The Questioner: Second Instalment

Back in grade 2 (I only did that once...) I recall receiving a Merit Award for "Asking thought-provoking questions in news sessions". I think it related to a boy who had had a "friend" over, but conveniently let out who the friend was... so I started the grilling, and the mob let it continue for what felt like another 20 minutes. The poor girl.

Ironically, it wasn't me who was told in grade 7 to look up the word pedantic - though it did prove to be a useful addition to my vocabulary. It was actually my best friend in primary school. He's a pretty smart cookie - we're talking chemistry Olympics smart. I went to his wedding last December and stayed with his family for 10 days. Some people are just as awesome now as they were 10 or 15 years ago. Thank God for those people. Admittedly there was significantly less tree climbing when I went across for the wedding than when I would visit when I was a little tacker. But there seems to be a theme of attention to detail. I think it's one I should be proud to be associated with.

Anyway, it's not all beer and skittles. For starters I'm just plain odd. I mean, a French kid who doesn't like cheese (unless it's melted, like on pizza). Go figure. I remember throwing up cheese sandwiches in primary school because I found the taste so revolting. Or olives. I don't like olives, but I like the idea of them and the flavour that they add to a dish. Or vegemite... that stuff just freaks me out - who cares what it tastes like. I have the phobia of sandwiches, spreads and dips. No buttered or marged bread for me, thanks. I don't know why I'm like that. The sad truth is that it was probably because my dear sister began like that - and grew out of (most of) it, and I didn't. Yet, what I eat, I eat lots of...

Darker even than food likes and dislikes was my intense dislike of boredom. Depends on the day, but I think I cope better with it now. In fact, I'd better - being the pinup boy for boring... I remember walking home from school some afternoons, absolutely fuming, ready to throttle someone with my bare hands. It's easily written, but when push comes to shove and those sort of thoughts linger in your mind, you get scared - or at least I am now. What if I lost control? Those hideous thoughts continue to plague me. Why did my mind go there? I don't know. I don't want it to go back there.

10 year reflection First Instalment

Tomorrow night is dad's farewell do. In case you missed it, he's finished up at Christian Schools Tasmania after a 10 year stint as Executive Director. So, it's about time for me to look back at my last ten years.

I remember that night in Perth, we were around the dinner table - Nicolas, Anne-Sophie, Mum, Dad and I. And Dad says, "I've been offered a job. Guess where it is."
"Melbourne." "Sydney." "Adelaide." "Brisbane." "Darwin." "Canberra." "Alice Springs." "C'mon Dad, where else is there?" "Oh, I know, Hobart!" "What? Like Port Arthur?" I'm pretty sure Nicolas came up with some wise crack about Port Arthur. It definitely came up in conversation. But as this far off plan gradually became more and more real, I became more and more emotional and quite upset at the thought of leaving Perth.

I remember the night. It was only Mum and I at home, and the call came through from Dad that he'd received an official offer. And I wept.

Mum, Dad, Anne-Sophie and I went for a week in October 2007 to Hobart. We spent the week looking at houses. I was actually relieved when on the Thursday I was allowed to go to school for the morning. So, I lay claim to being a Channel Primary past student. Then principal Mr van der Schoor asked me what footy team I barracked for, to which I promptly replied "West Coast Eagles". "Ah, you should sit next to Jeremy then. He goes for the eagles too."

Mrs Wilcox was the teacher, and she seemed nice. Everyone was meant to bring some food packaging to class that day. Mum had sent me in with a few Fantales, so, thinking it'd be mildly amusing, I layed them out on my desk in front of me. Tough gig. Didn't get a laugh.

The kids were pretty tough, I noticed. They played cricket at lunch with a hard leather cricket ball. I was just about to join a club that summer, so I really had no exposure to the pain and suffering a cricket ball could cause. And, as much as I loved cricket, and had played extensively on the front lawn in Perth, I most certainly couldn't send down my little medium-pacers in the right direction. Even in grade 3 I had a reputation of sending down the odd beamer - a habit that'd be quite amusing and a wee bit disconcerting for many a young batsman at the Kingston Beach nets of a Tuesday or Thursday afternoon.

