Friday, October 1, 2010

It's 6 million ways to die, from the seven deadly thrills, eight year olds getting found with 9mills..

I always struggle with knowing exactly how to start these posts. Considering I leave about six months between each one, there's about six million thoughts of incomprehensible length and variety to choose from.

Today, I'm shooting with The Big Picture.

The last two weeks have been interesting. I have successfully managed to be the moodiest, negi, uber-bitch in probably the whole of the southern hemisphere. There has been this niggling feeling of dissatisfaction that has been looming over me and for some reason I just couldn't shake it off. I won't lie, it's pretty difficult to try and write it down because I'm so used to stuttering over my own words, going off on a million different tangents as I try and explain to everyone and anyone what exactly is going on in my head. My head, it turns out, is lacking stimulation, and doesn't like it all that much. I'll let you in on a well-known secret about Queenstown: it's small. Very small. Which means that a lot of people here suffer from Small-Town Syndrome.

Let us explore Small-Town Syndrome a little bit. STS (not to be confused with STIs, thank you) is a terrible condition which affects people inhabiting an area that extends roughly around four blocks. Under the influence of STS, people tend to have an unflinching desire to know each other's business, enter into frequent bouts of pointless gossiping and perhaps also over-politicise situations so that even the most mundane event becomes an 'ohmigod!' scenario. I'd like to point out that STS does not affect everybody, but a fair few people fall victim to the entrapments of Small-Town Syndrome, and undoubtedly, the effects can be tragic.

This, in turn, puts me off Queenstown a fair bit. I've been here for four months. Four months of cold (nb., Mother Nature, not helping), retarded gossip, more than one or two nights that have become lost to me because of severe intoxication and well, not really having a stable job. I just have two relatively unstable jobs instead. So, this sounds like I'm having a fucking awful time right, and I bet whoever is reading this is just sat pondering why I don't just pack up my trusty Berghaus and fuck right off. Well, the thought has tempted me many a time before. A lot, actually, over the last few weeks. But now, all has become clear. The clouds have parted and I have had my brilliant, shining, halo-ridden epiphany. Queenstown has its pros (beautiful scenery, some of the most terrific people you'll ever meet, and the fact you know everybody means you'll never go hungry for a shot of vodka), and moving onto a new place for a while is problematic for many reasons. The biggest one being, I think my Grand Plan For 2011 is do-able. I didn't think it before, but of course, that is because I never sat down and took the time to work it all out. I have now done this. And this is what is going to happen.

In February 2011 I will depart New Zealand for Sydney. To see my staunchettes and finally go to that fucking Chinese Friendship Garden and do that bloody Botanical Gardens walk and all the shit I never did when I actually lived there (fuck, I'm such a procrastinator). Then, leave Sydney for Singapore. Once I find myself thrust into Asia, I will somehow find a nice route that incorporates Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand and lands me in Bangkok at the end of a six to eight week stint. I will then fly from Bangkok to Mumbai and do exactly the same in India, finding myself in Dehli to catch a flight back to London in May/June.

That, ladies and gents, is The Grand Plan. Shit me, if it happens, I will be probably the most proud person in the world. I've done digging through Expedia for the flights, I can definitely afford them. It's just the rest. I don't want to go into boring budgeting details on here, but I am feeling fucking positive about the whole affair. I know I can do it, I saved in Sydney and my life there consisted of rounds upon rounds of Jager shots, Thai dinners and shopping. If I can save in Sydney, I can save in Queenstown.

And then, well, this is the hazy part. Home has been like a broken record on my mind lately. Everything keeps spinning right back to it. I know it's because Queenstown is so transient that it becomes impossible NOT to think about home. Jesus, everybody here is leaving right now. Shoulder season has well and truly set in, and everybody is departing for greener pastures. For a lot of people, the green is home. So, when the shoulder season blues sink in, home becomes a natural little thing ticking away in the back of your mind like a really irritating timebomb. I don't know if a timebomb can really be irritating but in this case it is. For me, it's practicality. I can't stay over here forever, and truth be told, I see no life for myself in New Zealand or Australia. They are amazing, beautiful places, but fuck me, I could never spend the rest of my life here. It's too slow, and backwards, and there is no opportunity in all reality. Plus, the chocolate is shit. And I never want to spend 40 bucks on a tub of foundation ever again. In fact, I think I might write an angry worded letter about that last point. Dear Mr Cosmetics, Please decrease your prices in the Australasia region, I can no longer afford to pay my weekly wage to ensure I don't scare children in the street. Kind Regards, Scary-Faced Frankie.

