I’ve decided to hack my life, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. When I return to Canada next April I will have been gone eighteen months. I will come home having seen a bit of the world, hopefully righted the things that were going wrong for me before I left, and God willing will have a small chunk of money in my savings account.  What this means is that if I am going to make some changes, now is the time.
What is life hacking? According to Wikipedia, it means …

I’m tired. Really, really tired. I feel like this past year I have struggled with sleep issues and am nearing my wits’ end. When I first moved to New Zealand, I lived in a house on Richmond Road in Auckland’s Grey Lynn neighbourhood. The house was sweet and the flatmates nice enough, but I should never have moved there for the simple fact that it was on a main road. I thought that perhaps the street wouldn’t be loud at night, as it was Auckland and not Toronto after all. …

It’s no secret: I love Wellington. It’s rather unfortunate that I wasn’t able to make it my home while in New Zealand. Christchurch is nice and all (and comes with the uber handy well-paying job!), but Wellington is just everything that I hoped my time in this country would be. It looks completely different than Toronto: I love how all of the houses are white, either perched precariously on the hills or nestled at their bases. I love the harbourfront with its super blue water. It’s cafés and bars are …

… because that’s mostly what my “surfing” lessons consist of at this point. Sure, I have an 8ft soft top board and a nifty wetsuit to keep me from freezing, but I’ve yet to actually get up onto my feet. After two 3hr sessions the closest I can get is onto my knees.
In my head, I understand what my body has to do to (I’m working on the Pop Up, see video below), but actually getting there just isn’t happening. This is partly because of my crap knees, and partly …

That’s right, this time last year I was sitting pretty on a 15-hour Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong. Not having left Toronto by plane in over a decade this was pretty spectacular. Sure, my flight left at midnight, but wow there was no way in hell I was going to fall asleep. I was so excited! Even though it was the dead of night, I think my nose left marks on the window from being pressed against it for at least the first hour of the journey as I stared …

I’ve finally reached the point where I am close enough to exciting travels that I feel like I can touch them. It’s been a long haul, these last six months, and I’m super excited that in about six weeks I will  FINALLY be playing tourist in the country that has been my home for the last year. It’s taken a few weeks to sort everything out to a place where Im confident sharing my plans, but I think I’ve everything in order. Now all I need is money to pay …

Amazing day yesterday — went out to Scarborough Beach in Sumner for my first ever SURFING LESSON with Kat and Florence. Woah boy, that was fun. I’m sore as today, but cant wait to get back out there. The first time I slid across the water flat out on my board I think I squealed with delight, which of course turned into all out laughter when I toppled over at the end of the run. I’ve yet to actually get up on to my feet though. In fact, I counted …