ANZAC Day

It is currently ANZAC Day in Australia: one of the most important remembrance days of the year. I don't usually do much on/for ANZAC Day. Guiltily, I've never been to a dawn procession or anything. But I do feel that it's a time for Aussies to reflect on the lucky country they live in, and give thanks to those who fought for the privileges they live with now. It's one day of the year where I don't think we should forget our history. In many cases, I think people should let the past go: I know what it's like to live without doing such, and the past actions of ourselves or others can eat away at us like a physical disease slowly gnawing away at our flesh. It's so much better, I feel, to let it go and get on with life without blaming others and their actions in the past.

But in the case of ANZAC Day, I think the opposite: people gave up their lives for our generations and (hopefully) future generations to live the way we do now. Our generation has never had to experience things that the ANZACs did, and we have them to thank for it.

Australia is a lucky country. Living in the US now is the only time I've lived elsewhere (unless you count the first few months of my life), yet it's been clear to me that my life in Australia was very fortunate, as it is for many others. San Francisco life (I wouldn't know about other areas in the US) is wonderful. If you're rich. Or at least well-off. My little family isn't what I'd consider to be "rich", but we're comfortable. And I'm lucky to be able to say that from a city like this. For the rich, the US indeed seems to be the land of opportunity. If you have means to access that opportunity. If not, you're pretty screwed. And it's scary to see the result of being on the poorer end of society: homelessness is just one major issue for this city, and it's so very visible. It feels like there is more risk to living here as the gap between rich and poor is so much more apparent. This country doesn't have some of the means of support that Australia does, and without getting too deeply political, I'm only thankful for the privileged life I've had. It's scary how easy it would be for any of us to end up on the streets like so many people are here: without support or help. It's too easy here to live in squalor.

Of course Australia isn't perfect; no country is. But there are many things I miss about it, and many things about it that can be seen as being more fortunate than the life I lead here.

As usual, I am pretty tired. I'm also sick again.

But I'm planning to make some ANZAC cookies in the next couple of days. Better late than never, right? I could really use a taste of home. (I haven't baked anything in a long time, though, so who knows how they'll turn out!) I also realised that our toddler has never had ANZAC cookie before! So I thought we should get him started!

Of course, as usual, I could write a lot more; get a lot deeper and more political, but I don't have the brain power for it. I just want to say lest we forget. Thank you for the life I've had in Australia, which has lead to the life I have here and the life I have in the future. Wherever that may be. Life could be a hell of a lot worse for all of us. And it's sad that I have only to look out my window to see that. Thank you to those who came before us.

xoxo

Moving, Parenting and Ballet-ing

This week was busy. Especially for Robert who had to work at/on a really big conference in San Fran this week (he estimated there were about 40 000 people in attendance!), as well as continue sorting out the logistics of our move here. Meanwhile, I had the little man for much of the week on my own. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I feel like having a toddler is more difficult than having a newborn baby. But my memories of having a newborn may very well be rather hazy in the fog of getting very little sleep and early parenthood in general! Regardless, by the end of last week, I thought I'd go mad(der) if I had to deal with another tantrum! And he's not even two yet!

That said, this is now the second night in our apartment! It's quite empty as we have some furniture arriving on Thursday and the rest will be here in a couple of months as it's coming by boat from Sydney. I don't think it's even left Sydney yet. But it feels so good to have a home again. It was only three weeks of being homeless, but it feels like it was so much more! We moved most of our stuff (that we have) yesterday, despite cold, rainy, windy weather. I would not recommend moving with a toddler in that type of weather. But Robert was adamant to get as much done as he could this weekend. Because he's crazy. Although our apartment is only a few blocks from the place we were temporarily staying in, he needed to get a few Ubers to transport a lot of the stuff. And me and mr toddler? We walked. Yes, through the *lovely* weather, our final trip was at about 6:30pm, and boy, did those 3-4 blocks feel like about 100. It's not fun pushing a pram with one hand and holding an umbrella in the other while wind blows you around. I believe the little guy held up better than I did; he didn't really complain while I was cursing under my breath and generally feeling quite angry for most of the time. 

But we got here in the end, and I guess you could say it was worth it... Stuff is everywhere here, but hey, at least we're in and maybe we can get back into some sort of routine and normal life!