So. It's like, where next? I can't work in Asia, or India. And truthfully, I do see myself going back to the UK at some point. I inevitably know I will get the blues, or perhaps even full-blown clinical depression, but I don't intend it to be forever. It is merely a stop-gap to raise money for the next chapter of travelling. The issue now is what to do when I get there. I still want to do my PGCE, and ideally a TEFL on top of it, and so it's just deciding whether to apply for it not. I figure, might as well, not a lot to lose really. I don't HAVE to go. The Education Grim Reaper isn't going to come bounding after me with his little axe thing if I choose to sack it off. But I HAVE to do it soon if I want to go back into education for next September, I'm sort of running out of time with that one. I know now that Brighton is where I want to be for a bit, just a year or so. Hang out, see a new city, live somewhere else that's most definitely not Hampshire, and somewhere that very much isn't Welsh. Yowza, home. It's still a weird notion for me to get my head around.

Fuck, this post is boring, isn't it?

Maybe I should delete it all and tell you instead about the incredibly hilarious situations I've been in recently, which perhaps in retrospect I should just keep to myself. Imagine me drunker than I have ever been in my life and you're about a tenth of the way there.

The Big Picture is a fucking nuisance. But now I'm closer to figuring it all out, I feel so much better. The negativity is fading, the bitch in me is going back to under her rock and the moodiness has been replaced with something that I think resembles a big grin. I want now to just book the flights, have a set date, and get fucking excited. Seriously, this trip has been something I've wanted to do for over six months now, and getting closer to actually doing it is epic. Massively, massively epic. If I can pull it off, get the money together, see myself through it alive and without losing an eye, a limb or a passport, I'll be pretty motherfucking stoked.

And then, just maybe, I'll be seeing my bestests in June. And what a day that one'll be :)

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

I will beg my way into your garden, I will break my way out when it rains..

This is just a quick update of what's going on in my life as it turns out I am the laziest person probably known to mankind. Aside from that obtusely fat man who had to get craned out of his house. I think he was on Jerry Springer. I don't intend to go down that route, but I do promise to try and update this more frequently. Facebook sucks and I'm not sure why I have this passionate relationship with it when all it is is boring status updates such as "Tony is pissed off it's raining"; "Mandy is in the bath :) <3";>
Fuck you, I don't care. The only ones I do care about are my chums, and people who are travelling because I guarantee it's 110% more interesting that 99.9% of people on social networking sites. Speaking of travellers, bring back news feed photos! Man, I miss it.

In one week, I leave for New Zealand. I've been massively jumping the gun and looking up flights to SE Asia and India and Africa and everywhere else ever in the world. I probably won't get to any of those places past Asia (although whoaa flights to Mumbai are pretty cheap if you look in pounds, I'm mega tempted! Anyone in?) but it's fun to look. I am so, super ready to get out of Australia. It's been a blast but I'm getting itchy feet to get moving again. Leaving The Argyle was like the greatest thing ever, a lot like leaving Lloyd but this time it was almost more sad. Eeee landscapes and mountains and SNOW. My oh my, get me outta here already. For some reason I've been thinking about what life would be like going home and ARGH, DON'T MAKE ME GO! I can't imagine it in any way, really. I have this horrible mental image of landing in Heathrow and being nostalgic for oh, all of five minutes and then doing the horrible drive back to Hampshire and slowly realising where exactly in the world I am. Jesus, it makes me feel totally gross just thinking about it. That said, I need some mental stimulation so I need to buy some more books in NZ and I'm definitely going to try and learn Spanish: boca! Es una chiste! Tranquilo! It's such a fun language and thanks to Soo I really do want to learn. I'm not going to talk about him on here 'cos that's massively gay, but that is really the one reason I'm sad to leave.

