By Rachel Loveday
This column happens to time perfectly. It’s exam time, or at least it’s nearly the end. I don’t have exams with my degree, because I don’t have exams, I have major projects, I submitted my last one on Friday night. Everyone would be thinking about the same thing right about now–home and holidays, especially with the well-deserved long summer holidays fast approaching.
In all of the years I’ve been at uni and all of the holidays I have been at home, home is always different in some way–the house always looks smaller, the weather in Wagga always seems more extreme than the last time I was there and there’s always new business, both with people and actual businesses. What I love the most about going home is being able to drive again, being able to save more money, having home-cooked meals and the company of family. I didn’t go home for the winter holidays this year and I’m not going to next year either due to work commitments, it was a good thing because winter in Wagga is absolutely horrible, but it meant that my parents only got to spend a few days with me around my birthday in Wollongong instead of the six or so weeks that they would have had with me if I was at home. It was also a good thing for my parents too, because Wollongong is warmer in winter.
Even though home does change, its more that I have changed than it has. Going to uni, being away from home and my family and having my own experiences as an adult has changed me. Because it’s changed me, I’ve realised where I’ve come from and how much I have evolved. It makes me appreciate home more in a way.
I have to admit as much as I need my holidays by the end of the year, I would always end up bored due to the fact that I had no job back home and I couldn’t get one because no-one in Wagga will hire me because I can’t stick around for long. I would spend my days browsing in the shops in the mall and writing stories. It’s good to have free time, but it gets old after a while, when I had nothing to do. That being said I would always make time for my family and to enjoy my holidays due to the fact that the time flies by.
I hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays and enjoys home-cooked meals this summer. I’m not quite sure what my summer plans are yet, but I think the best thing about being home for the holidays is that for a little while, you can get away from being a grown-up.
Tertangala 