More on the Strange Girl

As I mentioned, I first started talking to my girlfriend online in 2005. My username was "Spoffin" and hers was "Skoffin", and we talked long into the night, many nights, for many months. In the main, I was a right little sex pest and I'm not proud - I would not recommend a policy of badgering a 15 year old girl over the internet as a path to romance. Fortunately however, feelings went both ways and hers were expressed through the time-honoured manner of getting someone else to find out if he LIKES-me likes-me. Then we stopped talking for a couple of years.

But then we started again. I told her about my current non-relationships and made her jealous. She told me about her current relationships and made me think that nothing could happen. Then around June 2008, pending her dumping an emotionally abusive boyfriend, we made plans for her to come to England to visit me. And in August, after a fist fight with an American under the Eifiel Tower over a girl I'd been flirting with on holiday, I proposed to Bronwyn that we be exclusive, and not see anyone else for the next six months until we planned to meet. She formally broke up with her boyfriend, and then on the 28th of January 2009, she was being detained by Heathrow immigration, just a couple of dozen minutes away from seeing me for the first time. I'll never forget the first words she spoke out loud to me: "What's with the face?". I lost my virginity to her on Feburary 1st, my 22nd birthday. She stayed in London for about five weeks and then went home at the beginning of March. I'd planned to go to Sydney in June, but before I'd even gotten there we were already arranging for her to come to London in the new year. I stayed for seven weeks with her and her crazy family, and then spent a looonng six months waiting for her to come back to the UK. She lived with me for two years, the length her working holiday visa allowed, and then I moved to Sydney on a one/two year visa and that takes us up to today.

I was writing an entry for this blog, trying to define the elements of a quest so that I could write my challenge around it. Quests involve journeys, trials, and so on. And I realised that there was an essential element of all quests that were too common to leave out, but that I didn't have a way to fit into my challege: The treasure that lies at the end. I thought about it, trying to come up with something appropriate. I could buy myself something if I manage all of this, I was thinking, but I couldn't come up with anything that I wanted enough to be worth all this effort, but that I could wait a year (or longer) to get.

Of course, its only a golden fleece or an ark of the covenant that the hero wins at the end of his quest about half the time. As often as not, the hero's quest is for love.

And an idea came into my head. One that took hold, and wouldn't shake.

And I asked Bron what she thought of it, and her voice went quiet and she said she thought it was pretty cool.

So the prize at the end of Quest Australia is a wedding ring

Why I'm doing this

There are many different things that lead to this quest.

At the end of 2011, I was preparing to go to Australia, a trip that was more compelled than chosen. Not that I didn't want to go, but rather that I kinda had to, regardless of whether or not I wanted to. This is because in 2005, I started talking online with a very strange girl (more on her later), and through a series of circumstances that progressed in a not at all linear or straightforward fashion, she ended up moving from Sydney to London to live with me in January 2010. Her visa was a two year working holiday visa, so in January 2012, it was going to be my turn to move to Australia (more on this weird and wonderful land later). So I was getting ready for this big move, due for January 19th (more on this date later)

At the start of 2011, my Australian flatmate (1 of 4 at the time) told me her new year's resolution: to visit a new country every month. This was the coolest new year's resolution I've ever heard, and it inspired me to give up my lifelong antipathy to the idea of new year's resolution and start one of my own. I decided that I would try to watch 365 films before the end of 2012, and also cook 52 new dishes and read 12 books. (more on challenge 2011 later) I was still going strong on this as 2011 drew to a close, and I had enjoyed it, even if I had found it a little grinding and unbalanced towards the end.

One of the things I watched in October 2011 was a stand up set by Richard Herring called "The 12 Labours of Hercules Terrace" in which he tries to perform the 12 labours of Hercules in a reinterpretation more appropriate for the modern age. (more on this later). In the end he comes to realise that Hercules, far from being a hero, mostly is just a macho arsehole who killed a lot of one-of-a-kind animals and that being heroic in the modern day, if its possible at all, involves something different.

On the 11th of November 2011, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released. Those not familiar with the game only really need to know that you play a medieval adventurer and most of your time is split between trying to level up your skills by using them over and over, and doing whichever quests get you the best loot. The gameplay is like a Skinner box - its repetitive, abusive and unsatisfying and is a massive time sink, and I love it more than I love chocolate, sunshine or baby ducklings. More on Skyrim and its predecessors later.

These are all strands of the thread that lead me to Quest Australia (2012). I was coming to the end of a year-long challenge and wanted new and improved one for this year, ideally one that was a bit more well rounded. I had been thinking about the idea of the 12 Labours of Hercules, and in particular the conclusion that many of the tasks were a bit same-y, and did not add up to a particularly heroic endeavour. Skyrim had me thinking about the idea of a hero improving his or her many different skills as a part of becoming stronger and more heroic. And Australia, coming near the start of a new year, is an exotic, far away, quest-appropriate location that I was about to depart for.

My challenge for 2012 then was going to be a multi-part challenge, focused around tasks or challenges that improve myself in a more well-rounded way than either Hercules (with his slaughter of mythical creatures) or I (with my film-dominated 2011 challenge) had done before, and around Australia itself.

That's the idea anyway. Next up is what I'm actually going to be doing.

Australian Quest

I'm going to a new land, filled with strange and dangerous creature. My travelling companion, a native with an unearthly pale hue to her skin, may be as much liability as asset. My quest - to learn the ways of this place and to master this strange land. To better myself and to make my fortune.