Going against what was going to be a series of posts relating to friends, how I met them and what they mean to me, I have decided to post about something particularly current. Right now I am caring for my grandmother, while my Aunty and cousins go away for a few days to Queensland. I am only one day into my 6 day stint with her, and already I am going crazy.
For the most part, I grew up with grandmother as a very active, very intuitive and inspirational person. She was a headstrong woman, with a 'proper' answer to everything. She laid the foundation for much of my personal discovery. So, it is with great sadness I have had to witness the demise and diminuition of her mind, and her physical decline to the state known as 'frail'. She is 87 years of age, so it is not all that surprising, but it is a little saddening that she no longer knows who I am. I have already had that experience with a grandmother before, at least this time, my grandmother is threatening to throw a brick at me.
While I am up here, I have to know her routine, prepare her meals and get her places she needs to be. Unfortunately, my Aunty has neglected to let me know when things are happening. However, I do not have to worry about not being awake in time, a little furry annoyance by the name of 'Boots' takes care of that, waking me up at 5.30am!
This is an entirely weird experience, I used to spend a lot of time with my grandma, until things started going awry, and in the past few years I have mainly seen her hospital or at Christmas. She is too easily overwhelmed, so naturally we have had to cut back on how often we see her, less we disorient her further. That is disheartening in itself. Spending this, short week, with her will prove to be emotionally draining. This woman was my idol, for who she was and what she accomplished is amazing, her private wealth is a testament to that. If only she could remember the work she did for the government, for the company she is still technically a director of...
Anyway, that is someone else now, it is not the Tess I am with this week. The Tess I am with is constantly asking me where they are, and informing me she does not know where he is. I am assuming she is referring to my grandpa Des, who never had the opportunity to know. Although last night, she did ask if I was alone or will Des be coming. That was hard...
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Jacquie
“Okay everyone! What we’re going to do now…because you’re all first years, and probably don’t know each other – sit next to someone you don’t know!”
Upon hearing our instructions, both Natalie and I looked at each other anxiously, and around the bus to scout out people we would judge to be someone we could like. I spotted this one guy, in his tan pinstriped trousers and light pink dress shirt. Convinced I would be barking up the wrong tree, I shot my eyes towards the girl sitting next to him. Our eyes locked, this was it, this was the random I would be sitting next to for the bus trip to a place or places we did not know. She was tall, had long brown hair, sporting a dress featuring satin and many colours.
“So now the fun begins! To introduce yourself to your partner, exchange names and favourite sexual positions.”
“Wow…this is going to be awkward.” I gathered up the courage to speak to the girl.
“Aha…yeah. I’m Jacquie!” She responded, with a immense infectious smile.
“I’m Luke. So I guess you’re a first year… what course are you doing?” I ask.
“Science, what about you?”
“Commerce.” I nervously eavesdrop into others conversations around us, to see if they’re actually discussing sexual positions… to my shock, everyone was getting into the intimate details of their sexual fantasies, this was certainly…an interesting experience.
“Okay…so I guess we should discuss our favourite sexual positions?” I ask, the anxiety in my voice would have been ingenuous.
“So what is yours?” She shoots back.
Plucking the courage to respond honestly, I use my hands and inappropriate thrusts to depict my preferred position.
This resulted in a look of shock, and a fit of hysterics.
I never did find out Jacquie’s favourite position. Apparently, she was in too much shock at my honesty. That is the story of how I met Jacquie, on the O Week Mystery Bus Tour – and for those interested, that guy I thought was hot turned out to be her boyfriend. That night, turned into a great bonding experience. By that I mean, a truly inebriated affair held between Jacquie, her boyfriend at the time Andrew, Natalie and myself. In fact, my greatest achievement of that night was being named champion of the bus, which meant I was the drunkest and thus, people had to buy me drinks! In my drunken courage, I even took my top off on the dance floor at Metro. It was a great night had by all, and the beginning of an awesome friendship.
Attending the remaining O-Week festivities together with Jacquie, and all of the later Uni parties for the year, and even random Uni-bar nights – we had many drunken nights together, and even the more rare sober ones. I have even developed rapport with her cat Sassy, who at this point – has not scratched me since jumping on me one night in my sleep. Through Jacquie, I have met a lot of other great people, and done a lot of great things. These include but are not limited to people such as Carly, and great things such as working the corners of Hawthorn raising money for the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal.
During the first year of Uni, I saw a lot of Jacquie – having semi-regular lunches and the like. Unfortunately, due to our timetables, catching up is a little more irregular, however I do appreciate the fact that we are able to pick up from where we left off!