So we crossed the nullabor in a V8 Holden Statesman. And I arrived in Tasmania a precocious 12, almost 13 year old. I have a precocious streak that is most embarrassing. I have said so many sentences that I look back on and just cringe at. "Why do you speak funny?" or, to my uncle in France, as he was practicing his English on me "Il sera plus simple pour toi et pour moi si tu parlais en francais." This translates (assuming my spelling is more or less correct) as "It'd be easier for both you and me if you spoke in French." I was eight. Those are just two of the major cringe comments that I've made.

I also recall telling a friend of mine, when she asked for help with a calc assignment, "Of course it's right. I don't make mistakes." At least in that instance I thought it was bloody obvious that I was being sarcastic. Her jaw still dropped.

Anyway, the story. I repeated grade 7. Grade 7 is the first year of high school in Tasmania and the last year of primary school in Perth. So, it's always a nice little conversation starter: "In my first year of grade 7..." Anyway, in my second year of grade 7 I played a lot of sport. I joined the local golf club. I took up table tennis. I played in the cricket team. I joined the local junior footy club. I was a member of the debating team. I did public speaking. I did all my school work. It's a situation that is mirrored now, as I umpire footy, do athletics, play Gaelic footy and touch footy, and compete in the odd half marathon. I also did the energy essay competition - a few more dollars on the line for that than any of the public speaking stuff though. I had played chess in primary school, and never managed to find time to return to the chess board in any form of competition.

And both then and now there is church. I dare say I gave a lot more time to church activities then, but even now it's a significant part of my life. And all the time in between it has been a prominent piece of the pie chart of life.

High school was interesting. At first people thought I was a bit of a tool based on my one day at Channel. A pretty accurate assessment. But somehow, I started to get a reputation as a smarter cookie... perhaps it was more of an acceptance. It's still not clear. I found a friend on Facebook from primary school. I may or may not have thought she was cute, back in the day (she's now in Hollywood with a recording contract). Anyway, in conversation she came up with the comment "We always knew you were very clever". Ah, sweet flattery. Anyway, as is always the case, there were always smaller friendship groups. I got on with all of them but was never really a part of any of them.

But I guess I have several people to thank. Every lunch time I'd play footy. And every Wednesday was the Bible Study. And Nathaniel would every week encourage (I almost wrote nag!) me to come to Bible Study. Eventually I succumbed. I was still in that second year of grade 7. It was a great learning time, and I was already a questioning sort of bloke, if I recall. At that same time, at church, there were seven or eight of us who were between programs - we weren't considered ready to go to the Bible study program and were too old for the previous program. So we did some wood work and other such activities for youth group. There seemed to be a couple of years of that. Each year the minimum age would get a year older as the younger people already there would struggle. It'd always frustrate me. Eventually the year came where I was allowed to go. And it was eye-opening. There was a whole heap of stuff that I hadn't seen in certain perspectives. And a whole lot of questions to ask. And I also began to get frustrated at people's lack of questioning. I began to form a picture in my mind of the typical non-questioning Christian. And hating them with a passion. (NB I need to put a disclaimer in there. Not being particularly passionate, and certainly not being one to get fired up and certainly not one to start hating people, especially not my Christian brothers and sisters, it seems oxi-moronic for me to write that. Perhaps just moronic. Either way, I wrote it, and I feel it expresses a significant portion of the frustration that I have felt over the last 10 years.)

Anyway, it's time for bed, so that can perhaps be my first instalment of my 10 year reflection.

The week that was

Hmmm, the latest...

Well, a solid second in the national energy essay comp... equal second, but technically first. We scored 10k from Babcock and Brown. They're almost broke now.

