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What I’ll Be When I Grow Up
Jokes everyone, I’m grown up already and I’d argue that I have been for a while. If 26 isn’t grown-up, I don’t know what is! But, recently I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do when I finish uni… and the more I think about it, the more depressed I get. I have a little under twelve months before I finish my BA next October/November, and, not surprisingly, what in the world I’m going to do after that’s all ticked off has been on my mind. I’m not feeling great about it. When I started studying, I felt pretty strongly that I knew what I wanted to do when…
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Aussie Expats Update – Diving Blue Hole!
Well: Happy Monday everyone! I’m delighted to inform you all that you’re currently being addressed by a qualified Advanced Open Water diver: no big deal [DISCLAIMER: by this, I actually mean that it is a very big deal and I’m very, very cool]. James and I have just spent the weekend in Santa Rosa, New Mexico doing a series of dives with the excellent instructor crew from Bluewater Divers in OKC in order to qualify for our Advanced dive ticket. New Mexico isn’t really the first place most people think of when brainstorming locations to go scuba diving, but it happens to boast a pretty impressive natural well called Blue…
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Aussie Expats Update – Our Second Thanksgiving
Hellllloooooo world! Well, it feels like it’s been so long since I did a blog post about James and I going on an adventure that I found myself not quite sure what to put in this one. Still, since I failed to put it together and get it out last week, I really had to pull myself together over the weekend to tell you all about our Thanksgiving in Tulsa. Before anything else, I just want to say that we feel beyond fortunate to have met so many kind, generous, and just all-round wonderful people in the time we’ve been living in the US. Our various friends have taken us…
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Aussie Expats Update – Settling Back In Again
Hello everyone, and happy US Friday! Well, not surprisingly, I’ve been a little off the grid lately. Between international travel, trying to stay on top of uni (and not doing a suuuuuper great job), spending time with my family, reading some great books (I finally got to books 2 and 3 in the Outlander series, thanks Granmda!), and just taking things as they come, this blog kind of fell off the priority list. But I’m back now and ready to return to posting some vaguely interesting things with some more regality. As of Monday afternoon, I returned to the US, and I’m rapidly settling back into our regular life here…
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Wading Through Grief
One of the most challenging—and daunting—things as a writer is the knowledge that someone, somewhere, at some point, has already dealt with the things that you want to deal with in your writing. And probably done them better (just saying). As with most thinking associated with writing, I find this almost paralysing: what’s the point, then, of continuing to try? What can I, just one individual, bring to an idea or experience that hasn’t already been put into words—or music, or paint, or sculpture—and probably done far better than I could ever hope to do? So, as always, I’ll muddle my way through it and do the best I can.…
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Possible Hiatus
Not even a full day ago, I found out that my paternal grandfather had died. And tomorrow night I’m jumping on a flight to Australia, and I’m going home. I do not know when I will next write on this blog again. That’s not a ‘forever’ goodbye, it’s me recognising that other things need to take priority right now, such as supporting my family, allowing myself to grieve for the loss of such a wonderful man, and devoting myself to working on his biography so that it can attempt to do him credit, and so that he would be proud of it. For that reason, I wish to at least…
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Becoming A Biographer
Happy Friday everyone! It’s definitely easy to say that with a certain spring in your step when the most pressing thing you have on your plate at the moment is napping, reading, and working on some other projects you’ve got lined up… I won’t lie, it’s a pretty good way to live! But, about biography. I first conceived the idea for this blog post some time ago, possibly as far in the past as the middle of 2016, when I first proposed to my grandparents that I write my grandfather’s biography—but I haven’t really had the capacity to complete it. The reason for that is simple: despite having done a…
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Aussie Expats Update – Scuba-Certified and University-Free!
Hello world!! Posting this is a massive success, so excuse me while I indulge in a moment of well-deserved elation. I’d hoped (but didn’t think I’d actually managed it… and I didn’t) to get this out yesterday as part of our ongoing Friday updates, but the day got away from me, mostly due to a tough exam I had to work on. BUT I have got it out today, and that’s a real cause for celebration. Especially because what was holding me up was my Australian Literature exam… and I have FINALLY finished it, my last assessment for the trimester. I now have three weeks of blissful freedom before starting…
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Aussie Expats Update – Visits, Scuba-Diving, and a Half-Ironman!
Happy Friday, world! Well, well, well… Here we are again. It has been far too long since I posted on this blog, especially because there have been so many interesting things going on for us lately (well, I think they’re interesting: I’m guessing if you’re reading this blog post, you probably do find our lives at least semi-interesting. Or you really love us, one of the two). Anyway, life has been hectic. The title may be a little misleading—unless you know me, in which case you’re likely suffering under no misapprehensions that I might actually have done any kind of endurance event—but the past two weeks have been absolutely packed…
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What is Friendship?
I’ve been thinking about this particular question—and all that answering it means—quite a bit recently. In part, this is probably because I’m so far away from home, and my closest friends live about twenty-four hours worth of travel away, on the other side of the world… Nothing will make you appreciate truth friendship, compassion, and patience, like distance will. That’s the good bit. The less good bit is that, in part, this post has been born because I’ve also had a number of interactions recently that have left me with a sour taste in my mouth, and the desire to reassert what ‘friendship’ means to me, in terms of my…
