My phone tells me that it’s Tuesday the 22nd of January 2008, just after 11pm, and I’ve just returned home from four-and-a-half hours parceling greasy popcorn out to overweight tourists. I’ve come home by myself, as the others have gone a-drinkin’ and so I find that I now have the perfect opportunity to blog once more.
Some of you may cry to hear that this is largely a text-only blog. So once you’ve dried your eyes please read on if you wish at all for any deeper insight into our travels so far.
This isn’t a tale of adventure in exotic places, a gripping thriller or even a heart-warming romance. I’m sure I could twist enough words to turn it into any of the above, and sure there are elements of all of these to a certain degree, nor am I going into any extraordinary detail journal entry by journal entry staying as closely to each factual event as possible, because that would be either pure genius if I was able to execute it perfectly, or a huge piece of boring shit if I didn’t. Instead I want to give you ‘the gist.’ Provide you guys back home with more of a sense, feel or taste of what our journey has been about so far, and I hope you can take something away from it as well.
As a group of mates, and all of you know this, we’re not without a flaw or two (the list has not yet been completed after all these years) and many of you reading would consider yourselves very familiar with the group and our idiosyncrasies. Some of you would consider yourselves integral to some of these idiosyncrasies.
To roughly outline what I’m talking about, I think as a whole ‘the Fags’ have been known to be friendly but bitchy, fun but lazy and hard to organize, and also generally good blokes whilst remaining somewhat insular at the same time. We certainly aren’t known for taking huge leaps out of our comfort zone. The reader will also note that these characteristics can also be applied (to some degree or other) to any one of us, and perhaps even yourself.
Having said all this one would have to question how this trip came to be at all (given we can’t often organize ourselves into being in one place at any given time when we’re in Melbourne).
I remember in 2007, maybe not much longer after the infamous canoeing adventure and possible even before, Josh began talking to me about going on a trip. Now when I say ‘talking’ I mean in the sense in that Josh always proposes his ideas. Josh is quite thoughtful by nature (surprising to some) and when it comes to big events like these he can be extremely cautious. It was the same with canoeing, and I completely understand his motivations. Josh likes to test the waters before he takes the plunge (that’s a metaphor, idiot). Josh likes to ‘fish.’
‘Hey Cam, how cool would it be if we all went camping somewhere random together.’
‘Yeah, it’d be pretty cool I guess. We could just stay the night at someone’s place, though.’
‘Well, yeah, but what if we did like an awesome-canoeing-camp thing. Like a canoe-camp. Have a lazy paddle during the day, sit back with some drinks around a fire after dark kind-of-thing.’
‘Would you like to come for a swim, Joshy?’
And so you get the gist. After a few more of these conversations I might eventually get the point that Josh actually is serious about the idea (even though it isn’t that crazy to begin with) and I would inevitably sign up to the idea, thinking that I had so much time before the event that I would have plenty of wriggling room to back out. Sometimes, I might need some help to get the message, though.
‘Hey Cam, Josh is organizing a canoeing trip,’ announces Jin. ‘You in?’
His success with that particular trip no doubt bolstered Josh when it came to his ultimate plan. Josh of course has plenty of Canadian connections through his family, and has visited the country several times before.
‘Hey Cam, how cool would it be to randomly fly off to Canada for three months once uni finishes this year?
‘Yeah, that’d be pretty cool. Who’s doing that?’
‘Oh, no-one. I meant how cool would it be if you and I flew off to Canada for three months?’
‘Yeah that’d be alright, I guess. Why do you ask?’
‘Let’s just play Halo, ok?’
Golden was next to sign on, with only the giddy school-girl enthusiasm that Golden can muster. An eternally optimistic chap, young Michael is characterized by his ability to love almost anything so long as you can sell it to him correctly, only becoming disagreeable when he is disagreed with. I wish I could claim, I taught him everything he knows, but at the least I have further refined his unique persona over the last few weeks. (The lessons may not be peaceful, but at the same time no one has been hurt, either.)
‘Hey Goldie. Josh and I are going to Canada. It’s going to be the koooooots! We’ll do the skiing, the parties, the women and we’ll also get awesome jobs while we’re there, too. Imagine!’
‘Yeah sure, mang. I’m in!’
If I remember correctly we found out Heathy and Jinna would come with us, at roughly the same time, a little closer to the departure date. Apparently Josh’s mum had been talking to Heathy’s mum, trying to get the pressure on Alex to go. He certainly had the funds we soon discovered, (the Handsome Man possesses the riches that Golden covets so greatly) and as soon as we helped convince him to come Jin had to seriously weigh up his options. In Jin’s case, an extended, late-night, bilingual discussion at home with his brother, Sam, convinced him he should come with us. (After many shots of soju they retired for eight-rounds of bare-knuckle kickboxing and nine-rounds of flaming hot dragon chicken.)
