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seasonlife-blog1 · 6 years

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#SEASONLIFE Don'ts and what you should do instead.(part II)

Ofcours everybody lives their life in different ways and there is no set way. There is no written guide how to live the perfect live and I will certainly not pretend to be making one. In my past experiences I have seen certain things and attidus that work and some that don't. Some are always working others are guaranteed to give you missery and send you home crying in week 3 of your season. I am currently joined by 3 people who will for the first time ever be longer from home than they have ever been. I will try to give them the right advice to spare them the heart aches I had to endure in my first season. That same advice I will try to put down here.

In the second instalment of this series within #seasonlife I will be talking about family, friends and being homesick.

Missing your family, friends and loved ones is normal. I too have good friends I have left behind. Hell I had a hobby I swore never to quit, but I had to do it to allow me to go on season. Does it hurt my heart to say goodbye to the things I love, yes. Do I wish I could still do all these things and see all these people, yes. Does it stop me from going on and live my dream? NO!

If you do not miss the place you leave behind, you are totally apathetic and probably a borderline sociopath. But there are ways to not let these emotions get the better of you. I will start with probably the biggest issue and the most important:

FAMILY:

Leaving family behind is difficult. For some it is even more so then others, depending on how close they were. I for one had no problem leaving mom and dad behind since I was already planning to leave the house for years. But I cried like a bitch when I saw my little brother cry when he dropped me off at the airport. Especially at the start of the season, when everything is still new and unknown we often have a reflex to think about the people that were always there for us and where we could rely on. Parents often are our safety net, even when we move out of the house they are always there to help. Not on season though. All of a sudden that safety net that is mommy and daddy is gone. For most people this is a first and it is terrifying. Here is how you should handle this.

When you start feeling this emotions of uncertanty and missing, yes go ahead and call your parents! You need this familiar voice in this strange environment and it feels good to have dads wise and comforting words to help us through the next day. But do not go calling them every day. When you do this you leave the door open for even more thoughts of home. When you call them for the first time, the advice they give you is this: Oh honey, it will be alright, you will be fine, go on and enjoy this chance, etc. etc... When you start calling them every day this will slowly change to: You know that there is always a place for you back home, you can always come back, etc... Do you see the downward spiral of thoughts here? We need those familiar voices, but to much of them only make our feelings of homesickness even bigger.

What you should do here is not seek comfort with people back home. Instead seek this comfort with your team members and colleagues. It sounds cheesy, but your team will be your new family. You will live together and work together with them 24/7 which means that by the end of the season they know you better then you know yourself. If you feel homesick or have any other kind of issues you need help with, go to them. They will be there for you. By sharing your thoughts and emotions you also build up a deeper connection. Before you know it you become friends for life. Ask anyone who did a season, their best friends are the ones they met there.

FRIENDS:

Here it is a bit different, you don't always go to friends for problems, to them you go for fun. Especially in the beginning of the season when you don't know a lot of people yet and you often feel lonely, you tend to think about your friends and what you could be doing with them right now. We go through their social media profiles and look at their stories and the only thing you can think is "Damn I should have been there". Worst thing you could do. First of all, we all know half of these stories look way more fun than they actually are, second of all these are short moments. Things that happen for them ones a week or per month. That cocktail on a sunday at the local pub? Yea bro, I have been doing that every day for the past month after work. Friends are friends and they will forever stay so if it is meant to be so. Go out and make new friends, first of all with your teammates. Second, there are so many interesting people out there. The one great thing about seasonlife is all the different people you meet, with each their own story to share!

RELATIONSHIPS:

I have a very controversial opinion about this one. Before I go on I state once more, that I have seen a lot of things, I have seen what works and what doesn't. So here is my opinion based on these experiences.

The ones that work: There are only two situations where I have seen that it didn't end up in either a break-up mid season or cheating, a whole lot of cheating.

Number one is the long lasting relationship that started years before season and where the person is not planning on doing more than one season. When you have already a deep rooted emotional connection it is really rare that people cheat on each other. These kind of people are as faithfull as dogs and they will probably remain that way. Yet even here the chances are slim. Why is that? First that cheating thing. It doesn't have to be a concious cheat. But if you are in an environment where almost 100% of the time people are partying and drinking, you might slip up one night. We all know what happens late at night and we all know how low the moral code of entertainers, bartenders, singers, etc is. (yes I am including myself in this list) A slip up happens faster than you think. Second of all: DRAMA! The uncertanty of a loved one partying every day in a place I don't even know the name of. I would go nuts, so would most people. Long distance relationships are just emotional torture in my eyes and they will stay forever that way. I aplaud the people who succesfully make it through these periods.

