Finally Growing Up

Baloo the rascal!

Every adolescent goes through a point in their life where it's time to decide what they're going to do with their life.. Some people base their lives around it, working their butt off to get to where they want to go and never look back. Some people don't actually care and rather live day by day thinking they don't have to do anything to get through life than decide to get a job or have a dream. Me, I've been thinking of it since the day I could talk. I was going to be a vet, then a novel writer, then a vet and part-time novel writer. I was so sure of myself, so sure that I would be a vet - apart from the few months I wanted to live off writing books. Now with only a term of school work to go and the HSC exams creeping up on me ready to pounce! ..I don't know.
I want to be around animals for my entire life. My life is already based around my animals, I have my beautiful 8 year old Miniature Maltese, Daisy, my 16 month old female Ragdoll, Moggy and my little rascal Baloo, a little male Ragdoll who will be 4 months in 6 days - by the way, who drives me insane! Sometimes I want to bang my head against the wall but I love them, the are a lot of days I go through and don't smile or laugh until I'm back at home with them. I was given life for animals.

So it's clear I need to go to university, do veterinary science or zoology or something along those lines but when and which one?! Do I save my money and travel for a couple of years? Everyone tells me once you've got a set job and started a family you'll almost never be able to travel again until you've retired and the way the economy is going I could be dead before that happens! By this point I'm sure you're thinking well why the hell don't you just go to uni and do vet science! Well it would be that simple and it was that simple until my passion for writing stories came back and one day I do plan on getting a few published, I have friends that have become addicted to my stories and I send them regular updates for them to keep reading as I write them. Also, I have the opportunity to move to Thailand with my boyfriend (who is Thai) and open a shop. I've been looking into Cat Cafe's which could be cool to open over there or an Italian restaurant as I am part Italian and love to cook and what not. My mum and I own a cafe here in Australia so I do know a fair bit about the business' I could get myself into in the future, maybe only for a little amount of time while going to uni and then become a vet afterwards. Who knows!
Then again, I could find my family in Italy and move over there and go to university and become a vet - my Italian is a bit rusty and I don't remember much of it anymore but I'm relearning it :) My options are unlimited!

Back to right now, this very day.. I go back to school (it's the holidays) in 2 more days! So far during year 12 I've had 3 breakdowns and numerous panic attacks, I'm trying to do my very best in school which is so hard when I'm making myself sick from stress, so sick that I can't concentrate. The entire week before my half yearlys I was very sick. It felt like an extremely bad flu but without the flu part, I was extremely fatigued, it felt like I'd been hit by a car and I just could not concentrate on anything. I was freaking out every night before an exam cramming as much as I could, trying to make my brain work again to the point where my boyfriend would force me to go to bed. I screwed up my half yearlys.
I'm scared to get my results back mainly because of my mum's reaction.. She dropped out so she doesn't understand the pressure which is on you during year 12, only a study freak with no social life other than their partner trying to get the highest atar possible can understand the weight on my shoulders this whole year so far. I have to call my dad (he lives a 13 hour drive away from me) on nights that I can't handle it anymore to get the pep talk to keep me going, to keep me from deciding to just drop out and start a Cat Cafe in Thailand! He's the only one in my family, that I know of (other than my 2nd brother who didn't care about school) that finished year 12, he wanted to be a biologist. Right now the HSC is everything, it's all I can think about, it's all I stress and worry about and I know as soon as its over it will either mean nothing to me or it will be everything - it all depends on my results! It depends on what my results can do for me if anything at all.. I can't be victim to the HSC stress.
I need HELP!