Jonesy In The Lion's Den

20 | EU My 2 year journey towards escaping my home life and leaving my country Journey Start: 1st July 2024

[jonesyinthelionsden]

Going Home

My beloved and I have both started working full time after finishing university just four months ago.

We are hoping to move into an apartment in a couple of months, once we are settled into work and have been paid a few times. I get paid every 2 weeks which I think is way better than monthly. I enjoy budgeting and putting money into savings, so getting to do that twice a month is very fun.

Now that we will be going home soon enough, I find that I am saving things like "I'll open this in our home" or "I will bake this recipe once we are home", stuff like that.

I'm having fun and I am enjoying the present but also I am excited for the future

[jonesyinthelionsden]

Returning

Nobody read my posts before but I am going to start using tumblr again.

The day after my last post, which was posted 8th July 2024, something horrible happened to me and my life was changed forever and I went through probably the most growth I have gone through in my entire life following that.

Anyway it is the summer of 2026 now and I finished university two months ago, I start full-time employment very soon, I am in love and have been for over a year, and I am going on holiday next week :D

I have a lot of high hopes for this year. I am hoping to move out by the end of the year. I have been reading lots of books; one of my new year's resolutions was to read 1 book each month, which maybe sounds easy for people who read, but it seemed daunting to me at the time. Now I am flying through loads of library books. My country actually, for once, does something well: our library service is amazing. The month I read the most books was March, with 6 books in the one month!! Last month I read 3 which is more normal as I am no longer having to commute to university daily, so I don't spend as much time reading on trains.

Anyway that is all.

[jonesyinthelionsden]

Montag 8. Juli 2024

I am going to try make a daily checklist thing today, so that I can start the week off well~

Misc.:

Apply for job ✅

Take vitamins ✅

Call to donate platelets ✅

Deutsch:

Anki flashcards ✅

Babbel lesson ✅

German short story

20+ mins of German Twitch VOD ✅

[jonesyinthelionsden]

Arbeit

As this journey is about making my way out of my country, money is a very important factor.

A job opportunity popped up the other day, so i am going to submit my application tomorrow. It will get me roughly 3000€ by the end of the college year so maybe 2000€ savings? so it isn't a massive amount of money but it will be a good contribution to my savings from my last job.

[jonesyinthelionsden]

Yesterday I took a train to another city in my country. It is a much smaller city, not even the 2nd city. I have been to our 2nd city and i didn't like it. I've been to our 'cultural' 4th city and didn't like it. The city I went to yesterday is our 3rd city.

it was so nice. there were so many nice places there. it was so safe too, no scum causing trouble. The station was spotless, you could eat off the floor. when we returned to the capital city, we saw how dirty our MAIN STATION FOR THE WHOLE COUNTRY is. It was filthy and dangerous in comparison.

it is important to travel. there are nice places hidden in shit countries. i want to see this country improve before i leave. i do my best to contribute but it is hard. i will keep trying.

[jonesyinthelionsden]

today in the Supermarkt I was reading the label of a product in a jar. The label was in Ukrainian, so I could read out the sounds from the cyrillic letters, but i couldnt understand the meaning. Then I turned the jar and saw a German label had been stuck to the jar. I could read the German label to understand what the food was. No English was required in this situation. Good

[jonesyinthelionsden]

Deutsch: Einunddreißig Tage

My challenge for July 2024!!!

This month, I want to study German everyday.

For one day to count as a success, I must complete the following:

Daily Goals:

Browse German memes/instagram reels (i like silly pages like frankfurtistwild where there are just random stupid videos in German. it makes the language fun and introduces me to slang)

Study all of the day's flashcards on Anki, from all decks

Complete at least one Babbel lesson (I used to make myself do 3 a day but have found that one lesson learnt well is better than 3 forgotten by tomorrow)

Watch at least 20 minutes of German Twitch streams/vods or Youtube in the background (This has been a game changer for my motivation, I enjoy the streamers Ronnyberger and mystery_blue the most)

And here's what I must do in one week for it to be a success. I've made these goals just weekly because i know if i tried to do them daily it just would not be attainable

Weekly Goals:

Sit down to watch structured German content and give it full attention for at least 30 minutes on 2 days (this means, not just news or twitch streams, but more structured content, like Tomatolix's "Ein Tag" youtube videos, or an episode of a tv show. I must be watching it with full attention and trying to actually understand. this is separate from my daily goal of watching twitch in the background)

Write one diary entry in German (even if I don't have the vocabulary to say much, I will note down the vocab I am missing and incorporate that into my learning)

Read & learn from 2 chapters of short stories for German learners

Learn one word from the label of a product (many of our supermarket products here feature German ingredient lists or German instructions. I will pick a random word that intrigues me and learn it because maybe if I learn common ingredients then eventually I'll just understand all labels)

This world is so vast, we must make continuous efforts to study a language and experience another life.

[jonesyinthelionsden]

A New Beginning

Hello, I'm returning to this account for the first time in a long time

For context, I used this account mostly in 2021 to document my journey to turning 18 and leaving my home situation. However, reality hit, and I never got away from home. Today, I am 20 and I am still here. Things are better now, as I am an adult with more freedoms, and I'm in a good university, however, my home situation has not improved, so I still need to get away :)

I intend to use this blog to record my journey of 'escaping'. I have 2 years left of university, so I must live at home until I finish, but once I graduate, I intend to move abroad. I'm not even sure what city I'd move to haha, but I have a dream of living somewhere nicer than my country. I'm in the European Union so the opportunities are endless.

I will post about my language learning, my work on my mentality, my general... self-improvement? and just my general journey towards leaving this house and leaving this country.

I have grown a lot since I was last using this account. I'm older now, less angry at the world. My soul has gotten calmer and gentler. A lot of my anger has faded away. I see so much beauty in this life, I just want to live forever and enjoy everything in this world.

So, today is Monday the 1st July 2024. I always think it is wonderful when the month commences on a Monday. It makes it feel like an extra special new beginning.

[jonesyinthelionsden]

27/5/2023

I'm still here.