Being a person who was raised in a city, the country side scares me. Even after staying in it for almost 7 years, there are some things about the vast Australian outback that leaves me with a kind of unsettling feeling. It's not that Australia has most of the world's most poisonous creatures, that much actually makes me feel a little at ease. It's the "quietness", the calm, the country feel, that makes me feel like there is something really really wrong.

To be honest, I miss the chaos and raw primal energy that comes from a city. I miss the hustle and bustle, the noise and the culture that a sleepless metropolis possesses. I grew up in that cauldron of fire and for better or for worse, that insanity is part of my DNA. One I can't open wield in country town where I am.

For years, when on university campus, I could not sleep because silence and darkness was what greeted me at night. These days, renting an apartment next to the train tracks acts as a nightly lullaby and a reminder of a time when I used to live, even if it was considered suburbia, in the city. It is the best thing I can do in the face of a situation that is a perpetual work in progress, even if it does little to ease my constant craving to return to a world where a sharp wit isn't just your only weapon and the culture is one I still enjoy listening to on a warm, unyielding night, sipping my ice cold chocolate drink.