Welcome to my Head

That's right kiddos; for a whopping two days I had a mohawk. Just hold your breath til Halloween when I break out my masterpiece. Two words for you, "Mister" and "T."




































Frankly, I just thought this little sticker was pretty funny.






















This is a picture of us before we headed out to the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO, in case that ever comes up again). Dapper swagger; or as I like to call it, dap swag. Ugh, sorry.






















I thought it fitting to don my knitted cap to match Cate's and I let my facial hair grow out a little as well.




If you are expecting a coherent stream of well thought out paragraphs, you have come to the wrong place (at least for today); this is just an attempt to update ya’ll.

- I’m listening to “Once Around the Block” by Badly Drawn Boy right now (on repeat), here’s a link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAtcJ954TjQ check it out, then buy it; really great song that has been applicable in multiple phases of my life.

- Today is one of my off days during the school holiday program. Yesterday we took the kids to an indoor rock climbing center; three to four of them managed to break a cement slab covering a hole in the ground before we were even strapped into our harnesses. Goodtimes. Tomorrow we are heading to the Perth Zoo if the weather cooperates; if not to, “museum,” they don’t tell me anything except when to show up.

- With all my free time I had begun my visa application to grant me, “temporary permanent residency,” which will be rolled over into permanent residency in two years; so that’s pretty exciting. This whole process is a little silly though, we have to gather up all our emails, pictures, statutory declarations of people who know us and can vouch for the legitimacy of our relationship, then present our case to the immigration authorities so they can tell us that our partnership is, “genuine, monogamous, and long-lasting.” Thanks.

-I am also in the process of filing my first Australian tax return, however because I have been in the country for such a short period of time (exactly 6 months today!) there are no agencies (governmental or financial) with which my personal details can be matched against yet, so I have to wait a few months to file. Don’t you just love beauracrcies?

- I’m about to go head to the gym for some nice cardio work followed by three to six sets of some sort of pectoral exercise. After that, I’m going to come back home, shower, and drive up to Joondalup Mall with Cate to enjoy one of the two nights of “late night” shopping so graciously afforded to all Perthians (on Thursday nights shopping centers outside of the city are permitted to stay open til 9pm, the ones in the city stay open til 9pm on Friday nights; all other nights of the week most stores close between 5pm-6pm); so naturally, we take advantage of our opportunities to get out of the house on Thursday and Friday nights.

-Saturday is a day I have been waiting for since I arrived in Australia; the start of the Tri-Nations (Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa) Rugby competition. Six matches for each nation, three against each of the other two countries in a no- holds- barred smashmouth affair betwixt the three greatest rugby playing nations on this planet! And I just found out that I can actually watch the matches at Cate’s house instead of trying to scrounge around Perth to find a place that is showing the game each week.

- So… a guy that my track and football buddies and I used to regularly outsprint just won the 100 meters at the US Championships. In case that means nothing to you, this man, Mike Rodgers, is the fastest individual in the United States, also meaning that he is one of the fastest people in the WORLD. Big congratulations to Mike and all the work that you have done over the past six years or so!

I think that’s about it and it’s time to go for my run, so take care and keep in touch!

P.S.- depending on when I post this/ when people read it, it might be my father’s birthday (July 17th), so Happy Birthday Dad!

Independence Day.

That’s about as patriotic as I get on the fourth of July.

 

 I have always been somewhat conflicted about the best way to celebrate the American day of independence.  On one hand, we managed to wrench ourselves from the grip of our British oppressors and in doing so craft a nation around the highest ideals; on the other, we stunningly massacred, raped, and pillaged hundreds of tribes of people who lived here for generations and generations and there was that little slavery thing going on too.  So, yeah, a soccer jersey and a six- pack of Bud is all the fourth of July celebrating you will get out of me.

 

In lighter news, Cate and I did have a lovely day this past Saturday, especially since I have just begun the July school holidays.  I am essentially off work for the next two weeks (I’ll still work three days each of the next two weeks, but only in the capacity of a camp counselor for the activities that we’ll be running at the youth center)!  We grilled up some bacon cheeseburgers (burgers in general are apparently a very American food, I guess I have never lived in any other country, but it’s fascinating what one learns away from home) and washed them down with our frosty Budweisers.

 Speaking of Budweiser, for some reason those old “wasssssssup?!” commercials popped into my head and I showed them to Cate.  They are JUST as hilarious nine years later… don’t believe me?  Take a look.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDTZCgsZGeA&feature=related

ANYway.  In my musings about the fourth of July, I was really trying to come up with something clever/ witty/ not too cliché to write, but for some reason, all I could think of was a miniature list of Australian words/ phrases that amuse and/ or confuse me.

