The cycle of life

The months have melted away into nothing since my trip to and from Australia in January. Since then I have been tucked away in Southampton, continuing on with everyday life.

I should briefly account for the past six to eight months. In summer 2016 I transitioned from Spain to Southampton, working on the Pre-sessional course again. In September, I enrolled onto a masters course (Applied Linguistics Research Methodology) as a part-time student. At the end of October, I began working part time as an administrator in recruitment and admissions at the university. I began working as a youth group leader at Victory Gospel Church in September.  I also joined the gym and signed up for the half-marathon again. On top of that, I take an evening class in Russian at university. So it means that my timetable is like this:

Mondays I go to the library and study all day. Tuesdays I am in the office all day and I usually go to the gym or circuits after a long day of sitting at a screen all day so I can let out all my pent up energy. Wednesday I go to lectures and stay on campus studying or attack the gym again until 7pm when I have my Russian class on Avenue Campus. Thursdays I am back in the office and then on Fridays I am in the office until 1pm and then I usually head to the library in the afternoon. At about 6:30pm on a Friday I leave the library and head to church where I spend the rest of my evening helping out with youth group, meaning I usually don't get home til about 11:30 at night.

My weekends are free (which is necessary...!) so that I can catch up on work, do a bit of running, shop, see people etc. Having this balance between professional work and academic study is a life-saver; just when one thing gets monotonous I can turn to the other. It gives me a routine and a salary.

Lately people have been asking me "What are you going to do after next year?" As in, what do you plan on doing when you graduate and finally enter into a world where you need to contemplate a solid career.

It's a difficult question to answer. No doubt I'm not the only one who feels this way either; I know many people I've asked who don't really have a response to it either. Now I don't want to write yet another article about being a millennial and why this makes it difficult to find yourself in your twenties, why careers are only the bane of your life and why no-one really wants to stay in their job anymore... but I do find myself looking at the job situation these days and wondering if I have made the right choices.

On one hand, I have friends and peers who have already made a start on their careers, having graduated from university a good three or four years ago. If I had graduated with them, where would I be now? I'd probably have a little more money and maybe a promotion ahead.

On the other hand, I have friends like me who have not made a start on their careers yet but are maybe working their way through a masters degree or PhD (or taking another year to work abroad and keep life interesting).

Both  have their virtues and faults. I can't say that I regret the past seven years of independence since I left high school. At the same time, there is always a side of you which questions how it would be if you had taken a different path. It is also natural to wonder what lies ahead of you, what you cannot see, in the distant or not so distant future.

When people ask me now, "What are you going to do after your masters degree?" I never seem to have one simple answer. At university (the first time round) if someone asked me that question, it seemed easier to come up with a response. I was exploring the idea of being a French teacher or even just teaching English so I could easily move abroad and work. The more I did placements in schools however, I started to get the feeling it wasn't for me. I worked as a teacher on and off for about three years and in the final year of that, my mind was elsewhere in terms of careers.

In July 2015, I graduated from university with a job lined up to teach English in Spain for a year. I knew I still had to think about what the next step was though. In January 2016, I applied for funding to do a PhD in linguistics. This was halfway through my year in Spain. I loved living abroad but I didn't enjoy my job. I found myself keen to be learning again, doing research, writing about linguistics etc. A couple months later, I got rejected for the PhD funding. I had to re-evaluate my next steps a little. So I took a weekend trip to Barcelona, to see an old friend who was visiting. On the way, I met a girl from South Africa in a car share. Sometime in the four hours we were chatting, she asked me about the course my life was taking and I confessed that I was torn between two solid options:

Become a teacher? Start my career with a good starting salary and become fully qualified within two years? After that the only way is forward - you are on a career ladder and you have security.

The other option was to pursue a masters in linguistics. For me, that seemed full of risks. There was no salary, some funding but not enough to live on and after a year there was no job to just walk straight into.

Within an hour of talking to Amori, the ex-teacher from South Africa, she convinced me to do something I was more passionate about. She said "It sounds like you really enjoy linguistics - you seem so passionate about going back to study. Whereas you don't seem thrilled to become a teacher". And in order to be a full-time teacher, you need to enjoy it.

