decided not to acquire any new digital traces of movement and seeing until the new path opens fully. lunch with Norie yesterday begins a mapping of the process. meeting with a variety of Others. most completely unknown. stimulating but exhausting. housing still not 100% settled, at all. but a bed for the sleeping in the small studio space with the palm tree and the Cooks River out the window.

tea and concrete in the morning and off for a full day of meetings and paperwork, prepping for teaching and research.

a visit to the library is disappointing, many books are in terrible condition, shabby, out-dated. what's with that? evidence of zealous and active use? or small library budgets. in the technology section, so many were completely outdated and should have been consigned to basement stacks long ago.

profiling. black clad, stylishly-coiffed young Asian students with thick-rimmed Dior specs dominate the downtown city streets that I've frequented so far. haven't gotten to the regular business district and will likely not unless there is a compelling reason.

bureaucracy. and catch-22's loom out of the composition of days spent meeting people. technological infrastructure is problematic as well. regular network access simply does not work, and the help desk could not help. yet I can access a new WPA network constructed for iPhones and such.

grounded. arrive at Devleena's flat in Marrickville, John is there to meet me. a bit of communication gap with them and it turns out I have the studio only for two weeks, after that it's been promised to a Kiwi researcher. so, got to put the word back out to the network for another place to live. drat. this place, where Sophea also stayed, would have worked out well aside from the fact that the internet WPA connection isn't functioning properly (yet), it won't accept my login, sh... I'll email her in Delhi to see what the score is.

got a bank account set up with Paul at the ANZ Marrickville branch, went grocery shopping, and hung out in a caf for an espresso and wifi.

palm and eucalyptus trees out the window that overlooks the Cook River (more like a tidal draw) above Botany Bay. it's warm even for Sydney winter stats, +20C today. sweaty. chilly at night. very much like Santa Monica in the winter. as I thought it would be. air is clear, stars are unknown. winter sun is in the north, in Arizona among other places. clouds and breeze from indeterminate quarters. drifting through. the sounds of the city are not unfamiliar, but are ... elusive.

landed. routine flight. slept for a good portion of the 14 hours. sat next to an interesting woman, Shar, writing for The Epoch Times in Sydney and New York.

(fast-forward) ... or is it containerized. enrollment or enrolment? gah, will be coping with British English for a time. anyway, fast forward, the efficient container folks (milspec certified) come and go, taking it all with, to be contained, sealed, and shipped to Port Jackson, NSW, where it will hang for a bit before landing in the soon-to-be-settled flat. moving life. all of it. relatively easy and straight-forward. except for some of the customs restrictions, but those were obvious and minor. so it goes.

finally got some photos of the table Bill made for me. he did an outstanding job on it. simple, elegant, giving all the attention to the luxurious black walnut wood stock that languished so long in the garage.

otherwise, time moves. relative and possibly unjust. with its velocity and accelerations, decelerations, suspensions. all towards the ensuing shift.

images churned out. from a machine. but images show so little of the loved land, how it is loved, how it is felt, experienced, how embodied self is immersed in it.

make it to the all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at the Congregational church for once. have a chat with a native Arizonan originally from Winslow now living in Chino. we talked about water. then there is a chance meeting with John McCain before the parade starts. he's there every year, it's a tradition, especially this year, a re-election year in the Senate coming up. he looked old and tired. he was with a squad of Young Republicans. they did not appear to know what they were doing, but were doing that enthusiastically. or so. very glad that he is not president now. otherwise, this largely conservative town shows its patriotic and political fervor on a hot and sunny desert highland day.

deLightful dinner with the Dewey gals, nice to meet Kaolin after 18 years or so, and to meet Emery after the same. an after-dinner twiLight walk is shockingly intersected by a coiled rattler or so. my foot was only a meter away and ready to swing that direction. not a good place to plant the Self. the twiLight was dense enough that there was some doubt as to the reality of rattler-ness, no rattles were sounded and we didn't press our luck. 'nuf said.