Decisions, decisions...

Get this... I'm sitting in an Allgemeine Psychologie lecture... the lecturer has certain slides on the screen, but keeps talking about something else... I'm also sick... so can't really understand anything that's going on. But thanks to the WIFI I can log onto the World Wide Web and crawl around like a spider.

Thank you guys for everyone who commented and emailed. ...

Zoich... talk to you tonight!
Anch ... I miss you too!!! Thank you for being your wonderful self. or ish...
Olchik... allright... more personal stuff - been dreaming of snakes again... the other night woke up screaming - means I'm feeling guilty about smth. Worked out why I was feeling guilty and decided that I shouldn't feel guilty about it. So last night had another dream with snakes, but these were in cages, so I actually slept through it... progress. This usually happens when I'm really stressed. PS: where in US are you going to be? PPS: degree stuff follows...
Julia... the problem with us is that we do need to produce a more long term plan... because my professional life depends on it... that's why we kind of need to decide this now. I'll explain...
Tanya... we thought about doing a pro's and con's list... but there are almost equal amount of pro's and con's at either Berlin or Melbourne... And the gut... well the gut tells me to come back... but the reason says I shouldn't go just by my gut. Actually after talking intensively about this for the last couple of days we've managed to confuse ourselves what was originally our gut feel :)

So what things are there that are important for us:

1. my degree... here I'm enrolled for a Bachelor of Psych, which takes 3 years, and then I'd have to do another 2 years Masters = 5 years. In Melbourne I'm still enrolled into a Grad Dip in Psych (but this is the last year for which I can get academic leave, so if we stay in Berlin now my place will be gone - which is why this decision issue came up right in this time), which now I can do in one year full time, plus 1 year Honours, and 2 years Masters = 4 years. On one hand the course here is free, in Australia I'll prolly end up paying close to 50,000-100,000 in HECS/HELP/WHATEVERITSCALLEDNOW . On the other hand there is no guarantee that the Berlin course will get accredited in Australia, which will mean that on top of these 5 years I'll have to study another... 1-2-3-4-5 years... That of course if we come back to Australia in a couple of years from now.

2. real estate... here we can buy a flat relatively cheaply and pay it off in about 10 years... in Australia it looks close to impossible, and this is something that is fairly important to us together.

3. then of course there are a number of other factors - like our wonderful friends, who are in Melbourne, or the fact that Melbourne is more comfortable since we grew up there. On the other hand, here in Europe we have a great opportunity to travel and see the world and I'm closer to my parents geographically... it takes 8 hours to fly instead of 2 days.

Basically it's tough. Right now we are leaning towards staying here... but then later if we end up having kids, we'd both like to raise them in Melbourne. But that moment hasn't come yet, so right now it's not a consideration.

I guess one thing I want to say... this is less of a blog entry, but a cry to the world... sort of. ... what I want to say to all of you - our amazing, and loved friends and family - we do love you all, and this decision is even harder because of it. But in this time we're trying to find a decision that will be the "most right" for both of us right now in this point in time and for the next couple of years... We have kind of realised that whatever we'll decide, we'll regret something else and in this way, there isn't a right or wrong decision, or a decision with which we could be 100% happy.
I am not sure that I completely agree with this, but somehow I really liked this quote:

"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live." ~Flora Whittemore~