Slinky adapts to her evolutionary niche

It's somehow appropriate that one of the first lectures which I attend has to do with adaptation of a species.

There have been lots of changes in my environment. Chief amongst these is food. I've never had to buy my own food, let alone cook it. That's what boyfriends are for.

Cooking for one brings a whole host of problems, I find. Like how it's really difficult to go grocery shopping for just one person, and to plan your meals for the next week on the spot. And you end up eating the same damn thing for the next two days for lunch and dinner. And it is a pain in the arse trying to maintain a balanced diet of meat, vegetables, fruit and carbs when cooking for one because it means buying teeny amounts of many things and washing a hell of a lot of stuff for just one session of cooking (Washing, bah. Modern day slavery).


One bowl. Much washing.


Where I usually am at mealtimes - planted in front of the trusty Toshiba

It doesn't help that I tend to get overexcited when it comes to grocery shopping. Take the brown rice, for example. I got so thrilled that brown rice was the same price as white jasmine rice that I promptly bought a 1kg bag. I am now heartily sick and bloody tired of brown rice and am eating my way through it as fast as possible. Gimme back the jasmine rice, macrobiotics be damned.

This morning, a friend of mine picks me up at the crack of dawn to go to a wholesale fresh food market. Note the word 'wholesale'. Naturally, I got overexcited at the sight of all that cheap fresh produce. I ended up with a massive carton of Carnarvon mangoes and a huge carton of baby Portobello mushrooms. We're talking about a truly ridiculous number of mushrooms here. I am drowning in mushrooms. There will be mushrooms in everything I cook for the next three weeks. I will be eating so many mushrooms that I will give people gout just by standing next to them. I wouldn't be surprised if mushrooms started sprouting from between my toes. But hey, at $10 for that many mushrooms, I can live with it. I'll just foist some on my unsuspecting housemates, that's all.


Free mushrooms for the person who correctly guesses the number in the box!


The best thing about this country, massive mangoes


Buying food like a redneck survivalist

Thank god for friends. I gave her half my mushrooms in exchange for a bunch of bananas (she had a whole carton), and a zucchini.

We went to Woolies after that, which was a really bad idea because I was still excited from the massive mushroom purchase, and so I ended up with more fruit and veg than I could probably eat before it went bad. This is even if, like the giant panda, I spend fourteen hours a day doing nothing but eating.

More foisting of produce on housemates is in order, I suspect.

I'm still thrown by the extremes of choice that I am faced with. On one hand, there is a terribly limited selection of the kinds of foods that I am used to. There's only a handful of brands of jasmine rice available, and forget about finding the Royal Umbrella brand, because I ain't seen it yet. And there appear to be only five types of Chinese vegetables available at the supermarkets. Frozen mixed vegetables don't count, nor does their 'Asian salad'. Hello, white people, Asians don't eat salad. Asians stir-fry the living bejesus out of everything with lashings of garlic and oyster sauce.

Then there's the other extreme, where I'm inundated with choices. For example, Australians, it seems, take their tissue paper very, very seriously. There was eucalyptus tissue paper, aloe vera tissue paper, hypoallergenic tissue paper, extra-thick tissue paper, cold-germ-killing tissue paper, triple-ply tissue paper, lavender scented tissue paper, rose scented tissue paper, tissue paper printed with teddy bears, tissue paper with a velvet texture, you name it, they have it. All except normal plain old twin-ply tissue paper which doesn't cost half your week's budget to blow your nose in. It's the same for their toilet paper. You can buy gold-embossed toilet paper if you want. I still feel deeply uncomfortable wiping my arse with toilet paper printed with happy little duckies.

I've had to get used to my own front door (which sticks and requires some shoulder-blocking technique in order to get the key to catch the lock, which I didn't know about at first, which left me stranded outside my own house one memorable day, (I moped at the lake near my house, and all the ducks waddled over to investigate me. I felt like a hobo), the fact that the mornings and nights are chilly (only I feel cold though, so my housemates bum around in shorts and singlets while I bundle up like a little snowman, wrapped in my quilt on the couch), the fact that bus schedules are wonky and a certain bus will not necessarily travel by the same way and stop at the same stops as the day before because it depends on what time of the day you're actually taking it (thus leaving m stranded in the middle of nowhere once with eight bags of groceries because I had to wait an hour for the next appropriate bus), and the fact that classes start at the crack of dawn (the earliest I've ever had to get up in a long long time), and the fact that I am a student again. I have to get used to the fact that shops close by about 5 or 6 and they don't open at all on Sundays, and the fact that my nose bleeds without fail every night because the weather is so dry.

More than anything else, I have to get used to the fact that all of you aren't here with me. I miss not being able to go clubbing with the Honey Trappers, or meeting them for coffee and cake and ice cream. I miss hanging out with The Other Cat and watching stupid shows and hanging by the pool and playing with the kittens. I miss shopping with SheWhoRunsInStilettoes and watching her do her "I know everyone who matters" routine. I miss having lunch with Ego. And having coffee with InfernoXV. I miss coming home and seeing Tesh bound up to the gate, fur flying everywhere and this great big doggie smile on her face. I keep thinking about bringing her here, because she would love it so much. I miss playing with Merlot, in all his grumpy glory. Most of all, I miss the million and one little things that The Boy and I did together, like curling up with him to go to sleep, and driving around to explore new places, and going fishing with him and FOB (Friend of Boyfriend) and eating Indian food and watching Buffy and just being able to call him up to talk and say, "Hey baby".

But despite all of that, I find that I have begun to think of this as home, and I cannot shake the feeling, despite moments of doubt, that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.