Mondays and Fun Days

Today was one of those Mondays which just wouldn’t cooperate. You might as well call me Garfield. I woke up to a spotlessly clean room, having scrubbed it the night before, only to knock all my food off the top shelf. I hoovered it up, but then I had an altercation with my cooking oil – all over my clean laundry. I missed four buses, handed a book back overdue, got fined, missed both a capella and an Aboriginalities lecture, and made zero progress on the two essays I have due on Friday. The day hit a record low at 3pm when I made an important phone call from up a tree in the pouring rain with a poorly chosen cup of iced tea, soaked through.

Then I went home and complained.

Here I am again complaining now, but I promise there’s a point to my gloom. I’ve talked about the good side to study abroad: the excitement, the bustle, the tall buildings, loud evenings, new faces. Study abroad is utterly wonderful in countless ways. But this episode is about a couple of things study abroad is not.

Study abroad is not a holiday. I suppose it’s kind of in the name. Uni keeps me constantly busy. I’m in the library most days. I still haven’t been up the sky tower. I sat in Fed Square for the first time just this Friday. Two hours of each day is spent on a bus. Study abroad isn’t time out from normal life. It is life.

Study abroad is not a chance to reinvent yourself. New country, new me? Nah. Sure, maybe you’ll try out that lipstick you never quite had the guts to wear at home. Maybe you’ll go to that society your friends thought was stupid, because here, nobody can judge you. The anonymity is very freeing. But at the end of the day, if you’re the kind of person who stresses over deadlines, you’ll still stress over deadlines abroad. If you’re not a party person, being away from home won’t make you magically become one. You’re in a foreign country and nobody knows you and you can do whatever you want - but you’re still you. Those little negative traits you wish you didn’t have don’t just disappear. That’s okay though. because nor do the positive ones.

Basically, study abroad is not just the highlights reel you see here. I blog once a week (ish) because that’s how often something exciting happens. The rest of the time I’m just living life. Some days are good. Some days are less so. All the good bits of life, and all the mediocre bits – just further away. Life isn't perfect, but when was it ever?

I love this new normality.

I had a little moan, so I’ll make up for it now. Things have been pretty fab. I went to the 1000 Steps in Dandenong National Park, a walk which felt easy enough at the time but by the next day had definitely made a lasting impression on my calves. I went to Brighton Beach and posed in front of more beach huts than I can count. I decorated my bedroom and put my postcard arrivals (thanks Sarah, thanks Sani!) in pride of place against my upside-down wall map (about time the southern hemisphere got to come out top). I finished a long week in the library by soaking up the city down Swanston Street and sitting in Fed Square under streetlamps like stars. The sun is emerging. I have always loved second semester. Summer is coming and the sky smiles, not long.

Those kangaroos are as vicious as they say.

On Saturday night I went to see Patrick James live. He was fantastic, as were his support acts, Winterbourne and Gena Rose Bruce. For his encore (or as they say back home, One More Tune) he and his band came into the crowd and performed approximately a meter away from me. No biggie. Another day, another celebrity throwing themselves* at me. Here’s my favourite song of his, complete with lyrics for your karaoke convenience:

*I utterly adore “they” as a singular gender neutral pronoun, but could we have some consensus as to what the reflexive form is supposed to be? “Themselves?” “Themself?” What’s a girl (or rather a person of unspecified gender) to do?

Time for bed, I reckon. That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.