...We are the sum of our experiences...: June 2006

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

The invasion has begun...

Just so you all know, the lack of updates in the next days/ weeks is due to Australia's July National Conference being held in Brisbane! Pre-conference activities are about to start...and the invasion of billets has begun. Currently I have six new housemates; with five more on their way!

Friday, June 23, 2006

Small world

Today I had two odd (and linked) coincidences.

I finally caught up with an old friend of mine, Kate, a darling metal (Not emo; not goth – I keep being reminded of the differences…) aficionado who I never see anywhere near as often as I’d like. I’m constantly missing gigs and parties that Kate invites me to, partially because they almost always clash with something else, but also because Kate’s the only person I know who’s into metal/ goth/ angry scene in Brisbane, and I’d distanced myself from it a bit when I moved.

We got talking about last night’s gig and she mentioned that she’d become friends with a group of karaoke enthusiasts. After telling me a few stories, and describing them to me…a few uncanny similarities emerged.

Turns out her new friends are my old friends. They’d just migrated from Toowoomba to Brisbane and I had no idea.

This just launched us into about an hour of ‘Oh my god! I haven’t seen him in ages! Is his hair still long? That wasn’t pierced last time I saw him…and she, and he, and oh my god!’ I left Kate at Lincraft for work, had lunch with Bo then tottered back to the office (to be yelled at by my EB for being tardy :p).

Later that afternoon, my gorgeous EB girls deserted me to go for icecream…ending in costume shopping for July Conference and Nicole was telling me how she had unnerved the Lincraft girl with their costume ideas.

Nic: …and then I explained to the lady at Lincraft what we were doing with costumes and I was pissing myself laughing… and she like rolled her eyes and asked if we liked making an impression.

Jess: Dude. You were at Lincraft? My friend works at Lincraft.

Nic: What’s she look like?

Jess: Black bob hair. Metal/ goth girl…?

Nic: Umm…shit

Jess: Serious…

Nic: Tall girl? Wearing all black? This is hilarious… she thinks Kezz, Em and I are crazy so probably don’t mention to her that you know us…

I've met Kate's friends. Kate's met my friends. Neither of us had any idea. Such a small world.

NB. Cheers for my EB being embarassing enough in public to be remembered by the shop assistant!

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Melbourne!

I’ve just arrived back from Melbourne from a spur of the moment trip. I say spur of the moment as I was on a plane about three hours after deciding that I was going. I originally went to spend some time with Mum who was flying down for a conference, but in the end the most time that we spent together was on the plane which is pretty funny.

I was only there for two days, but it gave me a chance to catch up one a few things that I’ve had on my ‘to do list’ for weeks, and also to catch up with Daz (LCP of Monash) for a quick tour of Melbourne and a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria.

It was refreshing to go to an art gallery with someone who actually wanted to be there, and also appreciated it. More often than not, the times I go to a gallery, I drag someone who doesn’t want to be there just so I have company, but usually at some sort of ‘I’ll be done by 4pm and I’ll buy you a beer’ compromise.

Until today I’d almost forgotten about the artists that I’d really loved – two in particular really struck a chord; a piece by Modigliani and another by Bacon. These have been two of my favourite artists for a long time; but I’d almost forgotten how much of an impact they still had. I really need to go to some of the galleries in Brisbane. Apparently there are a few hundred all up; especially in the Valley.

A big thankyou to Daz for being my tour guide on a dreary Melbourne (read: practically snowing) day and making me start drawing again!

Here are some things I learned about Melbourne during my short time there:
- It rains.
- Its cold.
- World Cup fever is absolutely rampant
- Victorians actually FOLLOW State of Origin as well!

Monday, June 19, 2006

AP!

Oh! APXLDS 2007 in India next year!

If anyone who hasn't been to an international AIESEC conference and needs convincing as to why they wouldn't learn anything at university that week ANYWAY call me *gestures phone to the ear*.

Reflecting on my semester...

My exams (for the time being) are over – with the exception of two deferred exams which will pop up in the coming weeks so I’m reflecting on how my semester has gone. To put it mildly, my work ethic when it comes to studies has changed substantially in the last year. I think more than that though, my reasons for being at university have changed too.

All up – its been a big semester. Between this LCP business popping up unexpectedly (but loving it!), taking two weeks off to go to APX in the Philippines then capping off my semester with three weeks out of action with pneumonia my studies have defiantly suffered. I by no means am blaming my academic performance on any of these – but it has been a big semester to squeeze everything in, and I haven’t mastered the art of balance yet.

Its almost a New Years Resolution mindset of ‘next semester will be better’.

Next semester I’m looking to drop back my university workload, but to compensate I’ve applied for a job as well. To add to the whirlwind, I’m also looking to move house, coupled with the usual crazy AIESEC world of incoming/ outgoing/ measurement/ budgets due /CEED /recruit / retain / international conference.

