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.