I had a breath-taking post all written up for you all, but I reread it today and realised it was crap. That's what you get for writing on a plane after days and days of trying to get your act together and emigrate. The post was essentially 10 things I loved about Oz and will probably miss, but in retrospect I thought, what the hey, if things here turn to custard I can always go back.
Instead I'm going to bleat about how damn great the weather is here in Auckland. What the hell is with that?! Three days of sun and warmth in April? No complaining, but WTF? I had expected to depart from the 30 degrees of Melbourne and land in grey misery, but no such misfortune.
Anyhow, as I may have whined in the past, no luck finding good work in Melbourne. It's the old catch-22 of no experience, no job, no job no experience, so today finds me looking for work over here in godzone, feeling hesitant about my sudden decision to fly back and be an expat no longer, mostly intending to exploit my new-found status as an overeducated New Zealander.
To make a long story short, the decision to find a place by myself back-fired and I had to beat a hasty retreat out of my flat in Carlton. In turn, I was also forced out of my accommodation in Clayton, and was looking at either having to get into a new flat or find three or four months of temporary accommodation somewhere, till the final edit of the thesis was on the table in front of the supervisors.
In the end I just thought to get out of there and fly back to Wellington. But, as fate would have it, airfares were cheaper to Auckland, and here I am.
Since being here I already managed to have a great argument about why Auckland needs a decent, and probably fabulously expensive ratepayer-funded, light rail system, been to Richmond Rd for a really, really good short-film festival and some culture, and had some mighty tasty yum cha. It's like I never left!
And that's a good thing.
OK, housekeeping... Later this week I'll try and outline why I think NZL biculturalism is better than Aussie multiculturalism, but for now I'd like to again thank the contributors who sent in emails. Interesting stuff.
More importantly though, I'd like to make a thank you to all those people who carried me for my six years in Melbourne. To all those people who put up with the mooching, the free beds, the constant stream of complaints about how much of a fucker the thesis was (it's now faded to a mild irritation awaiting the final scratch), the whisky-fuelled nights after break-ups, the being sidelined when I was in relationships, and to the constant demands for better hours and more money (that means you La Luna), to the housemates who had to endure endless ranting at the TV news, to the flatmates who had to endure grumpiness and the tyrannical demands for regular and predictable sleep hours, to the girlfriends I lambasted with starry-eyed lectures on boring points of political philosophy, to the friends who made me simple dinners when I couldn't make rent, to the family I neglected by staying overseas, to the people like Chris Tremewan at Auckland University and Russell Brown here at publicaddress who gave me those little opportunities to show what a freaky brat out of a state house can do with a little leeway (even if my column STILL doesn't rate as high as Cracker...), to the endlessly patient supervisors who read my thought again, and again, and again, to the people I constantly pestered for information and interviews, to the banks who have no idea how much shuffling of cash I did to maintain a nearly-zero interest-rate regime over the years.
To all of you, thank you. It goes to show, no man is an island.
Though sometimes he can fight to be a bridge for others to a higher place.