Sydney

Just as we are about to fly out over the Baltic Sea and begin our descent into Copenhagen, I find a minute to reflect on my week in Australia. As always, Jon and I talked a lot, there was plenty of coffee in the sun and some great vegetarian food. But most of all, coming back to Sydney created a sense of perspective on time itself. I smiled when I saw the bottles of Rolling with their bicycles even as I knew how frustrated I actually was that autumn in Melbourne, how incapable I felt of writing my PhD yet how meaningless it was to give in to self-pity. Total loss, yes, but I was still alive and resorting to cynicism would only make it worse.

Meanwhile, the world went on. Obama became president, I ran 10-15 km every other day and, in the end, I even made some limited progress on my PhD. I got to see New Zealand, the Great Ocean Road and Coogee Beach. How reckless one can be with time when one is not a parent. I remember reading eight hundred pages long novels about alternative universes, writing lengthy blog posts on the financial crisis and spending days just walking around without direction.

Ok, time to land. Apparently, Copenhagen is reporting fog and twelve degrees. Already very far from the Sydney sun.