The Adventures of Nic

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Wow, Google, could you have made it any more difficult to retrieve my blog? I did not remember my username. I did not remember which email address it was associated with. And oh, my original email address had been converted to a Google account the last time I updated. Which meant that every email address I entered did not work, and every username I thought I could remember did not work either. UGH. I don't even know how I managed to finally get an email now telling me that my username is an INVALID email address that is the name of my Google account (which is not linked with my main/real Google account.) Okay. Rant over. Still living in Canada and still love it here. I consider myself to have two homes now: Brisbane and Vancouver. :D

Friday, July 08, 2011

Saving a link for my own reference.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Life in Canada

A random comment on an old post reminded me that I had this blog. No posts for almost 3 years- how quickly time flies past! I returned from Belfast to Australia, and a year or so later, moved to Vancouver, BC.

Yes, I'm still following my dreams around the world. :) Life in Vancouver is wonderful - especially the skiing and the snowboarding. I'm loving being so close to North American pop culture (conventions! figure skating!) and the outdoors-lifestyle of this city is perfect for me.

Looking at old posts - woah, oversharing much? These days I keep my romantic (mis)adventures to myself.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Avoiding winter since Jan '06.

I'm still in Ireland, and oh, I love it here. My '6 weeks' has turned into over 3 months and I can't say I'm too unhappy. There's been sadness over missing some things in Aus - in particular, the trip to Melbourne to see "Wicked" with my dearest friends - but I am constantly reminded that there is no perfect life. One cannot have everything, one can only make the best of opportunities that present themselves.

And had I stayed in Brisbane, I'd still be jobless and experiencing winter (which I continue to successfully avoid). The whole concept brings a huge smile to my face, and it looks like I can keep avoiding winter for another year and a half at least. I LOVE it, just switching continents when summer is over!

I've been doing some amazing travel. What else do you do when you have no local friends? ;) I finally got to Land's End, I've spent time in London seeing shows and meeting the lovely Jason Dohring at a "Veronica Mars" convention, and of course travelled back to Manchester, which was like coming home in a way. I've been horse riding on beaches in Donegal, spent a crazy couple of days in Dublin and even went to the Ballyshannon Folk Festival. Irish culture, Guinness, and wonderful, friendly locals.

It hasn't all been sunshine, though. I spent 4 days in hospital due to tonsillitus+painkiller allergies and the recovery is slow. It was quite a scary experience, especially being so far from home. Yet what amazes me about humanity is that People Step Up. Two wonderful women came to my rescue, took me to hospital, visited me, brought me cards and chocolate and I am truly humbled by how much they cared.

It's a good reminder for me, to look out for the alone and the lonely, to be there for someone when they really don't have anyone else.

My life here is simple but busy. There's no endless schedule to keep up with and my evenings are my own. UK-ready-meals are phenomenally good and so I honestly don't have to cook. And it's cheaper than everyday life in Brisvegas - I LOVE not having a car.

Who ever suspected, in January, that I'd be spending a good portion of the year in Ireland?

Life! The ultimate adventure!

Friday, May 16, 2008

Belfast, Northern Ireland

I'm in Belfast!!! I can't quite comprehend that I'm here. 2 weeks from the first message that it was a possibility, to landing in the UK.

It's been a whirlwind and I am ridiculously happy to be back in this country. :D

Life! You never know WHERE it will take you!

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Life is fraught with wonder.

I've been unreasonably happy lately which means life is good. :)

Friday, March 14, 2008

The scent of Africa

Now that I've unpacked my boxes from the UK, I have access to my perfumes again. :D This morning I pulled out Jasmine essence, which I purchased in Tunis. It's amazing how scents can take you back to a time and place. I remember that bustling market, where B and I pushed through crowded, smelly streets and tunnels, where I was groped, where we had the most interesting food, where stray cats roamed and we bargained for silver bracelets that I later gave to my sisters.

Tunisia, land of sun, desert and majestic beauty. The memories I have from that place are some of the most incredible of my life. Whenever I watch STAR WARS, I find it both amazing and hard to believe that I have actually been to those places!

I truly am blessed, to have been given the opportunities that I have.

For so many, remote areas of Africa are the 'impossible dream', and yet we did it, armed with dodgy instructions printed off from the internet, a hire car that looked like it was going to fall apart, and a whole lot of grim determination.

