Searching for meaning

Yu save bislama?

Meet another friend of mine: Yasmine. Yas, I know this isn't the hottest picture of you, but you are too damn cute!

She's Filipino and Swedish but considers herself an island girl at heart (born and raised in Vanuatu before she being 'shipped' to boarding school). At the age of seventeen, almost immediately after graduating she secured a governess position on a farm in Longreach outback Queensland looking after three kids all under the age of 6. Quite a feat that the kids (or even she) survived considering she didn't know how to cook! Anyways, after six months she decided that home (Vanuatu) was where the heart was so is now 'retired' and living at her beach house, living the lonesome idealist/dreamer's life. A life I too, wouldn't mind living.

The slideshow features pictures of her beachhouse and other surrounding areas in Vanuatu - of which I had the pleasure of visiting, compliments of my dearly father as a graduation present!

She just posted her first bulletin on her myspace. Here it is.

THIS IS MY FIRST BULLETIN. i thought i would take a break from the
following:

- swimming

- riding my bike (or my gardener's bike, sorry john)

- eating fresh fruit

- swimming

-body boarding

-verbally assaulting my dogs

-swimming ahahaha

-snorkelling

-lying in the sun

-looking at myself in the mirror and admiring my tan haha

- going into town to socialise briefly before repeating the above

-have spent five days literally by myself out here, first human being was
spotted yesterday (housegirl came back) yay!!but i wish i had a car. fuck that.
but am getting the tico this week, yeewww....despite sirens and graffitti and
stinkiness i feel so dumb doing this.

MISS THE FOLLOWING:kris,kat,nik,sof, nelle.

COME BACK AND ENJOY MY YOUTH WITH ME!!!!!!! dont go to uni or work!! we
will live off coconuts. and grow our own vegies and fruit. and kill our own
cows. and maybe swap our food for two chickens to eat and to have their eggs. we
will live without money....come on you five, come see me!!

Her bulletin brought back memories of life in the islands where everything is slow paced and sunsets never disappoint. Yas has always been vocal about her drive to travel the world and not care about superficial things. Before she left Brisbane for Vanuatu we had a conversation about how she wanted to experience life and how society's standards should not always be the driving force behind your life's decisions and dictate what you do in life. In her bulletin, she speaks of 'enjoying your youth', an ideal I am keen on pursuing especially at this pivotal stage in my life, something that seems so far away to grasp from the perspective of a uni student, yet something that funnily is still very tangible. This leads me onto questioning what our purpose, as individuals is in life?

I honestly don't want to be one of those people that finish their courses at uni and still feel undecided about my career and my future. I think this has a lot to do with discovering what each of our real purposes are. Our 'real purpose' must not be something that we feel obliged or pressured to accomplish because of societal of parental expecations however, it must be personal and something that you feel passionate about.

Okay, I am not overtly religious nor do I live a 'Christian life' but here is something from the Bible:

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labour. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:10:11