Hi again!
It’s been a month since I left the US. That’s wild. I know that time can’t actually speed up, but it feels like this month has been one of the fastest I’ve ever experienced. Or that might just be because February is so short.
Anyway, it’s Day 28. I’ve settled into life here in Sydney, made some friends, seen some sights, made some travel plans, and done some schoolwork. But I’m having a little trouble leaving home behind.
That’s not to say that I’m homesick. I miss my friends and family, sure, but I’m doing great here. Home, however, has other plans.
For those of you who don’t know (and some of you should maybe write this down) there is currently a 15-hour time difference between Sydney and New York/Boston. For reference, it’s 12:30 PM on Sunday here in Sydney. In New York, it’s 9:30 PM on Saturday. That’s a big difference to wrap your head around. And it’s only for the next two weeks. Then, we change the clocks here (fall back for autumn), and the time difference shrinks to 14 hours.
I’ve pretty much figured out the time difference, but I also have a dual clock on my phone that always tells me what time it is back home. What I’ve discovered is that no one ever looks up what time it is in Australia. They always ask me. Maybe it’s silly of me to be annoyed by that, but it’s so easy to find out (and honestly not that hard to calculate) what time is if you know the time zone (which is also easy to find out).
Usually, this ignorance of the time doesn’t cause too many problems. My friends and family are all aware that a large time difference means gaps in conversations. And most formal communication is done by email, so a few hours of waiting isn’t unusual.
Sometimes, though, things happen in the middle of the night. This week, Brandeis released the lottery numbers for housing selection. It was supposed to happen on Wednesday afternoon, which for me was super late on Wednesday night. I stayed up a little bit too late waiting, but the numbers didn’t come out until 12:30 PM (3:30 AM), after I’d gone to sleep. And that was frustrating, but it was only one night, right?
WRONG. There was a problem, so they had to rearrange some things. I stayed up until 4 the next morning waiting for the numbers to come out (they’d promised numbers would be out by noon EDT). I went to sleep a second time without knowing if my number would be good enough to get housing.
This conflict has been resolved (I can live on campus!), but it caused me so much stress over the last few days that I just needed to kvetch about it a little more. Thanks for putting up with my rant.
As a reward, here’s a picture of a used bookstore I found!
I’m off to the beach now, because the weather’s still good here and it’s the middle of the day. See you next Sunday!
Emily
Emily
Bonus Tip: If you want to be able to check out time differences, you can Google “what time is it in [City]". If you want to see what time it will be in that city at some future time (for scheduling purposes and the like), check out worldtimebuddy.com
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