Passports, Photos, Planes, and Ponderings

I said I’d update this more frequently when I had things to report, but it seems I’ve been rather slack with it all. In my defence, not much seems to have really happened just yet, which I’m finding mildly unnerving. After getting a placement I was expecting a sudden onslaught of paperwork, and plans, but it still seems to have been rather quiet on the arrangements front.

Mid June I sorted out my new passport, as the old one expires at the beginning of next year (cue rant on five year New Zealand passports as opposed to the ten year ones of almost every other country), and sent off all the visa paperwork on my genocidal tendencies and such. Last week I got some more news on the visa front, and am scheduled for an appointment with the US consul in Auckland a week and a half before I leave. It still frustrates me that I need to go all the way up to Auckland for a few days to get the visa sorted, when I live in the capital city, and in the same city as the American embassy, but ah well. It does mean I’ll get to catch up with a few friends up that way, which shall be nice.

With details of my visa appointment also came my flights to America, which are now fully booked and ready to go. I still need to book my own flight up to Auckland on the Sunday, but I’ve got to be in Auckland by 10:30am that day, so I expect I’ll be flying out at around nine that morning.

I’ve been keeping in touch with my family over in the states, and have received several photos of them and my new home, which I will excitedly show to anyone who wants to see. The house looks completely fantastic, and I’m sure I’ve already gushed about how awesome my family are, so I’ll spare you the details. I’ve also exchanged a few emails with a girl from Germany, who will be an au pair in the same area as me, and arrives on the same day, which has been exciting. It’s nice to know that I’ll have at least one friend to look out for when I get over there.

With less than a month to go, the reality of what I’m doing has started to sink in a bit. When I was originally planning this, I was going to be leaving straight after high school, moving out of home and going off for a year away before coming back to study. I figured that with the end of school things would be changing anyway. Friends were moving away, be it overseas, or to universities around the country, and if I was going tear myself away from the comfortable familiarity of my friends and family, then this was the time to do it. Things were going to change anyway, so I might as well go with it and go for a dramatic change

And then it got delayed. For several reasons, although I expect it was largely because I didn’t quite have the conviction to follow through with the paperwork and organise myself enough to make the leap and break away from the familiar things. I’ve never been great with commitment and I was probably avoiding the time where I’d have to make a few tricky decisions and sacrifices.

A year and a half later, I’m reasonably settled where I am. I live with absolutely incredible people and have amazing friends, all of whom I love very much, and am going to miss dreadfully. I’ve grown up a lot over the past year or so, and learnt an awful lot, which I expect will help me while I’m off on my adventures, but I’m also leaving behind something fantastic. I’m definitely not having regrets, and I actually think that now is probably a better time for me to be going, now that I have a little more experience with nannying (and general life), but I’m certainly going to miss a lot.

But I shan’t be gone forever, though (you lot can’t get rid of me that easily), and life shall still be here when I get back, even if a few things have changed a little.