From the road

Hola and welcome to the scintillating and always salacious tale of Miss Luks. This is a form of correspondence that allows everyone to know what I'm doing so I no longer;
a) get in trouble for being the worst friend in the world and just vanishing from everyone's lives with no word, and
b) no longer have to inflict you all with rambling diatribes of my thoughts and occasional happenings.

I figured I would begin this on the eve of my departure from Guernsey as it seemed nicely symbolic.

I'll begin the tale at the end of the last adventure which, funnily enough, began this week a year ago. Craig and I spent about four months driving around Europe together which was amazing. And then the day that he left me, only a few hours after we'd solemnly farewelled each other in Nice, I was robbed during the night. That was quite shit. Probably the shittest of all shit things ever that I've experienced.

I kept travelling for a month on my own but felt quite vulnerable the whole time so when States Education Guernsey contacted me to offer me work beginning in January it seemed like a message from the heavens! Guernsey offered me stability and security and comfort when I most needed it. I met my brother Drew and his girlfriend Peg at the beginning of December when they flew into London to begin their own adventures. We spent New Years Eve in Edinburgh and then I left them to resume my life in Guernsey.

It's been brilliant being back. I walked straight back into the same job, with a bit of a different role. This time round I was working half the week with my behaviourally challenged teenagers and the second half attempting to integrate a nine year old back into school after a three year absence. He was a challenge to be sure, to be sure. His final words to me on our last day together, after seven months of intense work, was "I hate you. You're a cow!"

With my teenagers I pursued more Outdoor Education which I love, but again, proved to be a huge challenge. We planned two off-island trips for the end of the term and they were hugely rewarding? Frustrating? Challenging? Exhausting?
It would take me pages to attempt to express what kind of an impact those trips had on me. If I say that the second, a sailing trip to France, was forced to return to Guernsey early due to mutiny type behaviour, then you let your imagination run away with you, you might grasp what kind of situations we were dealing with.

In other news, Ken and I spent a week in Mallorca together and then just recently a couple of weeks touring round Ireland and camping (quite fun to spend so much time in a tent while it rained. I didn't realise it rained so very much!). I spent a couple of weeks training through Western Europe with mates from Newcastle; Trevor and Jeremy and we met up with Simon in Hamburg. That was quite bizarre but fun!

And now, back to this poetic eve in Guernsey. It's not really evening, morning to be exact. I'm sitting on the couch in my dressing gown, having just cried through McLeod's daughters (they have gum trees and dusty vista's and they all go up at the end of their sentences) and I'm busting for a wee. This time next week I'll be Canada...eep! I've got a job lined up with a residential project in the wilderness (four hours north of Toronto) where they work with male young offenders aged 14 - 17. It's full time and runs 365 days of the year. Through Christmas, blizzards and all. I don't like the cold and am a bit sick of winters having now chalked up three northern hemisphere ones, so I'm not quite sure why this seems like such an attractive adventure. I guess it's the Outdoor Ed side of it. I like the idea of seeing if it can work as a therapy. There's amazing research happening at home in the field of Wilderness Therapy, but again, I'm avoiding going home. Some people are suggesting I have commitment issues...
So, canada it is. www.projectdare.com if you're interested. I'll be arriving in Toronto next Wednesday and Kirsten is meeting me. Amazing! I haven't seen her for almost two years and it's reassuring to know that I have a friend to be with when I get there. Leaving Guernsey is proving harder than I'd anticipated. I fluctuate between feeling normal, excited, sad, panicked and then bored (I have all the days to fill while I wait for Ken to come home and play with me!). I don't know, I just wish I knew how things would turn out, but then as Fo says, that's half the fun of life. And I KNOW it is, but it doesn't help when again I'm leaving and saying goodbye to someone amazing and just not knowing how things will pan out for us both over the next year.

Who knows, maybe I'll be back in Guernsey January next year. I was a bit sheepish, to be honest, to come back to work here cause I got such an amzing goodbye present last time I left. And guess what? I got another one this time round! I can't come back again or they'll think I'm just doing it for the booty.


Right, that's enough, Camille. Leave them along now and instead excite them with some interesting and artistic photos. ooh, I got a new digital camera, though I'm grumbling about it all the time because I'm reluctant to embrace technology ad insist on clinging onto my old SLR. I proudly showed Ken last night the way I'd managed to shove my new digital SLR with both it's lenses AND my old SLR into the one bag. He laughed at me and then told me to take out the old one and send it home. LET IT GO CAMILLE.

Thanks for joining me on this exciting web log and I'll keep you posted periodically (annually, you know?) I'm still on my hotmail but that's for personal messgaes now. None of that bulk impersonality.

I'm sure I love you all, love Camille!