Shocking.

Shocker: Australian English (shock-UH); noun, a person, place, or thing that is terrible. "Man, I can't believe how bad that referee was in the footy game." "Yeah, mate, he was a shocker."

Shocker number One: A few years back Cate and I caught a taxi to LaGuardia Airport and our driver was unbelievable. He was an erratic driver to begin with, swerving from one side of the street to the other, apparently disdaining the use of his indicators and instead, preferring to just yell at other cars and, of course, blow his horn. Unfortunately, this asinine style of driving perturbed one of the "Gypsy" cab drivers, who our driver had previously expressed his disgust with. These two gentlemen proceeded to spend the rest of our trip to the airport in some sort of jousting- for- position, nausea inducing, race to the finish. At one point, our driver nearly drove up onto the sidewalk to gain position on his opponent. They were THAT serious.

I recalled this episode from my past this morning as I rode the BUS to work. In defence of my driver, he was running five minutes late once he arrived at the busport to pick us up, so clearly he felt obliged to drive a lil recklessly to begin with. This liberty went to his head as I literally felt like this man was driving a Formula1 racer; he darted in and out of places that no bus ought dart. Then he felt disrespected by another bus driver, who was evidently stopping too quickly in front of us. Again, in his defence, the other driver was stopping to abruptly, but this is absolutely no excuse for tailgating whilst driving a 40 foot metal cylinder filled with people. Thankfully, after an expletive soaked diatribe (I didn't want to say, "expletive laced tirade," but I feat that "expletive soaked diatribe" might be just a cliche... ANYway), he pulled astride and then in front of the his rival bus driver and we were able to finish the trip in peace. Shocking.


Shocker number Two: During the aforementioned bus ride, I passed the Burswood Dome (the premier concert/ event venue in Perth... Britney Spears, Beyonce, Coldplay, Pink all performed there when they came to town) and saw the signs for Hulkamania. Now, I am not one to disparage my new home town, and to be entirely honest, I have no idea what the level of, for lack of a better phrase, Hulkamania is in the US... but seriously? Hulk Hogan still matters to anyone? I was actually curious so I looked up just how old he is... 56. He is also apparently, 6'4" and 302 pounds?! And his real name is Terry Gene Bollea, it's funny what you never think of, but I digress. Hulk Hogan is bringing his seven ring wrestling circus to Perth! And judging by the advertising saturation, we should be excited about it! I guess in my mind, Hulk Hogan stopped being relevant in the mid 1990's... All I can think of is him in his red/ yellow jumpsuit, ripping his rubbery shirt from his ripply chest... These images along with more recent ones of Hogan sporting a two tone moustache/ beard combo ring true with his fans and I have no doubt that however many shows he puts on will sell out. That's Perth. Shocking.

Ok. I promise, pictures of my new home are forthcoming... eventually.

Take care!

Insert Title Here

Over the past two months I have wanted to write something, anything, but I just could not motivate myself to write words worth reading (don't get your hopes up for this entry, but I'm just saying...). But since yesterday the paper and pen have been calling out to me; and I had to answer.


Cate and I have taken out a lease on our first place together! Cate's family has moved from their family home to a large modern apartment (those of you coming down under in December will get to know this apartment well!) Thankfully, most of the things from the family home do not flow with the contemporary ambiance of the new place so Cate's parents needed to get rid of a few things. Thus the birth of "Operation Scavenge." Cate and I have managed to fit the following items into our two bedroom apartment: Cate's brother's bed frame, her parent's mattress, a couch, her brother's work desk, a bookcase, her family's television, her family's bbq (on the balcony), her sister's chest, and two wooden coffee table- esque boxes with drawers (one of which is the resting place for the television). We also did a couple of IKEA runs and bought another bookshelf and a dinner table with four chairs :) Now, for the fun part.

In order to move most of these items and a few others over this past weekend we rented a "ute," (utility truck; like a pickup truck with bed walls that fold down for easy access) and got down to business. One of our first big attempts was the Taylor family computer desk. It is a beautiful, solid Pine desk with plenty of storage space for disks or documents. Cate and I carried the massive hunk of wood out to the ute and loaded it up into the bed. We drove it the 90 seconds to our new place and looked at the two flights of stairs that we would have to traverse and summoned every muscle fiber Tommy Sheehan finely crafted for us in the bowels of Columbia's athletic complex. We heaved and lugged for what seemed like 45 minutes, but finally reached our door which we opened. Then we maneuvered the desk into position. The desk did not fit. We tried several other arrangements, but the desk was just too wide, deep, and long to fit. Dejected, we took the desk back down to the ute and to the Taylor home where it rests to this very day.

