Changes

I have a love/hate relationship with change. I find it exciting, but I also find it stressful. When I have the immediate future planned out and pinned down I find it easier to relax and get excited about things... but when I know there are things to come which could cause hassles, I can't focus on anything but that.

My rent has gone up and I can no longer live in my current apartment. My flatmate has decided to move to a suburb I'd rather avoid (I've heard those stories of syringes in cinema seats) so I'm on my own. I would love to live alone, I've been fantasizing about it for quite a while now, but I just can't afford it. I know I sound like a brat, but I'm not used to knowing what I want and simply not being able to have it. But, I suppose I've never wanted anything quite so expensive before.

As well as having to find a new abode I'm also starting a new course at uni: Secondary Teaching. That's right folks, here's a huge shocking twist - the girl who studied history at university is going to become a history teacher. I'm actually really happy about my decision to get a proper teaching qualification, although we'll see how I feel three weeks into the course when I start doing pracs and remember what little shitfaces teenagers can be.

My 25th Birthday is coming up. The older I get the more I am convinced that age is just a number. Writing that I am 25....25....25....it just doesn't seem correct. It doesn't look real. Gosh, I even struggle with being 24. It's not that I feel old, I don't, it's that I've grown up with notions of what it means to be 18, 21, 25, 30...etc. and as I reach (and pass) these ages I'm realising that although I become wiser, age doesn't dictate when you should have achieved something or when you should act a particular way. You change as you get older but age is not an accurate marker of when significant life events should occur. Yeah, I'm aware that probably doesn't make much sense, that's because I'm not planning on becoming coherent until I'm thirty. Suck it, bitches.

Well, that's just a bit of an update. Time to go shopping in the 35 degree heat. Leaving you with a couple of photos of my dream homes.

Photos: The Selby

Sleepwalking in Wellington

Hello! I'm in Wellington, New Zealand. Sitting in a lovely cafe called The Lido, on Wakefield Street, where I have been twice in the 18 hours I have been in the windy city. Staying in a hostel last night has promptly destroyed the hint of backpacker romanticism which was creeping back into my naive and nostalgic mind. My back hurts. My head hurts. I slept all night with the light on. My bunk bed creaked every time I exhaled. YAY TRAVEL.

Perhaps being sleep deprived makes travel feel like more of an adventure. It's like travelling on a hazy cloud of grumpy. Also, being tired makes one care slightly less about the fact that they look like shit thanks to having to keep bathroom trips/makeup application to a maximum of five minutes so that the others in the dorm don't go on a sighing, moaning, foreign-language mumbling rampage. Yes. I am tired and I look like shit. I don't know how I did this backpacking thing for three months straight at a time.

Anyhow, no more hostel sleeps now as I'm meeting my parents today and we're going to stay in our beach bach for a week or so. It's a rickety old house (with retro furniture and definitely no internet) next to an isolated beach of black sand, seashells, and driftwood. It used to belong to my Grandad and I love going there because it is the only place which has stayed constant throughout my entire life. I have so many childhood memories of building sandcastles with my Dad and Grandad, and riding the motorbike over sand dunes while my Grandad ran along behind me swearing at me because I wouldn't stop. My best friend is coming to stay with us for a few days, the last time we were there together we were nine and everything seemed so big and exciting; climbing a sand dune was like climbing a mountain. I haven't been back since my Grandad died and I am hoping I feel the same way about the place as I did when he was there.

Third coffee coming up.

Photo: Anna Rosa Krau

My man and our sons (I am single and childless)

I like to dream that there will be a moment in my future that looks something like this photo. The chickens will just be beloved pets though...

Photo: Anna Rosa Krau

I think I'll leave it til tomorrow to unpack, try to forget for one more night that i'm back

Ahhh. So compared to semester time I am socialising quite a bit lately, but it's not enough. I'm also working more than I did during honours, but that's not enough either. There is not enough life in my life. This is about the time I start dreaming about being culture shocked and roaming far-away places. Now I realise why I have been so content this past year - I haven't had time to get bored.

But now I have time. Lots of time. Maybe I'll just get drunk by myself at 10.30am and watch Ancient Aliens.

Photo: Fergus Padel

We talked about the day ahead and shouldn't we just run away instead? We started to believe our dreams.

Where did my travel dreams go?

