The Heroes Journey!

It all started with an innocent crush. “I’m going to a Kung Fu class tonight,” she said casually, swishing her blonde hair as she stepped out of the Mangawhau Primary School tennis courts. Her name was Olivia, and she was the sporty girl in the class. Hiding my shyness by puffing up little chest, I grinned and said, “me too! I’m going to kung fu as well” It was a big fat lie - I hadn’t heard about no Kung fu!  I ran home on my heels, trying to recall getting the letter for a Kung fu lesson in class that day. It must have ended up like all of the other news handouts from school - scrunched at the bottom of my bag like my lunch rubbish. Sure enough, it was there. I fished it out, and straightened it with my hand.  KUNG FU | COACH GUO  6PM  MANGAWHAU SCHOOL HALL  I couldn’t not go. I told Olivia that I would be there.  So I went. I lived within a stones throw of the school, so I didn’t have to walk very far to get there....

Dear Reader, dear Friend.   I made it! I reached the end of Chapter 2 at last. And now I have this opportunity to step outside of story-mode once again, and just casually talk with you about what this is all about. Firstly, I wanted to stop and thank you for just being here in the first place. Whether you have been following my blog from the beginning, or have casually skimmed through a story or two, I am so grateful that you would spend the time reading about the adventures and tribulations of my life. I have spent a lot of time writing these stories - drafting, editing, disliking, scrapping, rewriting - so it means the world to me that you are here with me, reading what I have to say. So with the widest gratitude of my heart, thank you!   And if you’ve only just found my blog for the first time, welcome!  Secondly, I just wanted to make a brief comment about the form of the blog. I write each episode as individual short stories , and try my be...

This music. It had me glimpse something... I stood upon a small outcrop of rocks, scanning the land. Fields of dry gold stretched out all around me, patched with the shaved green areas of a golf course, and laced with dark green shrubbery. Ahead of me, merging with the hazel fields of Jack’s Point was Lake Wakatipu. It glittered like some grand opal dragon, stretching into distant valleys. Mountains rose above everything like kings, and I wondered what adventures lay beyond them.  Journey… I leaped off the rocky outlook, and returned to my little slice of shade, ever shortening as the sun crawled along its axis. It was one of the hottest days I’d ever known - so hot, it seemed like the sun could burn blisters into the Earth. Even the Remarkable mountains looked like they were starting to buckle underneath the weight of it… At least I had been offered shelter by Bernie, the coffee caravan I was tending. I plonked onto the seat in Bernie’s bubble of shade. ...