Having learned a valuable lesson in the previous story, we measured the Taylor refrigerator before attempting to haul it over to our place. Naturally, it was too large as well. So we engineered a swap with the Taylor's next door neighbor in which they would get a nearly brand new fridge and we would take their disco- era one and a few hundred dollars to sweeten the deal. We were in no position to complain since we still got a free refrigerator out the deal, however all of this transpired over the past couple of days... a couple of days after our ute rental had expired. Apparently, refrigerators must be transported upright, so putting it in the back of a long car was out leaving us with just one option; putting the fridge on a handtruck and wheeling it over to our place. Now, as I mentioned before, it takes about a minute and a half to drive from the old Taylor home to our new place, but we found out that it takes about 30 minutes to walk whilst wheeling a refrigerator. Undoubtedly, we were a bit of an odd sight in the late evening traipsing through the suburbs of Perth pushing and guiding a fridge down the sidewalk. Goodtimes.

I will post pictures of the completed apartment when I get a chance and I'll try to write more frequently, but who knows how often I'll feel compelled to write on this blog anymore. Like I mentioned in a previous post, this blog was really great when there was a set time on my journey to Australia and my life was very much an adventure, all the time; but now that I'll be living here for at least a few years, the thought of chronicling my day- to- day existence does not appeal to me at all.

But, only time will tell.

Take care!

Hey,

I just realized that it has been nearly a month since my last post, and for this, I am sorry. But, to be candid, for once, I really enjoy telling stories when I write. Sometimes I can force a story out of some life event that might not otherwise be story- worthy, but I have to be in a pretty special mood. There is also the fact that I have just been busy and crafting a fine blog entry takes time.

With all of that said, I am going to just give a lil rundown of my life events over the past month or so...

- All four of my groomsmen have booked their flights to come to Perth for the wedding! Now all I need to do is find a place to live so they won't have to get hotel rooms! Sweet!

- I had a car crash. I was exiting a freeway and we had a green light, but the car in front of me stopped for some reason. Naturally, I stopped behind him, however the car behind me had other ideas and decided to keep driving right into my back bumper. Thankfully, no one in any of the cars was injured, but, my 20 year old Ford Laser is no longer with us. Although, the crash did highlight one of the little known safety features of the vehicle; upon impact, both of our seats flattened into the back seat preventing us from smacking our heads on the front dash. Ingenious.

- I have applied for temporary permanent residency in Australia! At our interview with the immigration department we were told that everything was in order, except my police clearances. My American background check was not sufficient, so I had to get fingerprinted and mail off the prints and 18 US dollars to the FBI to ensure my squeaky clean-ness. I also had to get a police clearance from the Australian Federal Police; which struck me as odd since I submitted my Western Australian police clearance which said, "Your name does not appear on the records of any Australian jurisdiction." And I had also been cleared for a working with children permit... ANYway, once I get and submit those two clearances, I was told that I should have my new visa and immigration status within a week!

- Because of my current immigration status (one year work visa, but only six months at any given employer) today is my last day for the City of Belmont. However, Monday is my FIRST day with Belmont City College! The great thing about this job transition is that my unused vacation days from the City of Belmont get paid out to me in a lump sum along with my final paycheck!

- Cate and I have booked a photographer for our wedding! http://www.paperandlace.com.au/ Now all we need is: someone to organize flowers and a cake! And there's a chance that both of those aspects might be handled this weekend! Haha, obviously, I'm pretty excited about all of this, but really, I'm just excited for all the planning to be over and to just be married. To go on our honeymoon, to be able to take vacations together, to share a home... just a few more months!

- Cate and I are coming to America! Our flights leave Perth at 12:05am on September 23rd and arrive at 8pm on September 23rd. We are planning on filling nearly every waking moment with friends, food, and fiestas! Shoot me an email if you'll be in Saint Louis from the 23rd of September to the 6th of October or in New York City from October 6th to 10th.

- Both of our basketball teams made it to the playoffs and won our first games, but we both fell in the semi-finals. But looking on the bright side; Cate made the all- star team... without even practicing and/ or playing the whole season! She's just that dominant on defense, in rebounding, passing, and shooting that they had no choice but to select her! Well done.

Ok, I think that covers my life. I hope all is well where ever you are.

See (most of) you very soon!

Jordan

Wilderness Weekend: Through a lens

A couple weekends back, Cate, myself and five others ventured into the heart of southwestern Australia, to the Donnelly River region.  In retrospect, the two days, which seemed to packed to the brim, were really full of nothing and therefore, utterly relaxing.  Not that it really matters, but these pictures are displayed in the reverse order that they were taken.

