Well,

Well, I could put a picture of me in here. But I won't. If you're that desperate to see what I look like,

go check out the Ocean Grove Gig page. Jase and I. Okay?

My journey. Well, I'm 24 years old, and I'm not about to detail THAT journey. It's been

a long one. I'm talking one more specific to THIS site, ie - my journey

to discovering the brilliance that is Taxiride and where it's led me.

As I was growing up, I was always a little performer. Always singing, dancing -

anything which involved me getting attention. As well as this, I have

always been a writer. Short stories, poetry - anything, really. From an early age

I was headed down one career path - journalism. I never planned

on doing a course, though - I was always going to get a cadetship at

my local paper. I finished Year 12 and enrolled in a course which

involved components that the cadets were sent to do. I figured that

would put me ahead of the game.

It worked really well - until about halfway through the year. I woke up

one morning, and literally realised I didn't want to do journalism at all.

I'm far too creative to be hemmed in by the facts.

So, as you can imagine, I was a little lost. All my life, I'd been on one

road and now all of a sudden, I was in limbo.

I toyed with the idea of being a writer, and churning out poetry for a living.

Sadly, poetry is one of the most difficult things to get published, so

it didn't look like that was going to be something I could live on!

I got a full-time job in a library - a position I am still in - and a few events

occurred in my life. Troubles with friends, that sort of thing. I was at a

very low point emotionally in my life, and that was around the time the

Spice Girls came along. *waits for hysterical laughter*

Okay, now you've gotten that out of your system, I'll continue. ;-)

The point was, they came out, all bold and brash and endorsing Girl Power.

I needed that - I needed something to boost me up. But that wasn't the clincher.

I was watching their first video, and saw their performance at the Brit Awards

at the end. I saw all the people screaming for them and the way they reacted -

and it hit me. I wanted that. I wanted to be a singer,performer,musician -

I wanted to do music.

So I began having singing lessons, and writing lyrics and so forth. I wasn't really

all that sure how I was going to go about it, but I knew what I wanted and

I figured I would learn as I went. The best part was that by writing songs as well,

I could combine my two loves - music AND writing.

Somewhere in there, things got a little bit skewed. I fell for a guy, big time,

and went through a good many trials and tribulations with him. I found myself

revolving my world around him. It was a kinda he likes me one week, he likes me

not the next. Suffice to say, all this didn't do a whole lot for my self esteem.

I lost all passion for everything. And just when things looked like they were

going to work out with this guy - it all fell in a heap - and I went with it.

The day all this happened - I had bought Imaginate. I'd absolutely fallen in love

with the guys' sound when I heard Get Set, and had been anticipating the

album a helluva lot. I hadn't had time to listen to it properly, though

and the day after this huge debacle - when I was as down as one

can possibly imagine (!) and wondering why I bothered with anything at all -

I listened to it in my car as I drove around aimlessly, not wanting to go home.

I loved it, of course, but I was just too depressed to get into it.

Until Track Number Five. Rocketship.

I heard it once, and I swear to you, nothing has hit me harder.

It was such a happy song - upbeat, great lyrics - it was incredible.

And it made me realise one important thing - why I'd wanted to do music

in the first place. I wanted to be able to perform, to express -

to be able to impact on people in some way.

That's exactly what Rocketship did. I listened to it non-stop

for about two hours, I think. It occurred to me, during that time,

that I had lost my passion, my drive. I had let everything that had

happened with that guy get in the way of what I had set out to do.

And I had to get it back. I swear - if I had put all the effort into my music

that I had into this guy - who knows what I would have accomplished?

So, there it was. Everything changed. I had to get back on track -

and Rocketship - and Taxiride - were the reasons.

Ever since, I've been madly writing lyrics, I've made contact with people who will

be a part of my future career (Shout-outs to Sarah and Megan!), and I know

what I want now, and how I'm going to do it. I've written two songs, and there's