When I began university I wanted to be (don't laugh) a journalist. Until I realized that the life of a journalist is not at all glamorous. It's tough, work is hard to come by, forget being paid well and it is not at all predictable. Somewhere between my first and second year at university, I lost touch with the idea of writing, smothered the desire with the more practical plan of becoming a teacher. But then, when I was living in Spain and teaching again for the third or fourth time since starting university, I realised that I really had to make a final decision. It is hard to let go of something that you've been working towards, even when you realise it isn't for you.

So here I am, back in Southampton, almost finished with the first year of this masters degree. I have to say, this year has been a lot of fun. But every time someone asks me about the future or whenever I look at recruitment websites, my mind goes blank. I find myself thinking...all this work...for this job...or this job...or this job...?

I guess that life has a funny way of being cyclical sometimes. I started university with an idea, not fully formed, but an inkling about where I knew I wanted to go. Then six years later, after some detours, this idea came back to me in the form of an opportunity that presented itself. I met a journalist-filmmaker in town one day who was advertising for a campaign she had recently set up in Southampton. After some discussion, it transpired she was looking for volunteers to take part in community journalism for the city - "small but with potential". It all came about so suddenly - and right in the middle of academic work deadlines - but more than the project itself, what fuelled me was the spark I felt inside when I thought about writing again. She told me to call her so I found myself a couple of weeks later sitting in her workplace listening to her telling me things about her life as a journalist-filmmaker. As she talked, things were slotting together in my mind. After graduating, it felt as if my degree from university was an unfinished puzzle, which is what made me pursue a masters - as if that would help put the pieces of the puzzle together finally. Over the course of this first year, it still looks like an unfinished puzzle. But now what she was saying about her job - "...I need help interviewing...transcribing...no, that's so time-consuming - summarise! In your own words...write..."

Is this or is this not exactly what I have been doing anyway for the past five years? I thought to myself. She was telling me about the opportunities there were in her project.

"You find the story you want to pursue, find it by asking the right questions. And as a writer, you are unstoppable."

I suppose that I would finish this post by writing one final time, how the cyclical nature of life is not always designed to frustrate us. Going in a circle can also lead you back to something you started but never really finished and I think that would describe exactly what happened with me and this city. 

Australian Holiday Part II

We drove down the wide, suburban roads from the airport past Adelaide's centre in Nat's truck. Every single car I could see was enormous. It seemed that no-one had heard of Smart cars, Mini Coopers or Twingos. Every single car had a monstrosity too it that said "I was made from the fiercest iron, born for the roadless deserts". The more I gazed out of the window, the more fascinated I became with all these four-wheel drives.

Eva wasn't so happy about being awake past her bedtime. She'd had a dazed and sleepy look on her face the whole time in the airport lobby but only now did she begin to whimper, crease up her face and then howl.

Although I'd experienced many a car tantrum with multiple toddlers in my days of being a French nanny and had never particularly enjoyed them, I sympathised with my niece who had been woken up and forced to sit still with an uncomfortable seat belt around her for forty minutes. Not to mention she was surrounded by new strangers who resembled her mother but weren't.

We finally approached South Pacific Drive, the destination. On entering Kate and Nat's garage, Eva perked up. I was so tired I could hardly process anything. We passed the patio on the way to the house and then we were finally there, in Kate and Nat's house.

It was a surreal experience, finally being in the very room I'd  been Skyped into for months. On top of that oddity, it was such a different type of house than the houses of the U.K; built for summer rather than horrible damp winters. There were sliding doors, mosquito screens and air conditioning fans outside. It reminded me a little of our houses in Thailand.

It was almost 11pm and Anna and I were exhausted but we collapsed in the living room with our suitcases, taking it all in. Eva had perked up now that she was not chained down to her carseat. She began interestedly peeking into our suitcases and she let out a delighted shriek from mine.

She'd unearthed my pink, slightly battered stuffed rabbit that I have had since my own toddler days. I take him with me whenever I travel, out of habit. A little piece of familiarity in changing landscapes can be comforting.

"Teddy," Eva said proudly, cuddling him in her arms. Admittedly, he was exactly the kind of thing she would notice in my suitcase; a fluffy and pink thing with a face. Not to mention he is extra-specially charming. But I made a mental note to keep a tab on him in case he mysteriously "went missing" into her toybox of other teddies.

Not long after that, my eyes were closing by themselves. We went to bed and finally...finally I fell asleep, dreaming of absolutely nothing.

