... and we whistle while we work

so - today at work began like any other day. well - kind of. i had to open. which ment getting up at 5:15 a.m. (not too bad as this is pretty much the  normal time i get up anyway), showering, chowing down on breakfast and doing the 30 min costal walk toward bronte beach (shown in picture) as i admired the rising sun over the ocean waves.

i soon found out, though, that today was destined to be "one of those days." the type of day that nothing quite goes right - and yet it's not completely frustrating enough for it to be seriously downheartening. i more or less found it quite funny. i wasn't even tired and yet here i was doing stuff all day long that one may have wondered if i was auditioning for a female version of the three stooges.

i bumped my arm on a box and dumped half the drink i was carrying on the floor. i made a takeaway coffee in a small cup when they asked for a large and then proceeded to try and fit a large cup lid on the container before i realized what i was doing. i dumped a container of water on the counter. when i went to clean it up, i picked up a towel which knocked one of our large knives to the floor, nearly chopping off my big toe. i ate my lunch and ended up with half of it in my hair. i went to fill the cookie jars, picked one up and it slipped from my hands and when it landed on top of the shelf it knocked a flourescent light down. then, when i went to rest (from all the hard work of doing everything but setting the building on fire) i leaned back on the counter and when i got up i realized i had been leaning on a wet towel. i had a nice wet spot on my behind. fun. haha.

then the favorite customer of the day had to be one who came in with her friend and she wanted to order a smoothie. the conversation went something like this:

"hi, i'd like a skim smoothie please."

"sure thing, which kind would you like?"

"what?"

"which kind do you want?"

"what?"

"what kind?"

"what?"

"what FLAVOUR would you like to choose?" at this point i am indicating with my hand to the board that lists our flavours.

"BANANA." she rolls her eyes at me and gives me a wierd look as though it was i who should have known all along what she wanted. OBVIOUSLY banana.

haha. like i said - fun. to top it off me, malin and iqbal (the only three working today) cranked the tunes, singing and dancing our way through the afternoon, telling jokes and laughing untill our sides hurt. we made a mascot out of an enormously large beetroot - it is now part cow, part veggie. i have posted the pictures to prove it.

nothing like a day at work looking out at the beach and ocean waves though to make a person smile. and think. and want to surf. something of which i have decided i NEED to do - sooner rather than later. and since malin has so graciously offered to help teach me (thanks hun) all i need to figure out is how to get my hands on a surfboard....

and in other news

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - Sydney residents and tourists line Bondi Beach on November 22, 2009 near Sydney, Australia. Temperatures in Sydney reached 40 degrees Celcius (104 Fahrenheit), prompting thousands to flock to Bondi and surrounding beaches, about 1,000 firefighters were battling about 100 blazes across New South Wales state. Hundreds of homes in eastern Australia were under threat from massive wildfires as soaring temperatures and windy conditions fanned the out-of-control flames, officials said. (Photo by Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images) Original Post at: http://www.tiscali.co.uk/news/daily/photos/galleries/view/daily/20091122/browse/730086

thats right. 40 degrees celcius. and i was at work. working in a stuffy juicy bar in which the only fan operating only helps in attempting to keep the customers slightly cool with a humid breeze as they stand in front of our counter to order. i like to think of this as the "buffer zone." typical to our sunday rush, us workers bustled around yelling out orders, making juice and coffee as our life depended on it and in brief moments of relief we wiped the sticky sweat from our brows after attempting to see how many order dockets we could stick to each others arms. the heat was intense. it was humid. it was 40 degrees - and even hotter in the kitchen where there is no relief from the added warmth of the stoves.

i call the fanned area the "buffer zone" as at one point during my shift my co-worker commented that it was really hazy outside and smelling of smoke (due to the increasing amount of fires from the heat and lightning storms). i had to go smell it for myself. out of curiousity. for something to do. to move. to get from behind that counter i was standing at for the past 6 hours. so i did.

the moment i stepped from behind our enclosed juice-making area there was immediate relief from the heat. the small fan working so hard from above managed to bring the slightest breeze down below, cooling the area by a few degrees. the buffer zone. as quickly as i was there - in there - in the midst of the "cool" area - it was gone. i was at the entrance of our shop and was met with a wall of humid heat. outside the air was thick with a smokey smell. the sky hazy in its brownish-grey color. i gazed out over bronte beach where all the people were swimming in the waves and for a flickering moment i contemplated running over to join them. then i turned back inside, crossed the buffer zone and went back to work.