Number two is the rare case of two people experiencing the season life together. Why does it work? Well basically it is a normal relationship just placed abroad. This is the holy grail of relationships for people who live the seasonlife longer than one season. There are many that look for it, only a few are lucky enough to actually find it.

The ones that do not work: - the " I met him one month before season after I already signed my contract". You simply don't know eachother long enough to be emotionally attached enough to keep this basic connection you have up for six months. I can not keep count with the ones like these I have seen ending up in tears over skype calls and/or cheating. Not only is the emotional connection to small, there not yet a significant bond of trust. Relationships are build on trust and this comes with time. Do you trust a person you have only met for one month? Hell I do not even trust my own brother and I have known him all my life. These ones start always with a lot of good will, but end in disaster.

- the "my boy/girlfriend didn't want me to come, but he loves me anyway". Very short, if you go, it means you do not need him/her that much. If he/she doesn't let you go, they are possessive assholes. I mean I don't need to explain this, this is recipe for disaster.

- There are lots more of examples like these. My point is that most relationships are doomed to fail.

But how does one experience love in the seasonlife then? We are all human and need affection and love? Yes you are right and as far as I have seen there are a two options that really work well here in this scenario and that I see being done by most people with a lot of experience.

The first one is the most obvious one. You do not care much about emotional connection and you just go on the pull. You just go and enjoy your life with as many people as possible. This for some is called slutty behaviour. Those people should just mind their own business. We don't have a lot of options as it comes to relationships so you need to work with what you have. Let them have their thing, I will do whatever the fuck I want.

Option number two is in my eyes the better one. Finding a person on season where you can spend more time with, or even better, your whole time there. You mutually agree that you are having a little thing going on. So you have all the emotional attachment you need and all the physical aspects as well. Hell you might even say you guys are exclusive to one another. But you also mutually agree that after the season it is game over. This releases all of the stress and thinking about "what after" that ruines these kind of relationships. You two are just enjoying your time together and that is it. Strings attached, but temporarily.

Ofcourse as always, there are the rare few that are the exception on the rule and prove me wrong. But statistically, I think I am quite accurate in my assumptions here. At the end, if you are happy with it, I am happy for you!

Best regards, T.

#seasonlife #doesanddonts part 2 #livingabroad #sharingastory

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marvellousmelodies · 10 years

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Sharing a story because Why The Fuck Not :)

I don't know why I want to share this but I do. The first time I read The Friends With Benefits fanfic it was at night and I had school the next day so I didn't get to finish it that night. The next day I couldn't wait to read it so much that I read it in the middle of class. I only flinched a couple times had good self control but my mind was going crazy. It's a roller coaster to read. Then some kid in my classed asked what I was reading. I quickly said nothing and kept reading. It was probably the best day in school ever. So yeah..

#Troyler #FriendsWithBenifits #Fanfic #SharingAStory #DontKnowWhy #FeltLikeIt #TroyeSivan #TylerOakley #BestFanficEver

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seasonlife-blog1 · 6 years

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#SEASONLIFE Is this a date?

Ep. 1 In the regular episodes I share my stories and adventures with you. About everything from days-off, to partying, from meeting friends to getting with girls. I share my best and my worst moments here open and honest

Lets get this clear first. I am not a dater. How does it work? what are the rules? What are the prerequisits? These are all questions I do not know the answer to. All the realationships I had started with a few awkward hookups. All the dates I actually went on ended in disaster. This was all back home, so dating on season is a whole other thing, it is the big unknown, even for me. So the following scenario confused me:

Last week I went out with a colleague from another hotel. The next day we went to the beach and she invited a friend. Due to her phone being about to die, she gave me the number of her friend so I could talk her through getting to the right location. I was just about to lay my ass down on the beach and close my eyes for a nap, when all of a sudden I saw this cute little girl, dressed in a yellow sundress, a pair of big sunglasses and a big smile, wave in my direction. Took me a moment to realise it was my colleagues friend. Damn this girl was cute. I saw her pictures on facebook, but those didn't at all represent reality. For once that is a possitive thing. I don't know how I managed to keep my cool. Probably because I was still half drunk from the day before and there wasn't much life in me anyway. We spend the rest of the day together and they left a bit before dinner. I thought that would be it. The next day however I got a message on whatsapp.