The next day and the weeks that followed all somehow blurred together. It felt natural to all be together again and there were even times when it felt as if we'd known Eva forever. Boxing Day was a little overcast but we went to the beach anyway and took some body boards with us. Because of the wind, the waves were high and powerful, capable of pulling you under and pushing you back to shore in one fell swoop. Nat told me that the basic rule of bodyboarding (and I suppose surfing) was to get behind the wave before it was fully formed. When it started emerging, rolling up but not quite rippling, you were to paddle in the opposite direction towards the shore. As the wave gathered speed, so did you, until you were actually carried onto the rolling current before it rippled and broke into a full wave. By that point, if you have successfully been carried onto the wave, as it breaks, you are actually on top of it and stay afloat...and the rest, is surfer's paradise.

It all sounded very straightforward. I soon found that it was not.

For the best part of an hour, I was out in the waves, paddling madly, forwards and backwards trying to get the timing just right. Either I saw the wave just as it was breaking and had to duck under, which carried me backwards, or I almost got on top of it for a split second only to realise that I wasn't quite on the current but under it. Which made me go under as well.

My nose, ears and throat filled with water and the constant ducking and being pulled backwards made my head spin. But it was addictive. There was something about the fresh cold water, the strength of the waves and the adrenaline I felt every time I saw a roll in the ocean ahead that made me stay for just another try...then just another...

I finally got on a wave. I started paddling towards the shore, rather half-heartedly, as I saw another forming. I didn't really think I'd get on it, just another one which threw me off mid-course, I assumed. But before I knew it, my board had risen above the water and I could see the beach ahead. As the wave broke, I did not go under. Rather, I glided over it, gathering speed as it crashed tumultuously onto the shore. My board slid neatly onto the sand without so much as a drop of water touching me.

I leapt up excitedly and ran up the shore.

"Did you see me?" I shrieked at the others who quickly shushed me. Eva was fast asleep on the sand so I silently motioned to the sea.

I don't think anyone quite understood it like I did. Nat, who had just swam in, gave me a high five but really, how could explain what it had felt like? After an hour of struggling against the sea, I had wanted to give up. But even as I had felt that defeat, the rush of excitement at seeing another wave approaching, another potential, had kept me there in the sea. Even though my feet couldn't touch the ocean floor, my eyes watered with the salt and my shoulders ached from paddling, seeing one more wave approach was addictive.

Now that I had finally done it, I couldn't get over how amazing the feeling had been. I looked on at the surfers passing by with a newfound respect and understanding. I knew what they were looking for, what they spent hours out in the freezing cold, sometimes shark-infested oceans. It didn't matter. I finally knew what it meant to "catch the perfect wave".

There were times in those two weeks when Anna and I lost track of where we were and what day it was. Eva came to see us first thing when she woke up, knowing where to find us. We went to the beach again many times; we sat out on the patio in the soft light of evening, drinking wine and cooling ourselves down after in the air-conditioned living room. I went running down the esplanade a few evenings in the time I was there. The esplanade was about seven miles long and ran along the coast. The cliffs overlooked the wide, blue ocean and even at eight thirty in the evening, when the clouds were forming and the sun was setting in for the night, you could see the surfers still out there, little dots and specks on the surface of the water. They were still determined to catch one, the wave that would carry them straight back to shore.

As much as we tried to escape and lose track of it, the time finally came for us to leave. It was a Sunday and the day had been fairly quiet. Now we all sat together in the living room, Nat's family and Kate, whilst Anna and I packed our suitcases.

Outside it was still humid and summery, even at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Eva walked barefoot around the patio, humming to herself and trailing my pink teddy bear absent-mindedly around with her. I didn't have the heart to take him from her just yet.

Driving down the highway to the city, Anna and I took in the surroundings a final time; trees, kangaroo signs, the huge SUVs. Eva had finally fallen asleep in her car seat, one fist clenching around a teddy of hers. In the background, a song called Daydream Believer played softly. Kate turned up the volume because it was our song, hers, Anna's and I's. But a couple of minutes into the song, she changed the track. We didn't say anything to each other, but we all had tears creeping up into our eyes.

