All the other kids,

The things we miss are strange, not in that they shouldn’t be missed but rather that we never expected that we would. The things we don’t think about at the time or dont appreciate seem to provoke the greatest reaction when they’re gone. Right now I miss Australia. Mostly, I miss my house mates and friends at uni over there.
It was just so different to being at home. The closeness which I noticed was absent from my friendships in Australia that was rooted in our shared upbringing and an innate sense that we belong doesn’t seem to be something I am glad to have back. Don’t get me wrong – I am over the moon to be back with my friends at home. Its lovely how comfortable and normal everything seems considering how long I’ve been away: but now I miss the strange bond which grew between everyone Down Under. I hadnt really noticed it before, but I think we were all held together by an uncertain knowledge that non of us did belong, but we worked inspite of that.
Rather than having several different personal opinions on any subject, in Australia there was always the alternative social and cultural values from all over the world in addition to the personal opinions. It just added a different dimension to life which I miss right now.

Its very near to Christmas, and I am happy to be here for it. I think I just feel like my time in Australia is becomming nothing more than something I did once, which all I feel I can say is “Yeah it was really good” to anyone who asks.

2011 has been a big year, that’s for sure.

The W Curve

When I applied to come on an international exchange at my home university, it made sense to me to also participate in the uni’s Advantage Award. Two birds with one stone I figured. Part of this then is my taking ab additional module in cultural awareness.
In our first meeting back home in Nottingham, everyone going abroad was told that they would go through certain stages of cultural change, this is called the U or W curve, and it has matched my experience in Australia fairly well.
I go up and down a lot, and right now Im in an odd sort of pre-emptive down. The kind of flat mood I get when I know I’m going to have to do something that I dont like, which is unavoidable. Right now that thing is leave Australia.
I didn’t have this feeling of loss when I left the UK, I was more scared and nervous that the risk I was taking wouldn’t pay off. Well it has paid off. But now I have the troubles associated with leaving the warm sunny home with friends and a job that I have established over the last 5 months.
I do really miss England, and my family and friends there. But I just dont think I am ready to go back. I think it is harder this way round than leaving England.
When I left home I knew I would be returning, and that even if I had a hellish time out here I could come back and still have the life I had before with all my family and friends still being there for me. But leaving Australia, I dont have that kind of security. I dont know when or even if I will ever see the friends I have made here again, and knowing that makes me very reluctant to leave. I dont want the connections I’ve made here to be transient, but when we all live so physically far appart it is realistic to think I will be lucky to see more than 1 of them again.
I know I will see Tarq, which does go some way to make me feel better about leaving everyone else: at least I will have someone at home who has gone through a similar experience to me and can relate, and who knows the people out here I will inevitabley still want to talk about.
I really didn’t like him leaving yesturday. I am going to be a bit of a mess when I have to leave.

Gotye

I have spent the last 4 days in Pittsworth, just out of Toowoomba (QLD, Australia) with my friend Tarquin. We went to stay with my housemate Kylie and her family.
I think this may have been the highlight of my time in Australia.

I’m only here for another 3 weeks now, and the last few days will make it even harder to leave. Her family were so welcoming and kind, housing two strangers and showing us what life in Australia is really about. Her Dad is a cross between my Grandad and Croccodile Dundee. We were taken fishing in a creek, where we caught our own Yellow Bellies and a teraphin, to check the pig traps, roo hunting, and to the local pub. As well as scouting out the local area and stopping to investigate any road kill we were treated to an Aussie/Phillapeno BBQ where I was even given a birthday cake.
Couldn’t have had a better time, and to top it all off we backed the winning horse in the Melbourne Cup.
I know Australia has so much still left to show me and I will be sad to leave.

Gotye – Somebody That I Used to Know has become the song which will forever remind me of being in Australia. As much as I love it it really doesn’t sum up my time here very well.

Glory Days

Adele is quickly becoming the artist of a generation, and so she should.

I really love Australia now, I’m happy here: I have a job, I have friends, and if I only remember to put on more suncream I can avoid the painful burns I have now. Yet still I miss England.
I’ll get home and love it, Im really looking forward to seeing all my old friends and having Christmas in the snow. But after that I will want to come back Down Under. It seems almost cruel that I have enjoyed myself here, as its so far away from home, I cant just pop over when I feel like it.
I should have gone on exchange to Scotland.

Atlas Hands

I’ve always loved music, the power it has to alter my mood still astonishes me.

Right now Benjamin Francis Leftwich has got me horrifically mellow and content.. despite having lots of things to do and worrying me, the bigger picture of my life is dandy.

I’m living in Australia. I’m living in Australia. I’m living in Australia.
I still have to tell myself that embarrassingly often as I’m certain it hasn’t sank in. Whenever I get stressed out here, about uni, how much things cost or how much I’m going to miss people I’ve met here, I remember little things like “there is a palm tree in my back garden” and everything gets shuved into perspective. Not only is the palm tree there but its huge.. its there naturally, not as some fancy design. This simple and insignificant fact sets my mind straight and calms me down: I’m not at home, things will be different and I need to enjoy the time I have here… I am 19, I am in Australia, and I am surrounded by people who make me smile.

Take a chill pill Sarah! (:

Good Old Blighty

I have got 8 weeks left in Australia.

I hate this. There is still so much I want to do, and dont have the time or money for.
Even though I am here for uni Im starting to resent it. The lectures are good, but they’re passed a bit slow compared to Nottingham. It takes so much effort to get to uni as well that going doesn’t seem to be justified. I’d rather be earning money to do things in the short time I have left.

Also Im starting to worry about leaving the people I’ve made friends with here. I still miss my friends from home, I miss being in England, and I now miss going out at night more than before. But still, I dont want to leave my home here.