Anyway, I want to travel everywhere ever with no money (I really need some dollar, this will be my downfall and the reason I end up on this doom-ridden journey from Heathrow to Hampshire) so if anybody fancies it, let's fucking do it! INDIA! VIETNAM! CAMBODIA! LAOS! Let's, let's, let's!!

I bid you adieu Sydney (just got back from a weekend in Melbourne which is probably the coolest Australian city, it's so 'sick!!1!'), pumped for Queenstown.


Monday, April 12, 2010

Nothing here's real and everyone's alike, 'cos everyone dreams of the millionaire's life

Hello, wish list.
*nb: the picture of Leighton Meester, though she is adorable, is me longing for brown hair.
















I never sleep, because sleep is the cousin of death


"A life, Jimmy, you know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come."

I tried to write what I feel about The Wire after I finally finished it, and tried to sum up how I don't even need to watch any other hyped shows because I've already seen the best piece of television I will ever see, but words don't really do it justice. If you haven't seen it, see it right away. If you're not interested, get interested. If you've tried and failed, it's probably way above your intelligence level. If the subject matter is not your thing, look again. Either way you're a loser: watch it and every TV show you watch after will be sub par; don't and be blissfully unaware, but be warned: you are being deprived.

Dense, novelistic, painful, funny, real and transformative all at once. "The Wire" is the best television series ever made. Period.

The greatness of The Wire comes from a combination of themes - the life of a city seen through characters allowed to breathe and expand, through plots which unfold in deadly waves of doomed human motive, blind circumstance and economic force, and in luxurious amounts of time.

In The Wire's view, the world is not divided cop-vs.-robber or black-vs.-white so much as machine-vs.-individual; officer, teacher, drug soldier or pol, people are screwed by institutions that discard them when they're used up and reward inertia over innovation...Occasionally, it even offers a glimpse of something like hope, which is all the sweeter for being harder earned.




BAM!



"There go a life that had to be snatched, Avon." So intense. How their relationship starts to deteoriate is just.. fuck, too good.



"It makes me sick, motherfucker, how far we done fell." Oh Bunk, what a guy.



I wouldn't recommend you watch any of these if you've never seen The Wire before. They are moments to enjoy along the way and some of my favourite ones.

After my long-winded praise before, this is probably the last time I'll do it in a while (until I rewatch Season 4, that is) but I miss it terribly and felt the need to share. So fuck you, go watch it and then tell me I'm a massive nerd. I am :)



Sunday, March 7, 2010

Back to school and I hate it there, I hate it there...

It's difficult to find the time, the patience or the right words sometimes. I worry that with a blog you can come across like a) illiterate or b) boring as fuck. When you're writing stuff for people that you haven't seen in 9 months, these kind of worries are completely rational.

So this is my excuse for delaying updates. That, and I always think hearing what people are doing while they're travelling and you're not must be the most dire fucking thing to read. It's one of my pet peeves when I log on Facebook, have a notification, squeal in obvious delight only to find it's from one of my friends from home (love you, guys) saying "Hey! How's Australia?!". And that's it. What exactly are you supposed to say here? Are you supposed to go "Oh, fine thanks! How's the UK?" and ignite the obvious small-talk that will ensue when neither of you give a shit, or launch into a tirade about where you are, what you've been doing, who you've met in the small hope that they care about any of it or that you don't come across like a really fucking irritating bragger. "Hey, so I'm having the BEST TIME EVER doing things that you're not in REALLY BEAUTIFUL places in REALLY AMAZING SUNSHINE". Ohmigod, vom. So that is generally why I leave it a while to reply to such Facebook comments, and hence why I rarely update this little blog of mine.

I've nearly been in Australia for 9 months, and I gotta be honest, it feels it. I have successfully travelled by combination of bus, car and plane from Cairns down the east coast, across the south coast and deserts to the west coast, up to Perth. There is nothing else I want to do here. I don't want to visit the rock (expensive, and let's be honest - it's a rock) and the only other thing I'd quite like to see (the Kimberley, thanks for asking) is an absolute mission to get to. Instead I will embark on a nice trashy trip back to the Gold Coast and save up all my cash to fuck off and head to Bali and Fiji before New Zealand. At least, that is the master plan. Every Wednesday, this horrible thing happens where I get fucked out of mind and spend money that is quite clearly screaming "NO, don't do it! You have flights to pay for! You have places to go.. don't wast- ah, she just swapped me in for Jager. Too little, too late." It happens to the best for us, but if I don't pull my act together soon I will not leave before June and that is not what I want. It's been pretty fucking rad over here but I don't want to overstay and end up resenting somewhere I've loved. I'm back at the Argyle to save up the cash and with hosp you just fall into this silly little trap that's so desperately hard to get out of: go to work, get paid, get shitfaced, sleep. It's too much fun to resist. I am working 6 days this week to try and not do the above, to avoid temptation, and to work my arse off to continue the extended holiday I never want to end.

