Kristin Hall: And so it's goodbye from me

If I have learnt anything in my 21 years of existence it is that I am not one to do something and not do it again, no matter how obscenely stupid that something might be.

When it comes to decision-making, it would appear I am desperately lacking in whatever vital brain stem that sounds the alarm bells of doom based on past and entirely unpleasant experiences.

I am still constantly clambering through windows after locking my keys inside, I still have to be regularly yanked out of the path of oncoming traffic, I still destroy a small collection of crockery each week trying to retrieve something from underneath a precariously balanced dish stack.

It is as if my subconscious is one of those god-awful motivational speakers spurring my mind onto impossible tasks.

"The world is yours to command!" he shrieks triumphantly.

"Live for the here and now!"

"You are bound only by what you think you can achieve!".

As it turns out, I am also bound by famously awkward limbs and the declining quality of modern dishware.

Such is my tendency not to learn from my mistakes, I believe the only thing I have actively avoided in the course of my life is hands-on contact with possums after an unfortunate and rather bloody incident at the petting zoo when I was 3.

Even this doesn't really count, as I have since enjoyed practically zero opportunities in which I could test the bounds of possum feeding again, and am honestly quite curious to see if they could still inflict the same amount of damage.

It is this life-controlling tendency that makes me sad and a little apprehensive to announce that this will be my last column for The Daily Post for the foreseeable future.

In the name of fairness and balance, I am taking on a job in which my opinions about the news and its players are probably best kept under wraps, a move that will quite possibly backfire and turn me into one of those mad, loudspeaker wielding anti-government loons but that is all part of the exciting future.

Having moved away from the Bay of Plenty, I have had little opportunity to decipher whether in fact anyone reads these columns other than my mum's friends and the people that complained one time when I wrote some less than enthusiastic comments about Jehovah's Witnesses.

Nevertheless I have imagined you, dear reader, and written for you. I have typed every word in the hope it might stir something in you, whether it be an opinion, a chuckle, or immense confusion as to why some mouthy juvenile was granted the privilege of publishing space in the first place.

Either way, it has been a joy and I can only hope producing the odd scathing movie review will be enough to satiate my artistic needs or my loudspeaker days may be looming sooner than one would hope.

I have written for this paper for two years now and something about you, mysterious invisible audience, has made me keep coming back.

For now, I can only comfort myself with the fact that I am not alone in my tendency to inflict accidental torment on those around me.

Despite all reason and compassion for humanity, Keanu Reeves keeps making movies, people continue to bake cakes with raisins in them, and Colin Craig seems to think he would make a viable prime minister in an era that believes in human rights and women wearing pants.

You can never tell when another literary lapse in my judgment will strike, dear readers, but until then I can only bid you adieu and urge you not to watch The Lake House. It is truly terrible.