A New Year

Lyric: "I close my eyes tight and, think about her, but she's 2000 light years away" - Greenday, 2000 light years away

I have attempted to do a blog once before but never updated it, with the new year (and a bit of inspiration) I have decided to rekindle this idea of a blog, and hopefully post unedited, un-thought-through ramblings once a week. This requires some sort of self discipline which has never really oozed out of me but I'll try my best.

However when it comes to names of people, I will often not name them or maybe use just initials to protect the identity of these people.

The start of every new year always gets people thinking about the past one, and this past one has been good to me. I made the most out of my final months of university, although at the time I didn't want to leave as I attempted to become Student Union President. Unfortunately I came up against a powerhouse of popularity and to be fair I was impressed with how well I did (coming second with only 12 votes between us) considering I was never 'popular' in Uni.

But with the end of University came the end of an era. The summer led to me re-thinking a lot of things in life, mainly because I had so much time on my hands - damn recession giving no jobs to graduates. I booked a flight to Prague, a one way flight, of no returns, and no idea of what was going to happen.

The rough plan was that I'd spend a few months there and if it was going well, not come back. This was the toughest decision I ever had to make especially due to the fact that I had a girlfriend of three years back in Britain, once I had made the decision to stay in Prague, it led to one of the most difficult decisions and conversations I have ever had. We had to break up, and even though at some moments I do rethink the idea and I do still miss her, it was time. I truly believe deep down inside that we'll both be better off in the long run I just hope she soon realises that also.

So these huge decisions have left me in Prague alone, and the first few months here caused a lot of trials and tribulations.

Upon arriving I stayed on couches, with friends and pretty much anywhere I could find. I then thought I'd landed on my feet. I moved into a flat with three great people and thought this could be the start of something good, then it ended. All three ended up leaving before Christmas, and this hit me hard.

While I knew I wanted to be here in Prague all of a sudden, I was left in a flat the size of my house all alone. The other tour guides I work are awesome and I couldn't have asked for better friends, but a lot of these people have friends outside of the tour company and the feelings of lonliness got even deeper, especially with no girlfriend to lean upon, and the only girls I like uninterested I needed to get away.

Home put things into perspective. My return to Wales for Christmas allowed me to re-energise, re-focus and realise that I don't actually have to be constantly surrounded by people, a bad habit I'd put myself into throughout University.

I searched for a new flat and found somewhere to move into for the New Year.

While I am not there yet I have cleared my thinking.

New Years.

So here we are, thats the round about deal of 2009. On the whole pretty good, but some huge setbacks.

But this year I think is going to be interesting. In the past, I have always had something holding my year together; A Levels, holidays, finishing university etc. This year I have nothing. There is literally nothing I need to do.

This has allowed me the opportunity to do some potential travelling. I'm going to Madrid in a few weeks and am excited at the prospect, I also hope to see some friends from home in Italy and maybe go see some cousins in Australia, maybe along with one or two other people. This is essentially my first year of... absolute freedom.

I intend to do a lot of writing during this time, part of the reason why I re-opened this blog, also I'd like to start playing a lot more music again.

But for now I am content as to what is going on. It's different, but it's a little bit exciting as well.

Not all my posts will be like this, some will be pointless anecdotes, reviews questions on life etc. And I suppose everyone who reads it is more than welcome to , but I think for now, I am writing this for myself, just to remind myself of how I'm doing and to put things in perspective. If you guys gain anything from that then, cool, I'm glad about that.

But for now I'm done, I'll try and post again next week - maybe sooner, I'm starting to warm to this idea.

Ciao for now