Escape!

[apothecary]

I know I've posted a thread about this before, but recent massive sickness coupled with large amounts of shift work and several assignments due all in the space of a week has left me feeling completely frazzled and fucked up.

The end of my degree is coming up quickly, as long as I don't fail anything, by the end of this year I'll be graduating.

Constantly on my mind now is what to do once I'm done. I'm pretty sure I don't want to remain in Sydney, despite that meaning I'll lose a job which I thoroughly enjoy (and will be much more bearable without uni stress). I definitely don't want to move from Sydney to some other big city (unless it's some sort of utopia) either.

So what to do? I could leave the country and travel around for a couple of years or whatever, and end up back in Sydney with no money, no job, etc? I also examined the opportunity of moving to Nepal or Costa Rica or similar countries and taking an outsourced job from a US or UK company doing essentially what I'm doing these days, which begs the question, is it worth living in the relative 'wild westness' of the 3rd world which I so desire to put up with sihtty money and high chance of contracting something like dysentary or whatever (especially if I decide to come back eventually, with no money or job prospects)?

So if I want to stay in the country, but move out bush or at least somewhere with a slower paced lifestyle, how can this realistically be achieved? I mean, I've saved a pretty large chunk of cash but it's still not enough to put a deposit on a halfway decent chunk of land (fingers crossed for property crash before December), or enough to sustain me for more than say a year on rent, which means I need a job, but what kind of work exists in rural Oz for a freakin' computer geek? None, that's what. At least, not enough to own my own garden!

So, how the hell do I escape? My friends who DO live in the situations I'd like to be in are generally on the dole or selling drugs or whatever to get by, none of which I really want to do (nothing against the dole, I just have personal issue with accepting handouts). I feel really trapped by this situation, which I feel is influencing my want of leaving the country the most.

If any of you have made the transition, how did you do it, what kind of roadblocks did you come up against, and please how how how explain to me how the hell you earn enough money to survive. Subsistence living is a nice idea but to set it up you need money.

Edited April 11, 2008 by Sina

[apothecary]

Just reread this post and realised I probably came off as being overly concerned about money, just want to make the point I am willing to take any paycut nescessary to live out bush, I only want enough money to survive, and I live rather simply.

[Guest Øskorei]

Develop a smack habit, and become a junkie for a couple of years. The resultant rehab will provide direction thereafter.

[Torsten]

I know loads of people who work IT or related jobs from home and in most cases it really doesn't matter where home is. eg a couple work for overseas companies that don't even have an office in australia, while others work for Oz companies and they have to come to meetings every few weeks but spend the rest several hundred k's away.

The other option is your own business. Many IT consultancy jobs can be done remotely. One consultant I know just travels to his big corporate clients for a few days and then works on their project for months from home. The advantage is that he is not limited to one city as it makes little difference where he flies off to for those few days.

[Vertmorpheus]

Isn't geekdom by nature something you can do from anywhere in the cosmos provided you have a phoneline to spare? There is some call for geeks out here in cow country... a lot of rural types that need help with new software, formatting, printing n advertising, website design, test equipment calibration etc. Also quite a few soil science and crop science mobs here nt here that im sure have a place for a dedicated keyboard jockey, most regional centres have a smattering of public service positions too and failing that, anywhere largish but not too large should have some call for a "ill get your PC working again" kinda guy.

Hard to make cash out here, but then you dont need as much either... shops are either shut or ripoff merchants, once you have some staple foods, fuel, bills paid, the rest is details. We pay a fortnight what most mates in town pay a week in rent, muwhawha.

Move out bush, sell things from your backyard as "traditional australian artifacts" on ebay...hafta change the name to "sina_moon_dreaming" or something for it to really work though

Start a nursery? Guided bushwalks? Deposit on a scrub block someplace and charge swedish stoners a packet to wander around it and look at possums? Grow shipping containers full of crappy mouldy bud and charge triple price for it... it keeps half the locals around here in two minute noodles and rum cans thats for sure

besta luck

VM