A writer's tale

Have you ever got the feeling that you have grown up too fast? I always knew I was aging in maturity and experience faster than my years, but I never actually thought of the downfalls of this fact.



Today I found one of my old blogs from when I was finishing grade 12 to just beginning university. Usually I would laugh at the immaturity of my old self, and I still display levels of immaturity in my old blog, but I never expected to feel a little cheated. I feel as if my writing has gone way down since I was in high school, and I think the reason is because of my new try-hard attempts to write more maturely.

My old blog attempts may have used too many adjectives and indulged in more than the fair share of hyperbole, but they were refreshing and funny and still managed to be well-written. Now my words feel old, dull and not unique. I think I've lost the touch. And at 20!

I just feel the need to show some of the old writings to my friends and ask them if they can see a difference. You don't have to read them all, i just feel the need to document them again for my own sake. I'm surprisingly proud of my 17-year-old self.

21 September
91 DAYS TO GO!

There are officially 91 days until I will be soaking my pale skin under the glorious golden rays of paradise! How beautiful will it be to experience the sheer pleasure of possessing no prior knowledge of the events of the next day, and instead only having an unclear vision of the events of the present hour! I think the latter is what really constitutes to living life to the fullest!

I tell you with no doubt in my mind that I am more excited about going to Vanuatu than actually graduating from school!! I think it's because when I think of graduation I unintentionally have to think of all the long yards I still have to put in to make this dream achievable. I also have to force myself to think of the FORMAL which is way to much work and puts a strain on my slightly reclusive brain. Seriously, I don't understand why anyone, who has labored for five years under a strict high school regime and actually come out alive, would want to submit themselves to the further torture of having to spray copious amounts of suffocating Elizabeth Arden onto a plucked and preened teenage body, squeeze into disgustingly high twelve inch heels and parade around in a ballooned and streamered setting while still managing to look graceful and excited. Wooo....after that long sentence I had to take ten breaths in order to allow more oxygen to circulate around what's left of my brain.

But anyway, I'm sure graduation will be nice for those who want to go and I'm sure I'll regret it if I keep putting it further down on my list of priorities. However, life is about adventure and adventure does not involve Sunnygirl dresses and 5 kg of mascara on one's eyelids.

Yesterday I took my brothers for a walk to the salad bowl to get ice cream and I went the All Blacks way. I also forgot to wear shoes and so I had a patch of prickles in my stinken foot!! It hurt so much and then these dogs attack us and my brother has the nerve to come up to me today and ask if I wanted to go again!! I admit, I was extremely stupid for not wearing shoes but I really love to feel the tarmac of a road well traveled under my bare feet.....I can also run from predators faster if I don't wear any shoes.

I have spent this morning lying in my room reading Charles Dickens, listening to Inner Circle's "sweat" and watching these dumb boys get chased by a magpie on their bikes. I swear boys are the dumbest creatures on the face of this planet cause as soon as they got attacked, they'd come back for another go!! Even monkeys learn from experience so maybe boys are lower down in the whole evolution chain than monkeys...or these particular boys might just be the missing link (not that I believe in evolution anyway, really I couldn't care less about how God made us, all I know is He did and I'm glad he did it)

Another one.

25 January

The Fiji Files - A trip journal
Bula, Namaste and Hello!!


Last night I made it home with an earache and a sore tummy. But these things are utterly and completely forgotten when I remember the wonderful five days I just spent in Fiji!! Fiji turned my world upside down. It counteracted my expectations, opened my eyes and awoke a sense of adventure inside me! But I want to put behind me all the words and just say what I thought of the country!!

My first glimpse of this country was of course, from the airplane. The Air Pacific flight over was excellent and I tasted Fijian humour and hospitality for the first time in the form of an air host who kept calling me Hindu after learning of my fondness for Indians. The island of Viti Levu, the main one in the nation, is extremely mountainous and this sets the backdrop for the rest of the country. You tend to feel that Fijian has a rugged natural beauty, hidden previously, but now being discovered in your view. When my feet hit the tarmac I couldn't help comparing it to Vanuatu and Samoa, but that is inevitable isn't it??