That said, although I should have probably been helping Robert unpack and get settled, I took my first adult ballet class today!!! Some background info: I did ballet all through my childhood until it really started getting serious. And then I quit. Typical me: quitting when things get tough. I think people were a bit surprised/disappointed when I quit, but nevertheless, the quitting happened and I quit cold turkey. No more dancing at all. Ever since, I've wanted to continue, but was always too scared, self-conscious and just hesitant. Fast forward to now, San Francisco is home to a few of these awesome adult ballet schools. They're made for people who just want to dance casually. They do have classes for pros, but if you're not pro, you can just pay some monies and attend whatever classes you like. They (apparently) range from very basic to pro level. I was never able to find a school like this in Sydney. All I could ever find were schools for kids or teenagers. Or random classes run by places like Sydney Dance Co. or the Aussie Ballet, which are great, but when you're scared and nervous and haven't danced for a couple of decades, they are quite intimidating places! So if anyone is a dance teacher in Sydney and you're reading this, I really think there'd be a market for the schools like the one I went to today and the one I was looking at previously. 

I rocked up today, expecting to attend a 90 minute beginner ballet class, only to be told that they were holding an all-you-can-dance day, where you just pay $5 and go to whatever 30 minute sample classes they were running throughout the day. Which was great. And a little intimidating at the same time since so many people were there and I was already nervous as it was! Turned out I'd already missed the beginner ballet class and so got the nerve up to go to the advanced beginner class! (It was either that or the very, very basic one: for people with no knowledge of ballet, whatsoever.)

I loved it.

The class had some assumed knowledge, but hey, all that came flooding back like it was only yesterday that I'd danced, the only indication of the past couple of decades going past being that my body is much, much less flexible! Ha... Oh, and then once we moved to centre, I definitely screwed up a couple of times and made a couple of things up, but hey, it was all OK in the end and I had a blast! I'm definitely signing up and making it a weekly thing! It may have taken me a couple of decades to get back to, but I'm so happy I have. And I'm so glad these schools exist! 

Big shoutout to Robert, though, for even being OK with me buzzing off to dance when I probably should have been helping him unpack or look after the toddler. I'm totally OK with him going to whatever Magic the Gathering tournaments he likes...! Heh... (good deal, right?!)

Life has been busy but good here. Loved the ballet, love our apartment and the city is pretty cool: one of the coolest things, for me, is that art is a thing here. There seems to be so much more appreciation for the arts here than Sydney, which I just love. It's so inspiring and I can't wait to be more a part of it. :-) 

I think I should go sleep now. The toddler hasn't been sleeping well with all this change and I've been required to get up multiple times throughout the night again. Sigh... it's like having a newborn again! 

xoxo

House!!!

So after having been here for only two and a half days, we have scored ourselves an apartment! Woo hoo! After a week of being homeless, I was really starting to get sick of it! It's a place that Robert had been eyeing off for a few weeks, we saw it yesterday, filled in an application last night and managed to beat another keen guy and (apparently) someone else in trying to get it! We met the owner/s of the place today, and they're a couple who have a two year old and another on the way, so it's great to know that they had a toddler in the place and that it's suitable to Mr 17 months who thinks he's boss of wherever he goes.  (As a side note, it's sad to understand why there's been an increasing no. of homeless people in this city when you see how crazy real estate prices are here. I didn't think any other place could make Sydney look cheap, but San Fran does...! We have a two bedroom inner-city apartment for which we will be paying more rent than a single person's yearly salary! Although the computing and tech industry probably had a huge impact on these costs, I'm still awesomely proud of where my husband's going in his career in the industry. Oh, the irony...) But, like I said, I was already sick of being homeless, so I'm just excited that it didn't take long for us to secure a place at all! So we have a place to call "home". It's also only a few blocks away from Robert's office, so he won't need to spend much time or money on commuting, which is great! I think he was always aiming to walk to and from work, even if he needed to go a couple of KMs, but a few blocks makes that so much easier!

And excuse the D&M, but it got me thinking last night (when I couldn't sleep at 1am) of the idea of "home". I've been referring to Sydney as "home" and I probably always will. Yet, I always felt like a small part of me belonged in Korea, so I consider it to be mildly a second "home" country as well... yet now we live here, and depending on how long we're here for, our baby may end up considering this his "home", regardless of how I feel. Maybe that's all irrelevant, but it's a weird feeling of displacement when you realise that you're not quite sure where your "home" truly lies...

*Ahem*, excuse that side note. Heh.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to explore much. Between finding a place to live and adjusting to the other side of the world, time's gone by a bit quickly. But I'm hoping to venture into the city a bit tomorrow and find some places where Mr 17 months can run around and burn off energy a bit.

Right. Well, it's 9pm and I'm basically ready for bed. Haha. 

Oh, and I actually had an alright coffee today...! #priorities

xoxo