Single Rider

When I was 18, within the first fortnight of uni, I went on an SU organised trip to Alton Towers. I didn't get chatting to anyone on the bus, and I spent the day walking around on my own. In between rides, I was on the phone crying to my sister that I was a loner, a loser, that I could never make friends.

Yesterday, I went to Movie World on the Gold Coast. On my own. And I loved it. It's not that I didn't love Alton towers- I went single rider down all the big rides so I did them more than once and passed groups of other students in the lengthy queues. But I felt very alone, and I felt like I was a failure of a human being - so pathetic I had to go to theme parks on my own.

I knew I wanted to go to Movie World, and if it was to be on my own then so be it.  And I got on two rides faster because I was a single rider (no single rider queues here unfortunately). I didn't need to have anyone to go round with. I didn't need to phone my sister for a cry (although if I'd tried she'd have been asleep anyway because of the time difference). I watched the shows and took my time eating and did all the rides I wanted to do and I did some more than once.

Travelling has taught me how to talk to people more, how to start conversations, how to make friends. But it has also taught me how to be ok with my own company.

And yesterday taught me that when I become a millionaire, I'm going to own a theme park, and go there whenever I want. Because I love them and they are the best.

Looking for Inspiration, Still Searching for Illumination

Today is the 37th day of 2014. Today I finished yet another book on my 'List of Books to read' which is one of my New Yera's Resolutions.

The original list was:

    - Better than Fiction (collection of short stories, already started on iPhone)
    - Heart of Darkness (on iPhone)
    - Villette  (on iPhone)
    - On the Origin of the Species  (on iPhone)
    - Around the World in Eighty Days  (on iPhone)
    - White Men'll Never Do It (already started, paperback)
    - Bewitched & Bedevilled  (on iPhone)

I added to that list Kangaroo and Lady Chatterley's Lover, both by DH Lawrence, and have now read all of these books except one - On the Origin of the Species. I started it today, and I freely tell you now - I am going to struggle with this one. 

I have added to this resolution the following books that I already have downloaded onto my iPhone:
 - Grimms Fairy Stories
 - Treasure Island
 - Robinson Crusoe

I also have a book of Aboriginal Dreaming stories to read, and I'm really looking forward to it!


Today I also went some way to achieving another of my New Year's Resolutions. I went for a run, and in going for a run, I ran for 5k. I walked the first half-k, but after that, full on running. Well, yknow, jogging-running. and resolution no.5 is "5. Improve my health by exercising and healthy eating so that by the year's conclusion I am able to: -Run 5k..."

Well the healthy eating isn't really happening (I've just spooned the last drops from a jar of Nutella into my mouth), but the exercising is. It's hard to practice sit ups and push ups in a cramped dorm, but I plan to get over my self-consciousness and start doing them in the park. The same goes for Yoga. I was surprisingly flexible when I practised last night. Still not at the floor though. The resolution says by the end of the year. So I just need to keep practising! 


Just one more thing to note: I came to Australia to fall in love with the country, to work, and to maybe start a new life. I quite like the country, I've had a bit of work, but there's no life for me here. 
I am not ashamed to say that I misjudged this, that I miss home, that I miss the life I had. That I miss my mum, my dad, my sister, my nan, my grandad, my cat, my friends. That I miss my bed, and my things. That I don't miss the cold but I do miss cuddling up in my slanket in front of the Xbox. That I don't miss my bath and not having a shower but I do miss putting my shower gel and shampoo on the side of the tub and being able to leave it there. And I miss my mahusive bath towels. 
I am not ashamed that I thought I could come out here and work. I might not have tried my hardest, but when you sign up to a freelance database and all the runner jobs are going to Location Assistants and APs, you realise that maybe there just isn't the work for the inbetweener. I'm not far enough up the ladder. For a woman so focused on her career, having had nothing and no one else that truly mattered, this was really hard to come to terms with. But the blow was softened by enjoying the travels. Falling in love with new places, meeting new people, learning new ways of doing things, a new language (schooner! pot! doona! dunny! G'day! Arvo! How you going?!)

And for a woman who doesn't want to get married or have kids, I sure have realised how important my family is to me. 

Crikey this heat is hot.

I have been in Australia for exactly 16 days. I've been away 22 days now but I am only 16 days into a 365 day visa, and it feels like I'm running out of time.

Tonight I'm seeing the Brisbane Christmas tree lights being turned on. They're solar powered, because if you didn't know, Queensland is the Sunshine State of Australia. So here I am, sweating my bits off in 30 degree heat, celebrating the approach of Christmas.

Talk about head screw.

16 days, feels more like 60. Feels like so much longer. 2 weeks ago I jungle surfed through a rainforest. A rainforest!! I've snorkelled the Barrier Reef. I've held a koala. I've taken a train ride that lasted a day and a half. I've been burnt three times, and I've peeled too. Parts of me are still milky white. I've partied, got drunk, thrown up. I've made new friends. I've tried octopus, and lobster. I've been scared the day lights out of when a massive (not poisonous) spider crawled out from under a TV unit whilst watching a creepy tv show.  And I've had work experience at an Aussie production company, and there's more to come.

And I've been here only 16 days.

And in the next 16? More work, as well as a short road trip to the beach and to Australia Zoo.
And then maybe a train ride to the Gold Coast.

I came here to find work. Unlike other backpackers, I wasn't coming to see Australia, to experience the beaches or the outback. These last 6 weeks of 2013 were for holiday, and then 2014 I would work as much as I could. Now I realise there needs to be time for both. I've been here 16 days, and I want to see more. I want to see it all.