it's not even summer. yet. the official start of summer is december 1.

other than a blast of heat, life has been going alright here down under. i tripped on a coble stone one day, scraping a couple chunks of skin off my big toe - my runs were postponed untill it healed. i got my bank card (FINALLY) in the mail. only took almost 7 weeks of waiting. and i still dont have access to my account. im crossing my fingers that will happen this week. we'll see. my boss is on holidays causing the few of us who work at nino's to put in extra hours to make sure everything is covered. life has a relatively normal feel to it - a little less color now that sculptures of the sea is done, but now everyone is preparing for christmas.

i find it wierd to think that normally during this time of year i am knee deep in snow, scrapping off my car so that i can get to work in the morning. the malls here are decorated for christmas and yet there is no mention of snow anywhere. the display used for kids to go take pictures of santa is filled with sparkles and sequins, but no fake snow in sight. it doesn't exist in the thoughts of those who live here - including me.

the other day i spotted my friend, kelly's, pictures of her going for a hike in the rockies and i was really confused as to why she was all done up in her winter gear trudging through snow. i immediately thought that these must be really old pictures as it didn't make sense to me. it took a while to realize that the pictures were, in fact, quite recent as it is november and that it is more abnormal as a canadian to be wishing to wear a bathing suit to work as it is too hot to do otherwise. and yet here i am. can't say i'm really dreaming of a white christmas.... yet.

animal planet

remember going to the zoo as a child? even as an adult it can still be fun. i remember going. i remember walking around in a daze, imagining which animal i would most like as my pet should i be allowed. the hippos never made the list. they were too boring for me. they smelt gross. they didn't do much other than sit around and swat flies with their tales. when it got too hot they'd waddle over to their miniture pool area and take a dip. i'd eagerly press my face closer to the glass to watch them swim - not so much out of excitement, but more from the fact that they were hard to see through the discolored water. as i grew older i tended to skip the hippo exhibit all together. they were the same. every year. every day. boring.

until now.

at work we were checking out what was considered news for today. we were bored. it was an extremely quiet day. the sculptures of the sea over and the after effects of bad weather from yesterday, no one was around requesting our services. no one was even out on the beach. so we read the newspaper and thats when we spotted this picture:

apparently the hippo is one of the most aggressive creatures of the world and is regarded as the top animal to be on the lookout for in africa. go figure. i had no idea. the following is a link to where this story orignated from: CROCODILE NO MATCH FOR A HIPPO. check it out for more pics. fortunately this little event happened in tanzania, but now i've officially added hippos to my mental checklist on what to keep an eye out for when i should ever be visiting africa.

i don't know if that means i should now be greatful that there are only crocodiles and such to watch out for while in australia....

"my mama always said, 'life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get.'"

today was the first. it happened. i never really expected that it would - but it did just the same. taking me by surprise, i found that i actually started thinking of if i should be hopping on a plane to go back "home." i am not entirely sure if i can call home "home" anymore as they say "home is where the heart is," and quite frankly, my heart is not in calgary.

so why go back? it is not of boredom, homesickness or an otherwise longing need to sit my butt on an airplane for another 16-odd hours of my life untill i touch ground again. it is more or less due to the deepening feeling that i am leading a double life. i feel torn between the responsibilities and relationships that have me still tied to calgary in all that it is -- and that of which i now have here in sydney. i suspected it might become to feel like this at some point during my journey's, but it now is so much more aplified with the growing frustrations surrounding my banking situation. something of which i refuse to devulge into detail during this blog entry - everyone has heard me vent long enough regarding the situtation and all i care to say is that, no, it has not been solved -- in fact, it appears to worsen as each day passes.

i have now officially been going for 4 months and 16 days - or a total of 139 days. not an incredibly long time by any means, but still long enough to make it a significant chunk of time. i dont think i would be at this point writing about thinking of returning to canada so soon if it were not for the situation regarding my finances. it has come to the point where i actually dread having to do anything related to trying to fix the situation as i have hit my breaking point. i hit that today. in trying to solve my problems i had gone to the australian bank here in hopes that they could help me out. they couldnt and i had to leave the premises rather quickly as my emotions simply bubbled up and i broke down in tears.

