Red Red Wine

On Sunday there was a wine tasting event in a park in Watson's Bay. I took the ferry there with a friend and met a few other mutual friends and had a nice afternoon in the park with some low key live music. Scarlett Bubbles  was the winner, as far as I'm concerned. I actually bought a bottle, which I only do if I really like something. 

In current events, I have heard a little bit of the news about another unfortunate shooting in the US. After this, I looked up online how many mass/school shootings have happened in the US since I left, and the number is close to 40. I looked up the same stat for Australia and there hasn't been one since 2012. I think The Onion sums it up well with the title to this article: 

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

I won't talk at great length about this or get into politics, however, all I can say is I do sometimes feel safer in a country that has more deadly animals than any other than in my home country working at an educational institution.

I have been pondering a somewhat related thought lately. What am I supposed to do with news, good or bad, that I hear from home? The internet makes it very easy for us to stay in contact now even though we are across the world from most family and friends, and yet sometimes it is nothing but a tease. We hear about something really fun that we missed, or someone new got engaged or is now pregnant or had a baby and we know we won't be able to see them for a year. We hear news about someone getting sick or a friend's family member dying and we can only do so much about it to "be there" for those people. 

I thought at one point that coming back to the states after this time abroad would be like the other times I left my hometown to travel for extended periods. Things would be a little bit different but pretty much go back to feeling normal after a short period of time. I'm starting to think that this time there might be enough changes that when we get back it really won't be the same. I suppose only time will tell, and I suppose it doesn't really matter, since it's something we can't control anyway. I can't expect to return and press play as thought everyone was on pause the whole time we were gone. And when we go back, I'm sure we will be different too somehow. Hopefully, for the better.

Michael is of the school that I shouldn't check social media as much as I do, since he doesn't pay much attention to it. I mainly check it at the beginning and ending of the day so that I can feel like I at least have an idea of what is going on with everyone, which I don't think is too much. It certainly makes me think more about everyone at home than I would if I wasn't looking at status updates, for better or for worse. 

Anyway, contrary to the title song of this post, I think I should end on this note: