They say when it rains it pours and for me when the winds of change blow they certainly blow a gale!

As I finish my job today at Victoria’s Department of Justice, exactly one year to the day since I left the UK, I’m gearing up to move on to (literally) pastures new to become an alpaca grooming, pig feeding farmer law student up on the boarder of New South Wales and Canberra.

Eh?

Yes thats right, a farmer law student. Once told in jest that my life ‘sounds like a sitcom’to which I decided to be complimented, not offended, the past year has taught me that no plan is too crazy and no goal too unobtainable. So when I started to think again about what I wanted to do on re entering the western world in March (not that it hadn’t followed me around like a bad smell during five months of travelling) it came to me, and it had been there all along, I wanted mastery, I wanted purpose and I wanted to become a lawyer.

Realisation of such fact, quietly and unremarkably whilst sat in bed one night, was a joyous occasion. I had spent years feeling unsatisfied with the path I was on but feeling paralysed to do anything about it (see Going East) yet when I really took the time to search for it there were signs and signals all along that this was what I really wanted to do. I was no longer confused, no longer bound by my own sense of inadequacy and ready to commit to my choice.

And so I started to think, whats the most bad ass way to become a lawyer?

Law, Alpacas and the Nations Capital

With going home to train discounted as expensive as potentially quite dull as I would need to live somewhere awful in order to survive, I decided to stay in Australia to complete my quest. A few assessments and frantic last minute shipping of degree certificates later (you’re the best Fiona) I had my application to study an extra six Law subjects accepted by the University of Sydney to commence long distance in November.

National Service

But with only six months left on the visa clock, to which my studies would take up four, I needed to get me a second year, and that involved completing Australia’s national service for backpackers: farm work.

Yes 88 days of pure, unadulterated cow milking, fruit hurling, pig clearing farm work in a rural location of your choosing. At first the very thought struck fear in to my heart, I am a city girl through and through, I have never so much as spent more than a long weekend in the country and here I had to go and spend 3 MONTHS out there?! All through my Melbourne winter I dreaded the day I would have to leave good coffee, avocado rich breakfasts and brick exposed bars behind in favour of poo and wellies.

But as my my plans evolved and I knew I would be studying my perception changed, a farm would be the perfect place to begin study again with fresh air, sunshine and only pigs and cows to distract me.

But then another remarkable thing happened..

I met a boy. Though i’m back tracking on my timeline a bit here (I have woefully neglected my updates with all of Melbournes distractions) we met in May at my hostel where he was staying for the weekend, . Though we had only hung out for a day or so there was defiantly some good vibes and when he left to head home to Canberra, some 7 hours away I turned to my friend Colin, made a sad face and sighed a kind of ‘oh there goes another good one’ kind of sigh.

But Colin was more intuitive than I, gave me a big old smile and said ‘Ohhhh Becky, I think he’s coming back’.

Turns out he was right! A few long distance drives and a very awesome road trip at the start of September has led me to starting my farming not too far out of the nations capital so he can exist more than just in my laptop, which of all the new prospects is one I am very much looking forward to 🙂

So there we have it, one year on from balling my eyes out like I was heading to war on the flight to Delhi and oh how things have evolved and changed. This past year has educated me in more ways than I could have imagined and at the risk of sounding like a smelly stilton one thing I have learnt is that fortune really does favour the brave if you have the balls to pursue it.

I can’t wait to see what the next twelve months will bring…!