it is one thing to have to deal with such a delicate matter if i was actually IN calgary and able to have access to the branches - but to have to deal with it on the other side of the world is another matter entirely. the time difference alone adds a whole level of frustration and restriction to a problem that is complicated enough on it's own.

hense why the thought popped into my head today of possibily wanting to return to canada. but just as quickly as it came into my head - i dismissed it. i dont REALLY want to come back to canada at this point. it is not my time. there is nothing particular there that i am needed for there. no job. no home to speak of. i dont even really particularly hold a huge amount of warm-fuzzy feelings towards calgary. of course - friends and family are a great reason to return... but from the depths of my heart i know. it is not my time yet.

i figured this all out while doing laundry this afternoon. as it was too cold, cloudy and windy to do anything particularly beach-worthy today, i decided to dedicate my present existence to attempting on pursuing a solution to my banking situation (which, as i said - ended up with me in tears) and finally washing my clothes. in australia, in order to conserve energy and such, the availability of dryers for clothing are virtually non-existant. it is a rarity for any building complex to have one and even if it does, it is even more rare for people to use it. the general process for drying clothes in australia is to hang them up. this is something i have grown to love - almost to look forward to when it comes to washing clothes. there is something so calming, so relaxing, so utterly peaceful about hanging clothes on a clothesline. it's a therapy of sorts. it reminds me of a simpler life - it IS a simpler way of life - where the use of machines is not a necessity. it forces me to slow down and take time to think.

and thats what i did today. it was during hanging up all my wet garmets that i had carried in my reusable nylon grocery bag from the laundrymat that i was able to firmly process the going-ons of the swirling thoughts in my head. it was then that i was able to finally calm down and find peace within myself and realize that i am not ready to give up on my journey in australia. there is so much left to see and do here that i can not and will not let my frustrations with the bank back in canada make me think that i have to rush home to sort it out.

i reminded myself that what is meant to be will be. and it will. it always will.

we are human. we can do anything.

30 km. the average distance i used to walk in a day when i was crossing british columbia. now its the average minimum distance i cover by running/walking in a full week. this thought crossed my mind today as i ran 6 km today. as i walked the 3 km to work. as i walked the 3 km back. i feel as though i have been doing so well in maintaining a good physical health routine and yet when my mind wanders back to those days of carrying everything on my back and hiking through the woods, over the woods and around the woods - well, what i am doing now does not quite compare. and yet i do not feel the drive and motivation to start walking my way across australia. yet.

as i let my mind wander with thoughts on my own physical activity today, i also found myself reflecting on what a friend had said after a workout a while back. we had just done and hour of hard activity. pushups. situps. burpees. wallsits. leglifts. jumping jacks. the whole bit. we did it all. we were tired. we were spent. we were sweating like crazy and after stretching we promptly laid back on the floor and just relaxed.

after a few minutes of silence, i asked my friend what he was thinking about. he immediately replied, "im thinking about having a good day."

when is the last time that any of us have done that? when is the last time that we faced a day and just thought about making it a good day? each day is anew with endless possibilities of what we can do, create, be and it is our choice of how we want our day to be. all too often we (myself included) look forward to our days, our work days, our tough days, our long days, our mondays and cross our fingers that we'll simply "survive" them. that we'll make it to the end of the day and be able to exhale that breathe we've been holding in for the last 12 hours. we wake up to our days with the perspective that there is nothing we can do about them - that we are simply little pawns in the game of life - there to play a part that is set out for us. now what would like look like should we wake up each day and just spend a minute or two simply thinking about how we are going to make THIS day a "good day?" what would our lives look like if we took control of what is about to be and, yes, handled the tough times with the good - but made a point to come out on top when the day is through? i wonder...

and yes - though i wonder lots, there has also been a lot of "doing" happening lately in my life. ive been steadily increasing my hours at work, learning to open shop so that i can have the maximum flexibility in my hours. with summer coming that means the waves of tourists will follow with the heat. and i have noticed that starting already. there are more bodies crammed on the coastal walk - all eyes with a dazed look as they admire the sculptures by the sea. there is more white skin - eager to be bronzed within a short time frame. there are more people who seem flabbergasted at the thought that they have to walk on the left side of the sidewalk. there are more bodies less concerned with the idea of doing bootcamp on the beach as i run past at 6 in the morning - they all look as though they are relieved to leave the pressures of work behind them. the pressures of life. now is their time to indulge. and indulge they do. they come to my work in big massive groups. some not able to speak english. some able to speak english, but do not apparently know how to read -- they constantly ask us for fish and chips when, clearly, the shop beside us with the massive sign out front advertising such items would be the ideal place to start looking.

