Australia
I'm getting really excited for Australia. Our departure is only 4 months away now, looking to be right around 26 March 2007 (that's how they write the dates there), with my first day of work the following Monday, 2 April. My last day in Chicago will be either March 16, if all goes well, or March 23, if I'm struggling to get everything wrapped up in time. I'm having a hard time imagining what it will feel like to be between jobs. For those 1-2 weeks, I'll have no responsibilities. It'll be like being a student without any coursework, like over winter break. What does it feel like on your first day of retirement? I can only imagine the release that you feel when you realize you've worked for the last day of a 40-year career. Or would I feel kind of pointless, like my life lost its meaning? Or selfish, because I've spent a life accumulating wealth so that I can spend it however I want? What will it feel like to be able to decide to do whatever you like best? I am not sure what my retirement hobbies will be, but I'm sure that one of them will be building furniture. I've always wanted to try that. With hand tools only, no power tools.
In going, I'm most excited about my new clients and co-workers and the opportunity to travel. I'm also excited about "conquering" another continent, bringing home some cool stories that I'll have for the rest of my life. I'm most worried about isolation; 7,000 miles is a long distance to come home for some of the things that I take for granted, like Christmas or Easter with family, or an Illini game here and there, or New Years' parties. I'm looking forward to everyone that wants to come visit, but I'm slightly worried that we'll be somewhat of a disappointment-- I mean I hope we are exciting enough to hold the attention of all our visitors. Hopefully the City of Sydney does some of the talking for us. But at the end of the day, it's a city, not Shangrala.
Along with the isolation, I'm hoping Julia and I are strong enough to make it work. I don't doubt that we will, but in the back of my mind I know there will be rough spots, and that's when I think we'll both miss our friends and family the most. Hopefully we can count on each other to-- in the words of L. Ron Hubbard-- not go to bed angry. I'm not airing out dirty laundry or anything, we've talked about this. It's not about the advantages or disadvantages of moving as a couple (because we are a couple and there's no getting around that), it's more about the balance between couple-dom and self-dom that every marriage has to work out, which I can imagine would have new stresses when we're so far from "home". From what I understand from my parents, we'll still be working on that 30 years from now, so hopefully this experience will just help to make us stronger.
My office is 10 Shelley Street, right on Darling Harbor. Looks like the equivalent of being in Chicago's Loop, a short walk from landmarks like the Opera House. Just because the opera house is so well known, do you think that Aussie's like the opera any better than the US public at large?
It will also be really cool to get to pick where we want to live. The partner I was talking to said that he did a rotation in London once, and there's no feeling like opening a map and deciding where to live. The city is our oyster. Maybe I shouldn't get so excited about that though. We essentially did that in Chicago and came up with Oak Park, which worked out well, but I wouldn't exactly call it an out-of-body experience.
One thing that sucks is the interrogation. Remember how when you first went to college, or you were interviewing, or you started your first job, every question from your friends and family related to that one thing? You wanted to just hang a sign around your neck that had the answers to the 4 most commonly asked questions? I felt like that last weekend briefly at the Lowe's but mostly in Pontiac for Thanksgiving. We have 2 more Thanksgivings, and then we have 4, yes FOUR, Christmases this year. We don't feel like we can get out of any of them because everyone wants to see us before we go. We've done three the last several years, and that's a lot. I don't know if I can handle 4. They will cover a 2 week span, on December 16, 23, 25 and 30. I shudder at the thought of the awkward conversations with the little-known uncles, where neither of us has anything interesting to say after the 4 questions are up.
In other news, I'm on vacation. I love vacation. I haven't shaved for almost a week, I haven't showered for 2 days, and I've played hours of starcraft. This is the stuff dreams are made of.