Arrival

Hello all!
I have arrived in Windsor, my home for the next few months or so. It’s important that I stress to you that because it might be named Windsor, it does not quite carry the majestic undertone. Windsor is, at least it was by first impressions, a tiny sun-scorched town in south west Ontario, right on the border of Detroit. Thus, much of it appeared to be very ghetto! However, like my first impressions in Toronto, further discovery had me realize just what kind of city it is.
Windsor is indeed a small town, of sorts, but actually a lot larger than what we would call a small town. In fact, in terms of population it has twice the number of Frankston. Despite this however, it is still considered a small-town by Canadian standards. Basically Windsor is a University town, business thrives on patronage during semester, and all advertising it appears, is geared towards students. In fact, many places had welcome back students signs plastered around the front. This gives you an indication of the somewhat ‘dry’ summer they had.
In terms of weather... Windsor is infamous for actually being one of the hottest parts of Canada, yet also one of the coldest. Not only does it get to 30 degrees Celsius, it actually heads toward Melbourne summer weather of 40 degrees Celsius and more. In winter it snows, but often it actually gets too cold to snow.
So a few things... the drive to Windsor is as interesting as watching the clock tick by. Its all farmland between here and Toronto. Canadians are extremely polite, over here Australians are renowned for our laid back culture, and being easily approachable etc. May I just say, we are nothing on them. Even ‘gang’ types are friendly and would gladly help you if you were lost. Sometimes, you can walk through Windsor and think that at any time you could get shot. Seriously, the West is like ghetto town, however – its so ridiculously safe!
So I feel I need to elaborate on the safety of Windsor. Basically, Windsor is a border town – my room is literally about 100 metres from the US border...to Detroit. We all know the kind of rap Detroit has. Windsor basically doesn’t want to be associated with that kind of rap, and who can blame them? For that reason, police presence is amazing! On Saturday night we went ‘downtown’, and without a word of a lie, there was a police car with at least two police officers on each block of the strip. Also handy to note, there were also paramedics nearby. The mere presence and numbers act as a deterrent, and there is rarely any trouble except for the occasional overly intoxicated person who spends the night sobering up in a nice, cosy jail cell.
Life on res here at Windsor has been pretty crazy so far... I’m home from my third night of drinking, with plans to continue drinking the following night. So far, we’ve been ‘downtown’ which is the night club district, we went to a graffiti party held by the student alliance, and to a toga ‘kegger’ party tonight. Tomorrow night is ‘multi-level’ foam night. This is where the three levels of the student centre are filled with foam... pretty interesting!
Everyone I have made friends with here have been really amazing, Canadians are so polite, its astonishing. The other exchange students are really friendly, and we’re all helping each other out. In terms of accommodation, our rooms are excellent, but given that we are exchange students its not the most convenient housing. We have to supply a lot of our own cooking utensils, and the like...and such things are relatively annoying, particularly when you don’t have all that much room to take them home.
I mentioned my three nights of drinking, I would just like to point out that I am not drinking that much. For example, tonight I spent $8 on alcohol...admittedly alcohol is extremely cheap, and I was a tad tipsy... by no means was I going to be spending a night in a cosy jail cell!
Anyway, a few more things and I'll leave it. This is getting extremely long! Yesterday we had a Welcome Convocation, and if my camera was working properly I would show you all the craziness that it was. Unfortunately the building we were in wasn't exactly designed for photography. Basically the concept is similar to graduation, a little bit formal, but actually - really not. All first years gather in this hall, and they are arranged in the faculty that they are in. Exchange students are their own little group, so that was cool. The idea of this is to officially welcome and admit the students into the university, and its also a bit of a noise-off. It is a battle between which group can make the most noise, and which groups can insult the other in chants etc. It's just amazing, I wish I could remember some of the chants... they were hilarious. The only thing one I can remember is the chant from the engineering side of the room "We are, we are, we are the engineers...we can, we can, we can demolish 40 beers". The drama group made a chant that had everyone in fits of laughter, it was something about preferring to be dead than an engineer. The commerce group, which filled my heart with pride to hear their chant, which had something to do with the fact they'd all be working for them one day. It was pretty insane, and extremely fun!
Today my classes start and my first class is at 4pm, I finish at 10pm. I have never had such an odd timetable... but I will live I'm sure!

Anyway, this is enough!!!
Missing you all! (I swear!)

Hotel

So!
I'm at a Hotel in Tullamarine, anticipating my flight at a ridiculously early hour...6am! I'm feeling a bit scared, a little bit excited...paranoid I've forgotten something. I'm also pretty tired, 6 hours til my flight leaves - not too sure if I should bother sleeping.

It doesn't feel real yet, I think...hrm!

Ok!
Speak to you all soon when I land!

Aftermath

As most of you are aware, last night was dedicated to celebrating my departure to Canada for 6ish months, and to the 22nd birthday of one of my best friends Aaron. Naturally, such a momentous occassion cannot go un-posted/blogged/bulletinised. So, I have a few things to say about the night, a few thankyou messages and of course, photos to upload and share.