Even when we managed to get bogged on the sand flats of Luke Skywalker's house, as the sun was setting (if only it had been twin suns), it was amazing! Oh, the memories.... And poor B, I don't think he quite realised what a crazy/obsessive fangirl I was until that trip. I dragged him from one end of the country to the other and he didn't complain even one bit.

I remember the first night in Africa, where I leaned out of my hotel room window and just BREATHED. I was so excited. The air held a hint of the exotic, it was warm, it was delicious, it was foreign yet familiar (the books I'd read came flooding back to me) and I stood there and stared at the stars and grinned.

And of course, I'm missing B again. So many exciting things are happening lately. I'm meeting new people, planning new things, and it makes me quite sad that he's not part of that. You can't forget someone so easily and I still think, "I can't wait to tell him this!" I can only hope and pray that one day I will again. But how far can your lives diverge and you still have that 'understanding' that only years of friendship brings?

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Canada Countdown

I'm in serious planning mode for Canada. 7 months to go. And, oh, what a difference it makes to my outlook! I'm so excited, I have something major to look forward to. :D Now I don't care that I can't afford weekends away (due to the mortgage and horrific rate rises...), because I no longer feel trapped.

I'm going on an adventure. :) :) :) I'm going to become a kick-ass skiier. Maybe I'll even try snowboarding. My goal for the end of the season will be to do at least one aeriel trick off a ski jump. I wonder if I'll get good enough to do an in-air somersault?

(Before people start telling me that it takes years to learn these things, keep in mind that I have extraordinarily good balance, am a great roller-blader, used to do aerial tricks on the trampoline, and picked up horse riding (including jumping) very easily.)

So many exciting decisions lie before me. Which resorts should I apply to? Should I travel before, or after? Will I stay on in Canada and look for a professional job afterwards? Should I buy my own skis or rent? Will I meet fabulous Canadian men or will I stay solo? ;)

I can't wait to meet all the new people. :) Experience a totally different LIFE. Be poor for a while (that won't be so good but what's more important, paying off my mortgage, or enjoying my youth while I still have it?!)

I feel like ME again. And it's good.

This all depends, of course, on landing a job in a ski-resort but I'm speaking to an organisation that arranges interviews IN AUS before you go. I'm very hopeful.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

It's not enough

I guess what my last post was trying to say is... It's Not Enough.

Everything I have now - my job, my family, my friends, my house... it doesn't fulfil me. So I keep yearning for that thing that will, and life-experience has taught me that breaking OUT of my comfort zone is enough of a distraction to not notice that I want more.

My wasted 20's.

I spent the vast majority of my 20's waiting for marriage. Looking back, I'm horrified at How Much Time I wasted. I was reading today the newly published list of countries that I could have had a working visa for. So many more than I even imagined (France! Germany!) yet the cut-off age for all of these exciting places is 30.

30.

I feel like I'm only just getting started in life, but doors are slamming in my face due to the age cut-off. 30 is an age where you're supposed to have it figured out. Where you've done the adventure thing and you're ready to settle. I'm SO far from that place and I wonder, how did I get it so wrong?

To be fair, the world set me up. Movies and novels (and even the church) promised fairytale romance. My parents fell in love at 16 and it lasted. My sisters/cousins got married at ages 19-21, of course I expected that my turn would soon come. So I did what any good Christian girl would do, kept going to church, lived with my parents (I SO wanted to do the same as my siblings, i.e. live at home until I got married because that was both beautiful and traditional), I got a job to pay off my university debts and begin saving for the future while I waited for my husband, and then....

...continued waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

(I should add that I went out, I met people, I tried new things, dated, I certainly didn't sit at home!)

I'd always had the dream of going to England with my boyfriend/husband: I know so many couples who've done that. The stories they told me were amazing, imagine having that kind of adventure with your best friend! Someone to share the good times and the tough times, someone to help alleviate the inevitable homesickness.

It got to the point where I was so bored, so frustrated, so depressed with my life of waiting, that I finally went on my own. But that was late 20's. There was only enough time for one, maybe 2, visas. I had plans to go to Canada after England (I HAD my visa), but that got slammed by Glandular Fever. Another entire year, GONE just like that. (For 9 months I lacked the physical strength required to move to another country by myself and to this day I don't have the pre-illness energy. I may never again.)

