Whatever Shall I Do?

Now that I've been in Sydney for almost 3 months, I'm starting to get used to living here. Which is good on the one hand, in that I'm finding myself to feel more at home. It's bad, however, in that I view Sydney as not really 'Australia'. You can pretty much take this city, plunk it down in the middle of any other country, and it's pretty much the same in a lot of respects. Basically, I'm not really travelling in Australia, just in another big city. People who have come here can probably agree that this is not all there is to see in this giant country. So I can't wait to leave on one hand, and yet I don't want to leave the comfort and the friends that I've made here on the other. Quite the conundrum, I know.

Februaury 1 is the date we have set to leave. I say 'we' because I'm travelling with my friend Shawna, with whom I'm buying a car, and leaving for parts unknown to do some fruit picking, and basically living off the land for roughtly 5 months. I'm a little concerned, not necessarily for my own well-being, as we're both resourceful people, but more for those unexpected things, like funnel web spiders and wombat swarms.

(edit: I'd also like to add that Shawna's latest blog entry is all about me! Read it and find out just how wonderful I am! *cough*)

But enough about that. My main reason for posting today is this: What am I going to do if and when I head back to Canada? I've been thinking more and more about this lately, and I haven't been able to come up with anything that piques my interest. When I left, I was working in an office making a decent wage, Monday to Friday, doing pretty much the same things day in and day out. Basically, I was bored and wanted to do something different, but when I go back, I don't want to do that again. It was a good environment for the most part, but I was just not happy overall. I just needed a major change in my life, and my way of thinking. I can safely say that I'm not the same person I was when I left (yay!).

Of course, all this upheaval has changed my perception of what I want to do back in Canada. Ideally, I'd like to do something like what I'm doing right now (activities coordinator in the hostel), but I'm pretty sure Calgary has, at most, 5 hostels, and the atmosphere isn't quite the same. Calgary isn't a big traveller's destination, unlike Sydney. To give you an idea, there are 5 hostels on the same block where I'm currently living. Plus you can do things pretty much every day of the year here, like take walking tours of the city, walk along the beach, go to Luna Park (the amusement part across the Harbour Bridge), etc. You could only do a few of those things during the summer in Calgary, and that's it. It really limits the options.

Working in a restaurant would be the first thing I'll do when I get back I would think, as when I left, there was a huge worker shortage in the service industry. But I don't like busting my ass for $8/hour, and *hoping* I get tipped well enough to live. That leaves monkey farming, and Swedish Masseuse as my only other options. And I don't know much Swedish.

Luckily, I have at least 9 months to ponder this situation, and likely another year on top of that, so I really shouldn't be worrying about this now. But it's something that I just have bouncing around my brain anyways.

(Note to self: Learn Swedish)