Upon hearing our instructions, both Natalie and I looked at each other anxiously, and around the bus to scout out people we would judge to be someone we could like. I spotted this one guy, in his tan pinstriped trousers and light pink dress shirt. Convinced I would be barking up the wrong tree, I shot my eyes towards the girl sitting next to him. Our eyes locked, this was it, this was the random I would be sitting next to for the bus trip to a place or places we did not know. She was tall, had long brown hair, sporting a dress featuring satin and many colours.
“So now the fun begins! To introduce yourself to your partner, exchange names and favourite sexual positions.”
“Wow…this is going to be awkward.” I gathered up the courage to speak to the girl.
“Aha…yeah. I’m Jacquie!” She responded, with a immense infectious smile.
“I’m Luke. So I guess you’re a first year… what course are you doing?” I ask.
“Science, what about you?”
“Commerce.” I nervously eavesdrop into others conversations around us, to see if they’re actually discussing sexual positions… to my shock, everyone was getting into the intimate details of their sexual fantasies, this was certainly…an interesting experience.
“Okay…so I guess we should discuss our favourite sexual positions?” I ask, the anxiety in my voice would have been ingenuous.
“So what is yours?” She shoots back.
Plucking the courage to respond honestly, I use my hands and inappropriate thrusts to depict my preferred position.
This resulted in a look of shock, and a fit of hysterics.
I never did find out Jacquie’s favourite position. Apparently, she was in too much shock at my honesty. That is the story of how I met Jacquie, on the O Week Mystery Bus Tour – and for those interested, that guy I thought was hot turned out to be her boyfriend. That night, turned into a great bonding experience. By that I mean, a truly inebriated affair held between Jacquie, her boyfriend at the time Andrew, Natalie and myself. In fact, my greatest achievement of that night was being named champion of the bus, which meant I was the drunkest and thus, people had to buy me drinks! In my drunken courage, I even took my top off on the dance floor at Metro. It was a great night had by all, and the beginning of an awesome friendship.
Attending the remaining O-Week festivities together with Jacquie, and all of the later Uni parties for the year, and even random Uni-bar nights – we had many drunken nights together, and even the more rare sober ones. I have even developed rapport with her cat Sassy, who at this point – has not scratched me since jumping on me one night in my sleep. Through Jacquie, I have met a lot of other great people, and done a lot of great things. These include but are not limited to people such as Carly, and great things such as working the corners of Hawthorn raising money for the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal.
During the first year of Uni, I saw a lot of Jacquie – having semi-regular lunches and the like. Unfortunately, due to our timetables, catching up is a little more irregular, however I do appreciate the fact that we are able to pick up from where we left off!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Elated
Thanks to Paul, I have decided that I shall keep my blogs brief. At least, I will make some vain attempt to keep them short. Particularly as this is merely an update, this should be brief. I can assure you, that nothing juicy will come from this blog. However - I have some very juicy, or at least a lot more interesting, blogs intended to start being published on here throughout the week. So check in bitches!
On Friday I paid a visit to my travel agent, to confirm my travel "itinerary" for Canada. Itinerary is in quotes as me and Lee had an argument as to the use of the word, and in his view, my "itinerary" is too incomplete to be called an itinerary. The itinerary is as follows:
MONDAY QANTAS AIRWAYS
25 AUG 08 -DEPART -MELBOURNE/TULLAMARINE A 0630 NON-STOP
25 AUG 08 -ARRIVE -SYDNEY/SYDNEY KINGSFORD 0750 01HRS 20MINS
MONDAY AIR CANADA
25 AUG 08 -DEPART -SYDNEY/SYDNEY KINGSFORD 1010 NON-STOP
25 AUG 08 -ARRIVE -VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER AIR 0710 14HRS 00MINS
WEDNESDAY AIR CANADA
27 AUG 08 -DEPART -VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER AIR 0930 NON-STOP
27 AUG 08 -ARRIVE -TORONTO/LESTER B PEARSO 1702 04HRS 32MINS
TRAVEL VIA OWN ARRANGEMENTS
SATURDAY AIR CANADA
03 JAN 09 -DEPART -NEW YORK/JOHN F KENNEDY 0720 NON-STOP
03 JAN 09 -ARRIVE -VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER AIR 1039 06HRS 19MINS
SUNDAY AIR CANADA
11 JAN 09 -DEPART -VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER AIR 2355 NON-STOP
13 JAN 09 -ARRIVE -SYDNEY/SYDNEY KINGSFORD 1000 15HRS 05MINS
TUESDAY QANTAS AIRWAYS
13 JAN 09 -DEPART -SYDNEY/SYDNEY KINGSFORD 1230 NON-STOP
13 JAN 09 -ARRIVE -MELBOURNE/TULLAMARINE A 1400 01HRS 30MINS
So, while some of you will skip past that - the short story is, I'm going to Vancouver, staying for a few days before heading to Toronto. Once in Toronto, I will be staying for a few days before making my way to Windsor for Uni. I'll be staying in Windsor, and travelling weekends, etc. to all different parts of Canada. Come end of semester, just after Christmas, we'll be making our way to New York to celebrate New Years. From New York I will be travelling back to Vancouver, staying for a week or so before heading home.
