What a Day, What a Week

I've been feeling really antsy about moving country again.   Australia will be my third country in 3 years and it means yet another set of goodbyes, packing up my possessions and moving on.  I'm totally psyched for it though and have been counting down the weeks for what seems like forever (I'm at 3 weeks to go and I'm been counting since 24!).    I'm a bit bummed that time isn't going by quicker (and I feel guilty for this as I know there will come a day when I will regret wishing away a single second) and I'm missing my friend and family like crazy.  However, today was one of those days when a reality check comes in the form of news that slaps you around the head.  In the middle of firing off a whinging email to someone back home about the crap week I've had, I was interrupted by a friend who shared some news about a very challenging personal situation that has the potential to drastically change her own and her family's life.   I was stuck for words and did my best to respond supportively and then spent my entire day thinking about her and wishing that I could just wish away all her worries, and thinking about how out of whack my outlook on the next few weeks is.   I'm spoilt.  So I'm going to work on attitude.  There's some corny quote that goes something along the lines of "Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it".   Yeah, I need to work on that.

In other news...  apparently a UFO was sighted in Tashkent.  

http://www.allnewsweb.com/page6826828.php

Putting Out The Trash

This morning while I was hanging up my freshly ironed clothes (yes, miracles do happen) the door bell rang.  It scared the bejebbers out of me at first as I seldom have visitors and if I do they phone first.  I ignored the first and second ring as my landlady told me that she'd already payed 'taxes' for the year and so no one should come bothering me.  The third ring was irritating so I went and peeked through the spy hole and saw a woman there - not a uniformed police officer coming to 'inspect' passports, so I unlocked the 3 locks that secure me safely in my apartment and swung open the reinforced steel door.  I have no idea what the woman wanted to tell me but through the tone of her voice and the waving of receipts I guessed it was to pay 'taxes'.  Not wanting to part with any of my soum I waved her on upstairs to the other apartments where I promised someone would speak English and could then translate for me/her.  I rushed back inside and tried to call my landlady. I say tried, because I failed to get hold of her.  It would help if I actually had any credit left on my cell phone.  Opps.  Well my friendly upstairs neighbour came down and told me that this was the Trash Lady and that she wanted 12,000 soum which is apparently the tax for taking care of the trash.  Gid yeah trash?  I asked.  Where is the trash?  What trash?  Where does she take it?  Apparently she comes every month. No one knows what trash she collects as it certainly isn't ours as we regularly traipse the 1/2 km to the dumpster down the road where homeless people peck through it before the feral cats get a chance.   Anyway my friendly neighbour gave the Trash Lady my landlady's phone number and so I get to keep my 12,000 soum and best of all I get to keep putting my own trash out.

And so I did.  I took my giant blue plastic trash bag for a walk and decided this time to take my camera to record this wee adventure.  Today's trash walk ended up being rather fun actually.  I was escorted by 3 wee kids that were roaming the apartment complex.   We didn't really understand much of what we were saying to each other but it made a mundane chore interesting.  

p.s.  check out the Uzbek eyebrows drawn on the doll!

 

 

ANOTHER YEAR OLDER

Yet another birthday crept up on me this week... I'm getting older every year!  

Last week they held the annual Spring Bazaar and work. I packed up all my junk (stuff that isn't worth shipping back down under) and sold it off and came home in the afternoon with a tidy sum of money which of course will all be blown as soon as I get back home and have access to a shopping mall.   In the corner of my lounge room I now have a grown heap of wall hangings, carpets and stuff that I have collected on my journeys that all needs to be boxed up by the shippers when they come in a few weeks to haul my possessions off.  I'm a big ahead of the gun as I have 5 weeks left here in Tashkent but I am really excited to move on to the next phase of my life.  There is so many other things that needing doing in the time that I have left here... more strawberries to eat, photographs to take, university assignments to complete, report cards to write, and 2 open bottles of liquor that need consuming.  Perhaps if I reverse the order of that checklist I might get more done (the photographs might be a little more interesting too)!

As for my plans after here, well I've applied for university accommodation for July but I'm not holding out much hope as they offer rooms up to undergraduates and international students first.  I'll just arrive a few weeks early I guess and take my chance with private renting. I'm now on the hunt for an internship from Nov - end of February.  I'm so excited about trying out something different.