- C: Heyyy, when do you have days off this week?? xxx

Not only was this a welcome message. Even more was the next one when we reallised we had the same days off. It took about 6 messages back and forth set up a plan. She would join me after work, drop her stuff at my place to crash at night and we would go out to the bars. (The fact that I live near the most active bar strip in the area really helps me this season.) The rest of the week we just kept ellaborating the plans and chatting some basic bullshit about ourselves to already get passed the small talk. Throughout this conversation the amount of "x"s kept increasing steadily. If this is not a clear signe that something more than just a simple kiss is about to happen, I don't know anymore. But then again, I don't understand women, I might be interpetating this wrong.

So by the time I was finished with work, she was already waiting outside my apartment. I walked her in, let her drop her stuff and we grabbed some predrinks. After the first fless of Cava was already down, we became a little bit more comfortable around eachother. Playfull pushes became playfull rubs on the arm or leg. It didn't take us long before finally initiating a full-on make-out session on the sofas, only to get interrupted by my coworker coming home. Because you know, they can't fucking time their entrances right. So to not just sit there awkwardly on the couch with my colleague, we decided to go to the bars. When there we grabbed some cocktails and started dancing. On the dancefloor we met some people who apparantly worked for the same company as I do. On season, working for the same company basically means you are friends. So we joined these group of around 10 people at one of the outside tables. Nothing much had happened between C and me up to that point. Untill one of the girls from the group came a little bit to close to me. She was about to put her hand around my shoulder, when C took the initiative, pulled me close to her and kissed me out of nowhere in front of all the table. I was shocked. Did she just claim me infront of all these people? All of the night had basically been this back and forth between us two to see how much we were actually into eachother. Some moments we were distant, two seconds later we could be kissing on the dancefloor. It was really confusing, but this last move had something more to it.

Something really interesting happens to girls when there is competition. For guys there is always competition. That is just how it works and we are used to it. We don't often go act all differently when other dudes are around. For girls this is a whole different thing though. Girls are used to get all the attention on a night out and not really having to make a move themselves to get something going on. But enter a second girl that is asking the guys attention and BOOM the game changes. I like to think that there is somekind of mutual respect if it commes to getting girls. Yes, we are eachother competition, but that doesn't mean we are enemies. With girls this is totally different. They become like vultures, aggressivly hunting for attention, all thought of decensie ar gone. But back to my story.

We decided it was time to take the taxi home. This day has been good for me. Nice day at work. Fun night going out that didn't end with me being to drunk to talk. A taxi ride home with a beautifull girl in my arms. It was going good. Back at the apartment it didn't take long to let the night unfold in a session of horizontal tango dancing. Damn this girl new how to show a guy a good time, from predrinks to post sex cuddling. While we were enstrangled in eachothers arms she kept saying, "T, you are such a nice guy, I like you, we should do this more often!"

Now my question here is, do people regard this as a date? Or a casual hookup? I don't know.

#seasonlife #dates #sharingastory #livingabroud #episode1

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seasonlife-blog1 · 6 years

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#SEASONLIFE Don'ts and what you should do instead.(part I)

This first part will be all about arriving on season and the mindset you need to get over the initial shock of this world changing experience.

I) DON'T: Think you will be living in paradise!

First and foremost, everything can be put into perspective. So does that wonderfull view you have of your last summer holiday experience. Remember that view of you sitting by a pool, sipping your cocktail while barbequeing yourself like a roasted pig? If you think that your season is going to be that scenario every day of the week, I have one thing to tell you.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa... NO!

Yes, 9 out of 10 you will be set in an idyllic place. A fancy 5 star resort on a tropical island somewhere in the Meditaranean sea or one of those bouncing holiday places on the Spanish mainland where every day is a party. But what most people forget when they first venture out to season is that they are there to work, not to relax. Yes there will be a lot of swimming, sunbathing and relaxing done. Just not by you. You will be the idiot running around the hotel or bar working your ass in a sweat to deserve one small day off in the week. So you can exactly do that, sunbathing for as long as your skin can take it. This realisation is one big kick in the ballsack and makes most people break down into tears in their first week of work. You get to learn a whole new side of this dreamlike invironment. The early shifts or late nights are deadly at first. The stress backstage and how hot it actually is when you are not allowed to jump in the pool. Most of all seeing people laying on their ass all day whyle you are barely have energy left to breath is really emotionally tough. So what do you do to prevent yourself from becomming a little pile of missery in your first week?

DO:

First of all you need a healthy dose of realisme. You need to know that you will be working hard and long hours. But you also need realise where you will be doing this job. That you are one of the few lucky people that will not only have (mostly) amazing weather, but also incredible views, beautiful nature, an interesting culture, etc... Realise that normally you would be sitting behind a desk from 9 to 5 and having your breakes in a cold cantina somewhere. While right now you 2 hour mid-day break will concist of you quickly eating whatever you can and making the most of it at the local poolbar or beach. I know where I would rather be. When you keep this in mind, season doesn't seem so bad anymore. Which brings me to my second point

II) DO: Seize opportunity!

