Pass the panadol please, my brain hurts
What started as a love affair with my new Samsonite suitcase, purchased just before I left Australia, has now moved to an emotion far beyond hate. If I have to wake up and look at that damn thing for very much longer, I think I will go insane.
I have been living out of it since the middle of November last year, which is getting on for three months now. Now I know what I have said before about how I am the eternal wandering Jew, the intrepid traveller with a permanent case of wanderlust... yada yada yada...
Ok, I admit it. Enough! I have had enough!!!
The end is in sight ladies and gentlemen, it truly is. I finally get to move into my apartment this weekend. Hallelujah! I don't care that the contents of my apartment will consist of a sofa, a heater, an oven, a table and chairs, a fridge (the last two items come with the apartment) and ME.
Samson the Suitcase will be banished to the highest cupboard I can find (and reach - after all, I am only 5'3"). I will place all my clothes in the wardrobe, hanging each and every item with tender loving care. I will neatly arrange all my shoes in rows, for easy access and I will have a drawer EACH for all my underwear, socks and other little itty bitty items that are too small for their own hanger.
Yes, I am fully aware of the fact that I am beginning to sound like a raving lunatic, but that's what happens when you live out of a bloody suitcase for an extended period of time.
I have come to realise that despite my passion for travel and adventure, deep down I am a classic old-fashioned, nester. My mother has always told me how I never cease to amaze her everytime I move into a new apartment. I might only have moved in 48 hours previously, but when she comes over to visit for the first time she tells me that it looks like I have lived there for years.
"It already looks so homely, so haymishe, so YOU!" she squeals with Jewish motherly delight. "I don't know how you do it darling. You just have the knack."
I lost track long ago of the number of apartments and houses I have lived in over the years. My mother gave up writing my details down in her address book in pen, as she was forever crossing old addresses and phone numbers and writing in new ones. These days, she updates strictly in pencil only. Thank heavens for email is all I can say! How ironic that the most stable contact information I have is a web-based email address, the entire contents of which sit somewhere in cyberspace.
So, please G-d, this time next week, I will be able to report that I am living in Chez SGD, fixed abode for at least the next 12 months...
In other breaking news, well, I survived my first week at work!
Like any new job, there is always a ton of information to take in, absorb and somehow retain. There are new people to remember, new and strange systems to figure out and somehow in all this, you try to hold on to the essence that is you, while at the same time trying to fit in with everyone else.
Although my job is essentially in English, there is still a reasonable amount of Hebrew to deal with. Whether it is ordering my lunch online (a very nifty little system indeed!), or reading an email, or just navigating my way through the internal staff phone list - it all adds up. I know that ultimately, this is only a GOOD thing. My Hebrew must improve and using it everyday at work is definitely one of the best ways to do it. However, right at the beginning, when everything is strange, bewildering and sometimes downright overwhelming, the added problem of "what the hell does this say???" all contributes to a very sore brain at the end of the day.
I know it's just a matter of time, and one of the great things about keeping a blog is that I will be able to read this in a few month's time and see just how far I have come.
Still, for the moment, I fantasize about coming home at the end of a long day at work, and curling up in MY bed, watching MY television, or reading one of MY books, while sipping a cup of freshly brewed tea in one of MY mugs. Ahhhhh.... what a joyous day it will be when I am once again surrounded by cardboard boxes. Only this time, I will be unpacking them.
Now - that's my idea of heaven.