We arrived at the airport two hours or so before our flight. Adelaide airport was smaller than I remembered, although I had been very tired when we'd stepped off the plane two weeks ago. Eva was in good spirits after her nap. Her curiosity got the better of her as we checked our suitcases in. She hopped onto the giant, industrial scales and giggled to herself.

"Eight kilos," I read aloud. "That's the best it's ever going to be Eva."

After we had been through security, we went to get some dinner. During dinner, Eva could not sit still, began to fidget and whine. I reached into my bag and produced the magical pink teddy which quietened her. After dinner, there was still some time and Eva was still fidgety so we decided to all walk to the end of the airport and back. Outside the giant glass windows that overlooked the runway, the sun was setting in magnificent pink and orange streaks. The runway was oddly empty; there didn't seem to be that many planes coming in or leaving at this time of day.

We stopped by the window so that Eva could watch a jumbo jet take off. We tried to guess where it was flying to; Perth? Sydney? Auckland? We didn't know.

Not long after it seemed, the inevitable was upon us. It was getting late and Eva was beginning to grow tired. It was past her bedtime again; we had a flight to catch and they had a forty minute drive home. But goodbyes are usually easier than this, at least for us. We always avoid those goodbyes, the three of us, we're not very good at them. We've always tried to make them as brief as possible because otherwise it's too difficult. We got into the line to go through the second security, Duty Free. Then that was it, Anna and I took our turns. We hugged Nat, kissed sleepy Eva goodbye and then Kate. It was a quick hug from both of us each to our dear sister, the missing third of the pie. I kept myself together. They turned and walked away and I couldn't look back, not at Eva's tiny blond head or Kate and Nat's disappearing silhouettes. But because Anna was there, I allowed myself this once to burst into tears, even though I knew she didn't want me to.

Once we were in Duty Free, we distracted ourselves with the souvenirs and interesting things you can get from Australia which are considered "Australian". Wanting to cheer us both up, Anna bought some souvenirs; matching Australia t-shirts.

Once we'd boarded the plane, it was eleven o'clock at night and I felt quite sleepy. Anna and I watched X-men: the Apocalypse together and then I found myself falling asleep quite naturally, unlike the last plane trip.

I wish that there were a way to write more, to say in detail about everything that we did in Australia. I wish that I had been quite disciplined and written a daily journal entry, which would have given facts, not a waffling beginning and end, the story of an airport once more. But this travel was different. It wasn't about seeing Australia, holding a koala bear, swimming with a dolphin or photographing a wild kangaroo in the garden. It wasn't about having a barbeque or meeting a group of surfer dudes or going snorkelling with some jellyfish and coral. It was where my sister is. Where she is now, this is it. The reality of the trip hit me like a ton of bricks: Australia is far. The world is huge and we are at opposite ends, north and south, east and west. But what made Australia special was that it was ours now. It wasn't just somewhere we had travelled to and kept a few photos and passport stamps for the scrapbook. It was a place we would always return to, in one way or another. Our family was there and that meant we were there too.

When I woke up from my sleep, four or five hours had passed and I had no idea what time zone we were in. I thought about the next part, when would we return?

One day we would. "Anna," I whispered, because everyone around us was sleeping. She opened an eye groggily "Maybe next time we can visit Perth."

Australian Non-working Holiday (So Basically Just a Holiday) Part 1

As I write this one, I am currently on a flight from Manchester, England to Dubai. I am sitting in a row of three and I have my laptop, my USB with study notes, an essay to write and a whole 16 hours left of transportation to go until I reach my destination:

Adelaide, Australia.

It's kind of a long story how I've ended up on this flight. I am travelling with my sister Anna and the reason I spontaneously decided to write about this (instead of doing my essay) is because all of sudden, this journey has brought on a crazy wave of nostalgia that takes me back in time by 10-15 years. Wait a moment, I see my airline food approaching.

(45 minutes later)

Where was I? I just ate pudding and drank red wine in a plastic cup. Aside from the fact that plastic cups remind me of student house parties, it feels pretty grown up having red wine on a plane. I think that's because I've never done it before. We're flying over the Black Sea now, about halfway to Dubai.

So nostalgia. Let me explain. The last time I really had a long flight with just Anna was 17 and a half years ago, which seems like a lifetime now. I was with her and Kate (Anna's twin) who now lives in Australia with her little daughter. That's right, we're not just sisters now, we're aunties to a kid. Anyway. In 1999, we were flying from Bangkok to London and our brother was due to be born that summer, so it was a tactical move on our parents side to get us out from under our mum's feet for the last few months of waiting around for him to be born.

