On a lighter note...

...enjoying the festival season in the Southern Hemisphere.

Movies and life

Do you remember watching all those movies when you were younger and thinking to yourself there's no way he got that much mail?

Today's mail

Well, if you don't – I do. And it used to annoy the hell out of me. Just like all those horror movies, where someone would simply cut the power, slide the window and massacre the whole family.

Well, that mistery's been solved, too.

You see, electrical and water switches are accessed from the outside here. You'll see switches in the front yard or just outside the front door.

The windows screech and slide, and the isolation is not that good. The glass is thin, the air whooshes when it's windy (and it's always windy)...

So, cut the power, get inside and go nuts.

Sweet dreams!

Back from the Desert

I'm back. Well, not quite. But I'm getting there.

Physically, I'm in a mining town, an hour's flight away from Perth. Mentally, I'm back out bush, reliving days, hours and seconds.

I'm back. Tired, bruised and humbled. Over 4,000 km crossed in two weeks, and I feel years older.

In the last fortnight, I've felt thrilled, annoyed, happy, helpless, proud, hopeless, satisfied, over-strained, trapped, lonely, supported, limitless, overwhelmed... And that's just a portion of the spectrum.

I've learned a lot, not all of which was enjoyable. But I guess there are benefits to learning from your mistakes. It doesn't always feel nice, but – in the end – it's all for the good.

I don't know what to expect. Back to reality. Being back, I'm afraid life will be boring. 

But am I back? Or was I back when I was back there?

Baksuz

A lovely, untranslatable word that pictures me.

Just to paint the picture, here's an example:

Working out bush, I get a lot of flat tyres. Burnt country, tree stumps, and bingo.

Not one gets – I get. Because it's pretty much only me who gets them.

And after six days of driving around, bush-bashing and changing tyres on a daily basis, today was the first day I managed to go without one.

So proud. Everyone celebrated.

Until I got back home, that is. Or almost there. Dropped one of my clients off, started driving home (it's about 50 m) and had a flat tyre.

Baksuz, baksuz.

Desert life – or at least a glimpse of it

I'm out bush for three weeks. One week's gone by, I'm at the end of the second one, and there's still one coming up. If I was asked to sum it up in a couple of words, it would probably be: full on.

Don't get me wrong – the experience is priceless, but the stakes are high, too. It takes everything out of you: your energy, strength and sleep, but also your ignorance, attitude and prejudice. You're deemed to change your views, your ways and your approach – at least if your aim is to make it.

I'm sure lots of whitefellas passed through here and headed out with the first light. It doesn't amaze me that people are hesitant to share their lives, thoughts and emotions. But at least it's all transparent, and you pretty much know where people stand. It's not always pleasant, but that's what it's like.

Even just getting a glimpse of the life (even as a total outsider), I can see how hard life is here. It really takes everything out of you – but it also rewards you in many ways. When you go into the store and everyone greets you by your name; when kids yell after you when you're leaving and asking you to stay; when you wake up in the morning and everyone's waiting with smiled on their faces...

Simple life.

I'm back where my heart is...

'Inside Australia'

I had enough time to take a detour on the way back from my last bush trip, so I finally checked out Lake Ballard. It's always on the way back, but I rarely have any free time – which luckily wasn't the case this time.

Lake Ballard was chosen by Antony Gormley, the internationally-acclaimed British artist, as the site for a major environmental art installation which he titled “Inside Australia”. Gormley had been commissioned by the Artistic Director of Perth International Arts Festival to produce the work in celebration of the Festival’s 50th anniversary in 2003. 

'Inside Australia' comprises 51 metal figures, dotted across seven square kilometres of the salt-encrusted lake bed. Each of the sculptural figures, both male and female, are the result of 3D laser scans Gormley made of Menzies residents, and he refers to them as ‘insiders’. It's apparently completely obvious which sculpture represent whom.

The place is quite eerie in a way, and it makes one wonder how people have been moving and walking and surviving...

Morning Coffee

Survey – done. Coffee – ready. Report writing – hit me.

The Daily Pinch

Moving to Australia pretty much changed my life. It's funny when things you dream of come true.

Just like the day I passed my final exam. Or the day I graduated. Crossed the street and had a cup of coffee. Just like any other day.

It hits you later on. And then you kind of forget what it felt like. Especially nice things, which sucks, because you remember the bad ones a long time.

Waking up every day to the song of parrots puts things in a different perspective. Days may be long, hard and too hot, and weekends may be busy, cloudy and too short. But I remind myself – not every day, but whenever I can – of where I am and what I do.

I saw this new series on the TV, and it made some feelings stir up inside me. This incredible awe and cluelessness, respect and admiration...

I walk on the same sand people walked on 50,000 years ago. I work with some of the last people to have walked out of the desert, I learn new ways – but the ways that have been present for tens of thousands of years.

Makes you think of your high school history lessons, doesn't it? It makes me remind (and keep reminding) myself of my new life...