And I only have 349 days left to do it in.

I'm running out of clock and that ain't a shock.

I'm 6 days away from leaving. I'm 6 days away from leaving an island of family, friends, memories, for an island of family, friends, and memories yet to be made. 

I'm sitting on a train carriage and the man across from me is clutching an oversized bottle of Stella Artois. I like Stella, but the smell reminds me of an ex, and his bedsit, and nights in front of the PS2 playing Lego Star Wars. 
And it reminds me that I think I lost one of my PS2 controllers to him. Just like I lost my DVD (or was it VHS, I was 16...) of the Nighmare Before Christmas to another ex. 

And it's trails of memories like that which I savour, and considering my terrible memory, feel precious to me. Granted, it's not pleasant remembering either of those ex's, but remembering the memories themselves is nice. It's comforting.

Someone commented to me recently that they didn't think I was the sentimental type. But I can be. That's why I have several memory boxes of collected items. That's why I have walls covered in postcards and pictures. But you can recognise the pleasure in remembering times gone past without being nostalgic for them, or wishing that in fact the past was the present.

I'm about to leave the country for anything up to a year, and at times I might be lonely, or homesick, and the memories of all the people I've left behind will battle for space in my mind. Some will come equipped with megaphones, others colourful banners; anything to get my attention.

But when I'm not feeling that way, or maybe despite feeling that way, I'll be in a new country, on a new adventure, making new memories. And that is so exciting. We document our lives so much these days - Facebook updates, 140-characters or less tweets, Instagramming our dinner. Even blogging. There's the criticism that we're so busy posting about our lives that we're not actually living them. 

But how can we resist having an instant memory recall?! How can we resist being able to find out how exactly we reacted to England qualifying for the World Cup or the major storm of 2013. Or our comments on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, or even as far back as Michael Jackson's death? It's like reading back old diaries and reminding yourself of all the ancient petty squabbles you had with your sister or the time your parents tried to ground you for doing something or other.
I can look back on my Facebook and the multitude of hair colours and clothes I've had in the last 8 years. I can see with a click of the mouse the people I've been sharing my life with up until now. I can see again all the places I've been: America, Belfast, Bologna, Brighton, York. London. Beautiful, miserable, sprawling and crowded London. I barely know London. I want to know it so much better. I still have time. But for now I can make do with getting to know Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney...

I'm going to miss you. All of you. Ok not all of you. In fact, I'm looking forward to putting some memories, some people, behind me. Hey! Hey you! Yes you, the one that acted like a jerkoff to me. I'm looking forward to leaving you behind. The Other Side of the Sea behind. Don't get me wrong, I'll still think about you, because you got under my skin and you're like a scab that I can't resist picking... But when I'm in a country where I'll be in a bikini because it'll be SO DAMN HOT, I won't want to pick that scab.

I'm not stupid in thinking that by going to the other side of the world, I'm leaving all my troubles behind. How many films have we seen when people run away from their troubles or think they've escaped them only to have them catch up with them? I'm taking my issues with me because they are to do with me. But people run away for a new scene, a new culture, a new perspective. So your issues? They might not matter so much an ocean away. 

So when I'm the other side of the sea, missing some of you, and being finally free of the presence of others, you just need to know I'm ok. But you'll know that, cos I'll have posted it on Facebook. You know, that photo of me on the beach in my bikini, in December ;) 

You call it "nothing", a word to cover ignorance.

Ignorance would be bliss if it were ignorance we could be blame.


I am not very worldly. I have travelled, but never really immersed myself in another country's culture. Excluding Trek last November, I have never spent longer than 2 weeks in one country at a time. I've been to France a lot, but I barely speak the language and generally go with the prejudice that they hate vegetarians.

I don't speak any foreign language to an acceptable standard of fluency. And until recently I had never realised how little I sought out in knowledge about foreign countries, their cultures, and their history.

A couple of weeks ago I met Brian Avery, a US activist who spends a lot of time campaigning around the Israel/Palestine conflict. (His blog is here)

Before I met him, I quickly Wikipedia'd the conflict as it is one of those things I knew existed, but not why or for how long. I accepted it as part of our world, I had never questioned it before. I knew the names of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and I've heard of Hamas as the baddies and that was it. The sum of my knowledge about what I now understand to be a complex war dating back 70 years.

I'm not going to pretend that an hour with Brian made me an expert. In fact, it made me even more confused.

I want to blame my own ignorance for not challenging my own thoughts on this. But it's a laziness to not discover more. It is a laziness that media outlets depend upon- that we will swallow their wisdom of the day on any given topic.
It's also a (terrible) way of trying to protect myself: I get so upset over the bad things in the world, I get so wound up about the killing and the hate (see this blog about my inability to cope with it). So if I seek out more knowledge of the awful things, surely I am just going to make myself more upset? There's nothing I can do about other countries problems, is there?
My ignorance would tell me there isn't. But knowledge is edging its way in. Knowledge that as an individual I can make a difference. If I understand more, then that already changes things a bit.

Australia is not a third world country (as my GP pointed out when I asked if I could get a years supply of the contraceptive pill). But that doesn't mean people don't need help. I will need to work in order to live. But I can surely find time to volunteer. It's my year, I can do what I want with it.

I have the opportunity to live in a country and get to know the people, the culture, the good and the bad. I'm not brave enough to go somewhere like Rwanda where my sister is, not yet. But I think this is a step in the right direction. A step away from ignorance.


*A big thank you to Danny Eve, whose random Doctor Who quoting on Twitter gave me the title for this blog!