Where to start:
I could start with going to the Falls Festival, when the evil Simmo emerged from deep within Brad and traded in an entire days live music for a once in a lifetime opportunity of drinking 3 litres of bourbon and mistook a fellow festival-goer for a carbon-neutral festival-toilet.
I could start later that evening, when a sunburnt blogger went missing and two readers attempted to locate him by screaming " www.bigcoronasortinymen.blogspot.com! " Thankfully he was found, URL intact and was returned back into the safe hands of parent-company, Google.
I could start from Melbourne where a hotel room debate raged over whether it was possible to find true love with someone who was
"amazing in every way. But, was only four foot six and was a bit special."
"Head special? Or leg special"
"leg"
"definetly."
Or I could start last week, on holidays in Perth when me and my companions found ourselves out at dinner with about six girls. I found myself placed at a quiet end of the table surrounded by two girls who wore alot of make-up (I was going to make a "wearing the ENTIRE L'Oreal counter" joke, but they have all been taken by Miranda Devine and Maggie Alderson to describe people like them that don't have a column in a weekend liftout.) One of them described what she did as "nothing", and the other one had a fully blown English accent and when asked where she was from said "Perth" - but she's "based" (read, on exchange for uni) in England now, and has just popped back for a spot of holidaying in the colonies. The cultural cringe is still alive and well in Perth, apparently.
Tom provided perhaps my favourite point in the conversation, when he asked a carefully aimed zinger:
"So you girls are all school friends, when did you leave school"
"Umm, what year was it? I can't remember it feels like so long ago now."
"How old are you again?"
"Nineteen."
"...So it was probably the year before last year then?"
One of them was named Evette, which we quickly renamed ciga-vette because you shouldn't inflict her on children - they might catch boring.
It would be a stretch, but what about starting with my interview with a careers advisor in late-2002 where I was given a huge list of careers and was told to tick all the ones I thought I might like to do?:
"You picked pop-star. Do you play music?"
"No, I did play the violin for a while, but not any more."
"Well, why did you pick it then?"
"You said to pick jobs that I would like to do."
"They are meant to be jobs that you could realistically do."
"Well, I could start playing music."
"Ok, working in a bar or nightclub?"
"Yep"
"That's something you would like to do?"
"Yeah, I reckon I'd like that."
"As a career?"
"Maybe not as a career, but while I was at uni and stuff."
"See, we are here to talk about careers, not casual work."
"Okay"
"Professional sportsperson?"
"Yeah, that would be an awesome job."
"What sports do you play?"
"I play rugby for school."
"Is it something you think you could do professionally?"
"well, I'm in the thirds - but the standards are quite high, and I'm pretty sure I deserved to at least be in the seconds, the coach doesn't like me."
...
"Write a novel."
"Yeah, I reckon I'd do that."
"Did you get a good mark in English?"
"Not really, I actually did better in maths, but I don't like maths or science."
"Writers need strong English. And writing a novel isn't really something you can do for a job straight away."
"Then why is it on the list?"
...
"what do you think I should do then"
"leisure management at UTS Kuringai Campus."
"... I was thinking when I went to uni I would rather go somewhere in the city."
"But you live on the north shore."
"Yeah, but I thought it would be good to meet different people and stuff."
"So where do you want to go? Sydney Uni?
"Yeah"
"It takes about an hour to get there you know?"
"Yeah, I wouldn't mind."
"And you can't do leisure management there either."
"I don't think I really want to do that."
"What else are you going to do?"
(silence)
"I bought a video I made for a thing at school, if you want to see that."
"What's it about?"
"Well, it's pretty funny - it's about trying to find an athletics trophy, which we eventually find in a toilet but the voices came out really bad so we put music in instead and used subtitles."
"So you want to be a filmmaker?"
THE START.
Currently listening: Police Scanner
