GB*

Sometimes, it is so easy to completely overlook how lucky you are. It is so easy to complain, to highlight the negative and look back on what used to be without seeing what your blessings are right now. And sometimes it takes a life-changing event to shock you back into reality, and make you see what is really important and who is really important. Wow Jess, pretty deep. I sound like I am on some kind of hippy-quarter-life-crisis, but I am having this overwhelming feeling right now of trust. I am heading in the right direction, hopefully. I will always remember that lyric from Baz Luhrman, 'Sometimes you are ahead, sometimes you are behind. But don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself too much.' Right now I am ahead in some things, and behind in others. But my heart feels happy. And it has taken me a while to realise just how happy. I still concentrate far too much on other people, and worry about how I am seen, and what people think but I have recently learnt to have a more confidence in my ability and in believing in what I can and do, rather than concentrating on what I don't and can't. There is this weird culture, and I swear it is more in us Brits than anyone else I have met, but we don't WANT to believe in ourselves. We feel like it would be rude to. We don't like compliments, we don't take them easily and most of the time we don't believe them. We can't see what is great about us, and if we can we don't talk about it because it isn't a 'done' thing. People don't like success, in any part of life whether it be a relationship, a job, school or money. It breeds anger and resentment, and bad feeling. We always play ourselves down. It is a weird way to be, and I find it difficult because I want to be positive about my good parts, and recognise them, and be confident because of them. But instead I dwell on the bad bits, the parts which need changing, or compare myself to others who are better. It is a really weird culture and I am not sure where it has come from, but I really find myself resenting it, especially when meeting people of other cultures who just don't have that embarrasment when it comes to themselves. But we are all different, and good at different things. Our skill get others inspired, make them strive for more just as theirs inspire us. If everyone was fantastic, and beautiful and perfect then it would also mean no-one is beautiful, or inspiring. Basically this is just a post which is a little strange because things have been changing for me a lot recently. Socially, a lot has changed. And, although sometimes at the time I was upset by the changes, and couldn't see how things were going to get better, it has. So I guess someone deserves a thank you. I am hoping that things are going to continue to change. I don't want to jinx anything but I really really hope. Fingers crossed that this incline stays up :)

Changes:

I have turned from an informal, skint memory blogger into a formal, paid corporate writer. I have turned from an avid, enthusiastic traveller into someone who has forgotten what it is like to not have to wear shoes. I have turned from someone who can see the big picture to someone who is stuck in the frame. I have gone from a size 8 to a size 12 - OK so its not on the same page, but basically: I have turned from someone who would trek up a mountain a day, to someone who is sedentary for 8 hours each day. Perhaps more. I am still a dreamer, I am still hopeful. I am still a glass half full person, or trying my best to be anyway. I have turned from a happy, sometimes confused singleton into a happy, sometimes confused girlfriend. I have moved from my chaotic family home into a small, unchaotic flat. I have learned to have confidence in myself, my work and my opinion in the world of work. I have learnt that being the oldest and the wisest is not important, but being young of heart, young of mind, and wide-eyed about the world is essential to change, and to great ideas, and great people. I have learnt to treasure time, and that I do not want to waste my time on certain things, people, emotions or situations. I have learnt new things about myself, about my friends and about what is important. I have found a new friend. I am learning to let go of old, broken things that do not need to be fixed but need to be binned. I haven't yet worked out what it is I am going to be doing with the rest of my life, or which of my many ridiculous crazy ideas will actually work, which one I will try to make work. But I am lucky enough to have these ideas. And I am lucky enough to have this life. I haven't worked out what I will even be doing next year, but I just want to be doing something that I love. I don't ever want to be caught in this slog cycle of boredom every day just to gain money. Money to do things, to travel, to start the ideas, to get things done. We all know, or should know that we are capable of whatever it is we set our minds too, whatever we believe we are good enough to achieve. My issue is, I am not sure what it is that I want to do, to achieve or be. So I am not sure what to believe in yet. I'm probably going to just keep working on who I am. You can only move on when you see where it is you want to be instead, after all. The saving starts now, and the dreaming of course too.

A year ago....

Is it really a whole year ago that the bum escapade happened? That seems insane.
I can remember having to stand up in the Tuk Tuk's because it was too painful, and Jo and Niema laughing at me hobbling around like a cowboy, then HATING me because they had to take turns putting the ointment on. Haha it is funny how easily these memories leave your head, and even weirder thinking about the ones that choose to stay.


I just got a really hard smack of traveling blues. Man, it is going to be a while until I do that again. But it will be worth the wait. And it will be fantastic. There is nothing better than a bit of adventure....