Under no circumstance should you be in your room, by yourself, other than for sleeping. You can watch your series and movies back home, or keep them for that one rainy day in the season. You have a two hour break? Go to the beach. You were done early with an activity, go quickly outside of work to have a short walk or grab a coffee before you need to start again. Are you having a late start the next day? You go out in the evening! You don't necceserally have to indulge in a night of questionable activies at the local barstrip, that is ofcourse always an option. You can also just go for a relaxing walk on the beach. Go watch the stars. Go to that duo singing in the local pub. Or have a night at the house with your colleagues. In short seize every little oppertunity you have to make the most out of your season. It is done before you know it.

DON'T: Stay in your room or workplace for longer than neccesary.

What you in no circumstances should do is just stay at home or stay anywhere near your work on your breaks or days off. If possible leave that place and go out, if not, go to a place where you can be away of all the commotion and stress from work. I used to be in a hotel that was in the middle of nowhere. The first thing on my to do list was a place to find for myself other than my room. The walls of your work invironment will come closing in very fast if you do not do this. Your season is shorter than you think, use every little moment you have to experience your life here to the fullest. If for you that means chilling at the beach or in your garden, good. Do you like having a quick drink or a stroll to the market, good. Just don't stay in your room by yourself. Like stated before, the only excuse is sleep, actual sleep! Don't give me that bullshit excuse of "I am tired and just need to chill and watch a movie". First of all, you can watch that movie later. Second, you can rest when you are death. Yes you will be tired, yes that second shift is going to be a bitch. But you can either go out and rest on the beach or bite your teeth and do something fun. Trust me, you will feel way more happy than you would just staying home.

III) DON'T: Think you will be living the same life as you did back home.

Not only are you in another country or place, you are also in another culture. You are not home anymore, where you know everything and everyone. You start from zero. What you think should be standard in every household back home, might not be so where you end up. You live will change drasticly. Not only the material aspect, but also the mental aspect. To every different culture there is a different way of thinking and a different way of living. Especially on season life. Don't think back about how life was back home, you left that behind. The sooner you get this in your head, the easier it is to become open to change.

DO: Be open to change and stay openminded.

This is closely connected to what I said earlier, seizing oppertunity. You might not have the same comfort as you had back home and you migth have a completely different schedule than you had before. Even the fact that you will be eating different kinds of food takes its toll on your body. In my experience, the heaviest thing is changing from a 9 to 5 day routine, to changing shifts. Late nights are followed by early mornings and long days. It takes time for your body to adapt to this. The first month is gruesome. 80 percent of the time you will feel exhausted and tired. Give your body time to adapt. But don't let this stop you from doing all the fun stuff. Bite your teeth, suck it up and push through. If you stay back home in your room you will have a combo of tiredness and lonelyness, recipe for depression is what I call that. Having fun gives you new energy. After a heavy work shift, go to that bar, even if it is for one drink. Go to the beach, even if it is just for 30 minutes. The fact that you did something will give you a good fun feeling. That will give you again energy for the next day. Before you know it, you will be adapted to this ritme of eat, sleep, rave, repeat. The first thing people often notice about a person coming back from season, is that they have become a bomb of energy. You can do more than you think and your body certainly can handle more than you think. Try new things, connect to the locals, learn about where you are. This all helps to connect to this place that you now call home.

#seasonlife #doesanddonts part1 #sharingastory #livingabroad

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seasonlife-blog1 · 6 years

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#SEASONLIFE Insecurity

Ep. 2 In the regular episodes I share my stories and adventures with you. About everything from days-off, to partying, from meeting friends to getting with girls. I share my best and my worst moments here open and honest

If there are any ladies here, please tell me, what is it exactly that makes you switch mode in seconds? There has to be a word or a thing or a code that makes you switch personality in seconds. What makes you go from sunshine to thunder, or in my case, from fluent conversation to complete silence in no time without any apparent reason? I don't understand it, but more important I can't coope with it.

After saying goodbye to my not so date date. Everything went smoothly from their. In the morning she was talking about a second date, from the moment she stepped in a taxi home she started texting again. Everything fine I thought. So I was on a high! I had a great evening, followed by great sex, followed by a cosy morning. Because of this I didn't feel the massive hangover that was lurking around the corner. I took the time to take care of some stuff in the house, I even did some laundry. Then I went up the mountain to do a short hike. I was feeling like a king. I was doing my job like a total boss, I was finally building up a social life around here, and that social life was showing results really fast. But then I got a knock-out blow. My hangover that was waiting around the corner finally hit me. Not only did it hit me harder then I expected it to do. It hit me at my furthest point on the mountain, when I ran out of water. I was already 1 hour into my hike, there was no shortcut to take back and nobody I could ask for a sip. I felt like fucking dying.