So now. I'm recovered. And I'm in Brisvegas again. I'm back to WAITING.

You could argue that all I have to do is change my frame of reference. But what more is there to life, than family and legacy? Okay, serving God, but oh, that feels empty when you don't share it with someone. And so... I travel. I go out there. I DO THINGS that are different, I experience everything this world has to offer.

And I regret my wasted 20's because those were the prime years to be adventuring instead of hoping for something that didn't come to pass.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Who is Nic?

The way I want the world to see me: A shiny, happy girl with a zest for life. She loves deep, intellectual conversations. She loves travel and seeing new places. She's all about the 'new experience'. She's a Christian girl but not a conventional one (who stays in a safe profession, in a safe little world). She has friends who are believers and those who are not. She believes in real friendships where you get to know the heart of a person instead of just keeping it at surface level.

She's a geek, with a deep, abiding love for STAR WARS. She has an amazing family and loves them to bits (even while feeling pressured to conform to their script). She's brilliant; she's the black sheep of the family. She's generally a success at anything she puts her mind to, except for craft or relationships (no one can be good at everything!) ;)

She was voted "most likely to succeed" by her graduating class, and in terms of world experience and financial goals, she probably is. It's the curse of being the first-born: the classic overachiever. She rides horses and surfs and skis and loves being outdoors. She works hard to stay fit but has a weakness for chocolate. Her favourite boys are her nephews and she has little regard for 'Hollywood' stereotypes.

A chameleon: she's comfortable in a 5-star restaurant; she sleeps happily in a backpacker's hostel. The typical trappings of financial success mean little to her; she'd much rather trek through New Zealand than have a flat-screen tv and matching silverware. She can network her way through a room of VIPs or go drinking with the boys. She knows she will go into space one day.

She's a scientist, she's a writer. She's never cared about being left of centre. Eccentric is taken as a compliment.

---

And that, my friends, is why she remains single. She carries in her heart a deep longing for a confidant. She's had them before, but the world turns, people come in and out of her life and she cares for them deeply when they are there and misses them terribly when they move on.

She's been told she's 'too smart', 'too picky', 'too weird', 'too independent'. She knows she's not your typical girl next door, but that's the essence of who she IS. To pretend, to be that girl with an empty head, the one who lives out her life fulfilled with routine rather than adventure, would be to go against every dream in her mind. The tough thing to comprehend is that the women who marry, those who fit the Biblical role of 'perfect wife', the set she so desperately wants to be part of, the group she admires, is not her.

She's learning to be gracious and accept help. She's learning to admit she can't do everything on her own. (And yes, that frustrates her, the need to rely on other people.) Her heart, now rebuilt (albeit with scars), is in a protective shell and she's terrified of letting it get smashed again. She runs from pain because she knows that the world IS pain.

Part of her dreams of Heaven because she no longer believes in perfection on earth. There can be moments of beauty, moments of bliss, but inevitably, all things end.

And yet - she always believes in a brighter tomorrow - because LOOK at the universe! How amazing, how incredible, it is.

If this post sounds arrogant - I'm writing it to capture who I want to be as well as who I am. Leaving out the bad stuff.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Seasons change

There's a change in the air. Sure, the calendar says it's still summer, but autumn is approaching. I can feel it. There's always a sense of melancholy with the change - I am a summer girl through and through. To me, there's nothing better than running around wearing next to nothing and feeling the warm air on your skin. A hot breeze blowing through your hair, diving into the cool ocean, lying on a floor feeling the heat pulsating around you and feeling so ALIVE.

It makes me want to run and dance and sing. Spend hours at the beach, surfing, lying in the sun, dreaming, being. Walking at midnight with a full moon high, and no need for a jacket. Dancing barefoot through the grass.

The whole world thrums with song in summer.

But winter, winter is for curling up inside, for the night to take hold, for everything to be a little more faded and a little less sparkling. Winter is sad.

I've been having some haunting dreams, the most poignant of X. In the dream, he wrote me a letter saying that this was all silly and he wanted our friendship back. Oh, how I wish that would happen in real life. But I know that the heart is irrational and needs a long time to heal. Sometimes, it doesn't heal at all. And all we can do is acknowledge that, grieve for the lost friendship, and love from a distance.