So me, Kate and Anna, we had this flight all to ourselves, with no parents. Only the flight attendants, who kept an eye on us from afar. I have to say, my memory of that flight is a little blurry now, except that I remember feeling very carefree, excitable and a little mischievous since there were no parents to tell us what to do.

This was the first of many adventures we would go on as a three, including this current trip to Australia. When we were children, we did these flights a lot because we lived in Thailand. It became pretty normal but then we moved to the U.K when I was eleven and from then on, all my travels remained in Europe. I have become a bit obsessed with visiting France, speaking French and doing things like cycling around Spain but Kate and Anna, in eternal twinship, went roadtripping round America and then went separately back to Thailand as adults. Anna even visited Cambodia, something we'd never done as kids. Kate's trip to Thailand later resulted in her meeting an Australian man, which eventually cumulated with her living in Adelaide with him and our niece. Which brings me nicely to how Anna and I ended up on this flight to Adelaide.

Our current flight to Dubai is six hours. I'm not averse to being on a plane, it's just in over a decade I haven't done any significantly long plane trips. I think I was beginning to block out the ones from childhood because I don't remember feeling so uncomfortable.

This flight will be the longest I have ever done. Thailand to England is only ever 12 hours, excluding stopovers. This one to South Australia is 18-21 hours excluding stopovers. Our stopover in Dubai is only 1 hour though, which initially I thought would be a bonus because we get there quicker...but I didn't know what was about to hit me.

(Later, after Dubai, Plane 2)

Sorry that last bit made it sound like we were on the verge of plummeting to our deaths in the ocean; nothing of the sorts happened. The time in Dubai was around 2am when we took off. I was beginning to feel a little tired but Anna and I had already worked out that sleeping at this stage was not going to be a good idea. We would arrive at 9pm into Adelaide, which meant that we'd have a whole night ahead of us. Sleeping then instead of now would help the dreaded jet lag. Except it was hour 1 of a 12 hour flight, 12 hours no stops! This never happened on the childhood planes.

The childhood planes of the 90s also did not have such elaborate technology, which I mused over whilst browsing the entertainment section of my mini screen. I've never flown with Emirates, which is a pretty posh airline as it is. The last time I flew to Thailand and back was with Uzbekistan airline, which was memorable for all the wrong reasons. When we touched down in Uzbekistan I remember every single light on the plane went out. And the airport was caged in with barbed wire fences and men with machine guns patrolling outside.

Anyway back to the point, the entertainment is better now. Much wider selection of films, individual touch screens and you can now watch the plane's journey through satellite (I guess that started when Sat Navs did). Just writing that last bit makes me feel old, I mean, there's now a generation that doesn't know the pre-Sat-Nav era...I can comfort myself and assure you all that I was REALLY young back then (implying I am still young now).

Anyway I was a little fascinated with the plane's journey through space (well the atmosphere). Anna was less fascinated, seeing as she's a more frequent flier than me.

"Stop that Rachel, " she sighed glancing over at me, eyes glued to the screen. "It's going to make this journey seem SO much longer than it actually is!"

Admittedly there came a point where we had flown beyond India and now all that remained between our plane and Australia was gigantic ocean. Occasionally I flicked the screen back to the satellite in between watching episodes of Brooklyn 99 (also a TV show of this new shiny generation). As we got closer to Southeast Asia (no Thailand stopovers, to my chagrin!), exotic names popped up on the screen, presumably of islands around Indonesia.

"ANNA! PERTH!"

Her head jolted up as I pointed excitedly at the screen.

"Ugh," she groaned, "Why can't we just land there! I'm dying. I also need a wee."

This was a problem. We had window seats and the seat closest to the aisle was occupied by a woman who had been asleep the whole flight. We didn't want to wake her up but we were both dying to get up, go to the toilet and stretch our muscles. My legs felt like they were seizing up, another flight problem I never experienced as a child. That circulation, risk of deep vein thrombosis thing doesn't affect kids, probably because the majority of them can't sit still for five minutes.

