16.01.2007: been and gone ...

Hello! I saw a pretty fabulous advertisement on the side of an Auckland bus this morning. It was all text on a plain background, and it went like this: "Take one bus twice daily to relieve congestion."

Hehe ... so simple and yet so clever. I love it.

Then tonight, while walking past a boarded-up pub in the inner city suburb of Ponsonby, I noticed this rather unusual piece of signage, laser printed and stuck to each window: "Alcohol is unhealthy - therefore, we are closed for good."

This one intrigues me, because I'm trying to imagine what might've led a bar owner, of all people, to such a black-and-white conclusion. Did years of dealing with obnoxious drunks bring on some kind of epiphany? Or was it an incident in their personal life that forced the change? Maybe the pub was owned by someone who slowly became more and more health-conscious as they became older, until they reached a point where their chosen career seemed like a contradiction. Hmmm ...

Then again, maybe they just had to close for financial reasons anyway, and couldn't resist a bad pun.

I'm actually having some trouble deciding how to begin this entry (as you might have detected). Perhaps a good way would be to explain why I've been absent from your screen for a while. So let me run down the list of my recent movements:

I left Moscow in late June and flew to Japan for a couple of days. There I chilled out Ryokan-style in Sawara, a vaguely dilapidated village where I'd heard I could see an entire 19th Century Edo Period townscape (which was true - and it was well worth the journey). From those tranquil surrounds it was briefly back to Tokyo (still amazing of course), and then on to that fabled southern metropolis known to many of its inhabitants as "Sinny", and to everyone else as "Sydney". And that's where I spent the 2nd half of 2006. Hence no more travel blogging required.

*ahem*

Now that you know where I've been recently, I'm thinking a few of you might be waiting for an apology. And yes, it's probably due. I was in town for six months and yet I failed to contact a lot of people to say "Hey, I'm back!". I am truly sorry about that. All I can say is this: there were circumstances.

To start with, I don't think I was quite prepared for a Return to The Homeland. Without going into too much detail, I basically came back to try and re-kindle a personal relationship, which didn't so much succeed as ... well, implode. On top of that, certain other aspects of my New Sydney Life caught me unprepared - which was inevitable, I s'pose, considering I'd left a year earlier with no intention of returning.

At first it was just that I didn't know what to think or feel about being 'home'. I had difficulty seeing people, knowing what to say and how to act in social situations ... that kind of thing. Also, I dreaded the question "How was Russia?". It was pretty much all I could think about at that point (apart from the aforementioned relationship of course), and yet I didn't really have an answer - just a random collection of freaky stories and jumbled thoughts, nothing solid at all.

While all of that was going on - along with quite a bit 'reverse culture shock' - my job in Sydney became quite intense. Not that this was a bad thing ... just rather all-encompassing at times.

To explain: from September to December, I spent most of my time in a windowless room with people from Korea, Hungary, Russia and Brazil doing an "intensive" exam course. Which means that I saw them every weekday for the whole day, as we prepared for the Important Moments when they'd take their Cambridge Exams. There were quite a few "big personalities" (my boss's phrase) in the class, and as part of teaching them I listened to their personal histories, coaxed out their opinions on everything from Hollywood movies to global warming, heard about the experiences which they believe have been most pivotal in their lives, dealt with quite a few of their fears and perceived shortcomings, and asked them to describe their hopes for the future (for themselves, their loved ones, the planet etc).

I'm trying to think of a good way to characterise this experience, but it's difficult to sum up. Sometimes it was like observing (and occasionally advising, counselling or mediating between) a group of people as they experiment with notions of who they are. And in case I've accidentally made that sound like a chore, let me be clear: I absolutely loved it. I'd possibly go so far as to say that the Sydney exam course was a highlight of my 'working life' so far. (I put that inside inverted commas because it often didn't feel like work.) However, there were many days when I walked out of the classroom with enough brain food to fill me up for a fortnight, and there was just no room in my head for any more social input after that.

You really do meet some fascinating people in this job. Take S.G., for example, (wearing the blue baseball cap in the photo). Considering she's all of 23 years old, this is a woman of remarkable life experience, with an impressive variety of tales to tell. Like the time she went on a mission to Russia and China, raising money as she went and delivering it to small and remote communities in those countries. Or the time she walked all the way around South Korea for charity (and because she felt like a challenge). Or the time she decided to cut school by jumping a concrete wall, only to find that a news crew was filming a story right outside her school grounds ... the result being that her headmaster saw her on the TV news that night, and poor S.G. was in a heap of trouble.

