Well, I’ve been in Sydney for about a week so far. The first week out of ~12.
It seems to have gone so fast, but also agonisingly slow.
It’s over a week since I saw my girlfriend. Since I got to hold her in my arms and kiss her.
It’s over a week since my last day at ANAT. Since I started the running jump which will likely end in Films on the Fly taking off, or myself falling flat on my face, without money, without a job and without dignity.
So far this week I’ve done some PHP coding on the Multipath platform. Not much, but just enough to get frustrated at my lack of Flex programming skills and also enough to remember that I’M CRAZY! What was I thinking? I don’t work alone very well, and I know this.
I need to be around people. I need to be working with people, bouncing ideas off them. Seeing them work and feeding off it, multiplying it and returning it back ten fold. But I can’t really afford to pay anyone.
Thankfully the reason I haven’t done as much coding as I’d like is because I’ve been networking and settling down. Meeting with people at the Push Start Mentors Live! event. Meeting with Peter at Fishburners (which is right next door… Like the exact next building). I met up with Katrin and Bart of Zero Mail, plus Marc and some other entrepreneurs at the Silicon Beach Drinks night.
I hung out with David Zwolski, Ziggy, Albert and other members of the Sydney Zeitgeist Movement chapter. I spent a lot of time on Skype and Team Speak talking to David, plus reading a lot of his emails and vice versa. But it was good to finally meet him. He’s a lot younger and taller than I expected. With his full length trench coat and long wavy hair he looked a bit like Neo from The Matrix.
He’s offered to let me crash at his place whilst I’m in Sydney. For the whole 3 months. The catch : It’s a 10min bus ride and 40min train trip from the Sydney CBD. I’m catching up with him tomorrow so will see what happens, although I’m still at the backpackers hostel for another week…. unless the Major General gets a little too ansy.
Dorm
In the hostel that I’m currently staying at is 3 other guys. The two young asians on the other bunk-bed are almost always on their laptops. One’s halfway through watching the entire 10 seasons of Friends. The guy in the bed below me is apparently a Major General in the Thailand Air Force. I’ll nick name him ‘KI’ for the moment.
He’s friendly…. too friendly. He somewhat creeps me out. It started with giving everyone a quick hug goodnight. The next night his daughter gave him too much food and as I was arriving late and just wanted something small I had a little of it to eat before he threw the rest out. It was nice general caring and sharing. He seemed to be a nice oldish guy that was culturally or personally a bit more touchy feely than what I’m used to.
The next night he not only hugged me goodnight he kissed me on the cheek.
The night after he wanted me to kiss him goodnight (and brought his cheek right up to mine). I resisted, but not overly.
Thankfully I got in so late the next night that he was already asleep when I arrived.
Tonight, as I got into the room he was already lying in bed. I was taking off my jacket (having walked 3km from the office) and he said he wanted to see my body….
All that said, I don’t know if I’ll stay at the backpackers. Ask for a new dorm (and risk staying with people who are more likely to take my stuff), or if I’ll take up David’s offer early. In the mean time, there’s programming to be done!
BTW : Happy Rapture day!