The sign pretty much says it all; Victorian era technology AND million dollar views!  While we did not actually make it to the lighthouse because of time constraints (and getting lost), I have to wonder exactly which part of the lighthouse featuring the Victorian era technology, and more to the point, is that really something that you want to advertise?

This was the scene outside of our front porch each morning.  Kangaroos and Emus that have been around people so much that they just know where to go to get food.  In a way, this was nice, but after feeding the beasts for half an hour or so, it was inevitable that they would need to... remove the waste.  Needless to say, this created a stinky minefield as we left the house.

Roaring fireplace.  Logs and fire itself courtesy of yours truly (more on that later).

Go Catie, go!

Even though our axe was essentially a dull metal wedge welded to a lead pipe, I think chopping firewood just might have been my highlight of the weekend.  Once I started, I could not stop.  I chopped enough wood to last a winter... but we were only there for two nights, whoops.

Beer tasting at a local cidery (like a winery, but they work with apples to make hard ciders and apple juice).  Not sure why I took this picture, especially since this was not a cider tasting, but, to be honest all the ciders pretty much looked the same and I'm a sucker for a great photo op.

Not sure if you can tell in this shot, but Andie (Cate's brother) is riding a bike with no front tire.  Actually, that's not true, it has a front tire, it's just not attached to the wheel.  Good times.

Ugh!  Yeah, I grunt when I get my lift on.  It's so everyone can see how jacked and tan I am.

"This weighs, like, 15 pounds."

I'm not a huge fan of domesticated animals, let alone pseudo- wild ones in our vacation village, but this old kangaroo seemed harmless enough.

"Eat the seed from my mouth! Do it!  DO IT!"

Alright, that's it.  Take care!

Jordan

Rollin Along

Where have the days and weeks gone?  In a few days, I will have been in Australia for SEVEN months!  This is the longest that I have ever been away from Saint Louis!  I was planning on making preparations to come back to the STL right about now, but instead we are making plans to set up our life :)

Ok, it has been a while since I have posted so there's probably lots of stuff to catch you up on; however, I'm not going to just spill all my beans.  I'm just going to give you a snapshot of my weekend.

- Cate and I are back in the groove of coaching the future basketball stars of Australia!  Sadly, because a new "season" has just begun the teams were shuffled and I had to get used to a whole new crew of ten year olds.  My new kids, who, in an ironic landslide, have chosen to call their team, "The Redskins," are pretty cool.  I mean we won our game 29-2; but they just lack some of the pizazz of my old kids, maybe they'll grow on me.  An interesting observation though: these kids are cut throat.  First of all, let me clarify that we coach in a basketball league fully run and staffed by a local church... and these kids are ten years old... yet in the second week of the competition they are talking about how they'll win the championship and stomp everyone in their way.  I gently remind them that we are here to have fun, learn about basketball, and display good sportsmanship, and one young man's reply was, "Just win, baby!"  Nah, I'm just kidding, but that's their mentality.

- Saturday has become a full on basketball extravaganza.  We coach the kids in the morning (Cate does two teams, one younger, one older) and I do one, then we zip off to Lakeside sports complex to compete in the Baptist Basketball competition with our church.  This league is actually pretty competitive, especially for a basketball loser like myself.  But it is wonderful to be back in an athletic context with Cate and getting to watch each others games again.  Cate's team, which has ten members, yet at most is able to get seven people to show up for a given game struggles with conditioning (as do all the teams in this competition, because, really, it's not that serious) and it cost them their game on Saturday even though her team was far superior from a talent standpoint.  As for my game, we had a rematch against a team that beat us earlier in the year; we lost the earlier game because we were caught off guard by one of their players who is so sneakily fast that he appears out of control, yet he always makes his shots.  This weekend was different.  We brought our A- Game.  We put on our game face(s).  And we recruited an athletic center to block shots, run the fast break, and dunk.  We won by 20.

- Later that night we went to watch a friend's State Basketball League (SBL) playoff game.  The SBL is one step below the professional basketball league in Australia so it's a pretty high level of competition (how many times have I used that word in this post? 6? 8? ugh, I'm out of practice...)  Even though the SBL is pretty serious (each team has an "import" player who is paid and also usually a washed up mid major division 1 American export), the stadiums in which the games are played creates such a feeling of insignificance, at least from a fans point of view.  I would wager that most American high school gyms are larger than that of the SBL teams... and the place wasn't even full!