I have now been back in Australia (after my *I'm moving to Europe* phase lasted only 18 months) for over a year. Something kind of strange has happened to me. It used to be that dreaming of travel and planning for travel were pretty much my only passions, the only things that could really cheer me up after a bad day and the things I looked forward to in my future.

Recently I have realised that when I try to imagine possible future travel adventures I just feel tired. I think of staying in a hostel dorm and wistfully fantasising about an eight hour sleep, I think of dragging my suitcase/backpack up never-ending flights of stairs, I think of struggling to work out the public transport timetable in an unknown language. And it all makes me feel tired. I have lost my ability for escapism. My friends tell me that is all good: it means I am settled, content.

No. It is an identity crisis. I thought I knew who I was - the girl who was always dreaming of new places, of adventure, of the rush of culture shock. But now I'm the girl who is seemingly settled into a life with no career, no partner, and no big dream. How effing boring. When did I stop panicking about not knowing what to do with my life?

This Summer I will be away from uni for at least three and a half months. Maybe during that time I will figure out what it is that is making me content. Being content with no obvious improvements to my life is really confusing me.

My Photo of Paris

Rantage

And I’m back, if only momentarily, to rant a bit.

I have discovered a new pet hate: students who take primary material completely out of its original context and apply it to their argument. Even worse, when they are totally aware of their sneakiness and just laugh and say ‘oh yeah, I tried to get away with that’ when called on their dirty academic behaviour.

I have to frequently defend my choice to spend a year writing on some random medieval dude, and the worth of writing a thesis at all, I do this by explaining the larger picture like this:

Dear ignorant person,
Imagine if there were no students writing theses, then there’d be no Masters students,  no PhD students, no lecturers, no History departments at University, no History teachers, and all of a sudden we’re living in that movie Idiocracy and watering plants with sports juice.

Okay, I may be overreaching here, but the point is to think of the larger picture of misrepresenting material in an area which is academically neglected. If nobody notices then that wrong could eventually become an accepted right.

 It was cute when Geoffrey of Monmouth did it….lazy undergrads, not so much.

When the night always ends with a fight, i'm excited that you wind up next to me

I'm starting to realise how naughty religious people must feel. The guilt. So much guilt. It follows me everywhere, telling me I'm naughty. Everything, which is not my thesis, has become a guilty pleasure. Facebook? Should be researching! Historical fiction novel? Should be writing my chapter! Socialisation? You only deserve that if you've worked on your thesis! Blogging? You stupid little chit, get off the Internet and WRITE YOUR THESIS.

I understand that this blog is getting a little repetitive. Perhaps I should rename it ' Avoiding my thesis'. The thing is, I actually really like my topic; I just have too much time on my hands. I work better under time pressure. The semesters of uni I did the best in were the semesters in which I overloaded units.

I have been reading my old blog. My European adventures. It's so easy to forget the things that I didn't love about travel when I'm not going anywhere.

Oh, I am feeling sorry for myself today. I have a sty, a sty in ma eye. Of course, this sty has chosen the perfect time to hit - I'm going to a gig tonight and High Tea next week. Maybe I will just run with it and dress like a pirate, eye patch included. Oh, and it's rent day. Awesome.

I realise this is a borefest of a blog post. I'm just tryin' to keep it real.

I was going to post a pretty picture. But this post just does not deserve it.

Wake up kids, we've got the dreamers' disease

As I mentioned in my last post I was considering buying a double bed. At the moment I am sleeping on a fold out single bed. It sucks. So I had decided to buy a double bed and a new mattress, but then it struck me - that's quite a bit of money to spend on something that I can't just put in a suitcase and take overseas with me. I guess I'm not as ready to settle down in one place as I thought I was. Buying a bed means 'I am staying'...not necessarily forever, but for long enough to justify spending the money and lugging the stuff up the stairs. I'm really happy where I am living now; it's nice to be independent but this time have my parents close by. But....but...

I'm planning on doing a DipEd next year. So I'll definitely be here for another year after this one. Then where? South America? Back to Europe? Damn this constant unsettled feeling. I need to plan a holiday.

    Photo: Geoff Barrenger

She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts

I have decided what I need in my life is a nice healthy crush. No destructive infatuations or a cray cray lovefests. Just a crush. Something that makes everything seem slightly more exciting even though there's no marriage fantasy. Yes. A crush. So much easier said than done.

This is what happens when Taylor Swift somehow happens to keep sneaking into my itunes. Stop it, Taylor, stop it!

    Photo: Fergus Padel