I caught my 10:30am flight to Melbourne and was greeted upon arrival by a Deakin University student holding a massive DEAKIN sign. Her name is Thavishi, from Sri Lanka, works at McDonalds and has been at Deakin for two years. I learned that people from Sri Lanka are either called singly people or Tamils. She was wonderful!
On our drive through Geelong City, I almost burst into tears when she announced ..“and this is downtown” I was like “oh this little street?…oh grrreeeeaaaaaat”
Thavishi was really kind and took me to my $75 crap motel the school had arranged for me to stay at (at my own expense) she then took me to the campus I will study at (which I could walk around in less than 5 minutes)
I asked the ladies at International Student Services if there were any other options for temporary accommodation. They went though a list of other crappy and over priced places I could stay in this marvellous suburb they call Geelong.
Finally she said…"oh there is a place for $38.40 a night with a dinner included in the price that is a five minute walk from campus!”
I was thrilled and asked “where is this place? I’ll go tomorrow!”
Everything got arranged and once again Thavishi got into the DEAKIN car and drove me to the place to check out where I would sleep for the remainder nights until I find a place to live.
We get to the location (residence) and to our surprise, it is a type of college for people who want to study the bible in hopes of someday becoming a minister. I almost started crying! But the lady who welcomed us was really kind and showed me the Standard room I could move into starting the following night.
The room was basic and reminded me a lot of what first year in residence in University is like. There was a shared kitchen and shower room. All of the girls live on the stop floor and the male students were on the bottom. There was a “no alcohol” policy and quite time began at 11pm. She showed me the dinning hall and told me that all the residents eat together in the dinning room and one of the students will lead us in a short prayer and grace before we eat. Dinner is Monday through to Friday at 6:30pm.
I was really overwhelmed with all this news and Religious living conversation, but there was something comforting knowing I’d get to eat with a room full of people. The highlight was when the lady showed me my room and about eight rooms down she said “and this is where me and my husband live, so if there’s any trouble we’re not far away.” And I thought my life was balls.
By the end of that afternoon I was ready to jump back on a plane headed for anywhere but here.
I was opening up my bank account at a popular Australian bank and felt like saying to the nice lady “you know what!? Never mind about the account I’m not even going to stay here I’m leaving as soon as the next plane takes off.”
Thavishi took me to the grocery store to get some food and I picked up some dried dates. Eating them made life feel a little sweeter. She dropped me back at the glorious motel and I decided I should take a walk to the waterfront and try my best to give this small town a shot.
It was 6pm when I started my walk and absolutely every shop “downtown” was closed! There were some bars, restaurants and cafes open, even a few kind of nice looking ones. I finally got to the Waterfront and decided it’s quite pretty. There were two young teenagers making out as if the world was going to end, it was so gross, but then I thought about where they live and how boring their lives must be and how making out was probably the only thing that keeps them from doing drugs or going insane and so I cut them both a little slack. The walk was more for exercise to be honest. I feel if I am going to live here and not have much to do, then I at least have to stay thin. However, the walk was interrupted every 5 minutes with a 10 minute wait for the walking light to begin to flash. I thought Seoul was brutal for the length of time it takes for lights to change to allowed pedestrians to cross but this is way worst.
I have now accepted the fact that I have not yet given it a chance and deep down inside I really know it will be okay and that I’ll be happy here immersed in books, teaching Aussie kids and writing papers.
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