I wonder where my next trip will be to, and who will come with me or if I will go it alone. It is funny how quickly I have become absorbed with insignificant things, errands and 'to do' lists. It is weird how quickly Jersey has managed to get back into my head, and I have stopped seeing the bigger picture. But, it is great thinking back on my travels, talking about them and reminiscing about the funny/stupid/crazy things we did, and at the time just thought were normal. The amount of people we met, and became friends with and places we called home.

Although I am sad not to be going away now, one thing I am happy about is the fact that I got the chance to go, and to see and do all of those fantastic things. That I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity, freedom, money, time and support to go. Lots of people don't have that.
I am definitely a lucky one.

And now that I've seen a bit, I want to see it all.
And I am sure that I will too.

I am sick of big feet.

The difficulty in living in a small town/city/island is that when there are a lot of people with big feet you tend to get trodden on a lot.

Jersey is that kind of place. I had completely forgotten what it is like to live here until this weekend. Whatever you do, or say someone will hear you, someone will see you or know who your out with or be cousins with who your out with, or be their cousins babysitter or some crap. Literally take me somewhere where I know no one, where everyone has tiny feet that you can't easily stand on. Good Lord.

It's like some kind of incestuous pit where even if you try at great lengths to avoid anyone who you know, or your mate knows, or your sisters mate knows, you WILL get pissed off and you WILL piss people off. Whatever you do. Always.

I hate that circles have to mix. I hate that awkward feeling you get when you don't want to see that person, you feel weird about your mates hanging with them, and you generally want them to just disappear from the planet yet they continue to REMAIN. And I hate that feeling you get when YOU are the one hanging out with the people who are linked to your mates, and it shouldn't matter, but it does, and your just mates, but it's still SHIT. I wonder if you can tell I am highly irate?

I cannot honestly believe that I have to stay in this place for another two years. I don't actually feel as though I can do it. I've done it for a couple of months and I am about to kill someone. Maybe it will be different when my friends come home. If they come home. They bloody better come home.

I literally feel like sitting in my room, lying in my bed for the next few weeks. Not seeing anyone, not going out just sitting. And I am not even depressed, it just saves me from foot pain.

I can't even explain how happy I am that I am going to Brighton next weekend to see Bells, Jade and Gina. Even those three days away will help, I know it. Ease this tension, and hopefully I can come back totally fine, and calm and able to cope again. Pleeeeeease. Otherwise, Good Lord.... I have absolutely no idea how I am going to do this????

Joie de vivre

After getting severly depressed and annoyed that I was home and not leaving anytime soon, I decided I HAD to leave Jersey for at least a few days otherwise my brain may, in fact, explode. So, I booked VEEEERRRRYYY expensive last minute flights to London and trained up to Reading to see Lea Lea Bickersnipe. Whenever she is home we always get so close, and then when she goes to uni we dont really talk for months (not purposly its just harder) and this year I found it even more difficult when she left. This girl is probably the best person I have ever met. Ever. Literally. I think she is the only person who can get every thing out of me, and who I am completely honest with and who most importantly, doesn't judge anything. Just offers advice, sometimes just offers a hug. And knows which one to give at the right time..

Anyway, enough of the Leah-Love!!


I went to see her the other weekend, which was amasing. She is in Reading uni, seems like a really nice area. She has this immense house which has like 10 bedrooms.... so so great. She complains that it is minging and dirty but I swear she forgets how great it is to live AWAY from parents. I would happily live in a hole in the ground if it meant I could live with my friends. Although to be fair my family are fantastic, its just difficult having people to answer to and explain to and that you have to watch what you say around.... but thats what comes with having younger siblings.

Anyway, so I have this new job, I am working in PR which essentially means looking after companies, re-branding, organizing events and raising awareness of them. It has quite a lot of writing and ideas work, which are fantastic but most of the writing is press releases which means it is very formal (a way which i am sooooo not used to writing in) and also at the moment, because I am starting at the bottom, I am doing a lot of very admin-heavy work. It is totally fine at the moment, but soon I am going to push to be given a little more writing work. If you don't ask you dont get!

Other than that I am planning on auditioning for NYT in February which is very exciting!! I thought I may as well give it a try- see if I can get anywhere with acting because if don't ever try I will always wonder.... so anyway my sister is going to help me with that.

I've decided that because I am staying here i need to do things. Which obviously never ever happens, but I am going to try make some things happen next year, so that I dont turn into a middle agd working woman and lose my 'vi de jour' or whatever.

I need to learn French.
I need to audition for NYT.
I need to learn a new skill (there are lots of things here, jewelry making, or massage, there is even some hippy chakra courses)
I also need to try to learn about man things incase said man is not about, so that I can do things such as fix a car/sort out a fuse box. (I know, it is a very big expectation to essentially learn general mechanics but i need to learn this stuff as presently i dont even know how to open my bonnet!!)

