“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us!"
This quote was on one of the many travel websites I have been on this week trying to plan the rest of our trip and get some advice, mainly on buses as we are going to be taking over 100 hours of them. Anyway the quote made me think how this applies to me 100% but it didn't always.
In 2005 I packed my bags and boarded a plane to Camp Kon-o-Kwee (Pittsburgh, USA) even almost 10 years on I cannot think about Camp without my heart beating faster and a massive smile erupting on my face, and that is because it is one of the most magical places on Earth! I won't write a blog post being one of those annoying '.....this one time at summer camp....' people, but all my friends who I shared 3 glorious summers with know the feeling when someone mentions Camp KOK! Anyway back then when I was 19 this quote was in the reverse because I was definitely doing it to escape something and that was Uni.
I bloody hated Uni, I'm probably the only person in the world that did, thank god for Charlie and Steve getting me through. If it wasn't for the fact that Charlie and I would sit at the beginning of each academic year and she would choose a module and I would choose a module and we would sign up to do both so we would be together and if it wasn't for texting Steve throughout our lectures (about 24 or how boring the lecture was) I literally would not have graduated! So for me travelling was my escape, I would count down on my uni notes...90 days til Camp, 45 days til Camp etc! Camp became for 3 years my escape from university!
However this time round this quote definitely applies to me, as Nathan and I were not escaping our lives we are travelling for life not to escape us! I feel very lucky that I love my family, friends, job and flat and am excited to return to them when travelling is up but I am so grateful for this opportunity to see what the world has to offer.
Two great friends of mine asked me if I missed teaching this week (Adele and Charlie) and really my truthful answer is 'NO!' not the stress and workload but 'YES!' I miss school, I miss my school that I love, I miss the people who make JRCS a community, I miss my friends I get to see every day at work especially Alison & Natalie who I spend a lot of time with outside Sch, I miss my awesome office and department and the way they know me so well and we cry with laughter weekly if not daily, I miss the students, the ones who really do make teaching a worthwhile job especially my amazing Year 10 RS class who are now in Year 11 and being taught by my fantastic colleague Luke. So I definitely am not travelling to escape life because I love life, I am truly travelling to see what is out there and how other people live and what other countries are like and hopefully bringing some of that knowledge to you all through my blog.
Miss you all at home and hope you have great weekend plans.