In other news, work has underpaid me yet again. Payroll can look forward to a nasty letter from me, which people from work are signing to go along with the letter. People doubt that the letter will actually achieve anything - however, I am sure the company will realise the need for them to improve to avoid being sued, or having a union on their ass.
I am also slowly approaching my exams, and am yet to put in some decent study. However, I'm not worried...mostly because I'm over caring, Canada is far too exciting. When I begin to stress, that is when the bulk of 'decent' studying will take place, so until then I am fairly relaxed. Other than that, not much is happening in my life. It is Nander's birthday tomorrow and at this point, I have only brought him one present - which is not enough, we have a habit of going all out for each others birthdays, so I need to get on that.
That is it for now!
On Friday I paid a visit to my travel agent, to confirm my travel "itinerary" for Canada. Itinerary is in quotes as me and Lee had an argument as to the use of the word, and in his view, my "itinerary" is too incomplete to be called an itinerary. The itinerary is as follows:
MONDAY QANTAS AIRWAYS
25 AUG 08 -DEPART -MELBOURNE/TULLAMARINE A 0630 NON-STOP
25 AUG 08 -ARRIVE -SYDNEY/SYDNEY KINGSFORD 0750 01HRS 20MINS
MONDAY AIR CANADA
25 AUG 08 -DEPART -SYDNEY/SYDNEY KINGSFORD 1010 NON-STOP
25 AUG 08 -ARRIVE -VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER AIR 0710 14HRS 00MINS
WEDNESDAY AIR CANADA
27 AUG 08 -DEPART -VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER AIR 0930 NON-STOP
27 AUG 08 -ARRIVE -TORONTO/LESTER B PEARSO 1702 04HRS 32MINS
TRAVEL VIA OWN ARRANGEMENTS
SATURDAY AIR CANADA
03 JAN 09 -DEPART -NEW YORK/JOHN F KENNEDY 0720 NON-STOP
03 JAN 09 -ARRIVE -VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER AIR 1039 06HRS 19MINS
SUNDAY AIR CANADA
11 JAN 09 -DEPART -VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER AIR 2355 NON-STOP
13 JAN 09 -ARRIVE -SYDNEY/SYDNEY KINGSFORD 1000 15HRS 05MINS
TUESDAY QANTAS AIRWAYS
13 JAN 09 -DEPART -SYDNEY/SYDNEY KINGSFORD 1230 NON-STOP
13 JAN 09 -ARRIVE -MELBOURNE/TULLAMARINE A 1400 01HRS 30MINS
So, while some of you will skip past that - the short story is, I'm going to Vancouver, staying for a few days before heading to Toronto. Once in Toronto, I will be staying for a few days before making my way to Windsor for Uni. I'll be staying in Windsor, and travelling weekends, etc. to all different parts of Canada. Come end of semester, just after Christmas, we'll be making our way to New York to celebrate New Years. From New York I will be travelling back to Vancouver, staying for a week or so before heading home.
In other news, work has underpaid me yet again. Payroll can look forward to a nasty letter from me, which people from work are signing to go along with the letter. People doubt that the letter will actually achieve anything - however, I am sure the company will realise the need for them to improve to avoid being sued, or having a union on their ass.
I am also slowly approaching my exams, and am yet to put in some decent study. However, I'm not worried...mostly because I'm over caring, Canada is far too exciting. When I begin to stress, that is when the bulk of 'decent' studying will take place, so until then I am fairly relaxed. Other than that, not much is happening in my life. It is Nander's birthday tomorrow and at this point, I have only brought him one present - which is not enough, we have a habit of going all out for each others birthdays, so I need to get on that.
That is it for now!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