So anyway, lovely Highlands college shall assist me with my new learning. Oh and I am doing uberedge.com again. The Just Dance one. Nikki is actually fantastic I think I have a little girl crush on her.

By the way, how boring has my life got? Wow the last posts were much more dramatic then this 'what i will do with my life now' post. Hmmmm. If I wasn't as sensible, I would totally just go away again, but to be fair I am being offered a qualification and experience. It is fantastic. I can't complain at all. So i shouldn't, and I should get on with it, enjoy it as much as possible, and then travel/uni afterward.

After all, two years goes by pretty quickly nowadays.

Back Home

So, I never heard about what happened to that girl. To be fair, I don't think that it was one of her friends top priorities to tell me/michael how she was. It is crazy the things that can happen, and how quickly it can all happen too.

So, now it is October- as IF I haven't written on this for so long! So after Thailand we went to Indonesia - me and Niema traveled from Medan to Sumatra and had the mot unbelievable time.... we trekked through the jungle, saw wild orangutans and their babies, slept under the stars and essentially walked for 7 hours a day. It was hard. But it was absolutely fantastic.

We didn't spend much, and stayed in unreal accommodation in Lake Toba- the locals were so so so friendly and we had a great time- we were kind of sad that we were being rushed so much because we had to meet Jo in Bali as she was having a bit of a hard time. Anyway, by this point I started to realize that I had to go home - I had three hundred pounds in my bank and to get a flight home it was around 200. Bad times.

As anyone from my hometown will know, I have been writing for Gallery magazine so all of my travel stories are in there (which makes me super lazy and not bothered to write about it on here as much which is kind of bad). Anyway, I will link my articles when they are all up on the Gallery site. If your interested you can just google 'Gallery Magazine Jersey' and it will be the first search, you can view 'online edition' and then just look at the contents page.... stressy jessy articles in the travel section are all mine!

Anywho, about being home.....

Well, I have to say it is really strange. I have a job now, a proper job.... all a bit weird. I even have a business card! Doooff!! So looks like this is me for the next 2 years or so.... strange feeling knowing I am glued here now. But i guess it means, if i save properly, then I can go away for ages, or go to Uni or whatever.

Jo is in Australia, and Niema is back here saving to go to India for a few months (Fiji plans have been scrapped for now). Its just weird to think I wont be going anywhere for a while. Well, I guess I will be going to uni's - as in trips to see friends. Obv that isn't really abroad but still its nice to get out of TINY TINY Jersey, and see some faces you don't know.

I havent written on here forever

So I havent written a blog forever, but to update you quickly we have travelled Cambodi, Laos and Vietnam and are now back in Thailand doing our scuba diving. We have bumped into Gina and now have this amasing group of us which is going to be really sad to leave as were all going our sepeerate ways in just as few days.

But anyway, i decided to write on this mainly because of the full moon party. So this time we were going with our cambodian crew, plus gina charlie and matt.... we had a really really good group of us and were all dead close by this point so we had an amasing night with the only injury by 4am being Michael standing on a smashed glass bottle and needing a few stitches. So we were doing pretty well, me and michael went for a walk and sat down at the bottom of one of the bars whilst we decided where we were gunna go to next, i dont know why i looked up, but i did. There was a bar above us, some 20-25feet high, and i just saw this girl topple over the barrier, hit her head and land about a metre from us, in a rolly polly possition on her neck. her legs were over her head and we heard the crack. I completely froze, i couldnt moove. we were the only people close to her, the only people sober enough to know that she had even fallen.... anyway so michael ran over and flipped her off of her neck to open her airway, her arm was completely fucked so it just bent the wrong way and wouldnt go into place. he checked her pulse, and breathing and i remember yelliung at him 'is she dead?' then he just looked at me. he walked back towards me and told me not to touch her.... her friends all started running over, they had finally noticed and all of a sudden she took in a breath, still unresponsive and started hyperventilating.... then the ambulance came and took her away.... wqe had the email address for her friends because i was the only witness, and michael had been the first person to move her.... we still havent heard back, but it is an image i cant get out of my head and it just made me realise how vunerable we are, and how just a tiny accident can turn into something as serious as what we saw....

I hope to god that she is alive and that she can recover, but from a fall so high and onto her neck it seems impossible. All i know is that it was the scareyest thing i have ever seen and i cant get that image of her limp body from my head, so i had to write about it. I hope never to see anything like that again. But I thank God it wasnt any of us who fell.... i dont know how i would have dealt with it if it were one of my friends who fell.