 Enjoy.

 1.  “Sweet as!” commonly followed by, “bro!”

- Contrary to my initial impression, my backside was not constantly being complimented, and this is just an expression of deep approval.  Like, ‘That car was as sweet as brown sugar, bro!’ But, the phrase is just shortened to sweet as, bro; in all fairness, this one might be of New Zealand (Kiwi) origin, but I hear it here, and not in the US, so it stays on my list.

 2.  “Fella.”

- Clearly the word ‘fella’ is heard in America, but generally not out of the mouth of someone under 65 years of age.  Yet in Australia, many of the young people I work with use the word fella every day.  In case the context is lost on you, “fella” is like the movie Goodfellas, or perhaps Rocafella for any hip-hoppers out there.  This one is used most prominently by my Aboriginal students and often as a racial term, like blackfella or whitefella, no distinction made for gender might I add.

 3. “Reckon”

- Not a force to be reckoned with, but rather, ‘I reckon that if we don’t round up these kangaroos, they’ll cause some serious problems for those koalas.”  Haha, sorry, that was a stupid sentence, but I don’t care, I’m just flowin now.  Reckon is one of those words that is again, a babyboomerism, if not older; like it’s the sort of word that my 85 year old grandfather who was born and raised in a small town in Mississippi uses frequently, yet here I am in Perth, in 2009, and it’s everywhere.  Crazy.

 4. Usage of the word “the” in a sporting context.

- Certainly we all know that the name of the team that Michael Jordan played for was The Chicago Bulls, however, if we were exhorting the team on to victory in the stands, we would shout, “Go Bulls!”  In Perth, and I believe all of Australia, they would say, “Go The Bulls!”  Perhaps we do it all wrong in America, but I had never heard of such a thing before I got here and no one I talk to can give me an explanation as to why the, “the” is left in front of the team’s name when cheering.  Sweet as, bro.

 5. Usage of the word “colored,” but since this is Australia, “coloured.”

- I debated whether or not to include this one, but like I said, I’m on a roll.  Yes, coloured, is used here, by both whites and non-whites to describe non-whites as a group.  No, it is not 1950.  Clearly, coming from my background as an African- American who majored in African- American Studies, who may or may not have a tendency to passionately pursue an argument or two, it is a struggle to hold my tongue when I hear people using the word.  However, in the wisdom of my old age, I have learned to listen and think before launching into a verbal assault because we all know that I am more than equipped to wage that war.  But, why is the usage of the word coloured so offensive?  OK, by calling all non-white people ‘coloured’ a direct assumption is inherent, that all white people are in some way grouped together and that all non- white people are all grouped together.  The deeper implication is that “whiteness” is the standardized, maybe even “pure” racial category and the other group (us coloured fellas, ha, that was good hey?) has impurities; that whites are normal and everyone else is somehow abnormal.  Now, we all know that ALL of that is a load of garbage, which is why the word “colored” is no longer used in America (except by ignorant folk).  Today, we use words like, “minorities” or my favorite, “people of color.”  Really, what this all boils down to (hold on, I’m about to get off my soapbox) is a need for us as humans to stop classifying people by “racial” groups, because let’s face it, “race” is something that was constructed by those in power to tighten their grasp on those whom they oppressed.  That is not to say that we shouldn’t acknowledge and appreciate cultural differences because, I wholeheartedly am in favor of that, we just need to stop worrying so much about lumping people into groups for the purposes on classifying.

Thanks for taking time to read through all my thoughts, I appreciate it.

Take care,

J

My life be like...

I have no idea why I decided to title this blog post the first line of a song that I don't even like, but, you know, it just fit.

What have I been up to as of late?

Nothing too much really, just slogging through the winter months of Australia (the seasons in the southern hemisphere are opposite to the northern hemisphere, just a little geographic/ climatological info for ya :) This winter really isn't that bad, especially compared to some of the subzero (Fahrenheit), snowfilled days in NYC; but it's still down in the 40's and upper 30's, plus this is the RAINY season. Sorry, I'm talking way too much about the weather and that's how you know I'm bored, but I'm going to keep ranting for just a few more lines.

I hate rain.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know we need it to sustain life on this planet, but in my mind, I thought coming to Australia would be just about the closest thing I could get to my ideal climate, namely, hot and dry, year round. The fact that Australians have deluded themselves into thinking, "it's only cold for a few weeks a year... we don't need insulation in our homes... or heating," doesn't help.