Google it, watch it, share it.

Leaving...

Driving back from the desert, I have a weird feeling in my stomach. It's one of those you're not really familiar with.

It hurts, but it shows you that something good's happened. Something important and valuable. Nevertheless, it's news to me.

Something inside me changed. Something in the air changed. It might've only affected the air in my head. But it has.

Too late or too early, I'm not sure — but it's here. That feeling of belonging. Of finding your place. And of having to leave it.

It's that bitter-sweet gut feeling that makes you nauseated and shed happy tears at the same time. But I'm not by myself, and I can't stop on the side of the road and gaze back into what I'm leaving behind.

Spring in Australia

Spring has finally come to Australia. After a long and cold winter, here it is! Even though winter in Australia is nowhere near cold and should be called not-summer (as my friend G would say), I have a feeling people have had enough of rain and cold.

The temperatures here don't go lower than 2 degrees Celcius or so, but because there's no heating and the isolation is quite bad, it gives you the chills all right. After three weeks of pretty much crappy weather in Croatia, I came back to the Western Australian spring, to pretty much similar weather.

According to the Noongar cycle (Noongar are the native tribe in present-dayPerth and its surroundings), we're in the middle of Djilba over here, which runs through August and September, and is described as a mixture of wet days with increasing number of clear, cold nights and pleasant warmer days. The Noongar calendar has six seasons, rather than the four that were imported by European settlers.

I found a news article that says:

...intriguingly, it's not the calendar, or even necessarily the prevailing weather, that largely determines the Noongar seasons. Rather, it's the emergence of various plants and animals that dictate how and where traditional owners would have gathered their food.

Professor Len Collard, a researcher at the University of WA's School of Indigenous Studies, says that the Djilba season literally translates as the 'grassy time', when the preceding months of rainfall are reflected in the wealth of vegetation now growing. In turn, that paves the way for Kumbarang, or the "time of plenty", when young birds are fledging and wildlife is abundant.

Traditionally, Noongars would have relied on this kind of seasonal knowledge to inform their hunter-gathering strategies. For instance, rainy weather means kangaroos have higher levels of worms, which makes kangaroo-hunting a bad idea at this time of year. Similarly, emu eggs will have already passed the edible stage. In short, "nature governs", Professor Collard said. Although few people live hunter-gatherer lifestyles today, the principle could also help to teach us how to fish or hunt in a sustainable way, he added.

For instance, "it's not in our interest to be killing the mother duck while she's sitting on the eggs, because then the eggs might not survive and we won't have as many ducks the next year".

The Noongar seasons may also be better at highlighting the changes to our environment being wrought by climate change, Mr Cook said.

Check the link for the complete article: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/lovely-djilba-weather-were-having-a-guide-to-the-noongar-seasons-20130911-2tkm7.html#ixzz2gobA1cQv.

Lovely, isn't it? And so simple. It makes me think...

I'm lying in my bed, lazying around on a Saturday morning, and the blinds are down. I know it's shitty weather outside again. It's not about the clouds and the rain, but the wind. It blows through your bones. Cold winds blowing from the south make me not wanna go out, but hide under the covers.

But here's a couple of spring photos. Walking to work, I run into these crazy little flowers and amazing blooms, some of which I've never seen before. Enjoy!

Also, I finally planted a little herb garden on my balcony, and already had some rocket, basil and chives in my food. Yum!

And a couple more photos of spring life...

What have we come to?

Am I taking crazy pills?

Have we come to an era where politeness is confused with seduction?
Where bullies advance while hard workers eat their dust.

A place where being yourself is weird?
Where being a friend means telling you what 'you should do'.

A time when being overstrained is fashionable?
When we look forward to our retirement and not living fully every day.

An environment in which it's scary to wake up and start the day?
Where you look around and don't know what to think.

Is this just yet another ice age?
Where we end up in our very own private little caves.

Or have we already?

A teaser

Until I find some time...

Sleepless

Travelling back made me think about things. About how far I live from my origin, and about how easy or hard it is to move back and forth.

It's only been the first time I've flown back to Croatia, but that trip alone was sufficient to make my mind whirl.

Whether it's a good or a bad thing, moving long distances makes you question things. Pros-and-cons-list kind of style. And the weird thing is you don't really think about them at the time.

You get caught up in the moment, you get lost in your work. And you get lulled into your new life. Not that it's easy - it's not. But I somehow feel like a douche whining. So I try not to.

I'm on the plane back to Singapore. I met up with an old friend of mine who lives close to Frankfurt, so we had a couple of beers at the airport. That, among other things, got me thinking. About life, distances, closeness, frequent flyer miles, the desert, family, life, and many more other hard-core things.

It's definitely not something you want to ponder upon, especially not on a 12+ hour intercontinental flight. But I guess that's what you get.

Hopefully I can fall asleep and wake up in a better place - on the globe and in my head.

Countdown (dd:hh:mm)

 

An Exciting Day - Photo Diary