It was just over five years ago that I moved to New York City from Sydney, Australia where I had lived for almost two years. That same week, I discovered Flickr and found a new home for my photography. After a few months of sleeping on an air mattress, our stuff finally arrived from Australia and we began to settle into our new home in the big city. The first few weeks felt like being on vacation, not permanent residence.

I have become used to my new morning routines that have come with the new job. I walk to Wall Street every morning, grab a coffee, jump on a crowded subway that zips me under Manhattan past Fulton, past Union Square, past Grand Central, exiting finally at 59th street. Three stories up the stairs and I finally get to see the daylight on a short five block walk that takes me to my building. After the fourty-five minutes of standing on the subway I have noticed a pattern in the passengers including myself in behaviour, Many people stare at the floor or look at the ads above the seats, most look like they are not happy with where they are going. iPods have saved all of us from acknowledging the crazies or one another for that matter. I like the crazies. They make the ride interesting and they make me feel oh so very normal. I keep making myself smile, to not become one of them. I probably look like one of the crazies.

I find that when I get really down, I start to analyze myself and the things around me as being normal or out of sorts. Am I the one doing things wrong or is the world doing me wrong? It's usually an equal chance of either way but I can account for what I do and the world does as it pleases. Since all I can change is myself, I try to focus on that. You can accept the world as being fair or unjust but you still have to find a way to fit in it.

I once read that when we express anger, we are expressing what we hate about ourselves. We all have regrets and have done things we wish we hadn't. Those regrets and the guilt associated with them weigh on us and shape us into who we are. This is actually good for us to a point; our consciousness needs to be reminded of consequences but some of us out there, we're junkies for it. We need to feel regret and pain or we feel nothing at all because being satisfied just isn't all that satisfactory after some time.

Dear 2005,

I regret that my vocabulary, nay the English language, doesn't have enough adjectives available to describe in full detail the amount to which you fully sucked this past year.

Universally, I'm sure you killed off some really cool star systems that could have been useful to the grand scheme of things or at least interesting to look at. But, you killed the Hubble telescope so who cares anyway.

A few days ago, I decided that instead of flying from Sydney to Perth, I would take the Ghan Railway, I would ride on the Indian Pacific three days across the outback with a few stops along the way. It was more expensive than flying and certainly longer, but I wanted an experience that was unique.

The train was indeed an experience unique unto itself. It was a lot slower than I expected and the seats didn't accommodate sleeping very well. By day two I decided to bite the cost and upgraded to the sleeper cabin. It was amazing how different I was treated by the train staff when I asked to upgrade, you would have thought I had upgraded from Steerage to First Class on an Ocean Liner.