Advertisement
Published: March 17th 2008
Ha ha
Porking is Aussie slang for having sex, for those of you who didn't know thatI know you’ve all been hanging on the edge of your seats wondering about the nanny-job, which is fully understandable as this is truly exciting stuff, and I will tell you all about it in a second. But since I’ve been slacking on keeping this updated I have to go back a few days just to make sure you’re not missing out on any mundane events in my life over here in Aussie-land.
On Friday morning I borrowed Jett’s house mate’s board and went down to the beach to take on the waves for a few hours. It went great until a big swell picked up the board and slammed the edge of it with full force on my right boob, causing me to fear it ripped the nipple right off, through bikini top and everything. It hurt like hell, and once I started to also suffer from the absolute depletion that only time spent in the ocean can cause, I went back to the house to eat and wash off the sand that inevitably finds its way to various bodily nooks and crannies. My boo-boo (or boob-o, if you will) was still a bit sore, but I decided I
would most likely survive. Us Vikings are tough people, didn’t you know?
A few days of surfing has now left my skin with a healthy, golden glow, and my new tint is a good reminder of how privileged I am to be able to live wherever in the world I want to. 27 years old, and nothing’s holding me back, nothing’s tying me down. Quite glorious, when you think about it, which I try to do as often as I can. Gratitude is a virtue, I think, and if it’s not, it should be.
My breakfast-options at Jett’s house were meager, so I went to the grocery store and picked up some food, and then spent the rest of the day hanging out at the house, taking care of stuff that I’ve been procrastinating for far too long, such as applying for a job.
Jett came home from work with burgers from his job as a delivery boy at Bite Me Burgers, and Martin had two Swedish friends over. We watched King Kong while eating, and for someone like me, who has not before seen it, it was only thanks to the contemporary actors that I could deduce
that we were actually watching the new version of the old classic. That, and the fact that it was shot in color, perhaps. Apart from these hints, the “special effects” only felt extraordinary in the sense that they were unusually bad. The shots of dinosaurs running in hordes were beautifully done, until they greenscreened in Jack Black and the others, ridiculously running around pretending there were massive dino-feet about to trample them all to a certain death.
Oh my, whatta piece of crap.
Jett and Martin with friends tried to cajole me into going out with them for beers, but I was determined to be full of vitality for the beach volley game the next day, so I kindly declined and went to sleep as soon as they left.
The next morning I packed up my stuff and took the bus from Bondi Junction to Maroubra Beach, where the mini-tournie would take place. I was pretty pumped about getting a foot in in the Maroubra Beach Volleyball community, but when I arrived all I saw were courts with 6 people on each side.
I cringed. Is this what I was invited to? I don’t share my side of the
court with more than one other person, so this better be something else.
I walked up to Kim who was refereeing on the side, and I must have had something skeptical in my sunglass-covered face, because he immediately started explaining that this was just a beginner’s class and that my partner was soon to show up. “For doubles”, he added.
I heaved a sigh of relief, and started warming up while waiting for the game to begin.
But my partner didn’t show up. “Just grab someone from the beginner’s class”, said Kim to our ref, and she yelled a guy over. Oh no you didn’t, I thought to myself, but it was too late. One look at this guy and I knew he would be horrible. “Hi, I’m Mike”, he said and threw out his hand at me.
Oh great. Here’s Mikey, just waiting to suck. “Hi Mike. You play a lot?”
“Ha ha! No, I just started playing in the beginner’s class, just fooling around, you know?”
I wanted to answer “No, actually, I don’t know. I’ve never understood the point of just fooling around, and I doubt I ever will understand that, but it’s really great news for
me that not only are you going to be a disastrous player, but you also lack the mindset to try to improve. Yay.”
But I couldn’t say that, of course, because it would be both rude and arrogant, so I settled for a big, warm smile and a serious attempt to try and find something amusing about having to regress to a beginner’s tournie. “Flora, I miss you”, I thought to myself as Mike flung out his hands at a serve and watched the ball sail away behind him.
Mike sucked as much as expected, but he was only allowed to suck for a little while before my actual partner Lou showed up, 15 minutes late. Her physique and general appearance told me that she too was going to be a major disappointment, and it was all I could do to not smash the ball into her face and tell her how much I hated her for being so lousy. But now that would be a rash over-reaction, wouldn’t it? Right.
So instead I mustered up yet another warm smile and braced myself for the disenchanting moments of crappy volleyball that lay in front of me.
Lou was awful.
My tv
(Somewhat wasted on my as I never watch TV. But good for movies!) Lou actually somehow managed to be even worse than Mike, whom I thought had displayed an abysmal hand-eye coordination. At first I tried to simply not care about the fact that she panicked at every ball and just flung it over the net any old way she could, but eventually I had had enough; I started covering the whole court and kept encouraging her to pass back to me, to set me when she could, to not always play it over on the first or second hit. After a few minutes of me softly suggesting improvements, she started following my advice, and I practically showered her in praise whenever she managed to not f up completely. We miraculously won the game (22-20), and then played another one straight away against the same team. Our opponents had long since figured out to serve her all the time, but we still managed to win. Now we played another team, winning the first game, but losing the second. To settle it we played a third game, which we won, although the tournie was so disorganized that our ref wasn’t sure of how many points we were playing to in this third match. The
whole thing was pretty much a joke, and it didn’t even serve as a decent work-out for me, so I was a bit bummed by the end. Is this what I moved across the globe for?
Kim came up and apologetically explained that he didn’t know what level I was on when he invited me, and just maybe I’d be better off playing in a higher division. I concurred.
I caught the bus to the city, got on the train to my suburb in the middle of nowhere, and found Richard at home. I had left on Friday the previous week, with every intention of coming back that same night, but as some of you might remember, there was an incident involving missed buses and a certain a-hole causing me to stay the night in Sydney.
After that I meant to go back out to Richard at least every other day, but somehow still ended up in other places until now, Saturday a week later.
I poured some of my leftover cereal and soymilk in a bowl and ate it standing by the counter while Richard told me a story about some mean-spirited bitch in an SUV who had
backed into his red BMW. He had some Japanese girl staying with him now as well, but she was a wet blanket, so I gave up trying to hold a conversation with her 30 seconds into my futile attempt, and went back to my room to pack up my stuff instead.
Marnie came and picked me up an hour later, and we drove over to Maroubra - my new home town. She had me move into a room in the apartment upstairs, with its own living room, kitchen and bathroom, and I wasn’t hard to convince. Apart from me there’s a Vietnamese kid staying up there, Viet, but other than leaving the toilet seat up he seems harmless (although last night he kept me up talking Vietnamese on Skype with his high-pitched voice, until I eventually asked him to please wrap up the call so I could go to bed). Because a picture says more than a thousand words, I’ll refer to the photos of my new locus to give you a sense of how I’m now living.
As for the family; it consists of Shane and Marnie, and their kids Boston and Baxter, 5 and 6 years
The saltwater pool
Tried it out yesterday :) old. They have an English bulldog named Punchy, and this happy bunch live close to heaps of beaches and only 20 minutes from the city by bus. The surf here is good, and I’ve been offered to use their long board whenever I want to.
Shane is a successful personal trainer, and Marnie works as a real estate agent, which makes them a pretty palmy pair. Their kids seem a bit rambunctious so far, but sweet. I'm sure I'll be able to get them to listen to me, and their parents have given me their blessing to smack them if need be (no, seriously).
Since Shane works with training, the garage is set up as a gym. They have loads of weights, all kinds of boxing equipment (as this is his forte), a training bike and most importantly; a treadmill. I tried it out two days ago, and although confusing with everything measured in metrics (when did my brain actually switch over to the imperial system?) it was pretty sweet. You can plug in your mp3-player and use the speakers on the actual machine if you prefer that to your headphones.
Shane says I can join any of the classes he teaches, which is great, because most of them are boxing, as in REAL boxing. Shane himself is a nice guy in most ways, although something of an alpha male. He's clearly the one presiding over this patriarchdom, and he likes it that way. He always makes a point of calling women the weaker or softer sex while tsk, tsk tsk-ing and shaking his head, and for those of you who know me well enough, you can guess how badly I want to thrust some of my not so soft body parts into his chauvinist face when he talks like that. But since I’m not here to change this family’s mindset, I try to just laugh at it instead. Shane believes a woman should take care of the family and the household, and shrugs and calls himself conventional when I stare at him in sheer amazement. “A real sexist! I thought you guys had nearly gone extinct in the civilized world by now. Can I take a picture?” is an example of how I might have responded had I not been making a real effort to accept people as they are, especially my new housemates/employers. And maybe it’s not so bad as I make it out to be. Marnie seems happy, and that’s really all that matters, I guess.
The weekend was spent just installing myself here, and getting to know the kids a bit. First “real” workday was yesterday, Monday, and it went fine. Mostly I just help out with picking up after the morning rush, laundry, and after dinner. Nothing I wouldn’t do at my own place anyway, so to get rent and food for this is pretty sweet. But I do have to find a job.
I'm learning a bunch of Aussie slang, too. Today I learned "ta", which apparently is lazy-short for "thank you", and "fair dinkum", which seems pretty much a comment appropriate for most any situation.
So in essence I get a fully equipped apartment and food (and all utilities of course, including free wireless internet) for 20 hours of work per week, with opportunity to possibly work additionally daytime and/or weekends at another job. All I have to pay for are my personal items, my cell phone and my bus pass.
They have decent bikes I can use, and they insist on me borrowing their car on weekends, so today I went to the Aussie equivalent of the MVD and looked into what I need to do to be able to drive legally here. Turns out it might not be very hard at all, thanks to my US license, but we’ll see about that.
Last night Shane told me he was going to work out around 8.30 PM, and I was welcome to join him if I wanted. He was going to have a boxing session, and even though I had already worked out earlier that day, I couldn’t resist. Kicking and hitting is too much fun.
Marnie decided to join as well, and essentially he just coached the two of us as we did drills on each other. It was incredibly hard (I’m so out of shape), but equally fun. Shane made sure we kept good form in our kicks and punches, and other than mumbling something about not enjoying training women because we’re so weak, he was a great trainer. At one point I thought I was going to throw up from pushing myself so hard, but I managed to keep all my food down.
Suffice to say I had a hard time brushing my teeth last night, as it involved actually lifting my arm above hip level, but today I’m miraculously not very sore, although I do sport some really nasty bruises on my legs. But it’s all part of my cool persona to look beat up.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.101s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 6; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0631s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Ian
non-member comment
Annis deserves a good partner!
"But my partner didn’t show up. “Just grab someone from the beginner’s class”, said Kim to our ref, and she yelled a guy over. Oh no you didn’t, I thought to myself, but it was too late. One look at this guy and I knew he would be horrible. “Hi, I’m Mike”, he said and threw out his hand at me. Oh great. Here’s Mikey, just waiting to suck. “Hi Mike. You play a lot?” “Ha ha! No, I just started playing in the beginner’s class, just fooling around, you know?” I wanted to answer “No, actually, I don’t know. I’ve never understood the point of just fooling around, and I doubt I ever will understand that, but it’s really great news for My living room My living room me that not only are you going to be a disastrous player, but you also lack the mindset to try to improve. Yay.” " This is seriously the funniest thing I've heard all day. LOL. You rock Annis, and I wish I could come partner with you in Australia.