What's next, after my Au Pair adventure?

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As I said in 'my week in pictures' I applied for school in Holland for after my Au Pair year. Now is my year over in October, but school starts in September, in this post I will explain what the plan is and how I feel about it.



I will try to explain everything as good and understandable as possible, but it's a long story and it's kind of hard to explain how I feel about everything, but here we go :)

When I planned on going to the US as an Au Pair I was still studying in Australia. I loved it there, I was 18, moved out of the house for the first time and went to the other side of the world where I didn't know anyone. In high school I always was the shy, quiet girl, the wall flower, so no one expected this from me. A lot of people told me there was no way I could do it, which only made me more determined to do it anyway, and so I did.

In February 2011 I left to Townsville, Queensland, to study Social Work. I didn't know anyone there, not in the city, not in the country and not even on that side of the world. When I arrived I stayed with a Dutch girl for a few weeks, who I met online trough a forum for people moving to Australia. I didn't have a place to live and was planning on staying in a hostel till I found something, but the week before I arrived there was a huge cyclone and everything was a mess, so she and her family offered me to stay with them. I stayed with them for about 2 or 3 weeks and then I met a girl, Danni, in the international office at the university. It turned out she was also looking for a place to stay and she helped me find a place, I ended up in the same house with her and 4 other room mates. Those people became my family, we called ourselves the Indi Family, because the name of the street we lived in was Indigo Crescent and we basically went trough everything together. All of us where first year students, moving to a new place, where we didn't know anyone, so we bonded quite quickly. This part might seem irrelevant, but I need to explain this in order to make you understand how I feel.

With Danni <3

The orignal Ini Family :)

After I while I realized I couldn't stay, not because I didn't want to, but because of financial reasons. I didn't want to go home and work in a supermarket or something like that, so I decided to go to the US as an Au Pair with the idea of going back to Australia when that adventure was over, unfortunately it turned out a little bit differently.

When I came to the US there was also an option to maybe stay here, but after doing some research and looking into some universities, I decided that is not what I wanted. Then I started thinking about other options, some things happened at home and I wasn't sure anymore if I wanted to be so far away from my family... I knew I didn't want to go back to Holland, so maybe England was an idea? So I started looking into universities there and then I saw a degree I really wanted to do in the past, but was told by different schools that I didn't meet the requirements and I couldn't do it, so I chose Social Work instead. Then I found it: Midwifery. I found out that I could actually do that there without Biology and Chemistry and then I had a look into Australia as well, because I still really want to go back there. Then the disappointments started.... I couldn't do it in Australia, because they don't accept international students for that degree. I looked into England and there I wouldn't be accepted because I haven't lived in Europe for the last 3 years. And even Belgium wouldn't work because I didn't have the right high school diploma, so Holland was the only option. With the bachelor's of midwifery in Holland was another problem though, I needed to take some tests and do an interview in person, which I can't do because I'm in San Francisco right now.

Eventually I found one school that had a double degree in Nursing and Midwifery, where they didn't have those requirements. When I was in Holland a few weeks ago, I went to visit that school and I really liked the school, so I applied there. So I'm starting school in September 2014, in Vlissingen, I know it's not really a first choice for most people, but it wasn't mine either I didn't really had any other options. I'm going to do a double degree in Nursing and Midwifery, which will take 5 years. The good part is that only the nursing part is in Holland and the other part is in Antwerp, Belgium. The first 2 years will mainly be in Holland, the third and fourth in Belgium and the last one is Holland. The first few years I probably want to kill myself for making that decision, because it will be a crazy amount of studying. For example, the second year if you would do only nursing you need 60 studiepoints, I will need those 60 and then 15 extra, so I don't even know if I can work at the same time, but I also have to move there because it's too far from my mom's house.

In a way I'm excited, the last 3 years where crazy, I lived in 3 countries on 3 different continents, and I'm kind of tires of having to move all the time. But moving back to Holland was never my plan, and now I'm scared I will get stuck there. I mean by the time I finish my degree I will be 26, and maybe by that time things have changed, but I'm scared I will regret it in the end. I still want to go back to Australia, but this is also a risk. I'm not sure if it is Australia I miss, or the life I had there, and I know if I will go back it will never be the same. Even if I would go and study there, my Australian 'family' will probably all have moved away. Maybe it is time to let go of that part of my life, I mean it will never be the same if I go back there, but it's so hard to let go of the idea.

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For now the plan is to go back home to Holland in July so I have some time to find a place to live and figure things out. I still want to travel, so I want to try to do as many internships overseas as possible, maybe even one in Australia. And after that I have no idea what I'm going to do, maybe do a master in Australia, or try to find work there, I don't know. I still have 6 years until I have to decide about that and a lot can happen in that amount of time. For now I want to go to Australia in the summer of 2015, hopefully I will be able to do it considering I will be a poor student...

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Now I wrote this I'm even more confused, I mean I know what degree I want to do, and I can't do it in Australia. But what is more important the location or the degree? I'm scared that if I go to Holland I will feel miserable because I'm not there, but am also scared if I go to Australia after all I get disappointed. I'm almost never homesick, but if I am it's not for Holland but for Australia... It feels like I'm fine as long as I don't think about Australia, but as soon as I do or I see pictures from it I get all emotional :(

I hope this isn't too confusing, and I think this is the longest post I ever wrote, but maybe someone recognizes this situation? Thank you for reading, any advise is welcome too :)

What are your plans for the future? Is there anyone interested in a more detailed article from when I moved to Australia?