At this point I decided that I was past the point of backing out and my secretly provisional ‘yes’ was a decidedly real ‘I’m practically gone.’
Some of you may cry to hear that this is largely a text-only blog. So once you’ve dried your eyes please read on if you wish at all for any deeper insight into our travels so far.
This isn’t a tale of adventure in exotic places, a gripping thriller or even a heart-warming romance. I’m sure I could twist enough words to turn it into any of the above, and sure there are elements of all of these to a certain degree, nor am I going into any extraordinary detail journal entry by journal entry staying as closely to each factual event as possible, because that would be either pure genius if I was able to execute it perfectly, or a huge piece of boring shit if I didn’t. Instead I want to give you ‘the gist.’ Provide you guys back home with more of a sense, feel or taste of what our journey has been about so far, and I hope you can take something away from it as well.
As a group of mates, and all of you know this, we’re not without a flaw or two (the list has not yet been completed after all these years) and many of you reading would consider yourselves very familiar with the group and our idiosyncrasies. Some of you would consider yourselves integral to some of these idiosyncrasies.
To roughly outline what I’m talking about, I think as a whole ‘the Fags’ have been known to be friendly but bitchy, fun but lazy and hard to organize, and also generally good blokes whilst remaining somewhat insular at the same time. We certainly aren’t known for taking huge leaps out of our comfort zone. The reader will also note that these characteristics can also be applied (to some degree or other) to any one of us, and perhaps even yourself.
Having said all this one would have to question how this trip came to be at all (given we can’t often organize ourselves into being in one place at any given time when we’re in Melbourne).
I remember in 2007, maybe not much longer after the infamous canoeing adventure and possible even before, Josh began talking to me about going on a trip. Now when I say ‘talking’ I mean in the sense in that Josh always proposes his ideas. Josh is quite thoughtful by nature (surprising to some) and when it comes to big events like these he can be extremely cautious. It was the same with canoeing, and I completely understand his motivations. Josh likes to test the waters before he takes the plunge (that’s a metaphor, idiot). Josh likes to ‘fish.’
‘Hey Cam, how cool would it be if we all went camping somewhere random together.’
‘Yeah, it’d be pretty cool I guess. We could just stay the night at someone’s place, though.’
‘Well, yeah, but what if we did like an awesome-canoeing-camp thing. Like a canoe-camp. Have a lazy paddle during the day, sit back with some drinks around a fire after dark kind-of-thing.’
‘Would you like to come for a swim, Joshy?’
And so you get the gist. After a few more of these conversations I might eventually get the point that Josh actually is serious about the idea (even though it isn’t that crazy to begin with) and I would inevitably sign up to the idea, thinking that I had so much time before the event that I would have plenty of wriggling room to back out. Sometimes, I might need some help to get the message, though.
‘Hey Cam, Josh is organizing a canoeing trip,’ announces Jin. ‘You in?’
His success with that particular trip no doubt bolstered Josh when it came to his ultimate plan. Josh of course has plenty of Canadian connections through his family, and has visited the country several times before.
‘Hey Cam, how cool would it be to randomly fly off to Canada for three months once uni finishes this year?
‘Yeah, that’d be pretty cool. Who’s doing that?’
‘Oh, no-one. I meant how cool would it be if you and I flew off to Canada for three months?’
‘Yeah that’d be alright, I guess. Why do you ask?’
‘Let’s just play Halo, ok?’
Golden was next to sign on, with only the giddy school-girl enthusiasm that Golden can muster. An eternally optimistic chap, young Michael is characterized by his ability to love almost anything so long as you can sell it to him correctly, only becoming disagreeable when he is disagreed with. I wish I could claim, I taught him everything he knows, but at the least I have further refined his unique persona over the last few weeks. (The lessons may not be peaceful, but at the same time no one has been hurt, either.)
‘Hey Goldie. Josh and I are going to Canada. It’s going to be the koooooots! We’ll do the skiing, the parties, the women and we’ll also get awesome jobs while we’re there, too. Imagine!’
‘Yeah sure, mang. I’m in!’
If I remember correctly we found out Heathy and Jinna would come with us, at roughly the same time, a little closer to the departure date. Apparently Josh’s mum had been talking to Heathy’s mum, trying to get the pressure on Alex to go. He certainly had the funds we soon discovered, (the Handsome Man possesses the riches that Golden covets so greatly) and as soon as we helped convince him to come Jin had to seriously weigh up his options. In Jin’s case, an extended, late-night, bilingual discussion at home with his brother, Sam, convinced him he should come with us. (After many shots of soju they retired for eight-rounds of bare-knuckle kickboxing and nine-rounds of flaming hot dragon chicken.)
At this point I decided that I was past the point of backing out and my secretly provisional ‘yes’ was a decidedly real ‘I’m practically gone.’
This blog has gone on too long already, I know, so I'll have to continue it some other time. Hopefully I'll get to writing about the actual trip, rather than the events leading up to it....
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment