Sorted! Now the countdown begins....

Well it's a bloody relief that I have finished all the major stuff that I needed to do before I go away. This week I have passed my Class 4 (read bigging #%$&ing truck) licence and my Class 6 (read super-cool motorcycle) full licence and now am all set. Just over a week to go now until I fly away and I only have minor stuff to do now.

I guess the next biggest dilemma to face is what to take with me. I know what should be taken when you go travelling. If someone comes to see me and says "I'm going to India what should I take with me?" I can read off verbatim a complete and minimalist packing list that would make the most ardent 'travel-lighter' proud. "Don't take more than two shirts" i'll say. "You can buy extra clothes everywhere you know" i'd quip. So why is it then, that when I am preparing for my own trip I have absolutely no ability to stick to my own advice.

I seem to have a wonderful ability to come up with thousands of exceptions for the journey that I will be embarking on that rationalise taking extra stuff.."Well i'm working in the U.K. for 3 months before I begin the main part of my travels so I need these 12 extra pairs of trousers".. or something like that. I did do a test pack the other day and was quite suprised at how little stuff I do have so I suppose it's not as bad as I thought.

So i know have one last week in order to say goodbye to various friends and family and try to think of all things that i have forgotten to do ... I'm sure all these things will come ot be in a blinding flash as soon as I step onto the plane. I'm starting to get excited now.... this week is going to fly by.....

Perhaps I should point out...

...that I have been successful in achieving my dream job as an overland truck driver. I go back to the U.K. in October to start with my three month training. I'm not really sure the purpose of this blog yet... I have created a travel blog on a couple of otehr sites to record my travels and adventures and i'm not totally sure how this one fits in. The previous update is a cut and paste of the opening post on those blogs. Perhaps I will keep this one going as a more personal blog as well as a back-up of my other blogs. Whether or not I can be bothered updating more than one blog will be seen.

I have a heap of things to do now... travel doctor tommorrow to talk about vaccinations and I also start the theory component of my advanced motorcycle course.... my diary is very full I just hope I can get it all organised before I go.

I guess I will see....

At Home Contemplating

It seems almost unreal to me, sitting in my bedroom in Auckland, that in about a month I will be flying to the U.K. to begin my training to become an overland tour leader, a job I have dreamt about having since 2001. I know I am incredibly lucky that I have been able to pursue this dream of mine, in fact as it draws closer I get a feeling that something MUST go wrong to stop it all from happening so smoothly and easily. Although I can’t wait for the next month to pass as quickly as possible, I am sure that as the date of my departure draws closer that time will accelerate and Monday 1 October will be upon me before I know it. This time at home, however, does give me an excellent opportunity to say farewell to friends and family who I won’t be seeing for at least 18 months or so. So the most important thing that I have to do before I return is to complete my Class 4 truck licence, a task which I am somewhat nervous about. I have only had my Class 2 licence for 3 months and have basically no experience in driving trucks so I am a bit worried that I may find it hard to transition to the larger Class 4 vehicle. It doesn’t help that I can only start my truck lessons on 19 September and I hope to fly out on 1 October… if anything goes wrong I may be forced to reschedule my flight which will be a complete pain in the backside. I have then almost 3 weeks to occupy before I can start on the truck lessons, the only thing else I have planned is to have five fillings which unfortunately the dentist has told me that I must have - what fun. I suppose that I should put in more planning for what I will need to do before I leave as I am sure there are a million things that I haven’t even thought about that I will need to organise, avoid, pay for, sell or inject myself with before I fly away. Anyway this has been a rather disjointed opening post, probably suits my mood quite well and I’m not actually doing too much of great interest at the moment. I’m sure that when I start my training then some interesting posts may eventuate. Heres hoping.

Back in Blighty...

Well I have been a real lazy bastard by not updating for a while. I have been in the UK for about 4 weeks now. The most exciting news is that Drgaoman have offered me a job and I hope to begin my 3 months training in Suffolk around the start of October.

I had a fantastic time during my two weeks in Debenham, I seemed to fit in with the people at Drago straight away. My two week assessment also took me to two festivals to help market the company, WOMAD and Lovebox which were both fun and interesting.

I can hardly wait now to return to start. The only slight problem is in sorting out a UK bank account, apparently my HSBC account of 5 years ago was closed as a bad debt and I may have difficulties opening another even though I have paid off the debt straight away. Hopefully I can get this sorted out before I leave but the British banking system is so antiquated and crap that I highly doubt it.

I am staying with an old school friend, Stephen Greenfield in his flat at Kilburn Park, London, just chilling out on the couch after a BBQ last night at another Kiwi's place and a few beers.

It is a beautiful day in London, don't really have too many plans for the last week I am here except for sorting out my bank account.... I need to save my cash as much as possible for my return here in a couple of months. Hopefully I can stayhere for a few days which would be nice.

Not much else to report

Me is Educamated!! (Officially)

Well god damn and whoppee!! Just checked my results of my final exams online and I passed everything so now I will be graduating with A Bachelor of Arts in September!!!

I am so bloody happy! Even the exams that I thought went quite badly I ended up with a decent grade in.