Again. All about balance.

As a breather though, I’ll be taking summer semester off from study because there’s a fair bit of travel I’ve got planned (just week/ weekend jaunts) here and there. Currently on the cards are Mackay, Launceston, Sydney and Adelaide all for racing with my family, but I’ll also tack on January National Conference in Adelaide, and maybe an international conference; depending on funds and timing. Can you say Frequent Flyer points people?

Currently I’m looking at the rest of my year with rose coloured glasses; the ‘everything will be fine and dandy – you won’t get stressed, or have to compromise any of these areas!’ outlook on things.
Might have to work on that whole prioritising thing…

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

People to catch up with

There are a lot of people I need to meet up with on my holidays. I’m thinking I’ll be spending a lot of time in the Coffee Club in Toowoomba…

Laura, JC, Rando, Hannah, Jennie, Kath, Rah and Pen (highly likely I can get everyone in the one place at the same time)
Glen and Maddog
Lochie
Kylie
Hanney
Dave Panda
Miss Bo

If I manage to meet up with anyone else I totally deserve triple bonus points. I’ll tell you how successful I was in a few weeks.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Pneumonia

So I’m currently back in Toowoomba laid up with a bout (of all things) pneumonia.

Yes, I thought only old people, inexperienced sherpas and penguins caught pneumonia…but it seems that Jess can get it too.

I went to the doctor on Monday with the symptoms of fainting, dizzy spells and lethargy, and he told me to return when I had some real symptoms. By Wednesday it was pneumonia (hot diggity!) BUT I had x-rays (which I never have had before) so that added some fun to my day.

This is what I’ve learned in my seven days of doing nothing:

1. There are so many elderly people in Toowoomba. I had completely forgotten that they made up the bulk of the population.
2. A ‘pornocracy’ is government by a group of harlots (documentary on the History Channel).
3. Ryan likes ICX way too much (check out his blog).
4. I do not have nearly enough pairs of pyjamas
5. Just because there are like 500 channels doesn’t mean that there is actually anything on.
6. Avinash from UAE is online…like ALL THE TIME
7. How to spell 'pneumonia'.

Don’t worry team, I’ll be back on board in a couple of days spending some quality time in the office and in my textbooks. And I'd like to take this opportunity to very quickly yell at everyone who is coming to July Conference in Brisbane: 'Take your cold medication dammit! Wear beanies! Scarves! Knitted thermal underwear from Auntie Meryl!'

Friday, June 02, 2006

Bogan at heart...

Two separate posts tonight, because I’ve got two very different things came to my mind today from the one source. My parents are on holidays in Brisbane at the moment, so I’ve been catching up with them a fair bit. Something that’s been on Mum’s ‘things I would like to do but as if I have any time to do it’ list is putting all our family photos into albums – tonight I was going through them and ended up reminiscing.

In these albums, there are the generic ‘close family’, ‘extended family’, ‘kids playing with the dog’ photos, but about 40% of the photos of my family are taken with a link to car racing.

I know that a lot of AIESECers will read this blog…and have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, but basically, now that I’ve moved to Brisbane I’ve lost connection with something that was a really big part of my life. I’m a bogan at heart (internationals reading this…its just an Australian thing… check out Wikipedia's entry on 'Bogan'.

All of my family and friends are ‘car people’. We religiously watch the Bathurst 1000; either actually at the track in the logistical nightmare of a weeklong camping/road trip or a huge party at our place. Indy on the Gold Coast is the traditional family holiday (last year Channel 10 actually interviewed me about it) and we always rent out an apartment for a week overlooking the circuit.

I’ve grown up spending my weekends travelling all around the country – watching racing at huge tracks like Warnambool in Victoria or the other end of the spectrum at Moranbah in Queensland. I’ve seen almost all of Australia (now many times over) with our race team; a huge group of around twenty family friends who volunteer time and money to keep things running.

It really doesn’t matter where I am, when I’m at a speedway track with the race team it just feels like home. These are the people that are closer to me than a lot of my extended family – they paid for my first driving lessons, were there to see me off to my high school formal, and to get me riotously drunk at my 18th birthday.

My parents raised the option of selling my car today. I was actually considering it, and even went to the point of checking out trade in-prices; until I ended up driving through a carpark in Toowong the other evening full of hotted up cars. Don’t worry – I’m not a ‘Check out that sexy lowered Supra… sick subwoofers…’ kind of person… but I miss being a bogan and going lapping in Toowoomba.

I miss dodgy techno music which pervades Margaret Street and Chalk Drive every Thursday - Saturday. Lapping with my friends ‘B1’, ‘Maddog’, ‘Hosey’ and 'Klobies' arguing why Holden is better than Ford, finding the best streets in Toowoomba with chicanes and concrete to play with, car convoys with hundreds of cars to the Warwick drags on the weekend. I’m defiantly a bogan at heart.

...We are the sum of our experiences...