Home Time

Having chosen to pop back to my hometown during reading week at university seems to have been an awful decision, made with far too much haste. In this trip it's nice of course to see old friends, familiar enemies, and even people I feel neutrally apathetic about. However, I find myself constantly suffering from what Douglas Addams describes as "The long dark tea time of the soul".
I experience a great listlessness at being around the oh so horribly familiar haunts of my hometown. It leads me inexorably to the conclusion that at some point in my life I've been unfortunate enough to have been bitten by the travel bug.
I am in fact able to pin it down very firmly to two occasions that turned me into this awful restless spirit, constantly discontent with familiarity. The first of these being my first visit to Australia, aged 17, being on a backpacking tour and feeling a great sense of dread at the thought of leaving my new found paradise (as the bus we were crammed in rushed me city-wards).
The second occasion was again on a backpacking tour in Australia, where I looked out of the minibus window (this time aged 20) and felt a new sensation. This new sensation is almost that of nostalgia for the unknown, and is best described as a dull tingly ache of anticipation which enters every bone of the body and prepares one for the full excitement of new things in store.
Anyhow, this depressive state has at least given me a hint that I'm on a well suited career path as Journalism is a job which has many avenues and possibilities to explore. All that remains to say is that I look forward immensely to my return to Cheltenham where there is still unfamiliar ground for me to explore, and new interesting people to be talked to.