- While I'm on the subject of Australian people... for some reason, certain events just seem to drag all the most redneck or in Aussie lingo "derro" (short for derelict) people; you know like Nascar or Nebraska.  Well, in Australia one of those places seems to be SBL games.  This isn't really worth noting except for the fact that it reminded me about the dress code at the high school where I work.  Nearly all Australian schools (high school, middle, primary) have dress codes and/ or uniforms.  This can be as stringent as full on slacks, tie, jacket, skirt, dress(all in the school distributed colors and styles) or as casual as a school polo that must be worn with dark colored pants, skirt, or shorts depending on the season.  This brings me to my school, definitely on the lenient end of the spectrum, but now in a wicked backlash to modern fashion trends, this EXACT announcement was sent out to the students, obviously targeting the young ladies, "Tights are not pants.  Tights with belt loops and pockets are still tights.  Tights are meant to be worn underneath skirts, pants, or shorts.  That is all."  Priceless. Haha!

- Late Saturday night! Wallabies (Australian National Rugby team) game at home!  Unfortunately, the team lost, after a fast start, lots of sloppy play and frankly, weakness, gave the game to the South Africans.  Thankfully, the Wallabies will have two more chances to redeem themselves in this "best of the Southern Hemisphere" tournament; and Cate and I will be taking in one of the contests on August 29th!

- Sunday!  Visa red tape.  Cate and I spend many hours this past Sunday collecting old letters, emails, and pictures to compile our case for the Australian immigration service... to prove that we are actually in a relationship.  Part of this visa process is the procurement of a medical examination to prove that I do not have tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis B, or any other undesireable physical ailment that I would have been spreading around this fair land for the past seven months...  So two weeks ago I went to the local medical clinic, got my blood work done, gave a urine sample, went to a different location to get my chest x-rayed, thought I had finished the whole process... and then I got a phone call telling me that I needed to do it all through Health Services Australia.  Ugh.  So early this morning, I got up, went to the right doctor and had them perform all the examinations.  I have to go back NEXT Thursday to get the results and have all the work sent off to the government so Cate and I can finally move forward with applying for my visa!

- My new house is great in the sense that it's cheap and still pretty centrally located, BUT, it's very large and often empty... and pretty much reminds me of the type of place where people are savagely murdered.  It is honestly so scary to come home each night because no one else will be home so all the lights are out and I think, "Oh! I'll use the flashlight on my phone; that will certainly illuminate this vast darkness."  The phone light only brightens the scariest bits of the house until I can get to the light switch!  I have to take some pictures so I can describe this better, but basically, my room is situated near the back of the first floor of the house.  Before you can enter into my room, you must first cross a large empty room.  The light switch is on the opposite wall of the room as you enter, and this panel controls both the large room and my bedroom.  This is pretty embarrassing, but I usually just sleep with the light on because it really is that creepy to venture out of my warm little room in the dark.  Yes I am 23 and getting married in January.  Moving right along...

Actually, that's pretty much all I've got, that and it's 12:22am so I need to go home to my house of horrors and get some sleep.  But, I hope that YOU are getting excited for our trip back to the USA because we definitely are!  Take care!

Ramblings 27.7.09

- When I started this blog, I was of the belief that I would be coming to Australia for a fixed period of time, which would be ending around August. Therefore, a blog seemed like an appropriate way to keep in touch with people back home and to have a means of writing consistently. However, now that my time here seems to be more permanent, I wonder what will become of the function of this space? I never wanted to be one of those people who just kept a blog about their everyday life… I was going away to the other side of the world for nine months and I would keep friends/ family abreast of my situation for that time, but now I am faced with the dilemma of finding an appropriate way/ time of ending the blog; OR do I become one of those people who just writes incessantly about their life. It would be one thing if I were writing a memoir and some publisher were going to pay me to do so… but that is clearly not what is happening here.

- I have been sick with some sort of cold/ flu on and off for the last five days. I have missed two days of work and did not get to participate in my basketball game this past weekend. I am not pleased.

- On a slightly related note, I have a medical examination tomorrow. I need to get a chest X-Ray (for Tuberculosis) and an HIV/AIDS test for my visa application. Once I get the results from tomorrow we can FINALLY lodge the application that will determine my “temporary permanent residency” status, haha. The official word is that the process could take six to eight months to complete, but friends in a similar situation heard back (favorably) in about a month. So hopefully, we’ll hear back in a month or so and I’ll be able to continue working with the young people at the alternative learning centre, but if not, then I guess it’s pretty clear that I need to go in a different direction.

- I am moving… for the fourth time! Our lease runs out here on August 7th, but thankfully I was able to find a co- worker who has a two story house and they are renting out one of the rooms on the bottom floor! It is actually quite a perfect situation since I only wanted to rent a place for about the next six weeks because we’ll be coming back to Saint Louis on September 23rd! The new place is a little smaller and older, but it’s also cheaper… and just for six weeks.

That’s about it, but take care and start your countdown for our return to the northern hemisphere!

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!