Age: 26
Reading: The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton
Listening to: Slow Show, The National
Wearing: Urban Outfitters denim dungarees
The Journey
When I was about 6 a friend of my parents asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. With precocity, the 6 year old me recognised the pretension of this question and replied with an equally pretentious answer- "I will be a lawyer and go to Oxford."
So from the age of 6 I have been building a resume to rival the Taj Mahal in splendour to allow me to be an Oxford attending lawyer. The journey began with excessive amounts of school work. I distinctly remember crying in year 4 when my teacher ranked me 12 in the class in English. In fact I remember crying quite a lot in my school days. Around the time of the ranking of 12 I graduated my grade anxiety into a separation anxiety and quite literally refused to be separated from my Mother. I enforced this regime of remaining as close to the womb as possible through vomit. The thought of having to suffer through my tears and vomit meant that both teachers and parents succumbed to my wish to never leave my Mother.
In the end it was my intense desire to travel that forced me to end the era of tears and vomit (though those who know me well will attest to the fact that both tactics have returned intermittently throughout my life). Travel was my distraction from the anxiety of rankings and swimming carnivals and a judgmental school experience. From the first time I travelled to America in year 8 to my latest trip to Israel this year, travel let me be whoever the hell I wanted to be right then and there and to forget who I wanted to be in 5, 10, 15 years time.
And so it was through travel that I slaved through 13 of years of school, 6 years of university and 18 months of work. If I knew I was travelling in 2 months I could rise in the morning to do an hour of specialist maths before I went to school, I could sit attached to my laptop for hours on end drafting theses and I could feign interest in a strange process called the law. Travel introduced me to ideas I could not discover in my insular Melbourne world. In Berkeley I learnt about refugees which lead me to a new interest in human rights law. It was in Arusha, Tanzania that my eyes were opened to the magnificent continent that is Africa and lead me to start my Foundation. And, eventually, it was travel that got me to my end goal- the elusive acceptance letter to Oxford University to study African Studies.
The Irony
The irony of this parable has not escaped me.
Remarkably, it has escaped, as yet, all of the commentators on my coming adventures...and there have been commentators. The most common question upon learning of my admission to Oxford has been "is it difficult to get in?" Generally I smile and recite a contrived answer necessarily including modesty and humility. Mostly, I would like to say "It's Oxford, what the fuck do you think?"
Backhanded jabs at my intellect (or lack thereof apparently) aside, no one has commented on the irony. I am going to spend a deposit on a house to study a continent the vast majority of whose inhabitants cannot afford high school. Ironic, no?
The Blog
Having accepted that I am already a 'spoilt upper middle class twenty-something that hates actually having to work (albeit as a professional) and so goes off to Oxford to study a 3rd world issue to perhaps be able to help', I feel no shame in further conforming to my stereotype and blogging on my adventures.
Even still, I am somewhat perturbed by the narcissism of blogging, so I hope to include some tit-bits of worth. A story or two about Africa- its people, its struggles, its triumphs, some words of general wisdom about travel, or in the words of Vampire Weekend, maybe just a line or two about why I give a fuck about an Oxford comma...
