Boredom

I am English and I am originally from England. My first home was situated there and I lived there for about 7 years. When I was seven, my parents decided to relocate my family to a country called 'Dubai' which is where I currently live at this point in time. I will live here until I am 18 years of age, which is when I will go back to England to study in some university or other. One big circle.

Seeing as my family and old friends all live in England, we go back there every summer holiday to live in our old house for about two months and see everyone again. We have been doing this every holiday since we moved to Dubai, and I am in no doubt that we will continue to do so until I go back there permanently, for university.There you go; those are all the facts you need to know for the time being. Bored yet? Good, because that is the gist of my tale.These summers in England that I have been talking about are just that.

Boring. So boring, in fact that the luxuries of talking to flowers or watching paint dry are made to look like activities only the highest forms of life are allowed to partake in.All right, maybe I am being a bit over-dramatic, but you get my drift - my holidays in England are not very exciting.Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I don't enjoy 2 months away from school; quite the contrary, but doing absolutely nothing for that particular period of time is far from interesting.However, as boring as it may be, I am going to write about it.

The visit to England that I had last summer.When we stepped out of the airport into the fresh, brisk air of England, I knew at once that nothing had changed since I'd visited it the previous year. It was still cold, the road was still composed of cracked tarmac and there were still murky rain clouds in the sky. Just the way I had left it.

Immediately, I felt unwelcome in these strange lands, even though I am English and had lived there before. Due to the fact that the majority of my life has taken place in Dubai, I have seemed to grow apart from England, and whenever I return I seem to feel that I don't belong here. It's a feeling that is hard to describe.Sooner or later (I can't remember which one) me and my family arrived back at our old house, which also was exactly as I had left it - and I knew, from that moment that like everything else in this country; my stay here would be the same as last time. My goal for the holiday? To return to Dubai.

Irony at it's best. I guess I can't class myself as patriotic.As I walked up into my old room, I received an inexplicable sense of realization. This was where I would be spending most of the next couple of months.

Watching my TV; playing my guitar; listening to music and staring at the wall.Why? You may ask. Why do you only stay in your room? Why don't you go out with your friends? The answer to that is simple. In England, I have no friends.

They have drifted so far apart from me that I would have trouble seeing them with a telescope. It's not that I'm not a sociable person in general - I have a number of very close friends back in Dubai - it's just due to how much I have changed since I left. I hate football, I wear loose T-shirts, baggy jeans and I like rock music. I have learnt during the years that I have come back to England, that the young people like me are not welcome in the town that I live in.

So it began - the regular regime had started to roll, and wouldn't cease rolling until the end of the summer.I remember going out into the main town of Oxford one morning, and walking through the main shopping complex. It was then when I truly felt unwanted. Because the academic year was not over for the students in England, they were all still at school waiting for freedom. This meant that every policeman or security guard that I passed eyed me up and down as if to say 'why aren't you studying?' I was lucky however, as nobody stopped me while I was browsing through various shops.

Another mark of my anti-patriotism is that fact that I don't like shopping in England. Anything that seems to tickle my fancy is either non-existent or far too expensive. I always brought myself around to thinking 'I wonder how much this would cost in Dubai?' and wondering if I could go without it until I went back to my home in the Middle East. However, I did somehow manage to empty out my wallet at a very impressive speed, which probably shows that just because something is expensive, doesn't mean I don't want to purchase it.After a few weeks, the routine of life in England seemed to catch up with me.

I was getting rather used to my daily schedule, which meant I learnt to jump at any chance of getting out of the house (even if it was going to the garden center to buy seeds with my mum.) However, after weeks of waiting for something to happen, I finally had something to look forward to (putting aside the prospect being on a plane home.) I had been invited to stay with my best friend for a glorious 7 days. Even though he lived in Wales, this news lifted my spirits greatly - as I knew that he'd treat me well when I arrived. I foresaw theme parks, cinemas, fast food and other things that are in my ideal heaven.

Although this brought the prospect of brilliance, it left me with something bad to deal with. What do to while I'm waiting to go. I needed something occupy myself with while I counted down the days until I left.Sadly however, I had nothing.

I learnt the hard way that time acts in very peculiar ways - it seems to slow down if you are waiting for something that you are looking forward to. Hence, the days snailed by, while I was left to my own devices. The prospect of doing something fun seemed to be equally as valuable as 24 carat gold at this period of time.