but now there is more trash. more disregard for the environment of which these people are visiting. its not THEIR "home" so why should it matter if they leave their garbage on the beach while they pack up for the day? as i run in the morning i take note of all the rubbish people have left behind from the day before and its really sad. do these people not realize that overnight the wind will blow the trash into the ocean? the waves take it out, animals get caught up in it. it pollutes. it sickens our earth worse that what it already is. and yet, every morning - without fail, the workers are our there picking up other peoples garbage in order to make the beach like paradise once again. in order to attract the tourists to come. in order to continue the cycle for yet another day more.

and paradise it is. really. anika and i have made it our mission to try out as many beaches as we possibly can - and its astounding really how many beaches do surround the sydney area. they are all so similar and yet so different. some are better for sports. some for bbq's. some are perfect for swimming where as others are where the surfer's crowd the waves. some have rough, coarse sand and others feel like fine silt under my bare feet. even still, we've both contemplated the thought of zipping over to new zealand for a weekend or something. it's a wierd thought as new zealand always has been so far away, and yet people go back and forth from australia and NZ like people do going from canada to somewhere like las vegas for a few days. so who knows... maybe we will.

a friend back in canada commented to me recently upon hearing that i was still in sydney by saying "BORING!" -- and that one word - so simple, so raw - made me stop and think. is what i am really doing boring? am i really not making the most of what i am doing with my time here? and then i remembered - why the heck does it matter what this friend thinks of what i am doing? this is my life, my time, my journey, my adventure and it can be whatever i want it to be. i have dreamed of doing what i am doing right now and i am doing it. i am actually living the dream that i want - im doing it right now. what can be boring about that?

other than that, the sculptures by the sea is officially done after tomorrow and i have FINALLY posted up my pictures of it and the last couple weeks so enjoy!! you can find them at: - DOWN UNDER - SYDNEY (2)

famous last words: "hey guys, watch this!"

all the freaky people make the beauty of the world. (Michael Franti)

the days of life drift by me like a movie of the past. the sunrises and sunsets roll over me like the tides of the ocean and everything blends into one. not in the way of boredom, but in that of which life always becomes. not mundane. but in a way of peace and calm. it is what it is. it is life. the life i live is one i choose and one that has beauty enriched in every aspect and i can not get enough. and yet time ticks on - the days pass me by. it doesnt faze me and yet i am surprised just the same.

so much has happened in the last few days. so little has happened in the last few days. so much is the same. so much is different. i dont know where to begin.

i have moved into my flat. it is official. i have my own space. my own room. my own corner to call my own. my own peace and place to call home. it is something that i have not had for the last four months - the closest i got to was when i was walking across BC and the tent strapped to my back each day was my home. that was the last space i could call my own. call my home. and yet it moved almost every day. it changed. it was merely one of the basic forms of shelter that a person could have. and yet it was sufficient for my needs.

and here i am again - with a new place. a new home. a new room. it is not big. it is quite small in fact - and yet my few possessions are swallowed up amongst the four walls that surround them. i have to spread out my items on the bookshelf in order to make it look "full" and even then there are still 2 full shelves free. initially i came to the flat with no sheets. no blankets. no pillow. i slept in my sleep sheet which is an enclosed sheet made for putting inside a sleeping bag and/or using for dodgy hostel/sleeping conditions. i was in neither situation and yet i proudly stretched it neatly along the top of my mattress. thats right. mine. it felt good. i didnt even notice that i was without a pillow. i simply rolled up my towel and tucked it under my head for the night.

i love my new flat. its got character. its got edge. its got a history and i love it. the paint is peeling back from the ceiling and walls. the doors creak. one window in my room is held open by a string that also prevents the shades from being drawn. my bookcase is held together by ducktape. i love it. the bathroom tiles are loose in one place and make a crunching noise should i ever forget about them and step on top. the hot and cold water taps are separate so when i wash my hands i hold one under each tap and then switch them halfway through. i feel as though i am on a sensory rollarcoaster ride as both hands tingle with the new temperature sensation.