My final marks were:

Anthropology 304: Contemporary Oceania - A-
History 125: War, Peace and Society since 1800 - A-
History 307: Modern Germany since 1848 - B+
Politics 106: International Relations - B+


Happy happy happy! And now I am furiously getting ready to fly out to England in two days! How exciting is everything right now.... I can't hardly wait :)

One more day left at work...

It's been a struggle for the last two weeks... getting up early and going to a job that I really do not want to do. The prime motivation for working the last two weeks wasto have a bit of additional spending money for the U.K. It has been difficult... the longest run in the branch which gets the most mail, plenty of posties calling in sick, strong winds and torrential rain and mega-mega-mega amounts of mail.

But now I have only one more day to go and it all seems worth it :) Funny how these things work really. Now I just need to get myself organised for my trip... trying to sort out what clothes to take and also sell my car tommorrow.

I also got me a fancy new camera as an early birthday present from mum. It is a Sony H-2, a camera from last year but had been discounted very heavily so was very worth it. I haven't used a camera for a long while and this one has many manual functions so I'll have to learn how to use all its features.

Funnily enough even though it is only 5 days until I leave it doesn't seem real yet. i guess because of the stress of exams and then straight into work 6 days a week I haven't had too much time to think about it. It is quite exciting though... I really hope my interview goes well, I want this job so much! Anyhow not much I can do now until the 16th - just going to enjoy my last few days here and London. Trying not to think about the 37 hour flight :(

Why the idea of "growing up" is nonsense

From the Vagabondish blog:

I read BNT’s recent post The Hardest Part Of A Journey Is Coming Home by Brendan Moran and found myself quietly, emphatically nodding along. Especially to bits like this:

Maybe I’m naive, but I was hoping for a “eureka!” moment on the trip where all of the sudden my life would make sense. I would find my calling and hopefully some peace.

Maybe I’d be on a boat somewhere watching the sunrise, or laying in a hut listening to frogs chirp outside: something cinematic.

While nothing quite like that ever happened, after a year away, I think I’ve become a different person. I’m more sure of what I want and less angry. I take better care of myself and I feel more in control.

… and this:

While we were gone I tried to stay unplugged and happily ignorant about pop culture and other non-weighty matters, and now that I’m back, I realize I should have done that a long time ago.

My interest level for “shallow things that do not matter” remains below zero.

Then, right at the end, Brendan pulled the rug out from under me:

The hardest part about travel isn’t coming back, it’s staying back. Sure, we can always take smaller trips that last a few days or weeks, but I can’t shake the idea of another long odyssey.

Responsibility keeps wanting to get in the way. Bills, a wife, and no money are waking me from my dream of riding a motorcycle across Asia.

I just don’t want to grow up yet.

Huh? The phrase “grow up” has always made my teeth itch.

What exactly does it mean? What’s the predefined, socially accepted, neatly-wrapped-up-in-a-cardboard-sandwich-box definition? Is it having a mortgage? A BMW? 2.3 kids? The perfect dog and a white picket fence? Sitting behind a desk for forty years in a perfectly starched, collared shirt and tie to feed your 401K in the hopes that maybe - just maybe - you’ll have enough saved to travel the world when you’re 65?

My girlfriend, her family, and more of my friends than I care to count seem to think “growing up” and “being responsible” are somehow synonymous. And it seems they’re not alone as Brendan’s wife would agree:

I just don’t want to grow up yet. A point of view lost on my wife who wants a family, a house, and no motorcycles. One can still dream, right?

To what and whom are we ultimately responsible? My only responsibility is to ensure that I and - to the extent that I have any influence - my family and friends are happy and healthy. Nothing more.

If one is happy with the aforementioned “grown-up” or “responsible” life with a BMW and a desk job, so be it. But if my personal happiness is found in a vague ’round the world itinerary and a one-way ticket to [fill-in-the-blank]-istan, what right does anyone else have deeming me irresponsible?

Aside from my parents, I haven’t told anyone of my RTW travel plans. But I know enough of my coworkers, extended family and girlfriend’s family to foresee the inevitable eye-rolling and know that their responses will be a collective mix of disbelief and tsk-tsk “You’re throwing everything away” condemnation.

The disbelief will of course only last until the moment they’re waving goodbye to me from a terminal at Logan Airport.

The condemnation on the other hand runs much deeper. And it all circles back to their limited ideal of what “growing up” is and the notion that it’s somehow irresponsible to step outside “the norm” to find happiness. I can’t see how anyone can be so narrow-minded as to think that there is some singular, objective goal of happiness towards which everyone must strive.

Why can’t they just accept another person’s choices, however different from their own those choices may be? Why must people be so judgmental of others?

I’ll never live vicariously through my own dreams or attempt to live up to someone else’s ideal of happiness. I, for one, reject the notion of “growing up” and I’m forever hanging up that phrase on the hat rack of hollow, meaningless lexicon.

As for responsibility, what could be more responsible than casting aside every thing and every place you’ve ever known for the opportunity to travel the world and see and do more than you ever dreamed possible - all in the pursuit of happiness? At the end of the day, that’s the only responsibility we have to ourselves and our families.