Some Closing Thoughts

This post is pretty much a direct response to my mother's request that I "please blog at least one more time" before I leave. Which is entirely reasonable considering that it's been months... Whoops!

I'm leaving Australia in just under two weeks. It makes me feel a bit forlorn to think that my day-to-day life for the last twelve months will quickly become yesterday's happenings, and then a pleasant memory, and then a chapter of the storybook that once was my youth (boy does that sound melodramatic). Mostly, however, I'm just overwhelmed that the five months that became a year abroad transformed my life for the better: Made me a more adaptable person, a more independent person, more adult, happier, all sorts of good things. My first post on this blog is funny for me to read, in retrospect... The things that mattered then versus the things that matter now.

I refer to myself as "more adult" mostly because I seriously started being responsible for myself this year, and financially this semester. I was working ~30hours a week with a full class schedule (that's 24 credits, Oregon!), and it was hard but it also enabled me to travel to the Australian outback and New Zealand pretty much of my own financial independence, which is maybe the greatest gift I've ever given myself. As my friend Brittany said to me, "you're always broke because you pick life experiences over savings..." damn straight! This term I:

-Star-gazed the clearest night sky on planet earth, the Australian outback
-Slept in a swag (even when there was a tent available)
-Spent quality time outdoors in an environment that feels completely foreign
-Ate camel meat
-Taught Salime "how to be a hippie"
-Got really good at my hospitality job
-Read ~4 novels a week for class
-Got to know some of the most important people in my life
-Built up the courage to read my poetry in a public place... And was well received!
-Realized that even though I don't feel terribly American all the time, America is ingrained in me and where I come from is part of who I am
-Took off in a camper-van in New Zealand with very little idea of where I was going
-Went zorbing (google it)
-Rafted in underground caves with glow-worms...

I don't fully know what I'm doing when I go back to America, or when I graduate from college, or "with my life"... But for the first time I find the uncertainty exhilarating. I'm going to miss this so much, I already know so, and there are some truly spectacular individuals here whose company I treasure dearly... But maybe, just maybe, I'm just a little bit closer to understanding what matters, and future years will follow suit wherever I am.

Cheers,
Amy

All the Important Things Since September

MY GOODNESS it sure has been a long time since I made an update to this blog. I think part of the reason is that I always feel as though I should include pictures... But I almost never take pictures so then I feel like my words aren't worth posting. So I'm sorry, today you won't have much to look at.

A lot has happened to me in the last few months. In late September I spent a week on the Gold Coast with some close friends. We rented out a little apartment and woke up around noon or 2pm every day and went to the beach and cooked heaps of food (Salime was with us so that meant tacos). And then went to enjoy the Surfer's Paradise night life and go to sleep late and wake up late and do it all over again. It was amazing and I was so tan (sadly I am not anymore... More information on that further into this post). I've only been meaning to post about the Gold Coast for 4 months... Oh well. There's no better way to feel close to the people you love than to travel with them and have crazy stories in common.

For a few weekends after that there were a million fun things to do... The college I live in held a ball and we all dressed up and looked spectacular and went into the city and it was magic, basically. And then it was halloween and even though Australians don't really celebrate halloween I still made sure that all of my friends dressed up and we had a fantastic time. I ended up wearing pieces of about 4 different costumes by the end of the night... Nothing better.

Then came some more school and November was finals month, and I studied very hard and did decently (worse than I ever have in Oregon, but school is different here so what can you do?). And I was becoming increasingly sad because it was the best time of my life and I loved the people around me so much and I'd never felt that strongly about an experience before. So I started the impossible task of reapplying as an exchange student and as an ambassadorial scholarship holder... And I managed to miraculously succeed at both.

And then I went home for six weeks because I already had a plane ticket so why not? My friends back home were as amazing as they ever have been and it was fun and I got to have a cold christmas and meet some truly amazing new people as well. I even saw the beginning of a snow storm before I flew out. Leaving was really tough. Seattle is my city, when it comes down to it.

But two days ago I flew back to Melbourne again and it's hot because it's the middle of summer and there are a few friends living here with me over summer and I can't wait for everyone to come back in a month.

So, what does one do with 5 weeks, agenda-free? I'm about to find out. So far I've been writing and reading and sunbathing a lot (I am so pale after winter in Seattle, I look like a ghost next to my friends who have been here for the last two months). And eating ham and cheese sandwiches and drinking milo. Things are coming together, in that strange sense of coming back to home away from home.

Miss everyone back home heaps xx.