Still bound in Wellington, it is mere days before I board the plane headed for London. Right now I'm at work for my second to last day of IT service desk support, ever. If I'm lucky.

Not that I really prescribe to such notions, but luck has been in short supply recently. Perhaps that is just the way it goes so close to leaving; everything that does go wrong is somehow causally related to the trip, when in reality there is no link at all. For example, Kristen's Grandmother passing away last weekend, a mere two weeks before I met her. Or Kristen getting an offer of work starting at Weta a few weeks after we leave the country.

These things are just plain random chance, amplified through the lens of pessimism. My workmates have given me a beautiful gift to send me off, along with the usual card: a beautiful pounamu pendant, blessed in Maori by Muriel. Though, as I say, I prescribe in no way to the notion of divine intervention I shall find myself wearing it gratefully and constantly. A sentimental item and the hope a symbol is imbued with; the memories it evokes - these are powerful things.

This will more than likely be the last time I write here before I depart. See you on the other side.

The day draws nearer to when I pack my life into a couple of suitcases and leave the country of my birth. I realise that, other than some brief forays around the world, I have never uprooted like this. There has always been some sense of a home for me. That home, for so long now, has been Wellington. I remember keenly the excitement I felt first moving to this city, having grown up in sleepy Napier. The people were and still remain so fresh and beautiful. The streets and alleys, however, have lost their mystery. I have to find somewhere new to get lost in.

I am reading Jack Kerouac's On The Road which is perhaps the most perfect book to be reading at this time. It has instilled me with the desire to discover. The aim is not to settle into a life in the UK, but to experience and to find adventure in life. The destination is not the destination, the journey is.

In scarcely more than 20 days from now I shall be boarding a plane destined for halfway around the world.