neither hott nor cold

This is my "haunted eyes" self-portrait for the MySpace era. Note my traditional ethnic garb.

Some of the view from my balcony.

Some of the view on my balcony.


Sydney is still OK. I am unemployed and my (now ex!) girlfriend cheated on me, but you know, I'm still OK. (An Aussie friend of mine offered to take me on a sympathetic "women are terrible" pub crawl, but I'll tell you just what I told him: I don't blame women for this, I blame Australians.)

The only bad thing about unemployment (it builds character!) is that you have all this free time and yet have to be so careful with spending money. I did splurge and pay $25 so that I could watch all of the MLB playoffs online, and boy have they been great. Boy.

OK, yes, that's boring, but it's important (haha) that I document this whole "living abroad" experience, and that includes my attempts to self-medicate my (surprisingly minor) homesickness. Today I received a telephone call from PayPal in the US enquiring whether it had indeed been me who made some shifty looking transfers between my two PayPal accounts, and I must confess that speaking to that American gentleman gave me a secret thrill.

I also watch the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer every day at 4:30 on the international channel.

I'm really looking forward to working.

But anyway, but OK, here are some things about Australia that are making me homesick:

- the pizza here is unacceptable

That's it right now. I guess I'm doing pretty well.

Oh, I just remembered that there aren't any decent all-you-can-eat buffets here. Maybe I won't stay here forever.