And that's just an edited selection.

How someone so young has found the time to do all of this while studying as hard as Koreans do, and still learn to play four or five musical instruments proficiently (which S.G. can), I'll never know. I told S.G. a couple of times that her life would make a great book. I just hope she believed me ...

Um, where was I? Oh yes. I was just going to say that balancing this commitment with some semblance of a normal social life is a technique that teachers learn over time. I think I'm getting there, but I've a fair way to go. And the second half of 2006 was throwing enough other crap at me to make it all seem just that much more difficult. Apologies for any offence I've caused by not being in touch with people in the meanwhile.

So anyway: New Zealand. I came here in 2003, but I only reached the South Island and stayed for just ten days. It was more than enough, though, to whet my appetite for further exploration of these Gondwanan isles (and special thanks go out to Natalie for dragging my reluctant arse over the Tasman in the first place). Then, of course, there was Aragorn & co, heltering their skelters across the majestic expanses of Middle Earth for three Boxing Days running. After that, I pretty much knew I'd have to come back here at some point and see more of those amazing landscapes for myself.

Cut to December 2006, about a week before Xmas. My next exam course in Sydney was cancelled (because most of the would-be students had failed their entrance test), and the very next day I got an offer to come and teach in Auckland for a couple of months. "Hmmm", I thought, "pretty tempting ...".

I realise, btw, that New Zealand might strike you as quite a pedestrian choice after Russia. Personally, though, I don't see it that way at all. I mean, it's still a 'new' country for me, and the process of settling in has been difficult. Yeah, being able to do it in English has helped. But then again, in Russia I had a lot of stuff taken care of for me. When I arrived at Sheremetyevo airport, the school whisked me to my flat. Taxation issues were taken care of in advance. School paid my transport costs, gave me exhaustive amounts of advice about life in the city and where to find things, what to look out for safety-wise and so on. Here? Well, there really wasn't time for any of that because of the Xmas/New Year chaos. When I landed, I hadn't even signed a contract!

Also, I'm discovering that while most of the cultural differences here are fairly subtle (as compared to, say, the differences between Australia and Russia), there are quite a lot of them. It's too early for me to comment knowledgeably on this, but I'm sure I'll get to it.

My first week here, I have to say, was pretty tough. Actually, make that "really, really tough". On my first Tuesday I left work on the brink of tears; on the Thursday, with a sense of rising dread, shaky hands and a pain in my chest that was saying "caution - panic attack impending". If I'd been a door, I would've been wearing one of those signs that says "This door is alarmed".

The stress factor continues to be fairly high, largely due to the surprising expensiveness of Auckland and because of the particulars of my job (with which I won't bore you). But there have also been some very worthwhile moments. The first of those was visiting Mt Eden. This is an extinct volcano about 15 minutes from the city centre, where I went on my first Sunday here to escape the drudgery of looking at dire and overpriced accommodation (some with holes in the ceilings and resident junkies, some without).

I actually went to Mt. Eden because I'd read that there was a Pa Site (i.e. an ancient Maori fort) there. Didn't have much success in locating it - but that's mostly mostly because I was distracted by a big ol' crater! I'd never actually seen one in the flesh before, so this was quite exciting. The Mt. Eden crater is actually rather tiny as these things go, but I still had a great time walking around the rim and marvelling at the whole vulcanicity of it (a word I just made up). Seeing the crater like this - especially so close to town - reminded me that there is a reason to be in NZ, at a point in time when I was seriously doubting it.

Getting to know my students has also been fun. My main class is mostly made up of Saudis and Brazilians, with one Japanese and one Korean student making up the numbers. (The Korean is a young woman called Eun Hyang Park, who's taken the English first name of Luna. Try pairing up that English first name with the Korean surname, and see if you can resist a chuckle ;-) They really are a lovely group of people - funny, friendly, laidback but quite studious. So I couldn't ask for much more on that front.

I've met a couple of nice folk in Auckland, and I've been making sure that I get out and do some interesting stuff between the epic working weeks. More about that in the next few entries; now that I'm 'on the road' again and doing stuff that I feel might be worth telling you about, you can count on me for words-aplenty :-)

Once again I apologise to many of you for being so slack as far as catching up in Sydney is concerned. Hope you won't hold it against me. Drop me a line to let me know how you're doing. Till then ... bye!