It's not much more than a week before I leave Canberra to spend a week with my family before flying to Texas. There has been a lot to sort out ahead of the move. I'm trying to take a minimalist approach to the moving process, getting rid of all but the absolute essentials. The only things in storage are books, CDs and artworks, and only the bare minimum of what can be taken overseas will be taken.

The original plan had been to write an entry for each day of the ride, but that fell away pretty quickly due to the sheer amount of things to get done. During the day it was a case of driving to the destination and getting things set up for when Simon and Paddy arrived. This usually meant finding a supermarket and buying loads of high energy foods and drinks. You get some odd looks when you buy chips, beer, bananas and chocolate at 10 in the morning. When the guys arrived, it meant getting them showered and fed and by then it was time for sleep.

Ahead of the big move there's been a lot of packing (and disposal) of things. It's amazing the amount of stuff you accumulate over the course of a few years in Canberra. Most of it is being sold off, but things like books and the music collection are going into storage. So it's meant packing a whole lot of stuff to put in the garage at my parents' place interstate. 

One of the biggest things when moving overseas is the inevitable culture shock. Even after a few times doing it you are never fully prepared; there's always something you'll miss, and more importantly, you'll have forgotten that you'll miss it. That's what usually hits hardest. Nevertheless it still helps to minimise the effect by making a list of stuff beforehand, just to steel yourself against the inevitable. 

Here's mine. It's largely food related, which may be manageable (it turns out you can get Indomie brand Mi Goreng from Amazon, so that didn't make the list… best student food ever). Obvious members of the list (friends, family and fellow artists) are omitted, because hey, they're obvious. If you have the chance to do/eat/get/hear some of the things on the list, do so.

Well, after much dithering, I've finally managed to get a website up and running. It's a mixed bag of being a catalogue of my various artistic endeavours in painting, music and poetry, but also a chance to put my various random (and they are random) thoughts in writing somewhere.