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 :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
