END OF WEEK FIVE!

Whups! I was meant to update this two days ago but life took over and stopped me. I'm currently writing this at 3:45am in the morning on my phone as I couldn't sleep tonight for the first time since getting over jet-lag while listening to the LittleBigPlanet soundtrack from the PS3 game which is truly crazy yet super fun sounding considering I haven’t played it in so long. Ahhhh, nostalgia! I LOVES IT! Go look up the LittleBigPlanet song called Atlas you will have an idea of what I am talking about *DANCES ALONG IN BED A LITTLE WHILE TRYING NOT TO WAKE UP TASH* >U<

The main reason I haven’t updated this blog is because my laptop is starting to pack up and I don’t think another reinstall of Windows will fix it this time, so a new UK one is in the books for this afternoon which will be super duper good! Though some of the keys on the UK keyboard being placed oddly compared to NZ keyboards, so don’t be surprised if you see some odd words with the @ symbol randomly placed into them now and again, or something XD

Last week involved looking for jobs! I'm still really trying to find a job which wasn't available in NZ because opportunities lack there slightly in comparison. I recently asked a comic shop if they had anything available (they didn't unfortunately BUT MAN THAT WOULD BE AN AWESOME THING TO HAPPEN LATER ON) but I'm gonna keep on looking! I just don’t want to settle for a job I don’t particularly enjoy straight away because “that’s what people have to do”. If there is one thing I have learned from life over the last two years it is that anything can friggin’ happen and any small move taken can change your life forever. 

Another thing that I have realised is that your life choices are in your own hands, despite what a lot of people make the world out to be. You are responsible for where you are in your life most of the time, and most of the time, you are the only one who can change it. I personally just don’t want to be  another name in human history who just existed, I want to leave something behind that isn't simply genetic or that can inherited, which is another reason why I am doing Beefpaper! I don’t ever plan to stop it so hopefully it will be a record of my life from when I was 23 all the way up until I can no longer draw/breathe, but we will see what happens! SO YES ANYWAY I GOT SLIGHTLY DISTRACTED THERE I AM JOB HUNTING AT THE MOMENT  XD

I also saw some of the legendary bluebells that Tasha has been telling me I needed to see since we basically met roughly two years ago AND THEY ARE VERY PRETTY! Odds are we are going to go back and have a look at them again shortly as they were not all out, so expect some pictures next week too! We went there with Tasha’s uncle Neil and her Grandma Jill, who has been working on my family tree for me over the last few months now which I really can’t thank her enough for!! It really is amazing to see where you actually come from and to actually some faces next to those names! If you don’t know much about your ancestry then MAN GO HAVE A NOSEY! Odds are we are probably somehow related, everyone seems to be by the freakin’ looks of it if my tree is anything to go off! 

I've also been gaming a heck of a lot with many different pals which has frankly been awesome toos, including our comicing pals Red and Flynn (playing Don’t Starve Together), the super mega awesome TK (playing Borderlands 2 as pictured above) and even one of my super old friends from way back on Star Wars Battlefront which was a big surprise but an awesome one at that! I do feel like my comic work has suffered a bit because of it all so this week is gonna be all about getting back on track, hopefully…… I feel like I have just jinxed it terribly by saying that….. *GLARES AT DYING LAPTOP IN CORNER OF ROOM* >____>’ 

WEEK, THE THIRD!!

I'm officially all set to go for being a working joe here in the UK! My National Insurance Number came through which means I can officially work now, so the great job hunt can really begin! I am not really rushing out to get an office job straight away considering there are so many opportunities for all kinds of different work here so I am keeping my eyes open for anything that may catch my fancy, but I am really unsure as to what my fancy is at the moment.... WE SHALL SEE!

This week has been rather quiet adventure wise as THE Tasha has gone back to work and stuffs, and it wasn't even a full week because of Easter! DX Still, we are still making the most of the time we have together! We have both wrecked our feet a little (AGAIN) after a walk we did yesterday to the beach. My little toes were like little cherries and Tasha's shoes just EXPLODED, so we will need to go buy her some new ones, WON'T WE EGG?? HMM?? >__>

My bank account for the UK is finally all sorted too! For some reason they failed to fill it with money. I will call them on Monday to sort that out...

