What 5 months in Sydney will do to a man

Ni hao! I'm sitting in an apartment where my Dad is staying, on the border of Guang Zhou and Foshan provinces in southern China. Air temp is around 30 degrees C and humidity is a killer around 60%-70%. I'll be sweating my way through the next couple of weeks while I spend some quality time with my old man before heading off to hopefully less sticky climates in Europe and the UK.

Ok, backtrack time. Last thing you might have read, I was heading back to Sydney for an extended break with a plan to do an ESL teaching course and then head off for another series of adventures. While that plan has held mostly true, the intentions behind it and the end goal has changed somewhat.

So, what has happened?

Bombing back into Sydney on New Years Eve day after 40 hours of travelling is either going to result in a lot of sleep that day or a lot of sleep in about 2 days time.
Taking up an invitation for an extended New Years party, I headed up the coast to Avoca beach for a few days of frolicking and festivities. It ended up being a mostly chilled out affair for me, passing most of it wearing bright red Thai fisherman pants, smoking cigars and drinking 8 year aged Cuban rum. I couldn't have asked for much more.

The next month was passed sleeping in, eating well and doing a whole lot of nothing really, while I geared up for the "Course from Hell".
Ask anyone who has done the full-time CELTA course (Certificate of English Language Teaching for Adults) and they will tell you it is one of the most intense, if not THE most intense course the have ever done. Go on, ask someone. I guarantee you'll get that response.
Anyhow, the typical reaction to this claim is always 'oh it can't be that bad, c'mon, you're just learning how to teach English, how intense can it be?'

HA! Don't knock it til you've done it!
I have to admit that I had the same reaction but just in case I was wrong, I cleared my schedule for that entire month. Nothing to do but that course.
It turns out that my hunch was well based. For 4 weeks I did nothing but eat, sleep and breathe English teaching methodology and practice. 1 am finishes and 6 am starts were a norm as I had to trek to the city every day. Between learning effective teaching methods, applying it that same day AND doing the assignments based on reflecting and processing the last week’s experiences, there wasn't time for anything else.

I figure if I'm going to bother to do something, and pay $3000 for the privilege, I might as well do it well. Which is exactly what ended up happening and I kicked butt in the end. Yay me.
So much so that I found myself back at the school a month later recruited as a teacher for their growing General English program.

So from the start of Feb 2009 to the end of June 2009 IH Sydney was my life and I say that without a hint of exaggeration.

Which leads me to this particular couch now.

One of the seven in our uni group is getting married soon so it was decided between Z and I that we should have a weekend away to celebrate. Only catch is that Tarks' is in London and we were in Sydney. So after umming and arring we booked flights and dates and here I am on another trek through various customs halls.

Boys weekend away, 25th to 26th July. Engagement BBQ following weekend. In the weeks before that I'll either be in Italy or Paris. Following that, funds permitting, I'll travel a bit more and hopefully end up with a teaching job in Berlin for the European summer. Current plan is to stay abroad until November when I have best man duties to attend to back in Sydney. Thailand for a few weeks on the way back is also on the cards. I've even packed my snorkel and mask.

Phew, so we're caught up and just at the start of the next phase. It's really the first time I've travelled alone and free (as in independently) so it should be interesting. As always, I do need a reason to do things however flimsy, so I've gone and spent a ridiculous amount of money on digital camera gear and plan to capture my life in images as I go along. Once things are up and running properly, I'll link and web photo site I'll be uploading to as well.

=)