Not Bitten By The Travel Bug

I requested a book from travel company, Bunnik Tours, and received it in the mail yesterday. Despite the book being filled with great looking tours around various regions of the world nothing really excited me.

If I were to do one of their tours I would be traveling purely for the sake of it. There seems to be a perception that ‘society’ expects a young single bloke, like me, to get out and see the world (while he can). Yet the world doesn’t really interest me, at least not enough to travel for the sake of travel.

I have been overseas twice, both times to America. They were centred on a specific purpose. The first was an opportunity to work at a summer camp in Massachusetts. The second was an opportunity to play footy in America at their national championships against their national team. My inspiration and motivation to travel seems based around specific opportunities. If they work out then all well and good.

Maybe I’m boring or maybe it’s the simpler trips that excite me. For example:

• Ride on the Indian Pacific to Perth with brother Danny
• The PUFWE trips to Melbourne with friends in 2005, 2006 and 2007;
• The house sit for friends in Melbourne that coincided with the Swans premiership in 2005
• The ultimate football weekend in 2006
• Visiting friends in Canberra and seeing the sights in 2008
• The same day fly in / fly out trip to Melbourne to see Swans play the Hawks with a friend this year

Obviously going to Melbourne really excites me, and it’s more than just the thick presence of my favourite sport.

There is a common theme running throughout my trips. Even if overseas a main goal is to see a sporting event. In my trips to America I have seen minor league baseball in Bridgeport Connecticut and basketball in New York City.

Most tours are focused around scenery. I am usually after experiences, just check every post in my travel section. Although I did enjoy Niagara Falls, which is both scenery and an intense experience rolled into one. Although I could be converted if the ‘right’ person took me somewhere to appreciate scenery.

Kiddy Christenings

This weekend there was a baptism at a previous church I was visiting. I was reminded of all the baptisms I had witnessed when I was a regular member of the congregation. What interests me most is that the families had not been seen prior to baptism and rarely had they been seen afterwards.

I would understand if parents want a celebration of the birth of a new child, and children purely are a blessing. But it’s baffling that parents would bring their child to a church they have never been to. In the prepared script they state that they want to bring this child up with faith in God when it seems they have no intention of being part of the church community. The congregation responds by saying they will help to raise this child as their church family.

If you want a party then you can have a civil celebrant perform a ‘naming ceremony’. Everyone can gather, meet the baby and have a good time together.

It is great that church welcomes all and ultimately there is nothing wrong with letting parents baptise their baby at a church, regardless of their previous or future attendance. Any firm stance on who can bring children for baptism would do more harm than good.

I just don’t understand the parent’s motivation.

The Next Step

I can only hide behind being a ‘proby’ for so long. The first year has gone so quickly and reality set in quickly. It would soon be time to take the next step in my career. At this stage I also had to wrangle with the possibility of being sent rural. I got lucky though and was assigned to Parramatta. This information was dispensed on our first day back at the school. I was very grateful to stay in Sydney, to get a station 15 minutes from home was a bonus.

There were the expected anxieties amongst the class about the day one exam. I was confident as I had a full week of solid study prior to the exam. If I didn’t know it by then I would never know it. Others weren’t as confident. These people had to be avoided as they insisted on expressing their lack of confidence. I wasn’t going to let them wreck my confidence. Most of them ended up passing well anyway.

Everybody seemed more relaxed when practicing new assessable skills. Most of these skills would have been performed on road under the supervision of training officers. It was also reassuring to learn that the ‘as per skill’ element was relaxed and the main goal of the skill became the focus. Being able to practice cardiac arrest drills and splinting unsupervised was a great plus.

New theory had to be taken on board very quickly as it would become examinable within days. A familiarity with the lecturers helped with becoming sponges to new knowledge.

We had finally made it, no longer ‘probys’, but now there is nowhere to hide. It will be an interesting couple of years.

Cover to Cover

It has taken a while but finally I have started the important task of reading the bible cover to cover. Previously I had only read bits and pieces from various bible studies over the years.

It was put to me last year why I wasn’t reading the bible. At the time I was reading Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” after a suggestion from the Men Meeting the Challenge conference. It was a good point and was very blunt, as this person has a habit of doing. But I wanted to finish reading the Dawkins book since I was well into it.