(Later)

We had four hours to go. Perth was now in the distance behind us but the vast expanse of Australia ahead of us. Adelaide was still many miles away. My throat was dry as the desert beneath us and my nose started to bleed, something which did sometimes happen as a child. There's something about the cabin air pressure that does it. I managed to stem it with that hot towel thing the air stewardess gives you at random points in the flight (why do they only give you like 1 in the entire flight? Those hot towels are my favourite bit of flying) I wish we could have more hot towels and less airplane food. The wine en route to Dubai is now a distant and bitter memory.

(Two hours to go)

Anna and I felt like death. We were desperately trying to stay awake but we were both losing the plot slightly with the efforts. I switched the plane satellite off and flicked through the films. Mamma Mia seemed like a bright and cheerful thing that could perk us both up at this stage.

Half an hour into it, I felt like I wanted to punch Amanda Seyfriend in the face. Even Meryl Streep was annoying me, so I switched it off, put my heavy head in my hands and screamed (internally). The problem with being an adult on a plane is you can only scream internally, unlike children who can get away with shrieking for hours on end. I also became aware of my own odour. I had accidentally packed my roll-on deodorant in the suitcase in the hold and not hand luggage. I kept my hoodie on (which was actually Anna's hoodie) so as to keep the smell in.

(30 minutes to go)

There was a soft bing sound and the seatbelt sign came on. The flight attendant's smooth voice came over the loudspeaker:

"We will begin our descent to Adelaide, please remain seated and refrain from using the restroom".

"Finally, I've only been waiting my entire life!"

I switched the satellite screen on again. There was a little line under the plane that marked out the plane's route. The line plummeted down now, as if there was a little invisible slide for the plane to get into Adelaide.

But every minute seemed to drag. The invisible slide didn't seem to be happening, until finally, FINALLY, the clouds parted and LAND! HOUSES, ROADS, TREES appeared beneath us. Then faster and faster we approached, into what I could only assume was a balmy summer's evening bathed in twilight...

(Later)

Anna and I managed to get ourselves off the plane fairly quickly. It seemed like quite a small airport, certainly smaller than Manchester and Dubai. I finally took the hoodie off and handed it to Anna, as the outside temperature was 27 degrees.

"Rache, this stinks," Anna said matter-of-factly, indicating the not-so-fresh hoodie that I'd been wearing for 20 hours.

(Post-passport control, luggage reclaim, in the ladies bathroom)

Anna and I brushed our teeth for almost five whole minutes. I was reunited with my deodorant (to every in the vicinity's relief) and I also got hold of a hairbrush. I still looked and felt like I'd been to war.

As we exited the toilets, an incredible vision fell into our eyeline. The captains and the cabin crew had exited the plane and were walking towards us in their uniforms. The captains looked like Tom Cruise in Top Gun only blonder, more tanned and more Australian-sounding. The crew members behind them were beautiful, with perfectly poised hats, uncreased skirts without even a smudge of lipstick out of place. They looked...

"They look excellent," I breathed aloud, to Anna who giggled but from the look on her face she definitely agreed with me. There were two captains. We didn't look excellent ourselves, but I thought it was a pity we hadn't been able to meet them during the 12 hours we'd been in cabin pressure, sleep deprivation hell.

We walked out into arrivals. Kate, Nat and Eva our niece hadn't arrived yet so we sat down and sent them a message. The captains and their crew walked flawlessly past, and Anna and I admired them as they disappeared into the distance of the car park, wondering what dreamy existences they were driving back to.

All of a sudden, at the other side of the airport, I saw Kate approaching with Nat in tow.

I finally screamed out loud, a scream which I'd repressed the entire flight, except this one was out of pure joy rather than frustration.

Anna and I ran towards her, there she was in person, in the flesh! After MONTHS of Skype. We all hugged and then behind her was Nat, holding a grown up, taller, longer-haired, blonder little toddler who had been a tiny baby last time I'd seen her. I couldn't quite believe just how gorgeous she was and for a few seconds I was stunned and couldn't speak.

When finally everyone had hugged and kissed and exchanged excitable babbled nonsense, we made our way outside to the carpark, into the warm, balmy SUMMER'S night! It only really registered at that moment that it was Christmas Day and whilst we'd spent most of it in the air, it was worth it for that moment.

(Disclaimer: photo not my own, but a pretty realistic view of landing in Australia)

More to come! Stay tuned!