Sydney, AU

Well, as always, "it's been a minute." Summer has passed now, and I'm already two months into my time in Sydney, Australia, and one month into my studies. It's been quite a journey, with another two months to go flying blind as a bat. From occasionally going to bars to basketball and swimming to diving headfirst into pickleball, I like always just going with the flow. 

Well, to start, moving to a whole new city across the world with no known friends to be your life for 5 months is hard. The first few days are all joy, stuck in a new city with endless possibilities to explore, but everything loses its glamor. Soon, you're stuck with the realization that you have no one, feeling stuck alone on an island. You have to figure everything out, from cooking to only using public transport, a 70 thousand-student school, friends, a routine, things like what food to buy, fastest routes to walk a mile just for groceries. It got dark, figuring things out was like a lifeline, giving you something to do, with no real friends to see or family or even pets. That feeling of isolation slowly creeps up and consumes you, even as an introvert. 

Funny enough, my lifelines were the things I despised: pickleball and swimming from spending a whole day trying to buy a pickleball paddle, which I found myself in a residential neighborhood questioning if it was just an online business selling pickleball paddles and meeting the kindest small business owner, Vus, to diving back into swimming. Vus, the owner of mypickleball.com.au, treats you like family; they spent 2 hrs playing with me and letting me try different paddles, even dropping me off at the bus stop to save me a 40-minute walk. However, the pickleball scene in Sydney is abysmal if you, like me, live in the city and rely on public transport to go places. It's either an hour on public transport to play for 1.5 hrs or pay 20 dollars to play with a group that's only about profit; with 2000 members, it puts everyone together advanced with beginners; it's no fun. So, I've started my own pickleball group with 6 people right now, playing on outdoor courts. However, not to toot my own horn, I'm godly on outdoor courts and just outplay my group, which is a dilemma. It's just that I don't feel pressure from them and I can just play however I want. And for a reason I can't explain, I'm playing pickleball cause it's fun, but trying to get better so I can make my mom better when I get back. 

Swimming, well, I joined the swim club when I rejoined my college swim team, and I guess I have to be in some sort of shape when I go back. The hard thing is, I don't have any goals, nothing to strive for. I just wanted to be with my friends more back in my home college, but I can't just be an empty figure on the team. Although it's been good to maintain my physique, which I know is not good, but something I put a lot of effort into maintaining. 

However, being an introvert, which is questionable, the greatest thing is basketball. Going to the local park with friends that I've made in my building, of whom come from places like Maryland to China. Playing pickup with Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Australian, and French locals, from old to young. The community and people you meet are mindblowing and make the game even more fun. Learning about other people's story and what they do, all while laughing and talking with each other over a game. 

Though I am only halfway through, wow already halfway done, I have fulfilled what I wanted to do here. It was a place where my parents and even family friends questioned why I chose it, but it is a choice I don't regret. The lesson of living frugally, which my dad tried so hard to instill in me, having learned here to be more grateful for my situation and that just because I can doesn't mean I should. To the small things of having a car back home, having to walk 25 minutes just to the grocery store, and hauling everything back. Not having my mom cook every meal, I now have to cook and think of what to eat for every meal. To reach out, be comfortable going alone, join random pickleball groups, and now creating my own group with people I have only met once or twice. All of which will be needed when I eventually go on my path after college to work in states and places I've never been. I have experienced the ability to adapt and get a taste of being somewhere you don't have a network, no family or family friends to make life easier, and having to figure everything out yourself. Though any country I would have chosen would lead to the same experiences, something only here is the people, people from Asia, Europe, America, and from all over the world, and truly nobody, not a single person from my home college, well one but for we are very different. 

So far, it has been a beautiful experience that I could never have imagined, but that's the beauty of it: not knowing what will happen.