Change of Habitat

Dear Reader,

In the course of my personal development I felt the urge of moving on in my electronic identity as well. You can visit my new blog under

charcoalstained.wordpress.com

Hope you'll enjoy this one.

Cheers,

Sixthblockseven

cooper & ivy

For I am here in Australia, I certainly have to make the attempt of assimilating as well as I can in this strangely familiar environment. This attempt actually entails watching heaps of sports while sipping on a cool Cooper's Pale Ale. Coming from a fairly sporty country - as regards soccer - I felt that watching games at the pub is a nice thing to do but coming out of the pub and joining the action seemed a bit more appealing. This happened yesterday, when I attended my first Rugby match here in the Sydney Football Stadium. It was supposed to be heaven for me but turned out as one of the most boring games I must have seen in my life. The Waratahs (the local New South Wales team, named after the, for this area, typical flower) were playing the Chiefs from NZ. Knock-ons, missed tackles, lack of passion - this game had it all. After this disappointment it seemed only logic to go and forget about the game while having a couple of drinks out in town. My constant companions, Simon and Igor, took me out to a place called 'Priviledge', a name that speaks for itself. I was in fact not privileged enough to enter, even though wearing working clothes and showing up in a way I would possibly not consider if I was back home in Holland. A small talk with the bouncer followed and he did not accept my driver's license as an ID. Fair enough, you get wankers pretty much everywhere. But why do we need the 'Privilege', when we got 'The Ivy'? Awesome location with big prices but nice people. It is probably one of the poshest places I have ever been in and after last night not the last time. Oh yeah, I forgot to say that Simon and I were on our own, since Igor stayed at that former club to meet up with some of his mates. We met some girls that we asked to mime our company and within a split second were were called through, passed by the 30 meter line and entered the realms of expensive debauchery. To those of you who know me and that are aware of the fact that my background is fairly sweaty - let me tell you that I actually blow-dried my shirt under the hand-drier in the bathroom. Ridiculous. Well, my dear working colleagues with whom we attended the match as well as Adele, my dear friend I met in Hong Kong joined us and we had an awesome night.

On our return home, Adele and I decided to go onto my balcony, put down some pillows and had (what turned out to be actually two each this morning) a final beer. Adele then fell asleep and I joined in. Her endeavors to wake me up by shaking my leg, faded away in the sweet numbness of a drunkard's sleep. At about 6 am I awoke, feeling approximately 500 kg heavier, covered in mosquito bites and tired like a... ah, think of a metaphor for yourself.

Now I am sitting in the pub, hoping that our Internet connection will work on Monday, so I can have more substantial and consistent contact with everyone. Ciao me friends.

the sudden break

Well, it has almost been two weeks since I have arrived here in Australia and this will actually be he first entry after having fully settled in the new environment. I have managed to find a gorgeous place in an area that I consider metropolitan yet familiar and cheerfully childish. I guess it’s rare to find these places even though some cities have put their focus on producing retro neighborhoods with heaps of exclusive material that shows once more that the thought of something familiar to people has been abused to the extent that they spend vast amounts of money to be part of the whole. I think I have found an exceptional area where the people are just so true and just don’t take into account what other people think. My friend Ed, with whom I have gladly stayed for my first week here, mentioned this phrase that probably hugely contributes (or at least should) to one’s self confidence: “Bro, that’s what the gag is all about; just wearing whatever.” This was actually about the sunglasses of Jojo back in HK that did look kind of weird. But even on a less superficial level I can see what he means. Everybody helps each other, people are satisfied with what they have and they therefore actually have a more chilled out vibe than a lot of other people I have met thus far. I know all this sounds fairly cheesy; nonetheless it is what I think at the moment.

I come by Café Sappho every morning, get a genuine “Good morning dude, how are ya?” and then continue my way to work in a happy-go-lucky kind of way. I am in fact lucky that I got to stay with Ed since he introduced me to virtually half Sydney and I have met some people I really enjoy spending my time with.
My work is very interesting and consists of convincing the Australian Government to grant a great deal of visa to people that try to escape their miserable situations. I only realized today (after having talked with a client) that this is not just theory but that these people actually do fear for their existences and that I – or Amnesty respectively – am their last hope. It feels challenging and weird and is a tiring job since I have to read through, mostly, big files that contain legal documents that concern the cases of separate cases. Today was my fourth day of work and I already have to deal with 10 different cases of which most are thankfully not that urgent or even active but their stories are strange and worrying for my perception of human life. Every time when I see a case and think that situations could possibly not get any worse for people, they do.
As to my inner thoughts, I can think that I eventually managed to arrive in this city, that my life is becoming more organized and I can eventually start considering myself in some flow again. I even started making sketches again. I feel well.