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6.23.2008

what goes up must come down



I had another bout of warm fuzzies straight afterwards. Why so, you ask? Why, I finally made it back to America after more than a decade!

Spent about 2 weeks there.. mostly in LA. Explains why this blog's been a tad quiet last month. Interspersed were mini-trips to my aunt's place in Orange County, a day trip back to the valley and a weekend in Philly/NY. Caught up with a few besties from elementary school and that was a treat.

I never realized how much I miss life in LA. People always ask if I'll end up back in the states after my stints in whatever country I happen to be in at the time and I always tell people that I can't see myself going back. I used to believe that going back would be meaningless because life as I knew it back then wouldn't be the same - my friends aren't there anymore and those that are would have hopefully moved way past the days of playing in our little dirt playground at Sierra (that doesn't exist anymore btw... it's now a horrible mass of concrete they call the parking lot). This trip highlighted the fact that yes, everyone's moved on but the fact that my old besties still have tons to yak about despite the years and years that's lapsed... wow, that was a warm fuzzy in itself. We admitted we each had our trepidations.."where do we start? what will she be like? what will we talk about? will we have anything in common anymore?" we yakked though. like old times. bits and pieces fell into place to fill in the huge gaps. i missed that. This trip completely proved me wrong in my belief that life moved on when I left, and that I could never catch up. Who said anything about catching up? I could very happily walk in step with life as it is over there.

This trip also proved me wrong in that yes, I could see myself moving back. I miss life there. Life as I knew it, life that I was used to. I miss the itty bitty comforts like being able to find a bar of butterfingers in the supermarket (instead of people going "huh, what's that?"), to have normal internet packages (instead of paying through the nose for 40gbs a month), to be able to put my mail in my mailbox and know it will get delivered (instead of walking for 5 mins just to drop off mail at the communal mailboxes).. you know, the little things.

So anyway.. I had an awesome time, kudos to everyone I managed to meet up with for putting in the effort to actually make the meets happen. Sheer nostalgia, it was =)

With that in mind, you can imagine how awful it was to return to the bleak humdrum I currently call life here in Australia to face a week of relief before launching straight into a week of night shifts that cover specialties I especially suck at. The week off that I automatically get after a week of nights melted away as I battled a rather ...aggravating specimen of a solicitor and overly concerned parents (gee, what's new.) regarding a rather large purchase in the works.

Started my new term today on a wonderful wonderful note - I left home early because I wanted to be organized and ready to rock when 8.30am hit you know. I was so organized, I left both my pager and cell phone at home. go me. Let's just say I made it through today, inclusive of ward meetings I only knew about an hour prior to the meeting itself, in not too bad a shape.

One day down, a whole 10 more weeks to go. *sigh*