even my gloves. (but i can't wear scarves like so many girls. i just think it's so funny -- there's no snow! there's bearly even any wind at all, why would you want a huge fluffy scarf?! oh well. fashion.) The only problem is that everything outside is still very very green. not even a hint of gold, much less orange or red. it feels like october and looks like july. how does that work??!

and other things are so contradictory too -- i now go to the car and have a moment of inner conflict as my brain sorts out which side of the car i sit in to drive. you'd think i'd have it down by now! but i think, like with so many other little things here, i now have two ways to do something, and both feel completely right and normal...so i have to sort out which one is the right one to use where i am at the moment.

The same thing happens with language all the time. half the time i talk about the boot, the carpark, the arvo, and maths class. the other half, i still say the trunk, the parkinglot, the afternoon, and math. it's a very strange transition time. most of my dreams at night take place both in brisbane and st. paul at the same time-- we all just seem to go between both cities all the time. how i wish it was that easy!

So now i'm finally beginning to feel something that i've explained to so many people about immigrants .... how you have 2 homes and you sometimes feel torn with one foot on two continents....ah yes, and now that's me.
and just to keep reminding me of my other home, The U.S. is still around me-- in movies and music and the ice cream truck that hangs around our neighborhood every evening playing "home home on the range" :)

And now this letter is nearly long enough for this chapter methinks. But for those of you who've been wondering about my job situation, i'll fill you in on that quick too. I've now finished 3 weeks of teaching the big kids at greenslopes. it is intense, and i'm learning things all the time. remember back in those days of being 12 -- when you wanted to be at school, but not at all to do the schoolwork. you had important social business to attend to! it's so funny to watch them. they still pass notes just as we did, and as their teacher i take them away...but i haven't had the heart to read them out loud yet! i'm still getting a little tougher each week, and a little better at the humour that's so important to them. and we're getting on and having so much more fun than i thought it would be.

one thing i've learned is that, though 11 and 12 year olds haven't changed much since i was that age, their methods have updated with the times. their excuses for not getting homework done now have nothing to do with the hunger of the dog, and everything to do with harddrives crashing and losing thier files, with and with a broken down printer. they've even discovered how to post their "who-loves-who" messages by changing the screen savers on the computer when i'm not looking. ahh..adolescence!

and now i'm on break again. this week ended the 1st half of the school year, and now everyone has 2 weeks off. I do have the certainty of knowing that i'll still be in this position for 3 weeks after break. then, the teacher i'm filling in for comes back.

it looks like there won't be a permanent place for me in a school for a long while yet, but that's ok. we'll see what comes, and along the way i'll write and we'll keep seeing what we can learn and enjoy.

Danny says hello to all of you. We would love to hear from you. we wonder how you are, and wish you all kinds hope and joy and beautiful insights.