Ends and Beginnings

I'm writing this last post while I'm on the 11 hour flight from London to Shanghai. The dark cabin, anti social Asian woman next to me and the babies crying in the distance is actually turning out to be a perfect motivator to write this thing. I arrived at the airport at about 7:00pm London time, lined up, and passed through security just fine. Although, I was briefly stopped by an elderly black security guard after he discovered that I had edible underwear (Irma's farewell gift) which was technically considered food in my backpack. I negotiated my way out of the situation by claiming it was candy :).

Ok, there is a female Asian flight attendant asking every passenger if he/she wants noodles or lamb & potato. She passed me and just gave me the lamb and potato meal. Am I really that white? Well, yeah, probably, but I'm reasonably tanned from Spain so I was hoping that I could at least look Hispanic.

Oh shit! Spain! Let me fill you in. From what I experienced, it's amazing. The architecture is so beautiful and unique. Their history is incredibly interesting (violent), their drinking culture is awesome and every Spanish person is nocturnal. Africa has a country house called lksd;fjal;khg (San-grove-ee-ya) which is totally awesome - in every way it lives up to the stereotype of any Spanish country house. We also drove via a giant Roman built aqueduct which is now redundant, but still serves as an impressive feat of Roman Engineering. Two days before I left Spain, I found myself chilling out with Pablo and Afri in an awesome Spanish pub. Unfortunately for some reason the pub closed at midnight (which is extremely and unusually early for Spain) so I was forced into an interesting dilemma. I would either abandon 2 liters of Sangria I just purchased or I could drink it right there and then with Pablo & Afri providing me the necessary emotional support (peer pressure). Afri filmed me skull it. At 7:00am, Pablo and Afri took me to the airport to say their goodbyes. I offered to buy their breakfast but my credit cards got declined so Afri was forced to do it - whoops! I'll see if I can repay her somehow. The plane ride to London from Madrid was AWESOME! We had the most armature/ drunk pilot ever. The plane was swaying sideways so sharply that at times it was tought to believe the plane wasnt in a tail spin. Half the passengers were screaming, two fifths were shouting out enjoying the ride, and one tenth were just awkwardly silent. Even though the flight attendant was trying to control the passengers, you could tell they were shit scared too. Long story short, I lived.

Ok. Now where was I? Oh yeah, my overcrowded Asian flight. There is this elderly Chinese couple just behind me who keep shaking the back of my seat and shouting something at me which I'm sure translates to "Hey, spoit white kid, move your seat up!" I've already told them now that my seat can't be moved further up and I've illustrated it by trying to pull it further up, but they still keep shaking my chair! This calls for a typical teenage temper tantrum! I'm reclining my chair slightly.

Ok, back to my final moments in England. I spent my last night with Kiran after my plans for that night fell through. We went to a bar, met his JIS friends, then went to a club - it was good to end 6 months of constant drinking with more drinking. I spent my last morning with Alex and Laura and I spent my last afternoon with Andrew. Alex and Laura were pretty preoccupied, but Andrew and I took a nice relaxing walk though the Wimbledon Common where he gave me some valuable advice about how I should approach future life problems when I get back to Australia. Oh yeah, he also paid for a taxi to drop me off at the Airport at terminal 4. The conversation with Persian Taxi driver was pretty dull until I realized he was a professor of Mechanical Engineering! IT turns out he owns a cab company privately and drives around passengers for a little extra cash!

Back to the Asian flight. WTF! this baby in the isle adjacent to me is going crazy - the thing won't stop crying, and the mother is just watching it cry. Also, the yogurt is expired! Not cool China, not cool.

Back to reminiscing on fond moments of my trip: I'm catching myself having flashbacks of; passing out Ettienes welcome rug, doing beer bongs, getting accepted into exclusive frat parties just because I'm Australian, skiing on Colorado, watching human centipede with Collin and Christian, hiking with Kelly, Chilling with Kiran, doing Mi Thai with Pablo, blasting Sail by Awolnation from my obnoxiously loud speakers, and listening to the overly formal automated messages on London trains. When I get back to Australia I want to be a different person. I want to be social, independent and productive. I'm really going to try and pull a 180 in my life by insisting on being completely financially independent, cooking my own food every meal, getting a gym membership & running everyday, working at my internship, doing more math tutoring, focusing on my grades a lot more, perfecting my knowledge on linear algebra and statistics by watching Khan Academy, reading, joining a sport at Uni (probably Rowing), changing my bedroom, continue writing my blog, looking for job opportunities in the US, learning an instrument or language, and making new groups of friends

OK! That's it! What the hell China! The Asian woman behind me has given up shaking my chair and now she's adjusted herself so that her feet are placed in the middle of my chair, and she's pushing with all her might.

Back to it: I think the hardest thing to accomplish out of everything is getting independence and revolutionizing my social life. Whilst I know my parents love me and I know that their almost patronizing advice comes from a good place, I really want to emphasize that I want to be completely financially self sustainable and I want to be in charge of my own decisions regarding Uni, work, lifestyle choices etc. I think this will be hard because I can predict my parents viewing this strive for independence as being ungrateful for their help & support. Lastly, revolutionizing my social life will be different because my current friends have certain perceptions of me that are set in stone and I feel that the pressure to live up to those expectations will be very hard to overcome. I think this is the case because the US and the UK has given me a sense of social invincibility, but I won't have that when I go back to Australia. For example, I think the only reason the Asian woman is still kicking the back of my seat is because I have a very concrete impression that she is a bitch, and now she feels pressure to live up to that social standard.

Back to my Asian flight again. Alright, the racist flight attendant just assumed that I wanted an omelet and sausages instead of 'Fish noodle'. She was in the motion of handing me one of the meals when I stopped her and asked for the Chinese meal instead just to spite her. I also asked her for an extra 'white thingy' that came with the meal. I even pretended to enjoy the meal just to piss her off more. Take that China! USA! USA! USA!

Well, that's the end of my trip. I'm probably going to continue writing on my blog, but not as often, and it won't be about traveling or anything that interesting so I'm gonna say thanks to all the people who have been following my life. I think I'll reward you with an invaluable life lesson:

Ducks look like they are wearing dog masks when you look at them from an angle. It's true.