The first thing I was amazed at was just the amount of Indians there were in Fiji. I knew that Fiji was multicultural, but I never expected to see so many Indians alongside the indigenous Fijians. Of course, this shock soon amounted into happiness as everyone knows I love Indian culture! We met Abdul, a young Indian who operates the shuttle bus to Horizons Backpacker hotel and proceeded to make our way to the hotel.

But I do not want to chronicle the exact events of the trip. So I'll try and stick to my feelings. To me, Fiji was like a little taste of India in the Pacific. 90 % of the businesses are owned and run by Fijian-Indians. Fijian-Indians have their own Fijian-Hindi language, they have their own temples, they have their own food industry set up. Buses blast exciting bollywood songs and colourful saris are seen amoung the whir of western clothing. In the city of Nadi, Suva and Saratoga, they seem to outnumber the Indigenous Fijians. Much to my dismay, because of my excitement over a little slice of India at my fingertips, I did not learn much about traditional Fijian culture. This makes me want to go back because 5 days is definitely not long enough to spend in this exceedingly intriguing society.

Fiji and Vanuatu, despite their geographical closeness, are as different as apples from oranges. The City of Suva completely blasted my expectations to smitherines. I was expecting a laid back town similar to my beloved Port Vila!! Was I wrong!! Suva is a bustling city, characterized by its blaring local buses, complicated traffic rules and dirty streets. Still, it is such an enigma, you yearn to get beyond its skin, to dig deep and extract a feeling for the place that kills the shallowness of the package tourism culture. It's interesting.

The people amazed me a lot. Generally, as a whole, I did not find them as friendly as Ni Vans or Samoans. I placed this down to the fact that they get a lot of tourists and that they just want to get on with their life. Still, when you go out of the way to talk to them, you discover the pure gorgeousness of the south pacific...it's a trait that no westernized force can quench!!

Anyway, this blog entry is getting too long and I've barely even touched the surface!! But defiantly go to Fiji one day, it's gorgeous but be aware that you have to go with a true backpacker/adventurous spirit otherwise you will only be seeking refuge in the resorts!!

About my love for Vanuatu:

02 January
Tanned but not so Terrific
Anyone who has set foot off Australian soil would be able to identify with the unquenchable joy that being in a foreign country creates. The excitement of the unknown coupled with the nomadic adventurer inside us takes over resulting in a degree of happiness that could never be measured by scales and numbers. Then when you get back, you feel as if your heart has plummeted, as if your life has become that boring mass of nothingness you have always wanted to avoid.

For me, the pure unwavering love I hold for Vanuatu and the prospect that one day I may return is the only thing holding my heart together!! Life is never as rich, as beautiful, as colourful as the days spent in this generous hospitable country. It is the latter fact that I love most about it!! It's colour. Stepping off the plane, even at 2 am, you feel embraced by the very essence of colour, and the light only improves it. Walking along the street you are overwhelmed by greenness, the shade of a colour so prominent in the landscape and so vacant from our own. The green touches the edges of the dusty pale yellow ground, it reaches and gently meets the crystal blue of summer. The rainbow changes against the backdrop with a delightful catastrophic whir of reds, yellows and whites as the gorgeous ni vans compliment their land. Even the people are not restricted by colour as we Australians. They do not fall victim to the uniformity of fashion, the arrogance of the fashion conscious. Colour, colour, colour. No dullness and even the brown is a rich smooth flavour of God's wonderful creation!

Stepping into that custom area, after leaving a tearful family behind is one of the most depressing moments. I have found a place which accepts me as I am a place which loves me and cares for me to the point of inclusion and giving it away confuses and strains my most hidden emotions. At the airport I found myself sacrificing my inhibitions and letting the tears stroll down as I hugged all of my newly found loved ones. You know you have found something special when two weeks of being with a person is not enough. You know you have been included when every eye is wet and every spoken word gives a hint to the heartbreak of a situation.


I want Vanuatu to be in my future, not a mere holiday destination.

This writing to me seems passionate and fresh. Now my writing seems the exact opposite. Have I fallen in a rut? How do I claim back what I have lost?

Can you ever go back to the writer you once where? I want to be a maverick when it comes to words - throwing them in out of natural instinct. Now my writing seems laboured and without feeling, a consequence of my training as a journo.

How about you? Do you feel as if your writing has suffered because you are growing up?