Stress. What Else is New?

So in a lot of ways this week has been disappointing. We drove down to the lake on Wednesday, put on wetsuits, got in the water, sat on the boat, and Valissa was helping me get the wakeboard on when the boat suddenly died and wouldn't restart. We sat there for a half hour to an hour trying to get it to work, but it didn't, so we went and ate pizza instead. The only good part was that I got to see red-tailed black cockatoos in the wild, which was pretty cool. Hopefully we can try again sometime before I leave.

When I got home I decided to check my bed one more time. I found a live bedbug, so I squashed it and put it in a plastic bag as evidence. Then I found two shed skins, one on the bed and one in my suitcase. Gross. I slept on the couch and got covered in new bites - enough that the next day I took benedryl to make the itching stop and then was loopy and dopey all day. Valissa and Holly rightly told me I needed to move out.

I called to set up a meeting with a guy who runs the sharehouse, but it's all the way across town from my house so I'd have to somehow move all my stuff there, after washing it thoroughly. I called Berenice to see if I could keep my clean/new stuff there while I tried to move it and she said I could just come live with her so after asking about seventeen times if she was really sure I said okay. I went to a laundromat and brought a first load of stuff - just enough to get me through the next few days. I washed and dried everything on the hottest setting, and I dried it for almost a full hour. Heat is supposed to be the only thing that kills the things. Unfortunately, it also shrinks things. Including my brand new sweatshirt. Crap. But it's clean! Valissa's partner gave us a mattress (and later a base for it) and we took it all over to Berenice's house. I'm terrified that I'm going to infest it, so I'm being as careful as I possibly can. Not bringing anything over until it's been washed, as soon as I come into the house in clothes that have been to the old house I change and put the old ones in plastic bags in the backyard. I'll feel like the scum of the universe if I get bedbugs in her brand new house (and in Valissa's mattress) thereby infecting the two people here who have been really really wonderful and helpful to me through this whole thing. But if I had gone to the sharehouse there was no way I could get any laundry done that night, so I couldn't have moved and would have had to be bitten for another night.

Luckily, the owners have been really nice about the whole thing. I sent them some information on exterminators and called a few but they were all thoroughly unhelpful. I have a lot of cleaning - both of my stuff and their stuff - to do before I can fully leave the house, and it's going to take a lot of time. A lot of time that I should be devoting to my paper! This is ridiculous and I'm never going to get done on time.

I'm also scared because they recommend putting books in the oven on 120 degrees for 3 hours in order to get bedbugs out of them. Not only do I have mostly other peoples' books here, but I have assignments in notebooks that I need to turn in! Plus some nostalgic papers and stuff that I want to keep but don't know if I can. Plus I feel like I'm going to burn the house down. I've already just bought a new suitcase and am going to trash the old one. I might be doing that with my backpack, too. Too many little cracks and crevices for them to live in. Augh! This is taking up way too much of my time/energy and making me worry way more than I have been since I've been here and it's driving me crazy.

Last night was rugby which was also more or less disappointing. It turned out it wasn't the Allblacks, and they didn't do the haka. I was misinformed. It was still fun to watch, but none of the people I was sitting with really knew what was going on either, and with most sports I found my attention wandering because I'd rather play than watch. It ended up being the Western Force (Australia) and the Crusaders from New Zealand. The Force was way behind for most of the game but then came back to win it, which was pretty sweet. Also they played the Imperial March when the Crusaders came out, which made me happier than it should have. Also I enjoyed sitting near the crazy screaming fans. The guy behind me was especially loud and especially excitable. They were screaming "Go the Force" instead of just "Go Force" too, which made me giggle.

Oh! And I bought french fries from a stand called "American Fast Foods" where they were flying not only the American flag, but also the Confederate one. Awkward. They were serving something called a "dagwood dog" which Berenice's boyfriend asked if it was really American. I think it was something like a corndog. He said they have corndogs here, but it's just deepfried corn. Weird.

I still can't decide if it's worth going to Brisbane/Gold Coast for a couple of days or if I should spend a couple more days in Sydney or if I should just go home after Uluru. Gah!

Not a horrific week, just less good than it could have been. I have a lot of things to stress out about and it's hard to determine which ones I should stress over first. But I suppose I have to remember that if I were at school it would be much the same, only replace bedbugs and travel plans with yet more papers and finals.

Interesting Australian facts:

A comforter is called a "doona"

Australians are not very good at houses. They don't do insulation, or storm windows, or central air or heating, or really much of anything. Having individual air conditioners in every room makes a lot of sense and worked perfectly well at my host family's in Cairns, we only used them in the room we were in. It was nice. Less good for heat, since two of the houses I've been in have only had one heater for the main room and that's it, plus you wouldn't need as many heaters if you had insulation. But, you know, whatever.