Older and Socialable

I have been grappling with a feeling I'm not used to lately. When I was younger, traveling long term felt extremely exciting, and I felt nimble and able to move around without much hassle. Over the last year or two, however, I can feel myself starting to slow down in my long-term travel plans. I am less interested in moving all over the globe constantly, and more interested in shorter travel itineraries with a home base somewhere (that "where" is still a big question mark). I feel like I'm looking around for a home base, where I want to settle down.

It kind of feels like my wheels are getting rusted up, or are just harder to move. Kind of like an old vehicle that needs a lot of greasing up to get anywhere. It is a lot more work to move. This feeling unsettles me, as I love traveling and have always felt my best when on the go. I don't know, maybe I'm changing as a person as I age, and I'm wanting something more solid - though I have set that "solid" bar pretty low so far. Or maybe I just want to know that I won't be alone every time I get up and move somewhere else. I'm working on it.

Despite this downer feeling, some fun things have still been going on. I went to a networking event last week for young water professionals with a group called AWA. Much to my surprise, the event was mostly a panel for the attendees on how to network. I have always assumed everyone learns how to network in school, but I guess not. In business school we did, anyways - it was practically graded! I appreciated the lecture, and learned little nuggets of usefulness, but overall I had to remind myself that I am not coming from the same place as everyone else in the water world. I come from the other side of the world, in more ways than one. In the time we did get to network, I ended up chatting up with a few fascinating people, including one of the panelists who essentially seemed like who I'll be in 15 years time.

Since living in Brisbane, it's become very clear just how much of an extrovert I am. Especially in the classroom. Out of 19 students in my program, we are all pretty confident that I’m the only extrovert out of all of us. Most are engineers, and I guess it makes sense that they would be introverts, but I am not used to being the only extrovert around me. I know extroversion versus introversion is a scale and all, but it seems like I'm definitely strongly on one side of that scale. It’s a bit unsettling at times, because I feel like I’m extremely chatty in class….and there are some attributes to being an introvert about which I'm envious. On the other hand, my classmates comment on my networking abilities and how I am able to pick up a conversation with most people in any situation.

I had Sunday brunch with the Bus Boys (Drew & Nelson) and ended my Sunday enjoying sangria with some of their friends, which was really fun. One of the ladies in the group has offered me her mountain bike on loan so I can more freely practice my bicycling skills in the city. I think I may take her up on the offer.

Other than that, I've been working hard on classwork around the clock for the most part. Nothing new and exciting to report while I continue my assimilation into Aussie culture. Except they're a lot more comfortable walking around barefoot on public streets than I am used to.