ANYway.

It has come to my attention that I use the segue, "ANYway," more frequently than most, some have even called it a trademark of my informal writings. It's not a conscious thing, it just happens, but now whenever I DO use it there is some mental awkwardness for me... in case anyone was wondering.

But I digress; I met some African- Americans the other day. Where, you ask? On the basketball court, of course. It was actually pretty funny because one of the guys is the ex- husband of my coworker, so I had heard a good deal about him. However, that's where the humor stopped. These two were the worst kind of Americans, OK, not the worst, they weren't jumping around in cowboy boots waving confederate flags; certainly the worst kind of American basketballers. First of all, this game was in a church league so you would expect a degree of civility even though everyone who participates is not necessarily a believer, but why join a church league if you are a loud- mouthed, trash- talking, braggart, who can't even back it up? Secondly, these guys only had four players, their fifth was suspended because he lashed out at a referee last week by calling him a feminine hygiene product; yeah. So, we decided to play the game 5 on 4 rather than have them take a forfeit and it just wasn't fun. We won by about 30, but the whole game was just an exercise of self-control. They complained about every single call the refs made, which was pretty impressive because they never got out of breath. Even during free throws when everyone else was taking a breather, these two brothas kept on flapping their gums. But like I said, we won by thirty so that was a bit of vindication, except that it didn't even feel that great because they complained that they only had four players so of course we should have beaten them so badly. Some people just don't know how to lose with dignity, but thankfully, we get to play that team again and I can just hope that they will be at full strength, allowing us to administer a proper beatdown :)

Well, that's about it for now... Everyone back in America, make sure you set off some extra fireworks for me this weekend, apparently for some reason, they are illegal here. On a related note, how about the US men's soccer team? Beating Italy, Spain, and Brazil (for a half) in one week? Watch out world...

Bye? How do you end a blog post? It's not really a letter or a message, it's just floating out there in cyberspace...

The End.

Party Time.

Not sure if you have heard... but Cate and I are getting married!

So, Cate's parents decided to throw us an engagement party (several weeks ago... sorry for the late update) at our favorite Aussie restaurant; Mela, an Indian restaurant.

The photographic evidence follows.

This cake was actually made for us and presented by a friend before the engagement party, but I just thought that I would throw it in too.

These are two of the approximately five glasses of champagne consumed at our party. We thought people would want to celebrate with some bubbly, so we bought TWELVE bottles; whoopsie daisy.

The two of us with a comically angry Vono and cheery Shannon.

Bryan, Cate, Jordan, Annabelle. Happy family :)

Jess and Jenna Haak (cousins) demonstrating the elusive awkward face/ T-Rex arms combination.

(1) Us with church friends; Aleesa, Seb, and Giles. (2) Us with work friends; Jorge/ Allison (the hosts of the Latin American dinner mentioned in the previous blog), Jane, Jen, and Wavey.

(3) Me with the guys from church; Phil, Ben-O, and Kieron. (4) Upper corridor shot.

Cate with three out of four brisdesmaids; Kate, Rae, and Jess.

Excellent chocolate cake... looking forward to more at the wedding? Maybe? Hm, I guess I actually have a say in that, hey? haha

Lower corridor shot.

:)

BIG Weekend

Man, it is pretty difficult to believe, but as of tomorrow afternoon I will have been living in Perth (on the other side of the planet from Saint Louis!) for a full FIVE months! This is just about the longest I have ever been away from home and I'm starting to miss the little things (I've been missing the big things all along). I'd also like to take this time to apologize for not posting more frequently or with updates about my life here... I'm busy living it... but I really will try to write on a more regular basis about more general topics instead of my deep musings about life and sociocultural cycles that are playing out here.


Without further ado, my weekend.


Friday Night!- We meant to go to a friend's birthday party, but we were tired, so we just went home and played Scrabble with Cate's mom. Haha, a great start to a jampacked weekend!

Saturday Morn- I picked Cate up and we drove deep into the heart of Belmont to coach our little basketball kids (she coaches the under 8's and I coach the under 11's). Somehow, I was roped into running the show for one of the under 8 teams, and funnily enough, my team was matched up against Cate's. It was certainly a battle of coaching prowess as we cajoled our respective teams of five and six year olds to, "get off the floor... you can't be sleepy," or warmly remind them that, "there's no reason to be afraid of the ball." Needless to say, these kids are cute. Frankly, I think the result of the game could also go without a mention, but I'm too petty! I won 12-1! Yeah baby, yeah! My older kids aren't as cute or funny, but THEY think it's hilarious to use me as their personal jungle gym... but we won that game too and we are on a hot streak (three out of the last four games, gearing up for the playoffs!)

