Day 49 - Return of the Yuzu

Hmm, yes.

May 27th, 2015

I woke up late today, and skipped the gym. There wasn’t enough time to do so and make it in time to meet a friend, Aussie/Irish Neev (no idea now to spell her name, that’s how it’s pronounced). I had met her near the yoga/park thing within Northbridge while she was writing poetry and waiting for the salsa lessons at Mustang. We covered a wide range of topics, and she taught me a few interesting things about music, reading, and Game of Thrones. We wandered around once we left San Churro in search of a good people watching spot, but there didn’t happen to be any close by. The topic of “defining moments” came up, as she had given a speech on it at some leadership conference in the recent past. She shared hers, and then it came to mine...

San Churro Wall Art

My defining moment - a moment that shaped who you are - would be back in 4th year when I met a guy named Adam Clarke. Up until that point in my life, I think I took the more common perspective that whatever skills/traits (humour, creativity, etc) you had were the ones you had, and the others were out of reach. I had constantly heard people whine “Oh, I wish I could play an instrument…” only to be followed by the ever-defeatist, excuse-for-lack-of-action “…But I just don’t have the talent for it.” This enrages me now, yet I believed it back then. You want to be a certain person or have a certain skill? Make yourself uncomfortable, and push yourself hard - do both consistently and you will have exactly what you want. I don’t care if you think your excuse is oh-so-special and your circumstance is oh-so-difficult. It’s not. Don’t be so arrogant; people have had it way worse and gotten way further. This entire spiel is a result of Adam planting some ideas all the way back then, though they’ve been given several years of experimentation to develop the fury it has behind it now.

I walked Neev to the train station, expecting Yuzu to arrive back in town somewhere in the same vicinity. Turns out she won’t be, and is catching a bus near my place. She had found a way to escape the farm and return to Perth - Hooray! I walk to Russell Square after grabbing a box of food, eating while I waited. 

Just in a random public washroom

After some confusion, we meet up and make it back to my place. She is exhausted and hasn’t spoken much for the past 2-3 weeks, let alone practiced her English. Both of these combine to make it difficult to converse. Instead, we make curry. I’m not hungry, but she is, and I knew she wouldn’t have let me make the curry if it was only for her. I let the implication linger until the food was ready. Haha, sucker.

I introduce her to “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Key and Peele,” and “Adventure Time.” She can’t really follow any of them, but seemed to enjoy the time to sit and do nothing. On the farm, she said there was a lot of rules, it was not a comfortable place (socially, I think), and she had to pick/package apples and pears. She brought some as gifts for me, which I have yet to taste.

She went to bed a fair bit before me (11) on the couch with a candle burning. Around 12:30, I blew out the candle, and went to bed, myself.