Chapter Next: Back Home On Soiled Soil

So.

Oh.
My.
*Gawk*

Home.

I can't believe it. Back home, and it's just as exciting and dreary as I'd anticipated it to be. Sure, I'm pleased to be home (to some extent) - but good Lord, it's all so... different now. I mean, after four years in Australia, it's just... oh I don't know. Can't really explain it.

Let's start over.

Oh.
My.
*Gawk*

Yesterday certainly was fun. Fun. In italics. And probably inverted commas too. "Fun." Firstly we headed to Jade's place where she'd prepared this delicious burger lunch, which was awesome... the "Last Supper" as Josie very succinctly put it, ahaha! Afterwards we drove down to the airport. I tried to check in - and then drama unfolded!!! My check-in luggage was, just like yours truly, overweight. Arrgh! So I had to move my bags away, unpack a whole buncha stuff...and when I went back to the counter I found I couldn't find my passport and ticket. Arrgh! So I had to move away and open up the bags again to filter through the stuff - only to discover that I'd left the passport and ticket with the items I'd only just removed! So I had to repack, lug the stuff back to the check-in counter, weigh the bags again - only to be told that it was still overweight! By this point I was seething, and the "helpful" arsehole at the Malaysia Airlines counter uttered very indifferently, "You can unpack or pay, which will be it?" To which I replied, "Pay", and he remarked snidely, "Yeah I thought you'd have the money to do that." What a moron. Just goes to show you the quality of customer service nowadays. Malaysia Airlines ought to be ashamed. But I digress. Anyway.

Apart from this little drama, it was all very pleasant - there was literally an entourage of 14 people sending me off (thanks guys! Sniffles! Miss you alreaddddy!!!!) and the flight was pretty noneventful (which is good on a plane) apart from minor turbulence. It was practically empty too, which made it pretty comfortable; although it made me wonder why they wouldn't even let me go over the limit by 4 extra kilos. I guess it's the bloody petrol prices. *Tsk*. Whatever. On the plane I watched a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond, the whole movie of Nanny McPhee (yes) and a segment of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame; ate dodgy veal with mashed-potato bricks; played video games; checked out eye candy across the aisle, and tried snoozing a little, which naturally didn't work because I just can't sleep on a plane. Grrr. Arrgh.

So eventually I reached Kuala Lumpur and had the baggage-claim-customs-check-out saga, which was thankfully rather uneventful... Then it was "hey everyone!" and the whole emotional reunion thingy with the family. One thing quickly became clear: it's true what they say: you can't go home again. At least, you can't go home easily again. Within minutes of being home I was frustrated, depressed, fed up, missing my mates, hot sticky and humid. Then of course there was the matter of coming home to a new house because my folks had moved over the time I was away....and so I came home to a smallish bedroom partially used for storage; my little doggy Chloe is now a big doggy who doesn't recognise me and keeps barking and growling at me; my mobile phone won't work with my Malaysian phone number (for God knows what reason), and all in all, it's been pretty dreary.

Okay, I know I'm whingeing a little bit, but actually it's not so bad. The room's gradually getting done up so it'll be homey. It's where I plan to set up my home studio, God willing. The food's... well.... Malaysian food is Malaysian food: authentic, aromatic and with enough grease to fell a wild boar. The people are loud and crass and impolite (when you walk into an airport just in time to hear somebody clear his throat loudly and hawk loogies onto the pavement, there's no mistaking where you are); the drivers are insane with no sense of courtesy; the house is filled with Mum's kindergarten kids shrieking and giggling hysterically at all hours of the day; and this computer screen is so blurry having never been serviced or upgraded since 1999 that I'm getting a headache.

I'm home.
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Going back: Friday night, like I think I've mentioned, we had my final farewell party (pix still to come), Saturday night there was another party at Mark's place, which was also a lot of fun. Judi and I set out to get majorly drunk, but methinks it was Carol who ended up the most hammered (heheheeeeee!!). Speaking of Carol - the poor dear has had to put up with the fallout of my haphazard packing. Apart from having to ship home the stuff that I'd removed from my check-in luggage, apparently today TNT (the shipping company) called her to say the three boxes I'd sent home were OVERWEIGHT (there's that phucking word again) and they were returning 'em for her to repack and send over. Oh bloody hell. Why is everything overweight? i've spent close to a grand shipping home miscalleneous... miscallenaeous... miscealleneous ... oh how do you spell that word??? ... shipping home various items - but it's been difficult because, after all, I'd been in Perth four years. That's a short lifetime, but a lifetime regardless. Oh bloody shipping companies and freight handlers. Why don't these people just go screw themselves? Sorry for all the hassle, Carol. I loveeeee youuu! Thank you for everything. Would be lost without you. *sniffles*.

Well - it's only been less than 24 hours since I've been back, so I haven't done much yet save getting reaquainted with the surroundings, getting acquainted with my house, and getting acquainted with my dog. Oh, and the family members fit in somewhere along the way. I'll get to something more thrilling eventually (including the concepts of job-hunting, working and new-computer-purchasing, if all goes well!)...but in the meantime right now it's all a bit of an unpacking- and grumble-fest. I do apologise for that, heh! It'll all get better soon, of course. It'll just take some getting used to. But until that happens, I continue to swelter in the heat and humidity, listen to the distant chants of the Mulsim prayers splitting the air, smell the smoke in the outside air, watch the household geckos lay tiny ovals of poo all over the bloody place, and pray I won't get so content and complacent with this - my original life - that I lose sight of my bigger dreams and where I really wanna be.

Take care, everyone. Will post more soon. Photos coming up!

Love and miss everyone terribly!!

Byebye for now. ~N xox