Things To Do

Since I turned 21 I've felt the presence of a dangerous and daring task looming overhead, and today I thought to myself I ought to uncover the sacred commandments to remind myself... What I had forgotten was that there was a time limit. I have less than three months to accomplish this mission appointed to me by my dear friends back in Australia... details as follows:

Things To Do When You're 21
1. Cartwheel down a hill
2. Make a prank call pretending you are a telemarketer
3. Sing "Call Me Maybe" in a public place
4. Eat a Mars Bar sandwich
5. Get a fake tattoo and wear it on your knee
6. Get a cheap canvas and create a self portrait
7. Insert "Today I put a raisin up my nose" in a blog post
8. Trace around your hand, write your name in it, then walk up to a stranger, give it to them and say "This is a high 5!"
9. Talk in a thick English accent for a whole day (or as long as you can)
10. Memorise Psalm 25
11. Go 3 three days in a row without the internet
12. Find something outside (eg. rock) and paint it green with a black smiley face :)
13. Pick/buy a flower for a stranger
14. Listen to "I'm Bringing Sexy Back" every day for a week
15. Take a selfie in a public place, with your tongue out.
16. Write a song (and record it)
17. Write a note and put it in a bottle
18. Make a white shirt with a tea cup on it and Skype Sarah whilst wearing it
19. Find 3 different things to be thankful for each day
20. Eat a teaspoon of cinnamon
21. Complete scavenger hunt attached

Scavenger Hunt: (we shall call them 1b etc.)
1b. A photo of a favourite new food you've had overseas
2b. Write a letter to yourself saying how you honestly feel about life, God, friends, family etc.
3b. A small souvenir from a tourist shop
4b. A coin that you found
5b. A photo with a new friend
6b. A shoelace
7b. A sticker that captures your personality
8b. Something green
9b. Something that makes you laugh
10b. A drawing of something you will miss

I'm tempted to declare that 7 is technically completed, but I know that's not the true spirit of the quest. The problem is, I don't want to allow any lies onto this blog so I'm actually going to have to put a raisin up my nose. Or get someone else to, and then tell me about it so I can write about it. Or, I could always stick the words "Imagine if"in front...

9 may actually happen some time soon. I wouldn't say mine is thick, but I've definitely got one.

13 has been done recently - I picked a flower and when my friend didn't want it I gave it to a little toddler who smiled shyly and walked away. But I could do it again.

18 has context, which makes me smile.

19 is a bit of a problem - I've kind of started a bit late. But I'm gonna need to have 1,095 things by the time I'm 22. It's definitely doable though.

And 21 should be fun! 7b is gonna be tricky.

A Year Later

The 11th of May is the anniversary of my arrival in the UK. Can you believe it?! I don't know if I can. It's an hour to midnight and I'm dying to reactivate my facebook account so that I can share a celebratory status - but how sad is that? It doesn't matter how many people like the fact that I survived a year on my own in a foreign country (though not that foreign when they speak your language... mostly); I need to figure out how I feel first. 

Was it a year wasted? Definitely not. I know I've wasted some of the year, but I'm not that hung up on it because we only do what we can at the time. I have learnt and grown so much. I know I've changed, and not all for the better. But I'm closer to something. Have I sorted out my life yet? Definitely not. Lets not even open that can of worms today.

I am still an Aussie. I'm fully aware of my parasitical London accent habits and all the British idioms that sneak their way into my speech - 'have you not?'; 'brill'; 'Hoover' and all that rubbish ('rubbish') - but I still think and act like I always did. In fact, any distinguishing feature of my personality (such as my charming tendency for bossiness and opinionatedness) has most likely been amplified since being unique here has encouraged me to be even more so. With the possible exception of my sarcastic nature - I had to tone that down a little to make friends. Now that I've got them, though, I can say what I want... (That was sarcasm. But it's true as well.)

And now it's 11:30pm. At this point in the composition of a post I would naturally flow into a theological or existential reflection, and bring you into the miserable world of my circular inner debate. I've started several paragraphs of this kind but it's late and I'm tired and it's too hard to think about. I've got a switchfoot song in my head because I've been playing it on repeat, it's called: 'Where I Belong.' I don't know where home is right now, and I'm scared that I won't be happy anywhere. But happiness is fleeting. I want to live in full conviction of the true purpose of life and be fully satisfied. Or at least, be able to believe it even when I feel lost. I wish God was that big and that good. I wish I could believe it. Then maybe I could come to love a God who is the reason I'm alive. But the way I see it, God is the reason that many, many people are not alive. How can he be a good god?

Oh I did it anyway. I should have just gone to bed.

May Day List

With less than a year to go on my visa, it's time to start a list of all the things I need to do before I go back to Australia. I'll call it the May Day List and you can access it here, or by the link on the left side column. If you think of anything please post a comment (you can post anonymously!) I've barely got anything so far so do help me out.