To reward ourselves for maiming our feet on Saturday we spontaneously went to a Thai restaurant for lunch (I actually had the brochure for it up on my bedroom wall back in NZ for the past 5 months, it was just by chance we decided to go there). And, well.... IT WAS SOME OF THE YUMMIEST THAI FOODS WE HAVE EVER HAD EVERNGJEHOIHGKEHHGRWJKN!!!! It was only a small portion, being lunch, but HOLY MOLY IT WAS SO SUPER YUMMY!! It was called Sakuna Khrua Thai and DANG GO THERE IF YOU CAN! I can recommend it to the moon and back, because it will send you there with it's yumminess...  >U>

My mums fish tanking business all the way over there in NZ is all in full swing too and Tash recently designed this super freakin' amazing logo for it!

Not too shabby if I don't say so... UwU

If you click on this link it will take you to her Facebook page, so if you know of any places in Whangarei that need an amazing fish tank or if you have an existing tank that needs a darn good spruce up, then you know what to do!

We have also acquired two new additions to our little family just today! Two tiny little hiss cockroaches named Red and Flynn (based off our super mega awesome webcomic pals who do the equally amazing webcomic Liar's Dice). Tasha's sister TK owns the two hissing cockroaches shown in the photo on this post and we don't think they are old enough to start hissing yet... but we are waiting patiently like two strange, proud parents for the day Red and Flynn hiss their first hiss!  >w<

SPEAKING OF WHICH, THEY ACTUALLY MADE A COMIC ABOUT IT! They also demand that you listen to this song as you read the comic, which is indeed very fitting! :D

Tash and I have just finished our monthly gaming hangout with our Patron's who support our work on Patreon and I am completely knackered for some reason so I am going to it the hay. All I can hope is that Red and Flynn don't crawl into our brains as we sleep.

About

What's this blog all about???

I've just moved to the UK from New Zealand for two years on a Youth Mobility Visa and have decided to make a blog to keep a diary of my adventures here, as well as hopefully provide a useful insight to others who might want to do the same.

Who Are We?

We are Shane and Tasha, a couple of crazy asexual comic artists who have a hunger for adventure! Originally meeting online, we instantly struck up a friendship, where we would talk for hours about the places we wanted to visit and what we had on our bucket list. 

It had been settled that we definitely had similar interests in what we wanted to do, and that it would be flipping awesome to do it together, the only issue? We lived on the opposite side of the globe from each other. Literally...I come from New Zealand and Tasha's from England.

So to make a start, Tasha booked her ticket to New Zealand, a place she had wanted to visit for over 10 years now. We thought it'd be cool to do it during her birthday, plus it gave us an excuse to do something a bit more crazy, so we settled on Skydiving onto a traditional North Island beach!

After that our taste for adventure grew, soon after Tasha arrived back in the UK I booked my ticket to spend a month over there. We had 6 months to plan, so we knuckled down and started booking what we could. 

Tasha did a LOT of driving, we explored a lot of Dorset and around London. I saw my first grey squirrel in Hyde Park! (Yes, I was VERY excited by this!) and my first red squirrel at Brownsea Island waaaayyy down south (Even more excited by this!). The culture in the UK amazed me too, it made me realise just how young New Zealand really is. 

To say the least, I felt one month was not enough. Tasha and I grew closer by the end of it, and decided to make it official and become life companions (our asexual alternative to 'boy/girlfriend'). It was pretty painful leaving, but we kept positive and thought about looking into me getting a Visa to stay in the UK for longer.

Tasha then contacted me and told me about the Youth Mobility Visa which is available for people aged from 18-30 in selected countries, where you are able to stay in a country for 2 years and work. Perfect!

My Visa was thankfully successful, and now I am finally living in the UK with my best friend!

I hope you enjoy reading through my blog as we continue our adventures together, and that perhaps it will inspire you to do the same. There's a LOT of world out there to explore, it's a shame to let it go to waste, and let's face it. It's so much more amazing when you can share it with your best friend :)