Pause, Playback, Rewind.

And just like that, it is August already.

No one told me when I graduated from high school that the creator was going to press the magic fast-forward button of life to make the next few years zoom by like trees on the side of the highway. You can see them, and if you wind your window down you may be able to smell them, but the sad and scary fact is that they pass by so quickly that though you know they are there, know what they look like, and know you saw them, you don't really get the chance to look at the individual leaves and parts that make the beautiful whole unless you make a valiant effort to ... stop ... moving.

That is how I feel about my life for the past four years.

I went through college in what seemed like an accelerated vacuum, and though I don't think I have enough hindsight just yet to say "those were the best times of my life", I can't say I went away and did anything too out of the ordinary or insane. Part of this, I suppose, is due to the fact that I spent a good 80 percent of that time in a long-distance relationship, which by nature kept me from really wanting to go anywhere or do anything that didn't involve seeing my significant other. (And I surely don't regret that, by the way.) But the other part, the part that most people found quite abnormal, was that I spent a lot of that time going back home to mummy and going out of town to visit my brother.

Those four years away from home did nothing more than make me closer to the people I thought I left behind.

Needless to say, this is something I am very proud to state. (Maybe not so much the fact that I moved back home, but hey. We all know writers don't get paid much unless they murdered -- but not really -- someone and decided to write a book about how they did it, even though they didn't.)

Though I look forward to my independence and certainly value my alone time, I am glad I have a little time, and certainly the opportunity, to slow down and figure out where this life is going to take me next. And if it's one thing I can say I am extremely happy I experienced, going to Australia for a little less than two months last summer was perhaps the best thing I could have ever done in college, besides pass of course.

Knowing that you can do something is always a good feeling. But knowing that you did it, well, there is nothing quite as self-actualizing.

I have big dreams, you know. And most of them consist of living at least a few years of my now "adult-life" by being a globetrotter -- ideally one who gets paid to write about her sightings and experiences.

But even if I don't get paid, you can surely expect to see those writings right here on this blog where I have pitched my tent and made my home.

Cheers.