12 September, 2006

These blog tour days are yours and mine...

Paull is off following his bliss (although after all the Brit abuse he still wants to come and sample our 'warm' beer). I haven't commented on this properly yet because I was horrifically jealous! But now I can swallow my bile and wish him well.

I adore travelling, it truly is a bug. And when I say travelling I don't mean a holiday, I mean really travelling.

Remember that feeling when you were off sick from school, but you weren't that sick? There was the feeling that anything was possible and no one would know because they were all at school. It is a lot like that, although you can share it and you have money to actually do something and you are somewhere new and shiny... Just believe me it is good, OK?

I am a big believer in Gap years. For the uninitiated, Gap years are literally the year out you can take between school and uni. You travel, you grow, you learn, you explore.

But this thing with Paull got me thinking. If the 'Gap year' is the gap between school and Uni then what stops us having a series of smaller gaps, and what if the gaps contained things that we learned from? Every new thing we experience, we learn and then we can revel in the freedom of our new found knowledge.

So while I would love to visit Karel, I have done my Gap year and am currently embarking on something which will shape me just as much as my year out did, possibly more. And that makes every day a bit of a 'Gap day'; full of learning, achievement and exploring. And suddenly I don't feel too bad.

Caribbean would be nice though...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I never did the Gap year thing, but I was jealous of my mates who did.

My travelling experience to date has always been a few months in-between uni semesters. I haven't been able to convince myself that taking an entire year off would be beneficial.

Again, this blog tour will only take me a few months. It would be great to go for longer, but I don't want to get out of the loop.

I'm a huge advocate for the power of travelling to open your eyes to the world and help you grow as a person.

Everyone should travel, it's the best way to put yourself outside of your comfort zone and in turn that's the best way to stimulate growth.

Kelly said...

Oh, this is close to my heart...

I was three years out of uni and three years into a (pretty promising) career path in PR...when BANG! I suddenly realised I forgot to do my Gap year.

So here I am in Dublin, working in crap jobs and suddenly realising I may have made a mistake. I thought I could combine overseas travel with some work experience, but I am finding the PR market here difficult to break into with little local market knowledge.

Meanwhile, I cannot escape the feeling everyone at home is overtaking me completely.

Yes, Europe is on my doorstep now and I have the chance to see the world. I agree completely with Paull's comments about travel - but it is hard to feel I have done the right thing right now.

Anonymous said...

Well that is a little worrying Kelly!

But, on the bright side, you're in Dublin! That's still one of the best cities I've been in. I had one wild week their with my dreadlocked heavy-metal loving cousin 5 years ago... still look back fondly on that week.

Karel Mc Intosh said...

Lol. Well, like I said, whenever you'll are ready :) I'm not too excited to return to anywhere cold, but I plan to do it some time in the future.