the mirror in the bathroom is fading in areas. it is cracked down the middle - when looked straight on my face is split into two and distortedly smushed back together. the bathroom door locks with a hook as one would lock an outhouse. if i forget to close the shade on the bathroom window the neighbors in the next building can have a clear view of whatever it is i am doing in the bathroom.

i love it all. i love the quirks. i love the character. i love that it is a clean flat. i love that it is safe. i love that it is close to the beach and i love that i have my own room.

since the first few days of being there, ariana was generous enough to lend me some spare blankets, sheets and pillows. my room now looks more like a bedroom. i have yet to meet my roommate's girlfriend and i have only seen fabio once since i moved in. their schedules are almost completely opposite mine so i never see or hear them. i have experienced waking up and opening the blind to my window and while gazing outside, across the yard i find myself gazing at the face of the guy across the way who is also just getting up. what could be an awkward situation only seems natural along my street in which a multitude of apartment buidlings stand so close to one another.

i have also experienced being a witness to a domestic dispute in the next building. i wanted to look out the window that time to see what was going on but reminded myself that it probably wouldnt be such a great idea should i come face to face with the person who is throwing dishes and screaming violently. instead i sat crouched on my bed simply listening and feeling ashamed that there was nothing i could do. i didnt even know the number of the police. all i could do was sympathize in spirit with the child wailing and hope that no one was hurt throughout it all. fortunately my neighbors were proactive and made the critical call to the police - only i knew that should they show up, it would all be too late.

my new move to my flat has thrown me into a flow of a routine, much similar to the one i had at the hostel and yet it feels so new as i am now at a different location. still, i am only about a 3 min walk to the beach. i spent time this last week exploring around and found a laundry mat in which i did a load, sitting outside and reading my book as i waited for my few clothes to dry. i also found a cool sushi restaurant in which anika and i tried it out - called "sushi train" - it was my first experience in which a person sits around the sushi like at a bar and watches the various plates of sushi and sushi-related dishes pass by on this conveyor belt. as it goes by you simply pick off the dishes you wish to eat and then pay later. anika and i ate untill we were stuffed and then mosied on over for some ice cream.

walking up and down the main strip of bondi, the ocean always within view, we decided a movie was in order. this has become our monday routine of going back to her place and renting movies - though right now we are stuck on watching house and laughing our butts off at the characters and the things that are said.

outside of watching hospital-related tv series, there is work. work has kept me plenty busy as my boss is adding to my hours and has trained me to close the juice bar at the end of the day. this entire week so far that is what i have done and i have finally gotten more confident in doing so as the first few times i would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, so sure that i had forgotten to do SOMETHING, anything and would have to go to work to hear my boss yell at me. but that hasnt happened. yet.

no - the worst things that i have done at work was put too much milk in the blender and have it sputtering all up the wall when i turned it on. i entered something wrong in the computer and stepped on someones toe. but that is about it. nothing life threatening. nothing extremely horrifying that might give me a darwin award. it is a different feeling for me to be a part of that atmosphere rather than my last job. different and refreshing. less stressful. i can leave work - at work. and yet - there is still enough variety to keep me interested. there are still enough "freaky people" to keep me on my toes.

theres a garantee of at least one person coming in every day to try and order fish and chips when there is no such thing on the menu and there is a shop next to us with this massive sign advertising that THEY have the fish and chips. we politely point them in the right direction - every time. theres the person with the wierd request - the kind of thing that leaves us shaking our heads at why they wanted to order the item in the first place. today i had someone who wanted a strawberry smoothie with ice cream. i explained that milkshakes are made with ice cream smoothies have yogurt. they insisted they wanted a smoothie with ice cream, not yogurt. so i, again, clarified that they would be ordering a milkshake. they ended up deciding they didnt want their "smoothie" because they didnt want a "milkshake."

then theres the kids. of all ages and kinds. the shy kids. the talkative kids. the kids butt-naked and sandy from the beach. the kids that want to have ice cream. those who want to stick their faces in a baby chino (a cup of warm frothed milk topped with chocolate) and slurp it up. theres older people, younger people, tourists, locals, regulars and newbies. theres the people who scoff at us, those that praise us and those who argue about every little thing that they want. today a guy ordered a coffeed and when he paid, he left me a card stating that i, as a woman, should stop flushing tampons and related products down the toilet as they are polluting the environment. he left. i read it. i couldnt stop laughing. i love it all.