Saturday Arvo (Australian for "Afternoon")- I dropped Cate off back at home so she could go fabric shopping with her mother and jetted off to play some basketball of my own. We squared off against another team from our church, and to be entirely honest with you, I have no idea what happened. Somehow, I managed to hit five of six jumpers in the first half! I have never shot that well in my life, but I just couldn't miss. Sadly, I thought that my streaky shooting would continue in the second half, but I just kept bricking. Oh well, we won that one too!

Saturday Evening- Cate and I geared up to head down to Mandurah to have a slumber party with Rae and Shane (the genders were separated, no worries), but first we made a stop at an Irish pub to watch the Australian national rugby team (the Wallabies) manhandle the Italians. Because neither Cate's family nor my housemates and I have the requisite cable package, we are forced to go out of doors to watch some high quality rugby... but for some reason the concept of sports bars (a la Buffalo Wild Wings) has never taken off here! I have gone on this tirade before, but it really doesn't make any sense that a country which prides itself on its love of drink and sport could have gotten this so wrong, but I digress. After the game we joined Rae and Shane at a Mandurah cafe called Moka (great hot chocolates and potato wedges for those of you taking notes for when you come here in January for the wedding :) to watch/ listen to a friend perform. Her name is Cherith. She was awesome.

Sunday Morning- Back to Moka for breakfast, wonderful and not that pricy! We drove back up to Perth, changed, and then prepared for that afternoon/ evening.

Sunday Evening- We pre-empted church last night because one of Cate's co-workers invited us to a Latin American themed dinner party. Her husband is Venezulan, so we knew it would be too legit to quit, hey, hey. We decided to prepare a spicy chilli con carne, which turned out alright for our first effort. But at the party we had shredded pork, black beans, chicken with a chilli/ chocolate sauce, nachos, and of course, rice. It was all very tasty, but I think the best part of the night was the pinata. Becaue several of the couples had young children a Dora the Explorer pinata was purchased. The kids gave it their best whacks, but just couldn't break through. However, one of the mommies had a few swings and before you could say, "Dios mio," off flew Dora's head. High comedy.


Ahh, and here we rest on Monday night just counting down the days til we touch down on American soil. Another post is coming within the next couple of days, so stay tuned!

Love/ miss you all!

Jordan

SYG

In a lot of ways, my life has been pretty busy lately (planning a wedding in Australia and parties to celebrate beforehand in America, work, coaching little kids basketball, playing church basketball, Bible study, and hanging out with my fiancée and other friends), but I also manage to have a good deal more free time since I left the rugby pitch; thus I have returned to my writing ways.

Last weekend was three days because in Western Australia it was ‘Foundation Day,’ or in other words, the day to commemorate when Europeans first settled Western Australia. While I was not celebrating such a momentus occasion, I did reap the benefit of a day off work by attending SYG (State Youth Games). SYG is a pretty big event on the Western Australian Christian calendar as it is a three day festival that draws its competitors from churches all around the state. I went with a friend’s church and signed up for Badminton, Dodgeball, Indoor Beach Volleyball, and of course Scrabble.

Badminton was an interesting selection for me since my experience with the game is limited at best, however, I had a great deal of success against all comers from the Taylor family a couple of years ago so I thought I would be decent. What I did not realize was that there were actually people my age who apparently play this oddly named sport as more than a backyard leisure activity. I managed to run into a church that featured three teams of two such players, needless to say, they thrashed us and in the process forced me to explain on multiple occasions that just because we played some very good badminton athletes who happened to be of Asian background, that in fact, all Asians did not possess some badminton/table tennis superiority gene. Ugh.

Dodgeball is a game in which I possess many talents at a very high level thanks to my years of working with annoying children who loved to play the game (leaving me with no choice but to hone my ability to the highest possible levels so as to maintain an air of invincibility… it’s true). Unfortunately, I am not quite sure that all of my teammates took quite the same approach to the tournament. We took a loss in the first game which I will chalk up to rustiness on the part of my brethren and sistren, but then we reeled off four victories in a row until we played our final match of the preliminary round. Now, for those of you who know me at all, you know that I play to win, no matter what the game/ sport, I always give it 110%, but with that said I never play dirty or trash talk. Being the fantastic dodgeballer that I am, I must have rubbed some of the people on the opposing team the wrong way because they jeered me! They actually shouted taunts at me at a Christian sports festival! I tried to play on pure adrenaline alone, but alas, it was not enough, my team fell in the contest, and narrowly missed out on a spot in the quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, Cate had just led her team to the final of the basketball competition, but had come down with a terrible migraine. That night, we contemplated heading home so Cate could sleep in her own bed, but she decided to stick it out for the second day which began with Indoor Beach Volleyball. She made a full recovery for our last day :)

