My year out...(another "me" post)

I think I mentioned at the start of the year all my well thought out plans for how I was going to spend my gap year. At the time I could think of nothing more exciting than spending 6-7months travelling but now I'm having second thoughts...

It still seems awesome, I still want to travel, and I most definitely still want to go to some "more interesting" places. But over the last month or two there's been a spanner in the works. Leaving family and friends for half a year never really phased me, yeh of course I'd miss everyone but I've always been a pretty solitary who's content with being on their own. I'd meet new people on the road and my friends could easily spend time with other people too, they'd all be at uni so I would really see them anyway. That was all fine, but then I found a girl who I'd miss a hell of a lot and whats worse is she'd miss me. Sounds pretty stupid I know, I mean I've only been with her a month or so, seems pretty naive to think I'll still be with her come the end of the year. Seems more naive to change plans of a lifetime around a 1-month relationship.

Whats more, do I want to change my plans? In short, I don't want to leave her behind for 6 months. But neither do I want to give up on a trip I've been looking forward to for years only to go and break up with her a few months down the line for one reason or another. So lets imagine, that it's gonna we're gonna work out in the long-term, as in long-long-term...what difference is 6 months gonna make? If it's gonna last a long-time surely we could get through 6 months apart. But if I don't go maybe in 10 years time I'm gonna regret not going when I had the chance, maybe (I wouldn't now, but maybe in future...) I'd find myself resenting the reason I didn't go. She keeps telling me to go, she says doesn't want me to leave but that she can't stand in my way.

So this all got me thinking, maybe committing myself to 6 months travel is too big a risk - I've never travelled extensively before and I've most definitely never been anywhere like the places I'm planning to go. I'd hate to set off on my big trip only to find I hate it and wish I'd gone somewhere else - but then these are places I've wanted to go to for years...can I hate them? But I came up with an idea, while it still has it's problems it seems a lot better. Maybe I could split my trip in half, spend 2-3 months doing a conservation project at the end of this year, come back, earn some more money and then go away for another 3-4 months.

Solves the problems? I'm still spending my gap year in an awesome way, certainly not a waste. Going away for 12 weeks at a time seems a hell of a lot more managable than half a year. I know I'd still be away for the same amount of time but it has a very differnt vibe. What's more I get to change my plans halfway through, if I decide I hate Africa during the first trip I simply go somewhere else for the second one, if I hate travel I simply don't go away again.

It kinda all makes sense, trying to spot the drawbacks though. It makes getting jobs harder as I'll have to quit each one after a few months but I was planning to temp so touchwood that shouldn't pose too many problems. I'll spend more on flights as I'd have to fly out and home twice, but an extra £500 isn't too big a thing compared to what the whole year is costing me, for those two reasons it's financial blow. Plus my trip loses some of it's "tough-guy expedition" feel, 6 months accross Africa has a certain edge to it.

Essentially I'm trying very hard not to fall into the trap of young-naivity. Am I changing my plans around someone I've been with for just over a month, yes and no. It made me reconsider, without her I would probably stick to doing one trip. But in my attempt to avoid the hole of young-naivity it still makes logical sense even if we break up, there aren't really that many drawbacks to it. In a way it makes it seem a lot more real to me, spending 6 months travelling still feels like an impossible dream that I won't ever reach even though there's no reason for me not to. Going on a conservation project for a couple of months at the end of this year seems very acheivable, I get some travel experience which will no doubt help if I do decide to overland accross Africa, and I can get a good idea if that it what I want to do.

OK that was a long post, all about me, so probably not very interesting. Sorry I havn't been posting much lately, nothing to say I guess but there's a couple of things I'll write about later today or tomorrow....probably.

...fudgefudgefudgefudge...

Discovered something crazy today, y'know when you get a text message and your phone is right next to you radio and you get the beep-beep-be-beeeep noises? Well I had my phone next to the computer mouse...a text came through and the screen started randomly scrolling up and down! Crazy!

But onto more pressing matters...

I discovered a couple of weeks ago how much I love Cadbury's Fudge bars...y'know the chocolate covered fudge bars that used to cost 10p and are now priced at an extortionate 15p. Well I've found myself eating more and more of them, to be honest I always thought I was in control, y'know I could quit when I wanted, I just don't want to thats the only reason. My friends have tried to help me, they worked out I could save £1.95 a week if I kicked the habit. They tried to shock me into realising the damage I was doing to my body, each bar contains over 100 calories meaning in a typical day I could be taking in upwards of 300 calories. But I reached a new low today, I realised buying three Fudge bars simultaneously made me look...well...fat, I felt the need to tell the canteen lady I was infact buying some for a friend. I then sat in the corner trying to eat my way out of the shame.

