It's eight days to Christmas. I'm sitting in Cristina's small apartment and wondering how to best end this blog. Soft snow is falling outside, almost so you can't see it, adding up a thin layer on the icy streets below. We're moving together in January, a bit outside the city center to a larger flat. It's hard to work on school assignments when there isn't enough space. Thus far, we've always lived in a single room, both here and back in Australia.
Ahh, Australia. I promised earlier to write something about what I got out of this year and what it felt like, so now I'm attempting to do just that. A lot of my friends that have been on exchange say coming back made them feel that nothing had changed in their lives, that they just returned to their old habits soon after and lived on as nothing had happened. I feel that that is not possible for me. Partly it might be because of all the new things that are taking place at this time in my life, but even if they wouldn't, even if I just returned home and everything would go on as it used to, I feel that it just can't have stayed the same. Everything changes.
"What was the best thing?" and "How has it changed you?". I've been home for more than three weeks already, and still I can't give people an answer to the two most common questions they ask me. I can't just sum it up to a few words, perhaps I can't put it into words at all. One way of doing it would be this blog, I guess. Read through it all and sum it up in a few words and you know what I'm talking about. And then there's so much else that just couldn't fit in these pages as well. All the little things.
For some reason, I don't miss Australia. I thought I would as I was leaving Geelong behind. But I realized that I don't need to miss something in order to make it important. Instead of missing all the Australian people, friends, climate and nature, I have this feeling of deep satisfaction and gratification. Of course, I'm mighty thankful for having had the opportunity to get there in the first place and being able to stay there as long as I did, but closer to the end I also got this overwhelming feeling of satisfaction, that my time there truly was everything and even more than I'd come there for. Note to you guys who are choosing about half a year and a full year there: Go with the latter. If I'd gone home after 5 months, I'd missed out on the best things.
I remember sitting in that crazy invention of wings attached to an aluminium tube as Australia was rushing past far below me. How did I change? For one, as I already said before, my thirst for exploring my surroundings jumped up to the next level. How much of Finland have I really seen? Not much. We're already planning a biking trip to the archipelago for summer. Call it increased interest and awareness or whatever you like.
Relating to this, it's rather funny(and perhaps a bit frightening?) how I feel that I learned important things by noting what I felt was lacking in Australia more than noting what was available. I feel much more environmentally aware and critical now after spending time in a country that's one of the worst polluters in the world(the sustainable futures class I took certainly plays a role here though). The whole idea of a country where climate is among the most suitable for good and sound living and then not utilizing the possibilities it offers and lagging behind in pretty much every aspect of sustainability makes little sense to me. I think it was one of my friends in Villamanta who put it like this: "I don't know but I just feel like Australians just don't care or if they do they're just too darn lazy to do anything about it". Perhaps living in readily livable conditions doesn't make you rush into improving them. Whatever the reason, I'm happy so find out the "younger" generation over there shows signs of upcoming change in that area. Har har, now I sound old don't I.
As a result of all this, I feel that I know much better now than before what I want to focus on in my studies and perhaps even in work. That's a big one, folks!
I never felt lonely in Australia. Villamanta made sure of that in the first months, and was a great way of learning to know people from around the world. Cristina arrived in the middle and the time there with her was just incredible. Not that spending item with her requires any special place, it's incredible anyways. The last few months, as both most Villamantians and Cristina were gone, I put my foot down with the locals and I can't think of a better way to have ended it. All this is definitely part of the best that happened to me over the year.
So, here we are. I'm throwing out the biggest possible THANK YOU to everyone I met over the year, to everyone I already knew before and also a personal thanks to Australia and New Zealand who both rocked my world in ways I couldn't think of before and ways I can't describe afterwards!!
A huge thanks also to all the readers of Jonestralia! The number in the visitor counter on the right-hand side there, albeit it arrived too late, tells me that my time in front of the screen wasn't all wasted.
This is the end of your favorite blog channel, dear readers. Stay tuned for possible information of what will happen next, but until further notice we are out of business.
Merry Christmas to you all!
Ps. If you're wondering about the total number of pictures I ended up with over the year, the number is 8170. Add in all the pictures initially taken without being deleted or merged together, that number probably shoots up far past 20.000.
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