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.
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.
posted by BSJ-rom at 10:31 pm
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