It’s August…Seriously guys it’s August. Where the heck did that come from? As soon as 1st August hit, a sudden surge of excitement rushed through me. This may come as a surprise to people as, surely, I should have been excited from the beginning. Instead, the past few months have been spent stumbling about trying to get stuff done and attempting to hide the sheer panic instilled by the torrent of tricky questions thrown at me. At times I felt like I was being grilled by Paxman.
Most frequent questions I’ve been asked:
1. How much money have you saved/are you going to take? - these questions came at a time when I was desperately trying to sell my car and was discreetly begging for people to buy my tat on eBay. I hate this question. My usual response is - whatever is left in my bank account on 26th August. Ha!
2. How many people are you planning on sleeping with? Which is shortly followed by the statement - you do realise how lucky you are right? You can sleep with as many people as you like without any consequences. Nobody will know what you’ve been up to. I’m so jealous! - at this point my mind starts building up a conspiracy theory involving the nurse from blog 6. Who have you been talking to?!
3. Are you looking for love/what will you do if you meet someone whilst you’re away/would you stay in Oz if you meet someone? - this is just a few variations of the same theme which is on the other end of the spectrum from point 2. I don’t bloody know! Obviously my idea of meeting new people translates into shagging around or finding the love of my life. Sheesh.
4. Are you excited? - this is my favourite. The last person who said that, I turned and said “meh, not really.” Again, another moment where sarcasm fails as the response I got was “Aww, why not? I bet you are really” *face palm*
5. What are you going to do when you get back? - I saved the best ‘til last. Now what kind of question is this? What am I supposed to say to this? Do you know precisely what you’re going to be doing in a year’s time? If you do, you’re either boring (as you do the same thing every day!) or you are lying. I. Don’t. Know. This whole trip is about living for the now so why would I have thought about what I’d do when I get back? Go away.
Despite the fact that I can usually predict what questions/statements are going to be uttered my way, I still can’t help but tell anyone that will listen. As most people close to me (as in those within walking distance during day-to-day life) know that I’m going away, I don’t feel like I can excited around them so much anymore. Not unless I want a punch in the face anyway. “Yeeeees we know you’re going away. Stop going on about it already!”. Which means I’ve had to find new people to tell. It’s been a fun game of mine. A sort of Six Degrees of Separation, but instead of getting from one person to another, I’m getting from whatever subject is being discussed, to my trip. I come into contact with a lot of people coming in for interviews at work. I always get the standard “How long have you worked here?” and “Do you enjoy your job?”. See this one’s easy. I lead on to the fact that I’m leaving my job and then they instinctively fall in to the trap of asking me why…mwhaha. I’ve also shamelessly dropped it into conversations with customers when I’m waitressing. Sometimes it worked and I got a juicy tip, sometimes it didn’t work but it still lead to some interesting conversations with tourists. Aussies and Americans love a bit of carvery, haha.
I’ve finished my waitressing job now. My last day came and went so quickly that I never did anything exciting or dramatic. I thought it would be funny if I was alternately rude. It was so busy I didn’t even get chance to properly say goodbye. I think I managed to do that and a whole lot more at the my leaving do! I haven’t been out drinking since October last year. It’s been a long time coming. I can’t believe it’s all coming to an end already. I hope my year out doesn’t go as quickly as the past 8 months have.
Every day I keep seeing people’s big announcements on Facebook. In the space of one week I saw that 2 people announced their pregnancies and one announced an engagement. My Facebook currently stands at 2 just marrieds, 6 engagements and 4 pregnancies. That’s just off the top of my head, there are probably more than that! A lot of these people are the same age as me or younger. Number of people sacking everything off to go travelling…2. They’re only going away for a few months though so I’m not sure that even counts. Oh well. I’ve never been one for convention! It’s great that people have found their happy endings so soon in life. I’m getting a new beginning. Things will never be the same again. This could be in a good way or a bad way. I have no idea what I’m doing, where my life is heading in the grand scheme of things or what I want to do with my life….I’ve never felt better.
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