I've been thinking a lot about what I'm gonna do, the 'Big Picture' if you will and I swear as you get older, you get even more indecisive. I don't want to go home. I miss it...well, maybe not it, but the comfort of it, and the people of course. But it's like, what am I going home to? I realise that the UK is probably where I'll settle first off, where I'll try and forge a path in an actual career and what not. Alas, I am not ready. Still. I am bored and I need to be stimulated, don't get me wrong, but I still don't know what to do. I am contemplating doing a PGCE in London and doing some work in underpriviledged schools for a bit before turning my full attention to film, like I know one day I will. The thought of teaching actually really appeals to me. To reiterate the cheesy spiel I've been giving everyone I've spoken to about it: if you can help one kid, one kid who suffers from abuse at home, comes from a disadvantaged background, one kid who is wrapped up in drugs and gangs and violence, if you can inspire them and try and show them another side, then you've done a whole world of good. I know it'll be one of the most difficult things to try and do - I remember the fucknuts I used to go to school with, but I dunno, it seems like a way to try and do something good for them. They are, after all, our retarded making, and therefore, our retarded future. Which is comforting.

So, a little itinerary.. stay in Australia long enough to save up cash, maybe another 6-8 weeks at absolute MAX. Then, off for a month holiday, 2 weeks in Fiji, 2 weeks in Bali. Then off to New Zealand in May time to go back to my beloved barwork for a ski season. And I WILL attempt to ski and I WILL attempt to snowboard. I am actually looking forward to some cold weather, but don't tell any Australians because I'll get beat up. Fo' real. Then I might do SE Asia on my way home. Might. Probably. Why not. I'm trying to come up with a nice end date to appease my Mother's poor mind.. perhaps home for this Christmas, and probably definitely home for S/S 2010. Hoo-fucking-ray. I wonder how it'll be going home. I always wonder that if you're gone for so long, do people just forget? Out of sight and all that. I go on Facebook sometimes and my Newsfeed alights with all these statuses about moving, new jobs, relationship statuses changing and you feel like you've been gone a million years and nobody even notices. Except I know that's not true because nobody can live without the staunch really, though they might pretend otherwise. S'ok, I miss you guys too.

This has been a bit deep hasn't it. I promise the next one will be more fun and jolly and I will recount instances where I've done fucked up things while fucked up.
Next installment: the time I returned from my trip, met Sylvia and consequently got kicked out of the bar I work in. I will also tell about my new love for hip-hop that's wildly escalating out of control and how I finally finished The Wire and my life changed.

Until then, nerdlingers..

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Been training vipers to come for you in your sleep

I don't have time to update this with words of wisdom for two reasons:

1) I don't have much credit left
2) I am very sleepy so my words would probably be lacking in the wise-factor.

But just know this, I am alive and safe and somewhere in Melbourne's CBD. Over the last six days we have crossed 3 state borders, seen 4 gorgeous beaches and drove hundreds of kilometres (I cannot be bothered to count, so eff off). And camped. With flies and giant cockroaches that could eat babies and bonafide Ozzie blokes and shark fishers and screaming children. Today I got up at 8am when the sun made it too painful for me to stay in my tent of hot air any longer. This time last week I was working at the Argyle, making mojitos, moaning, worrying about packing and generally being staunch.

How times have changed.

I'm still staunch, so I am still the Francesca everybody knows and loves.

I know one thing though: I'm debating just 5 weeks of travelling, not 6. Because if I'm being truthful with myself, I ain't no fucking camper.

Check Facebook for the photos, they are swish. Off for cocktails.



(No Jager for over a week. I miss thee, cruel mistress.)