Woooo space shuttle!!!!

As I'm sure I've mentioned on here I'm going to America in the summer and being a bit of a space-nut I'm really looking forward to going to Kannedy Space Centre - sooo imagine my excitement when I stumble upon the New Scientist website saying the next Space Shuttle flight had been delayed....to July....when I'm there!

I'm in America for the entire launch window so fingers crossed it doesn't get delayed again, little issue is we probably wouldn't be near Florida at the right time however seeing as this could well be a pretty much once-in-a-lifetime chance I'm willing to make sure we are!

Great...except the guy I'm travelling isn't a space nut. I just told him the news on MSN in a very excited way only for him to reply "well we'll have to wait for the date to be confirmed" shortly followed by "well if we're down south close to the launch I'm sure we can." Ye what??? Only if we're close by, and even then he's not exactly keen. We have a whole month out there with no commitments, we'd planned to go to Florida and Kennedy Space Centre anyway it's perfectly possible to make sure we're there whenever the launch is scheduled for.

I'm kinda getting worked up by his reaction, he knows how much I love space travel and he knows how much going would mean to me. Years and years I've said I wanted to see a launch, ever since we decided to go to the US I've been saying "how cool would it be.." and now here we are with a launch scheduled when I'm on the same flippin' continent and he doesn't want to go because he'd rather see Chicago before heading south.

Well I've decided. I'm gonna keep trying to persuade him but if he says no I've comprismised this trip enough and there's no way I'm letting this opportunity slip by, wherever we are I'm getting on a train a day or two before and I'm going, if he doesn't want to come then that's his problem. I'm going.

Nothing's ever easy

Luck really wasn't on my side today, very simple task that really fell down around ears. Thismorning was my girlfriend's driving test and, thankfully, she passed! Hurrah! (4th time lucky!) So I said I'd head round her house after she'd finished work later that evening to say well done, I bought her a card that afternoon and decided to get her a little bunch of flowers too.

It was simple, I jump in my car a bit early, drive down to Asda, be a good boyfriend and buy flowers, peel price sticker off, get back in my car and drive round hers. I make it all the way to Asda before I realised I was gonna be 15-20minutes early and beleive it or not there's not much to do at Asda when you absolutely nothing to buy. So I found some flowers but (thankfully) decided to leave them in the bucket instead of carrying them round the shop looking at all the things I could possibly buy if I was ever that way inclined.

I was looking at a Pinata donkey because frankly that was probably the most interesting thing in the entire shop, when all of a sudden I was broken from my musings about whether it's right to tell kids to hit a donkey with a big stick by the sound of someone saying "Hey sweetie, fancy seeing you here!" I turn round and sure enough she's decided to drive her dad to pick up some stuff from Asda of all places! "Oh...hello...how are you?" Given I was meant to be at her house in 20 minutes I certainly couldn't be doing the weekly shop. Some quick thinking was in order. "I'm good thank you, what are you doing here?" she replied, I'd been hoping she wouldn't ask that. "Ermm...y'know, just killing time" "oh ok....in Asda?"

Just as everything was looking lost it hit me in the quickest bit of thinking I've ever done I came up with the greatest cover story ever come up with! (Mensa take note! lol) "Yeh I had to get out the house, Mum wasn't impressed with my exam results" - unfortunately that didn't explain why I'd driven two miles out of my way! But she seemed convinced. How I would get these flowers I had no idea.

So I walk round Asda with her while her dad gets the stuff he needed (12 bottles of wine and 300 balloons - don't ask!) and we headed to the exit. Fortunatly we'd parked at seperate ends of the car park so we split and 30 seconds later I did a swift turn around and straight back into Asda, told the cashier of my plight (as you do!) and I covered the flowers in a few bags. Headed back to my car and in a final stroke of genius got a woman to carry the flowers for me so my girlfriend didn't see me with them.

Sorted.

(I did come clean with how difficult our chance encounter had made things, I'd fooled her except for the fact I'd vanished when she looked back over her shoulder on the way out! Her dad had guessed I was up to something though.)

A little ambition...

Decided to set myself a little challenge, kinda like a New Year's resolution but one that's made in March. By the end of the year I want to get into Mensa! Only little issue is I don't think I'm clever enough. But I'm not gonna let that deter me.

