Bits of November: The Thing About Coming Home

To summarise: I left my job. I looked for a new job! I found a Christmas locum. It was in Australia. I am in Australia now. It’s been one of those weeks.

Australian immigration cards for T and P, respectively.

Meanwhile, T and P have not left their old jobs at all.

There have been illnesses and injuries, laughter and tears, and sarcasm, obviously. More sleep than usual, but not at the right times, and very little blog reading at all. (Sorry about that.) The kids have been filled full of ice-cream by Nanny and have enjoyed the great Queensland tradition of electrical blackouts with Grandma and Granddad.

Almost as if we needn't have gone to all that trouble to dine in the dark in Singapore.

Almost as if we needn’t have gone to all that trouble to dine in the dark in Singapore.

Here’s the thing about coming home, though. It’s very familiar, and at the same time, kind of foreign. I ordered the only thing I ever order at McDonalds and it turns out they don’t make it here. In a world where “McDonalds” is synonymous with strict uniformity, I found myself clogging up their drive-thru as I frantically learned the menu as if for the first time. “What about green tea?” I was asking, and the voice inside the speaker box was answering Patiently with a capital P as if I’m one of those alien sitcom characters with the right form and accent who just can’t seem to fit in.

Later, I’ll use some sort of communications technology to present my report.

In the meantime, I guess that covers Me, Elsewhere, so let’s skip straight over to…

You, And/Or Other Awesome Things

Now catch me up on what I missed. Alternatively: don’t. Unless you live in Brisbane I’m even further away than usual and therefore much less likely to hunt you down and sit on you until you converse with me, which is already not very likely, so what you do from here is more or less all up to you. I’d like it, though*.

*If you chose to catch me up, I mean. Sitting on people til they converse with me can be trying.