And I cut my toe nails

Alex…such the joker-making fun of me.

I started working on Monday, only two days after I started the job search. I am employed by a temp agency and only have work for this week so far. I am working in a call centre as a business to business telemarketer. I am calling to see if people want to come to a two day course. It is a pretty good course and people have expressed some interest, but no one has registered yet. I am not a huge fan of the job, but I keep telling myself, it is a paycheck. Everyone has to do the time, right? It is descent experience on the marketing side too. The pay is good and the hours are 9:00-17:00. The dress is pretty casual, I can wear jeans, but I have not yet (the full timers do but I will wait until Friday to break them out). I have a corner office with windows. I spend my two 10 minute breaks walking along Darling Harbor near the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House; Pretty sweet location for work.

I have finally settled in. I moved into my house yesterday. The housing market in Sydney is outrageous right now. Though there are many rooms opening every week, there are about five times as many people searching for rooms. The government is even warning of drastic rent increase in the near future. I looked at seven places and had two more scheduled where the landlords failed to turn up. Most people are looking for renters for longer than four months. It is seriously like an interview process. They finish the interview with “We have about 17 people looking at the room; we will get back to you in a couple of days.” Fortunately Eric was letting me “doss” on his pull out couch, so I had no accommodation costs for those four or five days, but I wanted a room and a bed. I looked at a place in Surry Hills that was fairly cheap and in a great location. I looked through it briefly and told Xavier I was interested. I left and texted him about 25 minutes later telling him I could move in the next day. I was a bit hesitant because I had three more places to look at that night as well as one person I was waiting to hear from about whether I had passed the roommate exam. Xavier called me about thirty minutes later and said he had two more people who wanted the place the next day too, but since I looked first he thought it would be fair to give me the first choice. This is how quick it works.

I moved in last night. I will have seven housemates (I have met three of them thus far) and will be sharing a room with a guy from France (I have yet to meet him). We have one shower and one toilet for everyone. The great thing about this place is its location! It is in the central part of the city, loads of pubs, bars, shops, parks and restaurants near by and only a 25 minute walk to work (no paying for trains or buses!)

The Sydney chapter of my life has started to look stable. I went for a long run today and unpacked. Hopefully everything will work for the best.

I have spent a day at Bondi beach too.

I truly miss everyone back home. The last seven months in the States were great and I had some friendships really develop and I miss them now. Any way, I am here now and will be here for the next five months. I look forward to everyone’s emails and messages. I also have a phone, so if you would like to call me, send me an email and I will let you know my number (and address).

Peace,
Adam

The title is in reference to finally feeling at home. Last night I cut my toenails in my own room and thought...this is the life!