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone that came! Even if you were for the Aaron side of the party! It was an amazing night, and it was really great to catch up with so many people I haven't seen in some time, and just as good seeing all of those who I see more frequently. Many of you had to juggle plans, come after work, and even sacrifice other relatively important events to be there. I am truely thankful, and I really hope it was worth it for you. I would like to reiterate the fact that I had an amazing night, and apologise for my intoxication and any inappropriate behaviour that resulted!

I would also like to thank everyone that brought me gifts. For those of you that didn't, I will comment on the fact that I did not expect gifts, nor did I even realise farewells were a gift-giving affair. But that does not mean I did not appreciate the thoughtfulness, and the gifts themselves, that I received. The gifts I did receive will come in handy for in-flight entertainment, and for knowing where the hell I am going when I am in Canada!

Another thankyou to everyone who signed my card! It really is hilarious to read over, and just see how drunk some people were. Endless entertainment. There were a number of heartfelt messages that got me a little emotional, like I may have gotten at a few points in the night. Also to those who signed Aaron's as if it were mine, and vice versa, you need to learn to handle your alcohol better!!

The biggest thankyou of all however, goes to Aaron. It was Aaron's idea to have a joint party, for a number of reasons, and it was a great idea from the get-go. I had no reservations sharing a party with Aaron, simply because we share a lot of the same friends, and Aaron is a true friend and didn't hog the limelight!! Aaron was the mastermind, and executor of all the party plans. He did all the organising and my only input was financial, and buying ice. I feel I am in huge debt to him, not even I expected such an amazing set up. Thankyou also goes to his mother, who allowed all of us into her house, to farewell me and celebrate Aaron's birthday. Phil's mother also gets a mention for providing the mini quiches that I loved!

A few things I need to mention. There were a few serious conversations I had last night. Most of you who I shared these with would probably think I don't remember them. But for those of you who got these exclusive talks, I do remember, and I meant every word of what I said.

Thank you everyone for coming, giving me your well wishes, and the rest! I won't forget the night, despite my intoxication, and I won't forget any of you. I will be doing my best to keep in touch with everyone while I am overseas. I would also like to remind everyone that Aaron's actual birthday is this Monday, 18th of August... so, flood his inbox, phone and any other medium you can think of to wish him a happy birthday.
That is all.

Change

Firstly, for those even remotely interested - I will be removing my Kinsmen of Aquium blog (my story blog) until I get momentum to keep going. Even though only the prologue is posted, and have written almost an entire bibles worth of story, I'm not liking where its going...so some changes will be made. Thus, the blog will shortly be removed.
Secondly, I'm leaving for Canada shortly - I have compiled a mailing list of people I'll be emailing with updates. Rest assured that if you haven't made it to the list (due to my oversight and severe lack of organisation) that updates will be available via blog. On that topic, I can't decide if I want to create a new blog just for Canada, or just use this blog.
Feedback on this thought anyone?

Anyway, that is all for now.

Anxious

The 25th of August is getting ever-closer, and the date is daunting me. I am so worried about not being ready to leave the country for five months. I have barely been away from home for a weekend alone, I think schoolies week was possibly my longest period away from home without my parents. Naturally, I am beginning to stress. So now, I'm going to write a list of things I need to do, to organise, to get before I head overseas. Please, allow me to bore you with my list.

• Buy new memory card(s) for digital camera and video camera
• Buy new video camera case
• Get new mobile phone! (this is something relatively new on my to do list, because my phone decided to go all crap on me today)
• US Consulate interview! (gah, the effort)
• Go to Deakin Education Abroad fair
• Add my mother as a signatory to my bank account
• Learn how to use Skype!
• Create email group for people I want to keep updated
• Buy travel socks!! (my mother is forcing me to)
• Buy new digital camera case as well...
• Convert some money!

Anyway, I can't think of anything else at this point...there is probably 20million things to add to that, but for now that will do...

Only 25 days!!!

Revelations

OK, so completely neglecting my initial plan of a "friends" series of posts, I have begun my new story blog!
http://aquium.blogspot.com
For those of you who take the time to read it, please remember I am not a professional writer :P, just dabbling in the area. My inspiration for writing lies in the fact, that no story exists in this way. It is a story I want to read, it merges a lot of concepts and ideas from other movies and films I have picked up over the years. In that sense, its somewhat borrowed, but it is not so much that it is illegal. Certainly, it is not so 'borrowed' that the story could be read from a better writer. That is why, I wrote it...so I could read, something I want to read, but does not exist yet!

