well, i think i’m finally ready to talk about canberra. does
that sound dramatic? it does, doesn't it? i don't care - it has been an INTENSE couple of months.
first, let me preface this by acknowledging that i don't adjust
well. don't do change. never have. funny coming from someone who hasn't been
able to sit still for longer than two years since she graduated college, i
know, but it is what it is. and my adapting to life in canberra and at the
university has been one long, painful lesson in accepting change. accepting
that e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. is different. accepting that it's going to take me
twice as long (at least) to do anything. i thought learning to drive was going
to be the kicker. oh, jees, to be back at that stage...
the difference between adjusting to a place like vietnam, or
even france, and adjusting to australia can be summed up in what kp calls
"the uncanny valley." i don't have the time or the energy to try and
explain it with any eloquence, so let's just say it describes the experience of
*thinking* a place is familiar - and on the surface it actually being very
familiar - but slowly realizing how foreign it is. and basically being totally
weirded out by that realization. this experience is much more pronounced in
western anglophone countries, which share lots of cultural values and
practices, than it is in non-anglophone countries. which is perhaps why, despite
some undeniably awesome moments of culture shock in nam, it wasn't so hard to
adjust. i knew it would be different, and it was. end of story.
but here, and especially in the professional context of my
new university gig... things that i never even considered could be different
are different. you name it. the smallest details. and it's just been doing my
head in. most of what i've been processing is silly academic-related stuff (eg,
departmental culture, student behavior, university admin - the bureaucracy of
taking leave, for example, which is a given perk of academic life back home),
but there have also been some lifestyle bumps: we have to go to the gas station
to buy big cans of gas for our stove at home (and we are LUCKY to even have a
gas stove!!); the gas stations, speaking of, don't do pay-at-the-pump; and
while we're on the subject of gas, it costs $75 to fill up our mazda 3!; there's
no equivalent to trader joe's or whole foods; all this brown bush starts to get
to you, rent is hiiiiigh and the accommodations are grim (except for our place,
which is pretty sweet... so sweet that i had to take in a roommate to afford it
while kp is in brisbane); canberra is not a happening town; the scarcity of
black beans and the return to old el paso brand tortillas (sigh)...
add to this the pressures of the new job, which i will spare
you, and the sudden feeling that we are so very far away, and well, let's just
say i've been a bit fragile of late. but i think that just being able to say
that here means i've turned a corner of sorts, which is a good thing.
