An era ends...

And now the era of Oz is over for this time around... I left Brisbane as planned on the 25th of August after having arranged a bridging visa since my student one apparently expired the 31st of July - meaning I was a non-lawful citizen before I figured it out and got my ass down to the Immigration Department and the Compliance Office. I was then informed that if I exceeded the 28 day-limit, they could/should put me away in a detention centre! Fancy that... Coz sending me home would just be plain crazy, obviously...

The time since I last blogged at all has been spent arranging a lot of things like my severely screwed up economy, the apartment I'm currently writing from in Volda and the whole cycle there always is to arrange when you 'belong' to two different unis... In addition comes making sure all the bills are paid and that I can actually get everything home, all the while viewings of our apartment are going on and I'm having semi-nervous breakdowns almost on a daily basis. Fun, huh? But, luckily, in between all that there was some serious shopping executed, a lot of nice evenings spent with my marvelous friends who I'm already missing to death, and even a few things learned in lectures from subjects I never enrolled in...lol I got to go to the races for the first time, all dressed up and drunk on champagne and bourbon & cola (I apologise again for my behavior at the afterparty and when I came home, P - thanx forever for taking such good care of me!), and even place bets! It was a great day - I actually got sunburnt for the first time since like March.

Tarna's birthday was also duly celebrated with green punch and of course, a trip to the Valley cut short when she got sick (my shoe still hasn't recovered).. But then it was back on after a brief custome-change..that girl is insane! But I do love her... Many a coffee was needed to help fully recover from that Saturday night's atrocities. They then decided I had to have a going away-party and they were gonna host it - how sweet. We got way too much alcohol and stayed the entire night in Kelvin Grove a whole bunch of us just talking and drinking - it was great! The dragging of a wasted Peter into the cab at 3.30 in the morning was less fun, especially since he didn't feel well. But most of all, the day after was less fun - I never thought you could feel so hungover...luckily it didn't last for more than a couple of hours! Or else I seriously think I would have stuffed my head down the toilet and flushed, to put it like that...

After that I had a mini-week left in Brissie, and the miniature-breakdowns became more frequent. (Again, thanx to everyone, especially P, for understanding.) It's a horribly conflicting sensation to be over excited to go home and see both family, friends and co-workers again, but be devastated to leave all the ones you've been lucky enough to gain, behind... At times it felt like I was going completely insane! Was just so terribly torn...And I kind of still am. Coz, yes, it's great to see everyone again here in Volda and getting back into doing a degree that I actually really want to do, but at the same time it's like a piece of me is missing due to not seeing my new friends anymore. Literally every day I saw most of them - how is that not a transition? And MSN isn't really that good a replacement, I mean come on! Oh, and there's the time difference...bless its little heart.

The leaving of Oz went well, the only SHITTY part was that the flight was several hours delayed and I didn't find that out until after I'd gone through customs, and by then I couldn't go back to spend some more time with my 'peeps' - but them standing on the floor above me and yelling 'bye' and 'we love you and miss you' was really special, particularly since they did it so loud everyone else in the terminal had to look at us...Oh, the faces! And the trickling tears... I miss you guys! I promise to come back and say hi...