Holm sweet holm

I'm not going to say a word about how ashamed I am for never blogging.

Going to do a decent post on what's been happenin' lately, but for now I just want to let on about my exciting news: I'm going to Stockholm! (You know, as in Stockholm Syndrome.) I know, I know, I'm doing my supermassive European romp in... well, July, but I couldn't wait that long and got my act together for the first week of June. Stockholm has kind of been my dream utopia since I learnt that Sweden, land of fika, is importing garbage from Eastern Europe as they need more to fuel their (relatively) clean energy source. Badarse. Also, it's hard to follow along with Elsa Billgren and Emma Sundh and not feel inspired.

Omg.

I'm a little beside myself, especially since I fee I've really earnt this. The adjustment to London hasn't been an easy one, nor is it resolving itself easily. But walking home from work through Trafalgar Square in golden hour, when everything was so neat and crisp and Georgian and grand, just feels so right. Even if the work is hard, even if self-motivation is tough. I'm feeling good.

Credit where credit is due.

 

Get your act together, please

Well, it's a month exactly today. And not even a good, long month; February, the Tuesday of the year. Sort of eerie to think that, at almost exactly now in a month, I'll be twitching about, sleepless and anxious, chasing up the thousand loose ends that will doubtless appear the moment before I move to London. Damn, the closer it gets the more I'm sure something unexpected with eventuate and it'll all collapse and never happen. It seems like too big a thing to happen to me.

What's been going on in the interim?, I hear you shout. Well, stunningly little. Hate my job. If I didn't know I was quitting so soon I'd quit. (They don't know I'm leaving, by the way. Terrible me!) Honestly, the sight of anything in the bread bin at home makes me very uncomfortable. A bakery has to be the worst place for a person terrified of burns and disgusted by mornings to work.

With most of my Serious Travel Things (visa, flights, job, home) taken care of, I'm happy to procrastinate through the rest and spend my off-time watching TV. We don't even have Netflix in Australia, you know, so I'm at the mercy of whatever's on. Sometimes this is great (Bargin Hunt, QI, Poirot) and sometimes this is dreadful (My Kitchen Rules). All this QI, incidentally, hasn't been helping my Alan Davies stress dreams. (They're awful. I wake up in a panic because I don't have enough money to buy that wretched farm in Kent he pushed on me, or because I've forgotten to fill in that form he needed. It's bizarre. I must associate him with England or something.)

All this rambling, aside from beng demonstrative of my current state of mind, is my way of announcing that I'm back. I'm back, and I'm getting my act together (maybe).

Ain't that a kick in the head

Have a listen to my "things are going really rather well at the moment for me" song (catchy title, I know!). I only ever remember it when I'm feeling truly happy, and I'm a thousand times thrilled to say that I'm like that at the moment.

Two reasons. The first isn't even assured yet, but I'm feeling confident; that is, I've begun the process towards getting my visa to the UK. I'm going on a Youth Mobility Visa (I highly recommend the Aussie Nomad's post on the subject), which means that because I'm a youth I can be mobile. It's available to anyone under 30 and above 18 in the Commonwealth (regretting that revolution now, United States?) and Japan, oddly enough, and lets you galavant around England and co. for up to 24 months. Best part is that you're allowed to leave, too, and take advantage of that 90 day visa-free period in the EU. To ensure job and home security I've enlisted (read: paid for) the help of CCUSA, who operate out of every country known to man. If you fancy a working holiday they're well worth looking at. I mean, if I weren't so afraid of children I'd be on the Russian summer camp like that.

Look at them! What a great time they must be having in their matching bucket hats.

The second is equally life-changing and pivotal and exciting. My university place came out and (drumroll, please)...



Bachelor of International and Global Studies at the University of Sydney! I'm going to major in European Studies (and something else; Literature, probably) and learn German or French or Spanish or Russian. And I'm going to go on exchange and I'm going to join a heap of obscure societies and I'm going to eat Chinese food out of little boxes like everyone seems to do in films.

Their motto is Sidere mens eadem mutato: Although the constellations change the mind is universal. Isn't that just lovely? Oh my goodness!

So that's me until 2018. If this is just the beginning, my life is going to be beautiful.