Reasons for my delay sound pretty silly now. The length was an issue at over 2000 pages. It is usually a turn off when it comes to purchasing and reading other books. Until it dawned on me that everything I like in my books is in the bible, except for the lack of picture inserts (depending on the version). It has small chunks (hello, chapters and verses), so I can easily read a little at a time and form a good regular reading habit.

So many of my books have bookmarks in them, permanently stuck midway. This marks the point where another book distracted me. I didn’t want that to happen with the Bible. Unfortunately I couldn’t read multiple books when I was younger as reading wasn’t a big priority. I never gave reading a decent crack until the last few years. Sport always seemed more exciting. I only read my Yr 11 text two years ago and still haven’t read my Yr 12 text, but I’m working on it. In an effort to maintain reading momentum I am reading a book concurrently with the bible. Therefore I won’t get disappointed at all the other books on my shelves that I haven’t read yet because the bible could well be a two year project. A recent reorganisation and cull will also improve things.

I decided on reading “The Message”. Both of my parents have read it and found it easy to read, but perhaps not the best for studying purposes.

All is going well so far, still a long way to go.

Fever Pitch – Book Review

Fever Pitch – by Nick Hornby

I had originally heard about this book from a movie by the same name (renamed A Perfect Catch in Australia for some reason).

The movie features a Boston Red Sox fan in America’s Major League Baseball. The book is autobiographical, written about the author’s lifelong obsession with UK football club Arsenal. The movie, though, takes liberties with the amount of romance involved.

I related to the author as a fan of a football code. Even though Hornby focuses on the round ball game.

He uses particular Arsenal matches to highlight important stages in his life. It was amazing that he could even remember enough matches over a lifetime of club support. That was until I thought of my own life and immediately wrote down at least twenty Swans matches worthy of mention, and a new writing project was born.

It doesn’t matter what the sport is, the same emotions are transferable to any child discovering the roller coaster ride that only a sporting club can give.

Hornby found that his obsessive fanaticism affected his relationships quite acutely even into his adulthood. This is why I’m glad that I have mellowed in my post teen years. Not that I was ever as full on as he was in my pre teen years. Although the amount of merchandise I have does still surprise people.

Any bloke who has been affected by fanaticism of a sport would enjoy this book.

And isn’t it great that it is also a cheap read due to the Penguin ‘Popular Classics’ range.

Out of the Woodwork

It is obvious to me that a lot of Parramatta Eels fans have come out of the woodwork since their recent success in the second half of season 2009. I admit it, I am one.

Their grand final appearance exceeded the expectations of even the biggest diehard fan.

With the influx of many new or returning fans sometimes the diehards can feel threatened and upset as they have been their through the bad times only for thousands of blow ins to jump on board and place extra demand on coveted finals tickets.

I understand this reaction. I felt it in 1996 when the Sydney Swans had a similar near fairytale season. In the long run though, who cares??

Most important is surely the club, the game and the community.

Anyone walking around Parramatta in September would have thought they were in a different place that that of months earlier. The general vibe was so positive. Shop windows decorated in blue and gold, streamers crisscrossing Church Street, banners adorning the town hall. It united everyone in the Parramatta area, especially the CBD. On top of all that, Peter Wynn’s Score has never done better business.

Hopefully most of these new or returning supporters stick around and perhaps join the Blue and Gold Army, as I have done.

Whinging Victorians

A few years ago there were moans and groans of grievance from supporters and administrators alike regarding the domination interstate teams were having in the AFL. Non-Victorian teams had won premierships from 2001 to 2006 as well as three years of complete non-Victorian grand finals from 2004 to 2006.

But now after three years of Victorian domination I don’t see the same adolescent behaviour directed at them. We all must be above all that and won’t stoop to that level.

Personally I have enjoyed every Grand Final I have watched, regardless of who was playing. We have a very even competition in the AFL, which lends well to fantastic viewing. St Kilda and Geelong definitely provided excitement.

It’s as if the Victorians want to be able to control the success of interstate clubs. They conveniently forget that the competition would have died if it weren’t for the national push starting with the Sydney Swans in 1981.

They struggle to see the betterment of the game as the number one priority. Victorian teams are dominating now but like most things, success is cyclical. The jury is still out about whether a team has to “bottom out” before having a tilt at a premiership. Are they going to whinge all over again when the next non-Victorian teams takes their precious grand final?