So to get into Mensa you've got to get in the top 2% of the population on an IQ test, now apparently there are loads of different tests and the scores vary and such but I read somewhere (can't find it now!) that that's roughly equivalent to an IQ of 148. I've done a few tests throughout my life and tend to get somewhere in the 120s so I'm falling a little short!

However I have a plan, I reckon by practicing IQ tests you can boost your score...so that's what I plan to do. Then you pay £15 and take a standardized-supervised-Mensa-approved IQ test in some funny test centre and hope for the best. Unfortunatly there's only a few test sessions so I may have to wait a while for one to be local or get in my car and drive somewhere to do one. As for why I've decided to try and join Mensa I don't know - but it would get some serious bragging rights!

Do I stand a chance? Probably not. Will I ever bother to try? Probably not.

However I take great comfort that Mensa's official website felt the need to inform me that "1 in 50 people have an IQ in the top 2%"

The Archive of Misheard Lyrics

OMG have a I found a funny site - http://kissthisguy.com is a collection of how people have misheard song lyrics. Y'know how it is, there's something that sounds so clear it couldn't possibly be anything else despite the fact it sounds totally you stupid. But still you decide the artist must have been having a laugh and happily sing your alternative lyrics while doing karokee (as you do!) only to find another phrase thats sound pretty much the same but fits a hell of a lot better! Some classic's I've found on there...

Shaggy - Angel
Real: "Closer than by peeps you are to me"
Alternate: " Closer than my briefs you are to me"

Blink 182 - The Rock Show
Real: "I fell in love with the girl at the rock show. She said "What" and I told her that I didn't know."
Alternate: "I went down with the girl at the rock show. She said "What" and I told her Garfield was a show."

Savage Garden - Truely, Madly, Deeply
Real: " I want to lay like this forever until the sky falls down on me"
Alternate: "I want to lay like this forever until this guy falls down on me"

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Real: "You'll go down in history"
Alternate: "You'll go down and hit the tree"

Quick Rant...

OK just a quick rant on something which keeps bugging me.  As I mentioned in an earlier post I'm taking a gap year to go off travelling, and beleive it or not travelling costs a a lot of money.  I'm not in the fortunate of having stuff handed to me on a plate so I therefore have to work to get any money and then I have to save it rather than blowing it on going out and beer.  I do a part-time job in a shop and work 16+ hrs each week and that's on top of college work.  Obviously there's a finite number of hours in the week so to fit everything in I have to make some sacrifices, unfortunatly that means not spending my weekends at parties getting drunk, which to be honest I wouldn't be doing anyway.

So most of my friends think I prefer going to work over going out, not true at all (although it can be depending who it is/what they're doing!) and find it absolutely unbeleivable that I get by with little to no free time.  That's not what annoys me, what annoys me is when the same people turn round to me and say how lucky I am to be having a gap year and going away.  Hello!  It's not luck, it's damn hard work and down to the fact I want to travel a hell of a lot more than I want to get drunk.

OK enough of the rant and seeing as this is already a pretty personal post rather than the random stuff I usually post may as well fill you on the fact I have my first serious girlfriend.  Ahhhh!  I've known her for well over a year and I've always had a bit of thing for her, we finally got togethor almost a couple of weeks ago.  Met her through work which means I'm in the very slightly awkward situation of having to work alongside my girlfriend but that hasn't currently posed a problem, hopefully it won't.  She's at uni which throws up another problem as we can only see eachother in the evenings when neither of us are at college/uni/work but still things are going well.  Oh yeh, my other concern, there's a couple of people from work who I know had a thing for her...one of which I got on pretty well with.  Don't think he knows what's going on yet so I'm a little concerned about that, we've done nothing wrong but I'm just hoping he won't react too negatively towards me.

Digital Camera's

Trying to decide on a new digital camera at the moment, I've had a Nikon Coolpix2000 for the last few years which I've really enjoyed using and has been great for going on holiday etc. but I've always found it really clumpy to carry around when I'm out and about so it tends to just get left at home. So with my trip to America coming up I've decided to upgrade to a much smaller camera that I can just put in my pocket and take to alsorts of places without having to carry a rucksack or anything. Also, given, you can get a lot more bang for your buck I should be able to get a camera thats significantly better than my 2MP Nikon.

Currently I have my eye on the Kodak V530 mainly because it's nice and small although I havn't found seen one in real life to see just how small, it comes in groovy colours (likin' the black), is 5MP, has 3x Optical zoom and can record MPEG-4 video with sound at 30fps in 640x480!!! All for £143!

Open to suggestions though.