It's strange, the last year I have learned so much about love in the sense of agape and I don't think I ever appreciated, until now, just how deep that could be. I knew familial love backwards, I had been through the rollercoaster of romantic love a few times, but the love of friendship? It's true, you don't appreciate it until you lose it and I lost it 3 times in a year. (I suspect God was trying to teach me a lesson about that: well the lesson has been received loud and clear!)

These days, I'm appreciating the friends I have, while also seeking out new people. It would be so easy to close myself off and retreat but how many amazing people would I miss?!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Canada, attempt number 2?

I'm thinking of applying for another Canadian visa. If you remember, I already had one but couldn't use it (due to getting glandular fever and ending up in Aus) and it expired. What was even sneakier was the rules changed between the time of my application and acceptance, meaning that they no longer give refunds if it's not used!

So I have to think carefully about this one: it's my last chance (on account of the whole -ARGH- turning 30 this year). Why do working holiday visas have such a young cut-off age? (Answer: because they assume people are married and have kids by this age?) As long as I enter the country by next April I should be okay.

I DO want to spend a season working in a ski resort. It would be so different to what I do now, and yeah, I'd be treated with none of the respect I currently get at work but that would be a humbling experience. Good for the soul. I find that the higher I climb in the corporate world, the more arrogant I become and I have to keep reminding myself that I'm NOT 'better' than others just because of the opportunities God has given me.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. He's just started medical school and said that he wouldn't trade it for marriage. Whereas me? Would I trade my 'career' and travel experiences for marriage? I do think marriage - human companionship - is more important because at the end of it all, it's the people we meet, the lives we touch, the lives that touch ours, that we remember.

And I have met some INCREDIBLE people all around the world.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

21st century consumer society

I'm getting a lot of flack from my friends lately, for not spending money. They know I'm on a higher income than they are (conveniently forgetting it's a solo income). They see my empty house. They see me sleeping on an old bed, or using a plastic chair to sit at the counter. And they ask me:

Why don't you buy a new bed?

Why don't you buy a dinner table?

Why don't you go get some furniture?

The question is invariably followed with, "It's not like you can't afford it."

...how materialistic has our society become??? Sure, I can go into greater debt to purchase these household luxuries. But do I need them? In my mind, no. Posessions, 'stuff', just weighs us down. The more you have, the harder it is to let go of something.

Besides, what if I go out and buy the bedroom suite and fill up my house... what happens if I can't find work? I certainly won't be able to return the items and reselling always causes one to lose money. Even having a mortgage is so OPPOSITE to my philosophy: I've always been the person who does not believe in credit. Ever.

So I get called cheap (rather than frugal) for not fitting the 21st century mould of "Buy what you want!" I've been there, done that, and have the STAR WARS collection to show for it.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

South Africa

I've been getting messages again about the Pretoria project. And the idea has me so excited. I'd resigned myself to missing out after the fiascos of late last year but it seems all hope is not lost. Perhaps God is calling me there after all, just not on the timeframe I expected.

I miss travelling. I don't think I'm ready for the responsibilities of a home; not because I can't do it, but because taking care of a (too big for me) house plus working the hours I do leaves no time for anything else. Certainly not time for meaningful relationships with people. Yes, I have wonderful friends and family whom I see a couple times a week but that is not expanding my social circle. I'm not learning new things.

Two years ago, I was travelling to Europe every 3rd weekend. It was an exhausting lifestyle, but oh, the joys. So much to see and learn about this incredible world! And because I was so busy, I was so much more efficient at squeezing everything else in. I had horse riding on Monday nights, Alpha club on Tuesdays, Bible study group on Wednesdays, and Friday > Sunday was travel. Okay, I only had a small apartment to maintain, but how did I have those levels of energy???

(However, this was pre-illness, so perhaps that's why. Even though I'm over GF, I just haven't bounced back as much as I thought I would. Is it age? Nooooooo!)

At the moment, my 'Weekend To Do' list has things on it like: Mow lawn, organise fridge, cut plastic drawer liners, lay cement. I can't help but think all of those things belong to life with a husband and children where you can share the work of setting up a new home and see it as building something together.

Or perhaps my 'rejecting my house' mindset is because I'm still upset by the random neighbour crashing the impromptu pool party I had last night. I'm not capable of turning people away but when his language grew more and more vulgar, I wish I knew how to kick someone out.