Travel is frustrating. It can be hell on earth, it can open your eyes, and it can make you feel lonely no matter where you are. I miss my friends from Nottingham when Im here, and I know if I go back I will miss my friends from here.

Bottoms.

Do you come from a land Down Under?

On the 1st July I flew to Singapore with my family. We stayed here for 4 days before moving on to Sydney, then the Blue Mountains, before I stayed in Brisbane and they went to hop around the islands along the East coast of Australia. This was the holiday we had planned around my exchange in Australia. The idea was to make the most of my swapping hemispheres, and to make my leaving for nearly 6 months a bit easier. I’m not sure if its worked or not.

The holiday has been amazing. Every place we went to was brilliant – even the Blue Mountains, which themselves are stunning, our accommodation and the weather however was not so good.

When I started talking about doing an exchange at uni, and ruling out those that didn’t have there own ties with international unis, I dont think I ever really considered I would really do one. It was more of just a way to narrow down my uni choices to the 5 UCAS allows. Im starting think I’m slower to process things than I think I am – I still dont really think it has sunk in that I am doing this, and right now Im sat on my bed in a house I moved into less than 48 hours ago with my first day at a new uni tomorrow. Its a bit daunting if Im honest. If I’m truly honest its terrifying. I’m a confident person, and I tend to get on with people easily, but this assessment of myself has been based on meeting people in England – where I’m comfortable and understand the social do’s and donts. Over here, as far from home as I can geographically be, I dont know what is a do or a dont, or if Im doing them. So my confidence right now isnt high.

What has also surprised me is just how hard it has been to have my family leave me. Before I came out, everybody at various exchange meetings told me about how people cry every day for the first week they arrive. But I never really thought it would happen with me – it didn’t when I started uni in the UK, and I’ve never gotten too upset over not seeing my family. Out here however its different. I went to stay with my friend Jo in Brisbane, saying goodbye to my family while they visited the islands and I started to look for a house with Jo’s help. It was here that it started to hit me just how alone I am in this new country. I was staying with a friend, who knew the are perfectly, my family was still in the country, and I was having to bite my hands near 10 times a day just to stop myself from spontaneously crying. Until I went to bed however, when I felt comfortable to give in to what I didn’t understand was making me cry. After less than a week of this I gave in, paying $50 and travelling 9 hours on a coach and 2 hours on a ferry to go and see my parents and brother on Fraser Island. The instant I was in the terminal waiting for the coach I felt better, like a giant weight which had been pressing down on me from all angles had been lifted. I wasn’t even completely aware it was there until I was on route to them.

The weather on Fraser Island was bad, we couldn’t swim in the sea, we were told not to go into parts of the island because of dingoes, and it cost a minimum of $400 to even get to the other side of the island. But even so I was happy. I just hadnt realised how much energy it takes being pleasant when all you want to do is sit and cry or yell or just do nothing. I have never missed my family so much as I did in those 3 days, so despite being trapped on an island in the rain with nothing to do, for me it was perfect.

My family are now back in the UK, and tomorrow I start uni – officially beginning my exchange at UQ. Im going to throw myself into everything I can in order to meet people and hopefully make friends. I know that once I am into a routine and feel that I at least know people well enough that they are talking to me because we’re friends, rather than they are just being polite to the stranger I will probably wish I was staying Down Under for longer than I am. Right now however, being in England is a long way off and getting there is a matter of survival rather than enjoyment. I hope this will change soon.

Thunder only happens when it rains

I’m on a big sugar low. Fasting isn’t for me. Oddly enough I’m not that hungry, I’m just tired. Its not a sleepy tired, more a deeper tiredness. I just feel fed up.

I’ve spent my holiday working two different jobs, and revising. Ive seen just one of my friends. Once. Spending the rest of my time working out how much money I need, trying to make it seem possible to achieve, and helping my Brother to revise. Which is as equally frustrating as my lack of cash. He just doesn’t comprehend the amount of work he has to put in, or how much everyone else is making it as easy as possible for him to do it. That everyone constantly makes an effort to not make him feel bad about not getting the grades he should just doesn’t seem to register. He gets the perks of working hard in order to encourage him, not as the reward it should be.
After a while, how easy he gets it becomes insulting.

I’m just tired of jumping through hoops.

Fortune’s fool

April really is a shitty month. Outwardly this one doesn’t seem too bad, the weather is better than most; I’ve got a new job; I’m not finding revision too hard. And yet still April is, and I think always will be, my shitty month.

In emotional states people become confused, say things they don’t really mean. I don’t think so. I think they say the things they very much do mean. The things they have known but ignored in their deeper conscience and only once free do they immediately wish they never let out. Sometimes I don’t even think the person was aware of the presence of these volatile statements, but this doesn’t make them any less truthful.

My grandparents have always been considered, in my mind in particular, a single entity. I’m sure this is largely due to the majority of my life being spent with them together. Always together. They fit together unscrupulously and perfectly. Maybe that is what time does to any good couple, but I dont think it does. Time only serves to exacerbate issues, make them worse. So why not with them. Maybe because until I was 13 I wasn’t made aware of any issues, if there were any. Still, if having defied the typical degradating effects of time together for so long, why is it allowed to have an impact now they are a different, more literal singular entity.
No longer the well formed and mutual bond of two present people, but an unjustifiable separateness.
I’m struggling to get out what I am trying to say. Ultimately, that the bond should last. People shouldn’t move on.

6 years should not undermine 60.

30 Day Song Challenge

So many people are doing this on facebook right now, and I have wanted to join in for a while: but equally I do not want to be one of the people who are starting to become a nuisance by constantly blocking up newsfeeds. I’m going to do mine on here, for me.

Over a period of the next 30 days I will add whatever song is next on the list, before posting them all in one when the 30 days are up.

Mmmmm mango rubicon