Life Trend of Sponteneity

Right, there’s this trend that I’ve identified in my life. It’s pretty extreme, but I really can’t believe it’s me, as I am the type of peron who likes comfort and samey stuff, yet for some reason, I refuse to leave myself be in my comfort zone. I’m thinking this may be the cause of my ensuing madness. That and the fact that my dad always tells my my great grandmother was psychotic and that I’ve inherited her genes. Anyway, I digress.

So it started with me being planful. That means I spent time planning. For example, I knew I wanted to take a gap year, and I took the steps accordingly.
Step 1: Ignore parents and tick the box labelled ‘deferred entry’
Step 2: Attempt to deal with rage of aforementioned parents for a time period of approximately one year (i.e. time between ticking box, and departing on plane)
Step 3: Research into loads of organisations and select the best: http://www.aventure.co.uk
Step 4: Research into multiple countries and select the best (Kenya, naturally)
Step 5: Work for several months beforehand to gain some funds: http://www.securebase.co.uk
Step 6: Buy everything from online store Homeway. I mean everything. I’m talking portable washing lines to intravenous needles: http://www.travelwithcare.com/view.aspx. I also took healthcare very seriously, paying over £400 for Malarone, because I didn’t want to risk sunburn or psychotic episodes associated with alternative Malaria treatments.
Step 7: Had a goodbye party arranged in advance, got shitfaced, cried shitloads, and went home with no shoes.

Anyway, I think you get the point; I was pretty goddam organised.

Let us skip forward to first year. I received an email one day from an organisation known as Camp America: http://www.campamerica.co.uk. They were having a fair in London, and I happened to be going home for the Easter holidays that day, so I thought I’d pop in, see what it was all about. I walked up to a stall, a lady asked me why I’d be good at such a job, I sold myself (verbally), and was hired on the spot. Within 30 minutes of entering the building to look around, I had signed up and paid a deposit to spend 8 weeks in New York over the summer.

The madness continues. Skip to second year. I decided I needed an internship over summer, make myself employable, that kinda shit. I applied, I got rejected, I felt suicidal, and then I received an email. It was from an organisation called Evergreen International: http://www.evergreeninternational.co.uk. They run summer volunteer programs in China. I thought, “why not?”, and sent an email application. I received an invite to an interview in a coffee shop in Oxford. I thought “why not?” and decided to go along. My mum and dad thought I’d been duped and was going to a crack den in Oxford to be raped. Mother accompanied me, and I got offered a place. I thought “Why not?” and ended up spending the summer in China.

Wait…it gets worse…

Second year was wizzing by and I started to panic. I wasn’t ready for uni to be over. My close friends were taking years out – one to Spain, one to Watford – some people just get lucky I guess. I didn’t speak Spanish, n I already spoke London, so I thought I’d look into going to America. No programs existed. So I looked into Japan. No programs existed. So as a final straw, I looked into Erasmus.

One day, I had a spare few minutes between lectures, so I thought I’d pop into the Erasmus coordinators office. She was a mad woman. I can’t name her for legal reasons. She told me she had two places spare – one in Austria and one in Germany – and asked me which I wanted. I said “Germany” (I had German GCSE after all). She said, “So you speak German” I thought “Maybe I do. I took a refresher course last year after all.” She said, “you see these documents in my hand? I’m about to send them off to the university of Konstanz right now. Would you like to see a picture?” I said “Yes” and she pointed at a picture on her wall. It looked beautiful. I said, “i’ll take it.”

I stewed over my decision for an hour in a stats seminar (I got a 2.2 in stats that year) and after the hour I returned to the office of the mad woman and handed in my completed forms.

And that is how I ended up spending one whole year of my life in Germany: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/index.php?lang=en

To conclude. I am spontaneous and very cool and everyone I meet wants to be just like me.

Thank you for reading, and goodnight xxx

: 10 Mar 2008 23:57 |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem