Happy Australia Day!

I'd like to welcome you all to MY first Australia Day, haha! Today is the celebration of Australia's independence from Britain and we plan to celebrate by: kayaking on the river right alongside the city, bbq-ing, and finally watching the HUGE fireworks display (I'll post pictures sometime :)

ANYway.

I have been here for about a week and a half and it has been nearly that long since I have written on this blog, so there's a fair amount to recap.

1) God is SO good! I have been given several leads/ connections for jobs through people I met in church! The two most exciting prospects are a) a youth worker position with underprivileged high schoolers (almost identical to what I was doing with the Boys and Girls Club!) and b) Cate's friend's dad owns a Christian newspaper and they just happen to be looking for a sports writer RIGHT NOW! haha; so hopefully, one or both of those options works out, but I'm just so grateful that there are actually opportunities for me to do what I am passionate about while I'm here instead of potentially just working to make money.

2) God is SO good! haha, I am in Australia with Cate and she is not going back to work til tomorrow! But, the REASON she isn't going back to work until tomorrow lies deep within her mouth, or rather, it did about a week ago when her wisdom teeth were still firmly in their places. Her recovery has been pretty steady, but she still has a good deal of bruising on one side of her face and as the day progresses, so does the throbbing pain in her jaw. Medicine and ice packs only do so much, but Cate has been a real trooper because the only real limitation her surgery put on our activities was that we could not play basketball or run together. However, we went to the beach (Cate was FANtastically burnt; silly melanin deficient people, sunshine is for me!), walked around the city, walked around Fremantle (Freo) which is like SoHo in the sense that the area is funky, trendy, and filled with shopping and dining options, and have pretty much just hung out every way possible in the Perth metropolitan area.

3) As I was mentioning earlier, I have only been to church twice here, but the people are pretty awesome. I'm not sure how much contact you all have had with Australian's or maybe you just haven't noticed, but they LOVE to abbreviate/ nickname; my favorites from Cate's friends at church are: Sezzy Bear (Sarah), Af (Aaron), Paddo (Daniel), and the best one yet, "The Bamboo Banger" (Rishi). I have two potential nicknames floating around, "Milo," which I can only assume has been foisted upon me because I am brown just like the popular Australian powdered malt mix, but I will get some clarification from Cate's sister's boyfriend when I see him. The second was created last night after church, "Sparky." Jordan-Jordin Sparks- Sparky. Definitely one of the better options put forth, especially in light of other nicknames I have had, or at least that people tried to give me, booyah, chilli, mister hot chocolate... haha, I'm just kidding about that last one. Or am I? To completely switch gears, the sermon at church last night was pretty good. The guy preaching (the church is waiting for their pastor to get his visa so he can move with his family to Australia; pretty interesting that there are at LEAST two thriving churches in Manhattan with Australian pastors and multiple churches in Perth that have looked outside of their own nation for preachers, but I digress) focused on Titus 2:11-14 and when he was illustrating verse 13 (you need to look up these verses because I don't want to just slap one or two up here and have it be out of context :) which talks about joyful anticipation for the triumphant return of Christ, the guy put up a picture of the crowd in Grant Park in Chicago on the night of November fourth as they waited for Obama to come out and make his acceptance speech. Now, I understand what the preacher was trying to do, he certainly was not making a direct parallel between the American president and Jesus, but to even put them in the same sentence like that (as happens quite often in secular circles) is pretty disturbing to me. I voted for Obama and I think he will be a great president who will affect a good deal of change, however, people really, REALLY need to lay off this whole savior business. He's just a guy, granted he's the president of the USA, but still, just a guy who has to work through the same bureaucracy of government that every other president has to; he's just a politician, not a transcendent earth moving force. I have very few problems with Obama himself, but I have a plethora of issues with the perceptions that people have created of/ around him. OK, that's my little American politics rant for the week, feel free to email me at jparkerd@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.

4) My semi- permanence here is more and more real each day. For starters, I bought my rugby boots and a ball... now I just have to find a club to start practicing/ playing with, but again, everyone and their mother seems to have a club that they recommend I join, so that won't be an issue; the real trouble segues into my next point beautifully. I just moved my stuff down to Mandurah (MAN- DRUH) where I will be living with Brett, Candace, and some other guy (sorry other guy, I'll learn/ know your name soon enough). This is a great living situation and a beautiful house that we are all renting together, BUT, this place is an hour drive from Cate's home and therefore even longer from her church, the job opportunities that I have found thusfar, and of course the rugby clubs that I have looked into joining. Clearly, being an hour away from Cate is much better than being on the other side of the world, but obviously I didn't come all this way just to see her a few times a week, so once I actually get a job and get some money flowing INTO my bank account, then I'm going to have to look into finding a place closer to Cate and all the action! But again, God is SO good! There's a guy we met at church who will be in need of a roommate in about 9-10 weeks and hopefully I'll be able to make that move and be only about 20 minutes from Cate. Back to the main topic: I now have a mobile phone (they don't call them cell phones here, they don't even call them mobile phones, just "mobiles," so I have a mobile.) and the icing on the "holy-crap-I'm-living-in-Australia-for-the-foreseeable-future" cake is that I have been driving quite a bit. Initially such a statement is not so significant to those of you who knew me before college because you most likely saw me driving all the time, but let me remind you that in Australia, they drive on the other side of the road! Haha, it really isn't that big of a deal to be entirely honest, but sometimes I do sorta slip back into American driving mode when I pull out of a parking spot, whatevs.


I'm sure that I have left out plenty of little things that I have done/seen/heard/ experienced in the past week and for that, I sincerely apologize. Haha, I will also try to update the blog more frequently, but I"m kinda busy trying to live my life, not document it! But with that said, I have taken tons of pictures that I will post here once I get my laptop up and firing!

Hope all is well in New York, India, Florida, California and anywhere else you might be reading this from... but especially in Saint Louis; let me tell you how depressing it has been trying to describe where exactly Saint Louis is... someone asked me to list off a few states around Missouri and I said, "Illinois, Arkansas, Kansas, and Iowa are to the East, South, West, and North." To which the individual responded, "I have never heard of any of those." Quickly prompting a discussion about how they didn't know all of the Australian states (there are seven; off the top of my head... 1) western australia 2) new south wales 3) victoria 4) queensland 5) the nothern territories 6) tasmania and 7) southern australia? maybe? i don't know) nor the American states and we should all learn a song with the state names and capitals, haha.

One last thing, G'Day Mate. So cliche, yet classically Australian and I cannot bring myself to say it because it sounds SO forced coming from my lips. Even just, "mate," sounds awkward, haha. The other day I went out to run and I said,"good morning," to a man with whom I crossed paths and he smiled and wanted to say, "G'Day!" SO badly, but because I caught him off guard with MY greeting, he just kinda spat out, "Good morning." Haha, the struggles of my life.