The Heroes Journey!

My imagination is hungry beast, and wants to tear it's fangs into all things fantasy and adventure. It wants to be coaxed by sipping on the juice of magic, of heroes, of legends, and a realm tossed by the plight of good versus evil. I crave a deep hit of the fantastical - and MMORPG games did this for me while I was still under the belt of high school. Being able to actually play the hero and undertake an epic journey felt like a living breathing experience.  An MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is an opportunity to taste an entirely new reality with real people from all over the world. There are many similarities between the virtual world and the real world - and in fact I have found in my own experience that my virtual avatar was a projection of my inner self. I was able to be somebody that I couldn't be in the real world. But even further than just looking into how the game can be enjoyed, I would say an MMORPG provides a brilliant opportunit...

My move to Queenstown was proving to be the ultimate gateway to the adventure I was seeking. As a part of the hospitality course I was undertaking, we were required to complete 9 months of work experience in an internship position. I found this to be a wonderful boon of the college. Oftentimes, courses boast a great deal of lessons and content that they can 'teach' you, but fail to provide the necessary opportunities to let the field itself teach you with raw experience. But I saw it as far more than just a bit of work experience - it was a golden ticket for another epic adventure. I traded my ticket for 8 months of Hamilton Island, Australia. Since moving to Queenstown 6 months prior, I already had a taste of what it was like to shift homes. So, one week before moving to Hamilton Island I started preparing myself for the the big move. I prepared all the necessary items, jamming my summer selection of clothes into my burgundy suitcase, and weaving bubble rap around my b...

Mother nature has always been my greatest teacher. If I say that I moved to Queenstown primarily to study hospitality, I would be denying the full depth of my decision. I had a wild craving for adventure, an itch that just wasn’t being scratched in the big smoke. I wanted to taste fresh lands, and behold new vistas. So, Queenstown was my portal key to nature. Amidst the clamour of college campus, the stench of my own room and the pressure of lectures I was only half interested in, I needed some place I could call home. This is very important – we need a place where we feel comfortable and safe, so our minds get a chance to rejuvenate. I found mine in the Queenstown gardens. When I first came upon this scene, Father Time slowed the turning of the cogs, and the Majesty of Mother Nature tore right through me. A single tear rolled down my cheek, heralding a radical shift in how I viewed the world. I glanced around, and the mountains were beaming at me. The deep lake was whisperi...

We live in an age where we have everything we could possibly need at our very fingertips - even access to entirely new realms through a screen. The modern age boasts many wondrous boons, but nothing seemed to captivate me like video games did. I was just another kid who fell in love with the fantasy of video games. I was truly mesmerized, entranced by every game I played, eyes fixated on the pixel canvas for hours. Video games quickly took precedence, replacing the genuine activities I involved myself in as a child. My disciplined weekly kung fu training was replaced with online skirmishes and virtual bliss. The music and writing I was doing at the time were the toys I had grown out of, and were put on the shelf of my imagination to gather dust. The video games were becoming more real than ever – to the point were I could fully immerse myself in a fantasy world and completely forget all the troubles of the real world. When the big confusion of teen-hood struck the clock...

Nothing in this world knows me deeper than the piano does. It has peered through the curtain of my being, and befriended the tiny buddha who rests there. The piano knows my deepest secrets, and my most sacred wisdom. It is an extension of my heart - my heart's worldly limb. When I am communing with this most mystical thing, I marry with myself and I marry with the moment - and then music is born as if by magic. During my gap year, I naturally came to build quite a strong relationship with the piano, composing about 15 musical works of my own, and really forging the bedrock of an epic musical journey for myself. But of course, I overlooked this more expressive, 'right brain' side of my personality, judging it from the lense of future career prospects. It is widely believed that tackling the path of music as a primary profession is bound to be like chewing tough meat, so I only viewed my piano playing as a mere hobby. When I left to study hospitality management in Quee...

When high school had run it's course, I was spurt into the big wide world, confused, unconfident, and entirely unsure of myself. I didn't know who I was, or what I wanted to do with my life - which had me questioning what the whole school thing really did for me. Tutorial mode was over, and the world's spinning eyes were staring at me, unforgiving. I recoiled in terror - I had nothing to fight with, no skills for basic survival in the modern world. Physically weak, socially awkward, lazy, and unconfident, I knew that University would crush me. By the end of my school years, I still had no job, no girlfriend, no drivers license, and no real ambition. I declared myself in desperate need of training. Real life training. So, I took a working gap year. A gap year is such a brilliant thing. It's like a pause button that you can press after high school, or any institution for that matter. And instead of proceeding to the next racecourse, you rest in the pitstop for a year,...

My time living in Auckland city had reached its end. I had just concluded a gap year of fully embracing the full time working life, walking away from my job feeling triumphant, and with all the skills I needed to face the big wide world. When I looked around Auckland, I realised that its sprawling suburbs and clustered city high-rises were not the big wide world I was so eager to dive into. I felt like I already conquered as much as I could on my home turf - as if it was the tutorial zone in the grand game of life. There was so much more to see - so I packed my bags and headed to pursue the path of hospitality in Queenstown - where proud mountains abound and lakes shine like cherished crystals.  With my whole life in a suitcase, I traversed the country aboard a pleasant Air New Zealand flight. Blessed with a brilliantly blue summer day, I stepped off the plane and filled my entire lungs with the abundant fresh Qi of the South - it was rejuvenating like spring water. Arriv...