First of all, I am writing this on the night before I go away to Mallorca (well technically the day I go cos it's past midnight) and I figured writing a post would be a nice little break from the psychological mind-game that is packing. I have managed to make packing to go away extra difficult for myself as I decided I wanted to bring my Guitar with me to Mallorca so I could keep up with my learning of it as well as maybe playing a few tunes for the family. As nice as the idea sounds it felt like a nightmare trying to get flights that would allow me to bring such a piece of luggage with me with some airlines threatening to charge me £100 just for the guitar which in some cases was more than the actual cost of the flights themselves! Luckily, I managed to find a deal with easyjet in which I am allowed to bring two bags in the hold as long as they have a combined weight of 20KG. The guitar + case weigh 8KG so that leaves me 12KG for all the rest of my stuff, if I don't overflow into excess baggage I will be so proud of myself :S
So this last week has been one of fond farewells for me. I have seen various friends for the last time before they head off in different directions to University or for a third year at college. This softens the blow for me as I know I'm not the only one who's leaving home this week and there are many thousands of us all feeling very excited but nervous for what's to come. I also finished my part-time job as a Swimming Teacher/Coach at Marple Swimming Club on Friday. I have really enjoyed my two years worth of regular teaching there as I have learned a lot more about Swimming and how it works than I ever did while I was training 7 days a week and the idea of not having some form of steady,dependable income is quite daunting at the moment but I am sure I will return to teaching/coaching there on a cover basis when I'm home from my travels or Uni in the future. I'm sure the skills I have gained from such a job will put me in good stead for my future career.
I know I'm going backwards chronologically-which is probably not the best way to do this-but Thursday night was something quite special. As I have mentioned in my previous post, my sister (Imogen) is going into her Third Year Abroad for her Modern Languages degree where she is studying all the way over at Xiamen University in China for 9 months. Thursday was her last night with all of us before she set off on the first of three flights at 9AM from Manchester the following morning so we all had a special family meal together, something that rarely happens nowadays as she is often either away at Uni in Southampton or travelling during the holidays to keep all her languages up to scratch. Because she is so far from home, Imogen won't be able to nip back and spend Christmas with the family, the first time this has ever happened, so Mum decided to cook a good old traditional English roast dinner (actually cooking Christmas dinner in September would be weird) in her honour as the meal Imo is likely to have on Christmas day will most probably be very different from what we consider the norm. This was also a special early birthday meal for me as well due to the fact that by the time my 19th birthday comes around on October 21st I will be in Mallorca having spent 1 month there so I was presented with a large chocolate cake to mark the occasion which I begrudgingly shared with everyone else... Mum had also gone to the liberty of doing a bit of present shopping and got both of us a new camera each as well as some small Christmas presents for Imo to open in Xiamen. I own my first ever camera! This is a great gift and I will use it to record the various shenanigans that occur during my gap year.
I stayed up with Imogen until about 1:30AM that night while she did her last minute packing and wrote a departing blog post as I knew there was no way in hell that I would drag myself out of bed at 5:30AM to see her off at the airport. I'd consider myself a good brother but I'm definitely not a morning person! It was good to spend a bit of quality time with her before she left as I won't be seeing her until at least the end of June next year whereas the rest of the family will be meeting up with her when they congregate for my cousin Morgan's wedding in Nepal this coming February. Like everyone else I will miss her but for me it feels just like she's gone back to Uni (except it's on the other side of the world) and I imagine it will be very similar to last summer when she spent 6 weeks doing an intensive language course in Nanjing. I sure hope we can find the time for a skype sesh though even with the time difference!
I must admit that I am glad to finally be going off to start my gap year. These last few weeks have really sucked being at home and seeing all my friends and other people on facebook and twitter getting all excited for freshers week and Uni when I know that I won't be doing that for another year yet. Thankfully for me, Southampton's freshers week isn't to start for another week so I'll be escaping the country before the REAL party kicks off however I'm sure I'll see plenty of the action on facebook from my friend Dyfan who is doing exactly the same course as me but starting this year as opposed to being a weirdo like me, I wish him all the best. Mum made another fine meal for my final night in blighty, a balcan stew with rice and apple crumble with CUSTARD for dessert-one of my favourite foods- plus some special French cider brought back from their recent trip to Brittany to wash it down. A great send off, I'm sure the house will seem much quieter once I'm gone! These next 3 months will be my biggest test yet as an individual as the most I've been away from home in my life has only ever been about 3 weeks but it is something that I'm up to doing and will give me some insight into what my Third Year may be like.
Good luck to everyone heading off to Uni.
Gap Year- Bring. It. On.
FP
PS. Here are some photos taken from Thursday night's celebration
#FraserOnTour
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