Adelaide is not god's waiting room

Well okay, maybe it is to some but that means that lots of other places are too. No, Adelaide is the perfect place to live. You can do as little or as much as you like, but it will rarely force you to do something. As a friend pointed out recently, perhaps thats the problem, it lets you be slack and get away with things you probably couldn't in a more competive city. Still its a shame. I like the life I've built here.

I arrived in 1996 from a medium-large town in NSW called Nowra. The differences are too many to begin to describe. In a strange quirk, I had to leave high school and go back to primary school because of the different education systems (did you know that what they call prep in Victoria, is kindergarden in NSW and reception in SA?). High School wasn't going exactly to plan for me. I'd had heaps of friends at the end of primary school but it didn't translate. Things were so much more hardcore and i was just a nice half asian boy.

Back in primary school, things didn't get much better. Holden Hill North is now closed and i think i can safely say good ridence. It was so small, i was in a composite class of thirteen year 7s and about eighteen year 6s. There wasn't much chance to make real friends halfway through the year except with the social death kids, as Jonathen Franzen might put it. I'm ashamed to say that it bothered me so much that i tried to act like the cool kids (who I realise now were utter imbeciles). I remember getting poeple to sign a book and write few words. I found it while packing a few days ago and had read it (all 20 small pages of it). I'd forgotten what a rotten time i'd had, it almost made me cry. The comments were a mixture cruel and indifferent mostly, appart from a small few from the social death kids. I threw it away.

After that i spent a term at Banksia Park High School where i was equally misfitted until we moved yet again and I started at Norwood Morialta which was much better for me. Here i learnt about drama and started a cult called The Mulligraters with my best mate Leslie. Every recess we would have to walk to the gym and back to the courtyard before doing aything else. Normally it was scabbing money for zooper doopers. My favourite colour was pink, fairy floss flavour. On a good day we may have scored 5 between recess and lunch. It was years later that I learnt what a mulligrater was, when i saw it hanging in Leslie's mum's Kitchen.

Wow, I could go on for ever. Nowadays The Mulligraters are all but powerless and forgotten. Leslie's in Sydney being successful and I'm about to go and study sound at RMIT. Its a bit like a full circle for me because my mum's family is from Footscray in west Melbourne. I lived there for a bit when i was very young after we got back from New Zealand. The circle, briefly, goes like this - Auckalnd (Grey Lin), Melbourne (Footscray, Yarraville, Port Melbourne), Hastings (mornington peninsula), Nowra (NSW), Adelaide and now Coburg.

After the intial hiccup, Adelaide has been great for me. Just recently it has really began to make an imprint on me. Its certainly the closest thing that I've had to a home town. I used to think i had no home town, that i was a citizen of the world and that I'd just be moving on and on, but now the anticipation of leaving is beginning to nibble and pull at me. I'm going to miss it.

Australia Day

I mixed a band on Australia Day, actually, I mixed three. The venue had a huge Australian Flag hung above the stage and it started me thinking. Sure we have things to be proud about, but they seam like frivolous or coincidental things. We know how to have a good time, BBQs, beaches, sun and then my list goes blank. Have i just summed up all that makes Australia unique? Need i point out that many other places have these things?

The environment is choking.
Happy salt pan day.
Celebrate complacency with an Australian flag day.

The real uniqueness of Australia lies in its conservative collectiveness. In its sensationalist press, chequebook journalism and trials by media.

Sun-burnt land, now that's getting closer to the mark. The land of depleted ozone and melanoma.

Self proclaimed vanity day.
Get pissed and wave the flag day.
Fuck you if you don't agree that Australia's great day.
Listen to what yobos say because they say the same things and they say it louder day.

Yes okay, lets enjoy the day off but who are we kidding? Lets not pretend we're achieving anything too significant. Lets not flatter ourselves too much.

Most of us are off all right day.
If the weathers nice we spend it outside day.
I'm glad I'm not at the factory/office day.
If its hot lets go swimming day.
If its not lets get together and drink anyway
We couldn't care less, but thanks for the holiday.

Been some time

These hot nights in Adelaide are no good for sleeping. I'm normally excellent at it (in any conditions), but at the moment I'm staying up late and sweating in front of the computer instead. So much has happened recently since i last posted that it seems silly to reel them all off now, but I'll try.

I made a score for a film. The film was Que Viva Mexico, by Sergei Eisenstein. Now that I've had time to think about things, it was an exercise in economy for me: high output with limited polish on my part. It was a huge undertaking and it still surprises me that I got it finished! That’s not to say it was bad, its not, but I know what I would have done with the extra time. It took three months from all up. Thanks to all involved, I could never have done it alone.

I finished the certificate in music technology and passed! Well, it was no surprise really, but a few subjects did get a bit wobbly at the end. *Ahem*, Keyboard and Aural. I did make a great friend in Jodie O'Regan though, and she’s a genius - which more than compensates. More recently I received word that RMIT have accepted my application to study sound with them and I'm quietly excited about it... the real stuff won't hit me until i'm there. I have to be in Melbourne by the 19th of Feb to start!

It’s sad to leave Adelaide, my pond for the last 11 years. I will miss lots of people but I don’t regret a second of it.