I think this is a mid-life crisis and I'm not even thirty yet.
Most of my friends are calling what I have done brave, bad ass, and awesome...while I'm over here leaning into child's pose with tears streaming down my face.
I have been in Western Australia for almost five months and still don't feel quite at home...and please don't say I'm "homesick" because it isn't home that I am sick for at the moment.
Let's start with me living in Perth.
I uprooted myself from a very well-paid job, with fantastic benefits and connections that I had almost three years of work experience with, in my hometown where my entire immediate family was no more than 45 minutes away. I left my cat in the care of my parents. I left behind a vacancy for the overnight and weekends hospital responders of DCRC. I left my burlesque community. I left my theatre friends. I left my girls' nights, GoT potlucks, sand volleyball league (s/o to my Red Hot Volley Peppers!), my Shakori Hills' family, etc. I left all of my friends and family and moved across the world, to the Southern Hemisphere for what I thought would be the only Master's program I would need to fulfill my dreams of becoming a sex therapist.
When I landed in Perth, after being dropped off at my hostel, I was able to take my first breath and realize that this was my new city. I did a lot of walking around the city, got my first bus card, attended a performance at Fringe Festival, saw Black Panther in the theatre (theatres here are hella frantic, especially on premiere days), and ate some delicious Pad Thai. Finally, on day five, I moved into what I thought would be my home for the next year.
With little to no money, I used my In Case of Emergency (ICE) credit card for about the first month and a half of living here, buying the essentials getting moved in and making sure I had a local cell phone, sheets on the bed, a towel for my showers, etc. My refund on my student loan did not come before having to ask my parents to send me money for rent, to make sure I would still be able to live where I was at the time. As someone who worked full time for the past five years, being unemployed was a new low, and being unemployed in a foreign country feels even lower.
Getting to know my roommates, which at the time I moved in were three female undergraduate freshmen and one female undergraduate sophomore, was a bit interesting. Things got even more interesting when I discovered the roommate that I would be sharing a bathroom with was our only male housemate, and he was a 24 year-old graduate student. Six people living in one household is a lot. Adding on top of that that I was about ten years older than everyone living there made things even more complicated. Things were alright in the beginning, the first month and a half we set up one night a week for each roommate (except one) to handle dinner for the housemates. I enjoyed it, but like a lot of good things, it didn't last. The sophomore and myself agreed to still keep up sharing dinners one night or two a week, and even went grocery shopping together. She was my saving grace, the reason I stayed sane as long as I did in that house. As the time passed on, sharing a bathroom with a male became problematic. He had issues with keeping the shared spaces clean, i.e. kitchen counter tops, stove, sink and mirror clean, etc. One day sent me over the edge though, when I came into the bathroom to find he had spit into my mug that kept my toothbrush and onto my toothbrush, which was one of the only things I kept on the counter. After that violation of my personal space and belongings, I had had enough. After discussing this issue with multiple friends, I decided to start looking at other living options. The stress was getting to me and I was not sleeping well or handling my stress well. After only two months of living in Bentley, I found a new place in Inglewood and moved out.
In April, I moved to Inglewood and have been paying two rents until this week! I have been waiting for my former landlord to find someone to sublet it, and finally a new person has moved in...But that is three months worth of rent I paid on two places, and guess what? My funds are dried up. I am still unemployed and it is harder to find a job than one might think when I am restricted to only part-time work, with a max of 40 hours of work fortnightly. Again, I embarrassingly had to ask my parents for money after trying to look for a job and being unsuccessful here in my new place. Australia is still very new to the idea of unlimited data plans for internet, so in the past few months I have been struggling with living on less internet usage than normal, when in the States that was ALL I used because cutting cable was actually cheaper. The irony is not lost on me when I have to watch whatever is on tv because the household needs to be mindful of its data usage. The fridge died recently, and I had to purchase the new one costing A$300 on my ICE credit card. It looks as though as of last night, our oven may need to be worked on and one of the stove top burners is not working either. Thankfully those came with the house, so the landlord has to handle them. My shower leaks and may need to be re-grouted, but that still has yet to be done, but again that is a landlord issue to be dealt with on their time and dime.
There have been positives of moving into my new place, I have a bedroom to myself with a queen-size bed, en suite bathroom, my own personal balcony, walk-in closet, and technically two roommates (one lives mostly with their partner) who are both female and are around my age. I am within walking distance of my grocery store, less than a block, and only one bus ride to other shopping. There are plenty of restaurants and cafes nearby, and I'm only one bus ride into the city. This place has been so much more convenient for me, and has allowed me to be a bit more independent than my last house.
Let's move on to discuss how my first semester of grad school went...
Grad school, after completing my first semester, is very much self-led learning. Less time in the classroom, more time spent working on classwork outside of the classroom.
For people who like to know numbers, this semester:
I read over 183 journal articles.
I wrote seven essays culminating in over 11,000 words.
I spent two weeks living in the library with classmates studying for my only final of the semester, which had over 60 pages of research we created as a group that went into two google doc study guides.
My highest grade on my essays was an 88, while my lowest was a 62 (which is still a pass here), so far...Still waiting on one final essay grade, but I am not thinking it will be that low...fingers crossed.
I'm expecting to sit on an average in the 70s for the semester, and while I am not happy about that, it is consider Distinction and passing marks for every class.
As my first semester of grad school has come to a close, I have had time to reflect on it. A lot of bull shit has happened this semester. A lot of my grades were not received within the university assessment policies guidelines surrounding time frame, and a lot of my feedback on my essays was very vague, and at times not constructive criticism. Lots of excuses were made when valid questions were asked, and course instructors were placing blame on others, making things seem very childish and unprofessional. Also, I learned in my block-intensive week course that this degree is a supplement to a Master's of Psychology/Counselling/Therapy/Social Work and that upon graduation, I will not be able to be a licensed therapist and start working in sex therapy...or even Education, since I do not have that background either. Basically, this is a specialization within a degree masked as it's own Master's. I feel shafted by Curtin, and this Master's program because they did not explicitly lay this information out on their website and most of all my wallet's depth just keeps expanding at the thought that I will need more educational training following this degree to perform the job of my dreams, which I'm not even sure of anymore at this point.
This degree quite literally is setting me back another 1-2 years...This is going back to the very first thought in this post that I am having a mid-life crisis because I feel so LOST. I came into this program so empassioned by the work I was doing in my hometown, wanting to further that work and get paid to do it, rather than just voluntarily do it outside of my cube farm day job. I still want to help people enjoy sex. I still want that, but now...now I am slightly lost on whether I want to continue into trauma-informed care, or whether I want to work in public health policy...or I don't know, dabble a bit in both?
Australians are lucky. They have what is called a HECS Debt that pays for their schooling up front and after the student receives their degree or just drops out, they pay it off over time. Me? As an international student, I have had to pay upfront for this Master's degree, just like in the States, and while I am diving into over $50K in debt, I am unsure whether I want to increase that debt with my second year of this program, or start looking at other options that are less expensive back in the States or nearby Canada...I just have a lot of thoughts, especially being broke, alone, with about a month off before the second semester kicks up, and I am feeling completely helpless with my current unemployment status. I just don't know whether this is worth my time and it really hurts my feelings because I've wanted this all of my life and now that I am here, I feel underwhelmed, unenthused, and just disappointed. Things aren't always sunny in one of the sunniest places in the world and I am feeling it.
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