Week 19: Get Better from the Mates of State.

it is winter still! yet, i'm finding this winter to not be as severe as the previous winters - to prove a point, i'm still walking about the apartment in shorts and a tshirt, and i've yet to bust out my goose-feather padded code-named 'Ugly Bubbly Looking' purple jacket, because i don't need it! the weather's been unconditionally and uncharacteristically kind; most the days the skies are graced with beautiful sunsets.


specimen #1 - captured this while i was walking home from lab one day.

it has led me to wonder: how big a part is global warming playing for this to occur, or have i really just gotten used to this country and the cold? in other words, am i slowly acclimatizing and assimilating myself to this environment? because of late, i've found my brain slowly switching the default mode to 'Australia' rather than 'Malaysia'. although i'm still rebelling against this feeling, more often than not, i'm finding myself calling Sydney as home, or rather, acknowledging it as home.

this has caught me by complete surprise, because i'm sure the long-term readers of this blog will already be all-too-familiar with the sentiments i hold for this place: i do not like it and it is only temporary. there were weeks and months when i felt like i was in some sort of never-ending nightmare - one that i just can't wake myself up from (unlike the rat nightmares where my body's so good it's tuned to completely jerk myself awake). never-ending because, well, there just seems to be no visible end! first it was just 3 years, then one more year, then work, PR application, PhD...what next?! the years just keep leading on and piling up one over the next.


specimen #2 - foreboding-looking row of trees that line the entrance before i cross the st john's oval..yet another hurdle!

and now, the inevitable has happened. i think my head has accepted that there is no way i'll ever be spending my adult years in malaysia hence the switching of the auto-default mode. everything seems normal now - there is no more that 'off' feeling of being in a foreign country. when i'm sitting in a restaurant with my relatives, my brain tells me that yes, this is home. when i'm riding on the bus back to missenden rd, my brain tells me that yes, this is home. when i'm pushing my way up george st on a saturday afternoon and shouldering against the throngs of pedestrians, my brain tells me yes, this is normal and how it has always been and will always be, home. i'm starting to absorb sound and light that's never been right.

how la? i have lost the battle! i concede defeat. with each passing day, kajang and kl seem more and more like a place where i've come to acknowledge as a holiday destination. a place where i am the tourist. and if i'm not careful, it will slowly begin to acquire that 'off' feeling of a foreign country.

sigh.

the day with the longest night for the southern hemisphere has come and gone. now, the days will only get longer and brighter over time. i'll keep telling myself that everything's gonna get lighter, even if it doesn't get better. and if i'm going nowhere, at least we're going nowhere together.