The Bucket List

I have Peter Pan syndrome. I miss my childhood more than I can say and the thought that with each day, each hour and each second I'm getting closer to my death frightens me. I'm not scared of death as such. I know that a) there is no afterlife, b) that I will rot and decompose in the ground (without my vital organs) c) it will be exactly like the nothingness before life. I comforted by the fact that after I die, the world will keep turning, the sun will rise in the East and set in the West, people will keep living their lives and my fleeting existence will be soon forgotten about. The only reason that death frightens me is that I don't ever want to get to my death bed and feel like my time has been wasted, or I have pursued a career that didn't interest me or worst of all, just settled with what's comfortable. Like the saying goes, "life begins at the end of your comfort zone"... In saying this, I have decide to compile a "bucket list" of sorts that includes both outlandish childhood aspirations and current goals that if I were to fufill one (or ideally more than one), I would die relatively content...

*Please note, this list gets quite lengthy so I encourage you not to read on too far. It is more of a personal reference list that I will one day print and attempt (as much as time, funds and circumstances permit me)

1) Get married, have a happy family and my own two little kiddies that I can teach to become awesome little humans
2) Write a book
3) Become an orphan elephant carer
4) Get a job on 'Getaway'
5) Jump off a cliff (into water of course, otherwise the bucket list would end here)
6) Travel around South America
7) Work and live in Europe for at least a year. Visit every European capital
8) Buy my own house that includes a veggie patch, library, open fire place and a display cupboard for all the teacups I will have collected by the time I can actually afford to buy my own house.
9) Study law, get into practice and one day offer my services pro bono to the disadvantaged
10) See the Great Wall of China
11) Go trekking in Nepal
12) Go on a safari in Africa
13) See the Pyramids of Giza, visit the Valley of the Kings and the Karnak temple
14) Visit heaven on Earth (the Maldives)
15) Bike ride around the French countryside
16) Eat as many different types of cheese and try as many different wines as possible
17) Go back to Vietnam for a couple of months.
18) Drive around Australia in a van, doing casual jobs here and there and living on beaches in Northern Queensland.
19) Explore the Amazon.
20) Get my photo taken at Times Square
21) See Harajuko girls of Japan...actually just see Japan in general.
22) Learn to play the guitar.
23) Teach myself Spanish
24) Snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef
25) Go shopping in London
26) Drink guiness in Ireland
27) Visit the Berlin wall
28) Be alive to witness aliens first contact with Earth
29) Learn salsa and ballroom dancing
30) Be able to do the splits
31) Teach myself to juggle
32) Take kickboxing classes
33) Join a book club/start a book club
34) Swim with sharks
35) Own a pet snake
36) Sky dive
37) Learn how to drive a manual and drive a race car
38) Be in Rio for Carnival
39) Watch the running of the bulls in Pamplona
40) Be in the crowd for an English soccer match
41) Spend a night in a French Chateau or a European castle
42) Visit the Lourve in Paris
43) Kiss the Blarney Stone
44) Get a photo on the crossing outside the Abbey Road Studios
45) Visit Havana in Cuba
46) Host my own high tea party
47) Sail around the Greek Islands
48) See the biggest democracy in action in India
49) Buy a DSLR camera and do a photography course
50) Do lessons in painting
51) Buy the Rolling Stones 'Best 500 records of all time'
52) Go to Oktober Fest' in Germany
53) Go whale watching
54) Road trip to Byron bay with friends
55) See the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan
56) Visit Gion and the old geisha districts in Japan
57) Learn to play chess
58) Become a skilled Barista
59) Try my hand at poetry
60) Experience weightlessness
61) Participate in the World's largest food fight
62) Be in Thailand for a latern lighting festival
63) Become an aunty
64) Learn how to do a backflip
65) Learn to make a least 20 different cocktails
66) Keep a recipe journal
67) Attend a ball (a proper ball)
68) Live in the city and have a view of the city skyline
69) Buy, grow and maintain a Japanese Maple Bonsai tree.
70) Become self-sufficient (veggie garden, chickens, eggs etc)
71) Build a pond
72) See Cirque Du Soleil
73) Go on a long, long train journey (destination currently unknown - possibly the Trans-Siberian Railway or the Orient Express)
74) Explore the Galapogas Islands
75) Go rural for a while
76) Fly in a fighter jet
77) Drive along Route 66 in the US
78) Fly over Antartica
79) See an active volcano
80) Shower in a waterfall
81) Gamble in Vegas
82) Make my bedroom look as picturesque as an Ikea catalogue
83) Get into optimal physical shape
84) Invent somthing
85) Finally be organised and be completely on top of everything
86) Do the Kakoda trail
87) Volunteer (regularly) at a Salvo's soup van
88) Sing in front of a crowd
89) Learn the inner working of a car and learn to do car maintenance myself
90) Try the national cuisine and drink of every country I visit
91) Visit a blues bar in Chicago
92) Learn to surf
93) Sew my own dress
94) Watch turtles hatch and make their epic journey from sand to sea
95) Adopt a dog that is about to be put-down
96) See how long I can stay awake for in one stint
97) Read every Pulitzer Prize winning novel
98) Read my massive history guide (front to back)
99) See the Terracotta Warriors
100) See the Taj Mahal
101) See the monuments of ancient Rome
102) Visit Russia in the Winter
103) Witness the Northern Lights

Wow! This quickly got out of hand! However I will surely add more soon. Let's just hope I live until about 200 years old so I can fit it all in...