Dear Natasha,
I felt that the sheer length of your reply to my questions warranted a separate posting from your actual reading. I was also deeply moved by your honesty and your inner strength which was so evident in what you wrote.
I was humbled to think that with you being less than half my age you are already effectively a citizen of the world. Not quite yet an international jet setter, but you must already have a wealth of life experience to draw upon to inspire you to write your poetry.
What a terrible tragedy it was for your friend to lose his life at such a young age (the same as your own), and the fact that it happened only up to 24 hours after you were celebrating Christmas with him and did not expect for the moment that it might be the last time you would see him alive, must have at least doubled or tripled the shock when you received that terrible phone call to tell you that he had passed.
Toronto to London. Possibly London to either Croatia/Bosnia, Los Angeles or back to Canada by return ticket in early April, if your finances become exhausted by the ridiculously high cost of living where you are now in the UK. You are making my head spin, as I have not and probably never will leave mainland Australia during my current lifetime (other than a trip to the island state of Tasmania, when I was still a boy).
The internet itself has essentially become my ticket to the planet, and my only way of overcoming the barrier of physical distance which keeps me apart from my friends. It definitely has it's advantages in that I can do this at a reasonable price and do not even need to worry about getting my shots to be able to travel abroad or have to worry about having my luggage lost or stolen in transit.
Short of winning a scholarship or your poetry book making you a rival for J.K. Rowlings (author of the Harry Potter franchise), on the surface it appears that your dreams of ever attending the London Film School or the New York Film Academy are likely to only remain just that (dreams), but my experience has taught me that saying that something will never happen or cannot happen is often premature and self defeating.
You never really know what lies around the next corner or what door is about to open up to you in this life, so to make such a doom and gloom "my life has effectively come to a dead end" prediction is unwise at best, and plain foolish at it's worst.
It would be interesting if we met each other you ten years from now, and could compare notes with the luxury of hindsight as to how things worked out for you in the end, when compared to what you had expected they would. I have seen too many lives turn around in a more positive and productive direction, to permanently rule out the possibility that you will eventually make it to one of those illustrious film schools you mentioned, or an equally reputable institution located somewhere else. If it is meant to happen, somehow and somewhere it will.
It is the nature of life that for a new phase to begin there must often be a spring cleaning or fire sale of our old ways of thinking and doing. You are basically at one of a series of major crossroads in your life up until now, but no matter in which direction you choose to move forwards and never backwards, the outlook for you is looking pretty good from where I am standing. The world is effectively your oyster, if only you can believe enough in yourself to take the risks involved in making your dreams come to life.
But as this forum is mainly reserved for readings, we can always continue this conversation through a PM if you would like, in order to make way for your reading which is very soon to follow this message.
Your Aussie friend,
eye_of_tiger