When I finally somehow managed to get back in one piece, the second blow came. The one that kicked me whyle I was still down. I checked my messages, after 2 hours, my so cald date still hadn't replied. After hours of fluent conversation she ghosted me. Now you might say I am exagerating here, but this silence lasted for days. Like I said, I don't coop well with this. I start getting very insecure. When I get insecure I get annoyed, when I get annoyed I get frustrated. So my high that I was on quickly changed to a low. Luckily I already had plans. We went out on Saturday with all our colleagues in our town. So about a group of 40 people.

I was slugging through my last hours on Saturday, those last few hours were killing me. It had been a very tyring week and I was ready to call it quits and just go home. Luckily my coworker who until that point had kept herself on the background took this chance to become the leader of the team for that night. She not only convinced me to go out, she convinced me to get cocktails for on the road. So I was not only going out, I was going out already smashed. Which in my case was not that bad of an idea, atleast it got me over my cripling insecurities I had from last week. So we meet up with the rest of the crew and start hitting bars. I don't know if you ever went out with English people but I have, and from experience I can tell two things. Either they are boring as fuck and don't drink a single drop of alcohol and stay in for a nice night at home. Or they go what they call "out out" and drink themselves to shits in the first hour on jägerbombs and vodka sodas. Atleast half of that 40 people crew were Brits, so this was going to get crazy. It didn't take long for me to get totally shitfaced and so did everyone else. The evening was going good, the drinks were flowing, everybody was chatting with eachother, hell even my otherwise silent coworker was chatting with a group of people. I was having a good time!

The rest of the night was kind off a blur. I remember chatting with friends and hopping from bar to bar, that is about it. But when I woke up there were two things that emediatly cought my attention. One, the girl I woke up next to was definitly prettier the night before. Second, a text message from C.:

Sorry have been busy xx.

#seasonlife #livingabroad #sharingastory #episode2

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seasonlife-blog1 · 6 years

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#SEASONLIFE The start of something great

The following will be a ressumé of my thoughts on what I call the "seasonlife".

It will contain my viewpoints on how you can best experience it, some does and dont's, and ofcours some of my own personal experiences and stories.

First of all we need to define what the seasonlife actually is. You live on season when you work abroad, or at least not close to where you live, and you stay there for a long period of time. I am talking about holiday reps, entertainers, fitness instructors, artists, literally everyone from the bartenders to the shotgirls, that in off season don't live in the same place anymore. I also am talking about the people who stay throughout the whole season. Not those wanna be's who go to Ibiza to host barcrawls for barely 18 year olds during two weeks. You don't call that a season, you call that a cheap holiday! No, I am talking about the whole experience. The moving over with 40kg of luggage, leaving family and friends behind, adapting to a new way of life, the whole deal.

Where do you go on season? Well that obviously depends on your job. You can be a singer going from hotel to hotel on one of the Canaries, or a fitness instructor in a fancy hotel in Greece, or a some dodgy promotor on a barstreet somewhere, or even winter season in the mountains, whatever, as long as you are not at the place you call your home.

Next up I would like to tell a little something about myself. What makes me qualified to tell you what this seasonlife is and how it should be lived? Well, not that much. I am just a young guy in his early twenties with a bit of free time and a strong opinion. From an early age I have been into various sport clubs, fraterneties and other organisations. I have studied for teacher and have been coaching youth teams. As for seasons, I am currently doing my third. Which in this kind of work is concidered experienced. Since most people don't even make it past their first month. I just want make clear that I have a good amount of hosting and people skills and that I got this living abroad thing pretty good under control.

Now this blog will not go about how the job is and about the trivial stuff they tell you when you first apply for a job in, as we so fancy call it, "destination services" aka tourism. "OMG, you are going to have so much fun, it is going to be a new experience, it is amazing, learn new things, make friends, bla bla bla". No I will not tell you that this life is "living the dream", I will tell you something way more important: how to actually live that dream. It is not so easy as it looks and a lot of people underestimate what it actually means to leave everything behind to chase this wild adventure. It took me a while to realize, but the seasonlife is indescribable. You have to have done it before you can talk about it. But I will still try my best to put it down in words.

So thusfar this introduction to the seasonlife.

#seasonlife #firstblog #livingabroad #sharingastory #start

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