5 years

today marks 5 years that i've lived in australia. i celebrated by having a tooth pulled. last nite most of a tooth came out when i had my first bite of my dinner (gnocchi-- not even a hard food). it was a pretty decayed tooth that had a root canal done and there wasn't much left to it. i was able to get a dentist appointment this afternoon and had the rest pulled. i HATE dentists because i had a horrible one as a child and i associate dentists with large amounts of pain (even for a checkup). the guy i had today was really good. the only time i was in pain was when he did the forth and final needle to numb my mouth (and he warned me beforehand and apologized that that one would hurt). it took him ages to get out just because he couldn't get a grip on it but i never had any pain. i went straight back to work when he was done (much to everyone's shock). the dentist warned me to take pain killers before the numbness wore off and i did as soon as i could feel a bit of aching pain. i made it thru the afternoon and its still not bad (i'm a little worried about tomorrow though because even though it wasn't hard to pull, he was poking at it for about 45 minutes so that's gotta make the gums a bit tender and sore by tomorrow). fortunately i was already planning on making vegan cream of broccoli soup tonite before the whole incident happened so i had an easy meal to eat (chewing is just way too much effort when i have to do it all on one side).
crazy to think 5 years ago i arrived here on a 1 year working holiday visa, moved into a share house on brunswick street, had no job, very little money to my name and wasn't sure how long i could go without a car. now i have a nice 2 bedroom house (rented), a dog, a husband, a good job with people i like, permanent residency and no reason to own a car.