In other news, a very bitchy blog will arrive shortly. I am having conversations with the head of a particularly new political party that is gaining some ground in Australia, particularly with University students. It is bitchy because, what I believe are their core values, are heavily contradicted in their activity. And despite many of my friends being directly involved, I detest some of the things they do, and how blatantly ignorant they are of Australian law, and the implications of the Australian Consitution (the embedded Commonwealth one, not the state try-hard versions) both in terms of structure, and 'freedoms'. So, that is coming...but before I randomly blog with a point of view that could easily be disregarded for its lack of credibility, I am attempting a well-researched blog.

That is all for now!

Sadness

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...

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!

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!

Responsible

This is one of the few blogs written quite some time before its actually posted. In fact, I wrote this on my break at uni a while ago, after a waste of time lecture, but I'll get back to that.

This morning I had an oral presentation, requiring me to wear a suit. Which is actually somewhat annoying, I've had plenty of stares - and still getting some as I sit here outside Cafe Ava writing in my fancy blue, grossly underused, lecture pad.

So I'm using this blog to bitch, whine, moan and complain - which is an area I'm most accomplished in, and as a gentle reminder to myseld. Which will become bleedingly obvious momentarily. Firstly, Luke! Start studying for exams! You have roughly 3 weeks for you're first exam and given your poor lecture attendance and some poor assignments marks, and despite awesome ones, you need to move your ass and actually do some work this semester.

OK so now that I'm done scolding myself for my general laziness and lack of ethic this semester, we shal move onto more juicy areas of my blog. As I mentioned earlier, I had an oral presentation this morning, and one thing really stuck in my craw.

Social responsibility is not exclusively an environmental concept. This morning I listened to four speeches about Social Responsibility - none of which adequately defined what it is, and all of which went off on uncharacterised tangents about environmental sustainability. This is a common misconception of corporate social responsility. It does include the evironment, but it is not equal to environmental sustainability - they are two distinctly different concepts.

Social responsibility refers to an organisations concern to the TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE. THat is profit, social impact and environmental impact. An organisation can be deemed socially responsible if they are achieving sustainable profit margings, whilst being at least reactive to its negative impacts on society and the environment, and goes further than mere legislative compliance in doing so.

Just because organisations may do something right by the environment, it does not make them socially responsible. The Body Shop is often used as an example of social responsibility. And undoubtedly, some of the work they do for society and the environment is fantastic, particularly for the Australian Indigenous communities.

However, I'd be one of the few people to argue it is not socially responsible. Primarily because of ownership. The Body Shop, more recently, became a subsidiary of L'Oreal, which is partly owned by Nestle - two of the most socially irresponsible organisations in our time. L'Oreal are doing no favours to wildlife, and Nestle are doing no favours to infants in Africa.

What I really want, is people to not look at organisations doing the right thing, but actually look at why. In my opinion, the why factor is what honestly determines social responsibility. The Body Shop's work with the Indigenous communities of Australia is more than admirable - but what impact were they having on the community to warrant the reaction? My research suggests nothing. Then you could easily argue that the Body Shop are being proactive. So, what future impact did the Body Shop expect to have on the indigenous? Again, research has yielded me nothing. So why then, are they doing it? It could be legitimate concern or a marketing strategy, either way it doesn't fall in the reals of social responsibility. This is what most people misunderstand about social responsibility. It has to be relevant to the business - not just a nice act.

Westpac is socially responsible in that they sacrificed profit, by signing an international agreement with other banks in the world, to not fund socially or environmentally questionnable ventures. This is because its one of the few banks that realise their funds are directly assisting negative environmental and social endeavours by organisations. It was reactive, not proactive as management theory encourages, but nonetheless it is an act by Westpac, that is socially responsible because the policy has actual relevance to the businesses environmental or social impact.

So I begin again, a few days later - and my position hasn't changed. People need to realise that for as long as the triple bottom line approach is the accepted defining factor behind social responsbility, the answer lies in the organisations actual impact or perceived impact. Terming an organisation socially responsible is inherently more difficult than simply analysing those nice things in which they commit themselves to.

So now we're doing back to the world of Luke. Currently my arm is sore from playing Wii tennis on Saturday night at Cazi's. The pain was only exacerbated by my exam paced handwriting when I wrote this blog.

Canada is not far away, and my questionnable account balance and general feeling of unpreparedness has me feeling a little scared. But I'm also extremely excited. For the update - my current plans of travel so far are;
Depart Melbourne - Arrive Vancouver, BC - staying in Vancouver for a few days before travelling on down...
Depart Vancouver - Arrive Toronto, ON - staying in the city for a few days as well before heading down to Windsor to begin my Semester abroad.
Once I'm in Windsor I'll probaby do some travel from there, but that's sketchy at this point - all I know is, I want to go to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and I'm spending New Years in New York. And despite the legal drinking age, I intend on having the best New Years experience ever.

It's my 20th birthday on Wednesday. It's actually depressing. Given its proximity to exams, my options for celebrating are somewhat limited...However... I've never been one to study too far away from exams, I'm definitely pro-cramming.

This is sufficiently long enough an update, that is all.