The premise of Indoor Beach Volleyball is an interesting one for me, but I guess there are people who must play beach volleyball year round even if the weather would not usually permit it. This event was primarily a mess around one for our team since none of us actually play volleyball, let alone beach volleyball. Yet somehow, we managed to compile a 3-2 record, which again, left us just short of advancing past the prelim round.

In my final event, I planned to make up for the rest of the weekend’s disappointments by shutting up all of the critics and winning Scrabble. Yes, I actually had critics; for some reason, I suppose I do not strike people as the Scrabble loving type of individual, but whatever the reason, I felt like I had something to prove. The preliminary rounds consisted of six 20 minute games, which is really quite taxing on the brain and nerves, but I pushed through the first four games with an unblemished record. My fifth game was against a formidable foe who was one of the few others who had yet to lose a game, I thought I could handle her because she challenged the word, “spurn,” which led me to believe that she could not possibly beat me with such a limited vocabulary, and yet I lost. My final preliminary match was against a chap who seemed particularly nervous and fidgety, but he played the game with a great deal of strategy and skill, so I knew it would be close; and it was, but he won. 4-2. Not a very impressive record, but I managed to squeak into the quarterfinals only to face, the anxious fellow again. He knew he was in for a big match and I was more than ready for the challenge, but as with scrabble and life, sometimes things just don’t go your way, and I lost again.

Oh well.

Dreams

It is 12:24am, early Thursday morning. I should be dreaming right now, but instead I am taking a break from stuffing envelopes for work (long story). The combination of my recent upgrade to a brighter, yet somehow more environmentally friendly, coiled light bulb and the stark whiteness of the sheets of paper I was folding caused my mind to drift and wander; all the way back to this afternoon.

The teacher, Marnie, of the classroom in which I work asked one of our students, Claude, about his dreams and aspirations. He mentioned wanting to move on to TAFE (a program that seems to fall somewhere on the spectrum between American community colleges and universities) and playing wheelchair basketball in the Paralympics. Marnie quickly threw in that she wanted desperately to head back to the US for a vacation, namely to New York. I said that I wanted to cover college football for Sports Illustrated and instantly I realized that I was not following this dream with any degree of passion.

In reflecting on that little conversation, I took pause to look back over my personal history of dreams.

2nd Grade:
Jordan the Weatherman.

5th- 10th Grade, with a brief flirtation at the beginning of college:
Jordan Davis, Attorney at Law.

10th- 12th Grade:
Jordan “Ice/ WRbooyah” Davis, Collegiate Football Star Extraordinaire.

Freshman-Junior Year at CU:
?

Senior Year at CU:
Jordan P. Davis, freelancing, blogging (how is “blogging” still a spelling error in Microsoft word? Get with the times…), journalist.


And here we are, May 2009. What are my dreams now? I know my goals, hopes, and aspirations, but have I let my dreams die? I definitely put writing aside because I was unable to find gainful employment in said field, but trust, if for some reason Sports Illustrated, or even ESPN came a callin, I’d come a runnin.

Maybe I’m not dreaming because I’m living THE dream. I could not have even foreseen the life path that I’m headed down before I left, heck, I still don’t even know the exact path I’m traveling. But I’m here on the other side of the world with my beautiful fiancée at my side and I can’t complain about anything in my life. I have stable housing, employment, entertainment, sporting pursuits, and friends… I live in Australia! Just 15 minutes from the beach; I’m getting married in about 7.5 months! Why am I yelling?

This is exciting.

My life is exciting and challenging; maybe for the first time in my life, my dreams are not about some career I want to pursue, but they are about settling down with Cate in a community and becoming part of its fabric; changing lives and cultures; showing/spreading the love of Christ everywhere we go and in everything we do.

I guess that’s a pretty good dream afterall?

I should probably stop messing around and get back to stuffing envelopes, but to paraphrase a great man, Larry Kindbom,


Keep dreaming of championships, in whatever you do.


Or maybe a far greater man, Paul, would be a more appropriate approximation,

If we live, then it is to the lord. If we die, then it is to the lord. So, whether we live or we die, we belong to the lord.



Yeah.