and what - as many have asked - have i been doing in my spare time? theres still the beach. i love the beach. i cant get enough - whether its running amongst the hoards of athletes and tourists in the morning or lazing out under the sun or resting my feet in the cool sand after a day of hard work - i love it. i have also since finished the book, shantaram - it was beautiful. it was exciting. it was an adventure. it was everything it could ever be and i couldnt put it down - even when i finished it, i contemplated still carrying it around with me just because it affected me that much. and yet - now i have the difficult tastk of trying to figure out what to read next. what does one look for when they have just found a book that was perfectly suited for everything they have ever looked for in a book? i have yet to figure that out....

day by day - the time flies past. work. beach. friends. sun. rain. books. art. pictures. sleep. work. sleep. eat. sleep. i love every minute and yet i still wish there was something extremely thrilling to write. i wish i could say that theres something crazy happening out here every day. but theres not and sometimes that simply better than any greater adventure a person can possibly have. its like a haven for the spirit and as i have said - i love it. i love it all.

a politician is someone who promises you a bridge, even when theres no river

"i think the future is like anything else thats important. it has to be earned. if we dont earn it, we dont have a future at all. and if we dont earn it, if we dont deserve it, we have to live in the present, more or less forever. or worse, we have to live in the past" (Shantaram, p. 91).

the banks have too much power. financial institutions all around the world promise to protect our hundreds, thousands, millions of dollars - how ever much we have. they promise easy access, safe transactions and profitable returns. yet how much of that is actually true?

i never really understood why rich people resulted in hiding their money in safes, under the floor boards or in secret overseas accounts. but now i get it. the bank itself is like its own separate society of which only certain people are accepted into (you generally have difficult getting access to their "specialty" accounts with bad credit, no job, properties, etc) - and once you are accepted, they lock their claws into you with small-print clauses in which a person can only escape by the face of death... and sometimes not even then. there are all these rules that bind, not to protect our money, but to protect the bank from their own mistakes so when (not "if") they make them - they can then turn the tables and somehow claim they were unaware of what was going on, or that it is our fault for what they did.

and so that brings me to my own life in this moment. i am STILL without access to my canadian bank account online. what started as a concerned phone call on october 6/09 resulted in me being told that everything was "fixed" and that a new bank card (with the new number) would be sent to my dad within 6-10 buisness days. it is now november 1 (october 31 in calgary, canada) and there is still no card. that is the short story - the long story can be read in a couple blogs previous to this. i am so incredibly peeved at the entire situation that i wish i could just pull out all my money from that bank. but i cant. the logistics of it - the "rules" that bind me... well i simply cant. ESPECIALLY since i am still on the other side of the world. ESPECIALLY since i still need that account in order to chip away at my debt (student loans and otherwise). ESPECIALLY since i already have a big enough headache from the entire situation and i fear that should i try anything drastic it will just make it worse.

so here i sit. no access to my account online. no access to be able to oversea all my debt-paying transactions. no ability to transfer funds into that account should i deem it needing more. no ability to access my secondary account with my emergency money should a drastic emergency happen and i would need it. no ability but to sit and wait. wait for the financial instituation i put my trust in to FINALLY pull through and send that damn new bank card to my dad (though now their "discussing" the option of sending it directly to australia - way to add on another couple weeks to my wait time guys). i wait. and wait. and wait. and all i can do is wait. that and send increasingly more emotional messages to the financial institution representatives.

i hate money.

however. i DO love art. and this past week SCULPTURE BY THE SEA opened up officially for the next two weeks. stretching the coastline from bondi beach to bronte beach - various sculpture of every shape, size, color, inspiration and material are places by purpose for viewers to admire. through the website link i provided you can view the sculptures created from previous years and in the next week or so i will be posting my own pictures through my photo albums for my favorites of this year.

through this wide range of art, many tourists are starting to show up by the bus load (literally) causing the walkways to be crowded by various language-speaking individuals who may or may not understand that the pathway is NOT theirs for the taking. as such, my runs have become increasingly more or less like an obstacle course (even at 6 a.m.) as i weave in and out of dazed tourists carrying camera gear - many times i narrowly escape a complete head on collision. even still, i cant get too frustrated with that as it only brings a new feel to the coastal walk and buisness at work is better with everyone becoming dehydrated and hungry in the heat after their walk and needing some nurishment.

on that note - i shall need to be getting ready for such a shift. a high of 26 degrees and sunny... the day should be good.