Decisions.... Decisions


I’m sitting on the porch over-looking the Hay River in Denmark, Western Australia. A rainbows’ just come out and my dog Willow is sat with hopeful eyes by my side, I imagine wishing I was able to type one handed while patting her with the other hand.
Man I’m going to miss this view. It’s been a peaceful two years since moving back to WA from Melbourne, reconnecting with nature, my family, taking a bit of time away from the corporate world, considering my next five year plan…

Years ago while travelling in the UK someone mentioned i-to-I to me, and I thought that sounded like a fantastic thing for someone other than me to do. I was aiming at marrying my long-term boyfriend at the time, moving to New Zealand and babying up the planet. Given you’re reading this you can see these plans didn’t come to fruition, and between you and me – THANK GOODNESS!

Now, I am once again selling my bits and bobs, packing up Monkey and James (puppet monkey and teddy bear respectively) and stepping out on a new adventure!

Needless to say I’ve had those dreams as the imminent date grows ever closer of being in China but having forgotten my rucksack so I have no clothes… or worse, a military coup occurring just as I start teaching my first class (fortunately I had a Gerard Butler moment and was able to save all the children with one chilling stare)!

But then… ahhh then… the butterflies that dance about in my belly at the thought of being sky-high again (even though I’m actually afraid of flying…), knowing I’m going to see incredible new things, engulf myself in a different culture, have a nightmare trying to locate a public toilet, end up eating something that I thought was something else and immediately regret said consumption, and in all likelihood, accidently walk the wrong way through the Forgotten City and end up in Mongolia.

What fun!

So, notice handed in at work (three months in advance… yes, I was a little over zealous once I received my TEFL certificate!) I’ve now been removed from my office and sent down the back of the building… which, in other situations I might complain about, in this… well it just gives me more time to write list after list after list of what needs to be packed / cancelled / considered for China, move figures around on my budget endlessly because every week I seem to over spend (ie I definitely needed that new Kathmandu laptop holder with images of camera’s on it… and I can’t possibly teach English without an elephant finger puppet) and pop onto YouTube to watch “Lets Learn Mandarin” videos!

I think the hardest bit in all of this will be saying goodbye. It’s been some time since I lived so close to my family and it’s been… well sometimes I may have preferred to still be 3000 kilometres away (but that’s family isn’t it!) but mostly it’s been incredible to build so many new, ridiculous, heart-warming, encouraging, hilarious, outrageous, peaceful and peculiar memories.

Fortunately, the memory box fits perfectly between Imagination and Lateral Thinking due to my lack of Logic, so I get to take the lot away with me. I always knew my lack of logic would going to come in handy.

So, here we are three weeks out, eyes wide with enthusiasm, heart strings tugging on what will soon be nostalgia, sadness to say goodbye to my dog… oh, and family and friends! Calculating how to fit my next couple of years into a 20kg rucksack and certainty that I need new sneakers as the ones currently on my feet are wet and have holes in them.

All I can say now is… Bring On China


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dreams Vs Reality

Image
The following day Immerqi took my Internship Intake to the Great Wall of China (not the whole thing… that would likely take a certain amount of time), this part of the wall is quite well known and only two hours drive from Beijing. St aring out the window it was fascinating to watch the dichotomy of the city, poverty mixed in with the elite, traditional with the modern, a Lamborghini beeping at a man on a bike hauling a cart packed to the sky with wheat-bags filled of rice, gardens shimmering through hand-held hoses and smog hovering above. It is an endless city. There are sky rises, then long flats when you think you’re coming to the  outskirts, and suddenly, more sky rises… But often, these are empty. Hauntingly empty… as if you’re seeing a city two months after the zombie apocalypse. Later, when I’d moved to Tangshan, I spoke to one of the expats who explained that the theory is that the Government will pay for these high rise apartments to be built in the hopes that people
Read more

Finding my groove... Then Snow Men & Snow Balls

Image
Its been difficult, after how many years (lets not get into specifics) of working 7.30 – 5/6pm,  Monday to Friday, to get used to Friday afternoon being advised you may be doing 8am, or 2pm… or nothing one day, then a plethora of different classes the next day. Saturday is now Friday and Saturday, Sunday – who knows where Wednesday has gone. China… in my experience… sometimes lacks the level of communication between departments that I’ve become accustomed to, so I have needed to also get used to not knowing which class and what level I’ll be teaching from week to week. Well, I was after a bit of diversity in my career, and I’ve certainly gotten more than I bargained for. When I first considered doing TEFL I was so excited to teach wee ones, I envisaged myself surrounded by five years olds, creating dramatic stories about unicorns and panda’s and their journey to distant planets… I think its been clearly established that this is not where I landed. So… you can imagine my de
Read more

Tham Lod Cave, Traditional Village and Looping Along The Loop

Image
  Setting off early the next morning we headed to Tham Lot Cave, somewhat of a throwback to Australia, it was re-discovered in the mid to late 80’s by Australian explorers! Pretty interesting, but not as interesting as the wonders that lay within. The cave itself is a natural limestone structure, 1.6 meters in length with a fresh water stream running through the middle. Having hired one of the village ladies (all the money you spend in or around Tham Lod actually goes directly to the village community with I love), we wound our way along a dirt track canopied by bright leaning trees. Stopping outside the mouth of the cave – and I now know why they call it the ‘mouth’ of a cave, it looked ready to engulf anyone who came close! – our guide, with a towel on her head (apparently this is a bit of a fashion that started many years ago and the reason behind it… well, has been lost to time) squatted down and lit an ancient looking oil lamp. It was going to be a dark journey
Read more