Reflection

Sitting in a bathtub in jeans with a hard-won glass of wine and an iPad offers a singularly unique opportunity for reflection that should rightly only come knocking once in an average lifetime. Given these circumstances, I feel that I should take advantage of them and reflect on the last 11 years on the last weekend I spend as a resident of 7 Dewar Court, Highland Park.

Before getting to that though, allow me to thank Toastmasters Area 27 for the lovely bottle of 2009 recioto style Shiraz that I am drinking tonight and Peggy Krenn for giving me the opportunity to test speak at their conference. It was a wonderful event.

While on the topic of wine, allow me to offer two pieces of advice to the reader: first, when packing to move house, always pack the corkscrew last. Secondly, give Ingenuity a wide berth should it rear it’s ugly head. The only provision for the latter being that if Persistence happens across your path at the same time you are guaranteed success so by all means, continue.

Such is the result after expending quite a bit of effort and the application of corn cob holders, a small screwdriver and an oyster knife. A fine, delightfully effervescent red with a fruity body and a clean finish. Exhibiting sweet berry flavours and entirely lacking in wood, this wine is a fine finish to a hard afternoon’s work.

11 years – just over half my life – spent in one house. Something that was an alien concept for the first couple of years finally became the norm. I have celebrated a lot of achievements here and some of my happiest – and most horrifying – experiences have been lived out under this roof.

We moved in here when I was still in primary school. Dad was planning on getting out of the army and Mum got a house for her birthday. This was my first real “home.” After moving almost yearly for many of my earlier years, I was out of practice in making friends and had more of a friendship with characters between the covers of my beloved books than I did in the flesh and blood. A lot has changed since then and I have gone from being a recluse to someone with a social circle, however small it may be.

After a rather bad experience with a so-called “friend” in grade 4 at Worongary State School, I kept pretty much to myself and became active in the gardening and chess clubs, though it ended up being more about the activity than the club. I had resigned myself to a fairly lonely existence for the coming years.

Due to my complete ignorance of social cues and inability to understand inflection in speech and body language I would regularly misinterpret the intentions of my classmates. This is only something I realised recently and my strange reactions to their initial good-natured teasing was what lead to me being called “weird” and – my least favorite insult of all – a “psycho.” Of course I didn’t respond favorably to these new and innovative adjectives which resulted in a depressing downward spiral.

Continued torment in the playground paralleled steady achievement in the classroom, though it was here that I drew a conclusion that I now regret. I dismissed my Japanese classes as pointless and rejected all LOTE activities – seeing them purely as a waste of time. Now with my desire to see the world (and my interest in learning Japanese) I heartily wish I had continued with them.

A quick aside: Today’s barbecue with some people I have met through a meetup group was a perfect example. 70% of them were Japanese – and having started pretty much from scratch this year I wish I had access to the same resources I had in school.

I had a fantastic time and Akira (centre, above) spoke fantastic English, but it would be great to be able to communicate in Japanese sometimes.

This wasn’t entirely my own doing, though. After leaving Worongary to attend a new (blessedly small) campus of Saint Stephen’s College, Japanese wasn’t on the menu. I started playing catch-up on Indonesian. I never got very far.

Cut back to primary school at St Stephens.

While there I ran into some kids I knew from when Dad was in the Army. They made it known that I was “strange” and word spread like wildfire. Unfortunately – in hindsight – I was strange, by their standards at least. Regardless of any strangeness though, it was at this school that I made my first friend in years. Leif sparked in me an interest in technology and introduced me to computer games. He told me about an “Excellence Expo” (at first I wasn’t sure if it really existed) that he was participating in and after some investigation I secured a late entry. With half the time to prepare that the other participants had, I worked frantically and ended up coming second with my presentation on the subject of “clean power” – renewable and sustainable electricity sources. With that victory I won the princely sum of $50 – a small fortune at that age.

It would be remiss of me to forget Mrs. Huth at this time, a master educator without whom my time at St. Stephens would have been unbearable. She encouraged my growing passion for technology and opened the doors of her domain (the pre-school classroom) to Leif and I to experiment on old and broken video recorders and other electronic devices while acting as a confidant and counsellor for me for those two years. I am eternally in her debt.

Looking back today as a gainfully employed computer programmer, it is really Leif, who got me interested in computers, who set me on the path to where I am today.

That golden year ended and the campus shut down. Suddenly I was plunged into the deep end with a transfer to the much, much larger Coomera campus of the school. I won’t dwell too much on this, for fear of this becoming biographical, but it’s important.

This year was the year I lost it. I suffered (for want of a better word) psychotic episodes where I would do things and have no recollection of doing them. The school advocated drugging me and eventually delivered an ultimatum. This was a turning point for me. Possibly the lowest point in my life. Like many people, this was where I discovered religion.

The “God” fellow I read about in my standard, school-issue Good News Bible sounded like a pretty awesome kinda guy. Someone who won’t care if I’m Strange? Count me in!

It suffices for the purposes of this essay to say that my viewpoint has changed dramatically in the elapsed years.

The decision to return me to public schooling was an easy one after our private school experience. Returning to Worongary for a few terms didn’t dramatically improve things and when I was hospitalized after a panic attack (in the office of a guidance counsellor of ALL places) I was withdrawn from school.

The years I spent doing home schooling in the environment of my parents’ respective businesses prepared me for my professional career and – like it or not – my three year affair with the Church gave me the rudimentary social skills I needed for my last two years of school. I’m glad I decided to return to school for them. I had some fantastic experiences and even though there were good times and bad times, the good far outweighed the bad. The four years I had been away from school had given me ample time to develop an understanding of social conduct and even though some ghosts from my past reared their ugly heads (briefly) it was overall an incredibly positive experience.

Years 11 and 12 prepared me well for the social challenges of uni and even though I changed majors and dropped out, uni was a worthwhile experience. My life would have been that much less complete were it not for the Zarraffas Coffees I got from Aydan and his crew at the Myer Centre.

In all seriousness I met some amazing people at Qantm College and the things I learned in our communication and psychology classes really helped me to understand past events. On the same note though – the decision to drop out was a good one. I am now in a good job that I enjoy (most of the time!) and I have good coworkers. I am traveling the world and meeting a lot of new and awesome people, but most importantly:

I’m happy.

So ends this chapter of the story. I have been working so far for 12 months and I am facing plenty of interesting challenges weekly. The last 11 years has done a lot to set me up for the future and I am confident that the next 12 months will bring me challenges aplenty and I will overcome them all.

Now I just need to wait and see how the world will prove me wrong.

It’s almost four hours now since I started writing and I’m out of the bath. Jeans still on and they are drying out. This had been rewritten many times and trended towards being autobiographical at times (sorry Laura, I know you have rights to that one!) and it’s time to wrap it up. See you all on the other side of the move!

Sitting in a bathtub in jeans with a hard-won glass of wine and an iPad offers a singularly unique opportunity for reflection that should rightly only come knocking once in an average lifetime. Given these circumstances, I feel that I should take advantage of them and reflect on the last 11 years on ...