I’m currently in the middle of a huge change in my life. In February this year, I had the great fortune of being accepted for a job at a company in Sydney (hence my worries about my passport and my visa). In the past few months, I’ve been juggling freelance consulting work and the little tasks required of me to get a work visa. I’ve also been slowly planning out everything I’ll need for the Great Move, and based on everything, I’m hoping to start the move sometime this month.
To be honest, I don’t have a lot of things I’ll need to worry about, and although I’ve lived in the Philippines all my life, I don’t have a lot to really tie me to this country. I don’t have that many possessions that I’ll be carrying with me to Australia; and, thankfully with modern technology, keeping in touch with friends and family across the distance (and timezones) won’t be too bad.
It’ll be a Great Adventure as well as a Great Move for me, and I’m excited. I’m turning 36 soon, and I’m not that young (nor that old yet); there’s nothing in my experience as of yet to compare with.
I am quite fond of doing research and reading up on stuff before I do something or go somewhere: I like to know what’s up ahead, even if I don’t really plan ahead. I’m fine with spontaneity and doing things without the foresight of a plan, but I do like planning ahead, even if that plan isn’t as detailed or step-by-step. I like to at least know the shape of things to come, and I find myself anticipating the pleasant surprises ahead.
I think one of the times I went to Singapore, if not the first, I was giddy with anticipation. Same with that time I went to Shanghai with my family: there was a sense of the newness of the experience, of wondering what it’ll be like.
Those times were short stays, vacations: this time, I’ll be several hundred kilometers away from most of my life as I’ve known it, in a city that I’ve never been to, to a life that is as foreign as the country, and it’ll be my everyday for possibly the rest of my life. To say that I’m both anxious and excited is an understatement.
I’ve been watching videos, reading stuff online, doing research, looking at maps: I’ve been asking people I know, and looking at what others have said. I’ve been slowly buying the little essentials I’ll need for the move: clothes, cookware, etcetera. I’ve been mentally taking stock at what I can leave behind, what I want to bring with me, and like I said: I don’t have much, and I can probably stuff most of the essentials in 3 or 4 balikbayan boxes, if I’m brutally honest with myself.
I’m even tempted to just pack a single suitecase of clothes and leave with just that: buy everything else I’ll need there, and dive into the deep-end of the experience. But I probably won’t do that.
I’ll probably bring my entire collection of books, though. Hard to part with those.
Previously: RTFM