And Point to Pinnacle... was stoked - knocked over 10mins off my previous time - 1h52min39. Corresponds to 38th. I latched on to the girl who came second for the first 15km. Then she burnt me off. But she only beat me by 40s... so didn't drop off too bad. It's a pretty hard half marathon, especially without having done lots of long runs, like I should have. So was stoked with the result.

I was quite amazed, cos I hadn't had a decent night's sleep since Tuesday night... and Michael and Deneickah's wedding was the day/night before. I was expected to fall in a ragged heap and possibly not make it.

And Anne-Sophie has popped in for a visit, much to mum's delight - as it's her birthday today. So I took pretty much all of today off.

My imminent adventures

I have a rather full week coming up. It was Nicolas' Birthday today - and celebration thereof occurred after church/shopping for birthday present/touch footy/shopping for birthday present/Gaelic footy training/Gaelic footy game 1/Gaelic footy game 2.

All a bit crazy.

Anyway, this week has the usual stuff - not much on Monday - no growth group this week - that's been changed to a Wednesday which is when I have touch footy. Then Tuesday has the usual training and lunch time touch footy game. Wednesday has the usual kick of the footy and touch game as previously mentioned, and somewhere in there is packing. Thursday 7am I fly out to Sydney and attend a conference on I think it was decentralised electricity grids and other interesting renewable energy stuff. I'll have to brush up a bit on that stuff before I go. It's not really my area, but I'm in town, so I've got to make it my area. And Thursday night I have the NEEC presentation - we find out just how final our essay was. Friday I'll go to the morning of the conference and then spend the rest of the day with Anne-Sophie.

I fly back to Hobart Saturday morning, and I attend Mic and Deneickah's wedding Saturday afternoon and evening.

Sunday morning is point to pinnacle.

Monday is mum's birthday.

So whilst in Sydney I shall endeavour to shop for dad's birthday which I missed cos he was away, mum's birthday, and also for the wedding. We'll see how I go.

So it's a slightly daunting time coming up, but should be a lot of fun.

Black S...

Who's going to read a post that starts with "I was running along..."

I was though, and we had about 150m til the end of the gentle 5km lunch time loop in the Meehan Ranges near Cambridge. I was in front and running on the left side of the track. I saw a black sti... nope, three metres away, definitely a black snake. Long black snake. Crap (not quite literally). I got high. Very high. And the snake reared as I soared over it. As far as I could tell it was about a 1.2m long tiger snake. Warm weather - 31 degC.

I had been cruising along quite gently, my pulse wouldn't have gotten much over 100. I swear it leapt to 160 or so in an instant.

Eventually I landed. And I sprinted.

Thankfully the guy that was behind me was a civil engineer... ok, that was a bit harsh and not true...

Thankfully the guy that was behind me didn't get got either. I've heard it's always the second person in line that gets got. I am grateful that this was not the case on this occasion.

The echidna was cute though.

Writing

I have a few writing projects on the go... What an awesome life it'd be to just be a writer. One piece is called Paper Back Dolls... it is indeed about a writer, and it's not all butterscotch and lime green cordial in the life of this writer. Somehow the story is about his wife, who is an artist - I don't know what wondrous work she has completed yet, but she suffers from bipolar disorder. And so the relationship is typically rocky... but there is a reliance, one on the other. Anyway, I think it's quite interesting.

I want to write a kids book too, that would be fun.

Race

I'm now a bona fide athlete. I raced a 5km track race this afternoon. Don't know where I came. A few people lapped me. I finished in a time of 18:06. Next 5km time, I hope, will be well under the 18 minute mark.

As far as race analysis - I went out a bit quick, but went through 2km in 7min, which was my aim. At 4km I was 14:40 or so, and finished in 18:06. So, that means that my start was ok, my middle was crap and my end was ok. I'm hoping that a few more races will get me used to running those middle kms.