Sydney, Adelaide, uni games, togas, water polo, ski boots, college, love-sickness, death… SUN!! (Lara)

*note*: I have had this post in my drafts for probably over a month now, and have been gradually adding to it…so much has been going on that I haven’t really had enough time to get to the POSTING stage!

Yet again I have waited a long long time to write a new post, so I guess this might end up being longer than usual, again. I’m pretty sure my last post talked about all the damage I did to my leg from “that soccer incident”. well, 2 weeks after it happened, the day I left for Sydney, I was on crutches…when I got back to Sydney I went to a couple of specialists and x ray appointments only to be told that I wasn’t to use crutches or bandages or any kind of support and instead I must do 90 leg presses of 50kg on each leg once a day plus some swimming for the week before I went to Adelaide, if I wanted any chance of still being able to compete. I feel a tad macho now. But the most important thing was that I was able to go to Adelaide!!!!!!!!!!! 4 words:

MOST.INSANE.WEEK.EVER.

Okay I can’t just leave it at that…but where does one start?!?!?!?!

on the 24th I woke at 6am to catch my 8am flight from Sydney to Melbourne, arrived here safely then hung around for a bit and met up with my team and the men’s team to catch our flight to Adelaide. I was a “fresher” along with 6 or so others, much like college o-week freshers. So, of course we got the dirty work done on us all week! Our first task was to ask for 30 packets of peanuts on the plane by the time we landed in Adelaide, easy enough! 15 minutes into the flight and I was walking down the aisle trying not to drop the load I was carrying.

So we landed, checked in, shopped, blah blah…the week was filled with excitement. I don’t really know how to explain it all to someone who hasn’t been there, but it was truly one of the best weeks of my life…And I am proud to say that I am the first fresher ever to receive immunity from the shirt of shame on the first night away!! 😛

Apart from the social side, the main reason we were there was of course to compete in water polo. And that we did. We made it into the bronze medal play-off which we were stoked to be in, so to lose that and come fourth made us ecstatic, as it’s the best that Melbourne has ever gone in women’s water polo!! Also, funnily enough, a majority of the team who won gold (Sydney uni) are girls I knew because I used to play with them in New South Wales!!

The last night, Friday, we had the “Australian water polo ball” “BALL” yeah. Definition of ball for the freshers: dressed up nicely, only with the addition of obscene permanent marker drawings all over you (again), a ski boot, oh and how can I forget- I was taped between two boys by the hands for the night! Of course there was regular toilet breaks too!!! Ahhhhh!! All in good fun though Haha, had an awesome night. We also weren’t allowed cutlery or chairs which was…fun.

On Saturday after an obligatory stop at cold rock ice cream -for breakfast- we headed out to the airport and jetted back to Melbourne. I was sad to be leaving behind so much fun, but glad to be back in Melbourne even more so!! whilst I was back in Sydney, even though I went out with lots and lots of my friends, caught up with family, old workmates, pets etc., I still realised how much I really appreciate college and the atmosphere that all of us living here have allowed ourselves to be a part of. I hate to think of the fact that I was so close to leaving this place, regardless of the circumstances.

I guess that brings me to the “love-sickness” part of the title of this post… for about a month and a half now i’ve actually been going out with someone from my college, he’s a wonderful person, and i know for a fact that most everyone else here thinks the same too, and another funny thing Sophie- it’s ANOTHER “J” ha ha.

On Friday 6th October I was in the intercollegiate athletics which was okay but my leg didn’t really agree with me. Before my last race I got a phone call from my mum to say that my grandpa probably wasn’t going to survive the night… (he’d been sick for a while with dementia and Parkinson’s and hadn’t been able to speak or feed himself or move for a couple of years) I’m pretty sure everyone saw me wiping away tears when I was about to start my race, but… whatever, i hate hearing my parents upset and being so far away from them at the same time.

On Saturday morning I got “The Call”… This is the fourth death of someone really close to me this year, so I wasn’t very surprised when my initial reaction was just silence ( I was worried my mum would think that it didn’t mean anything to me or something). but as soon as I hung up the phone after lying to my mum and assuring her I was okay, I went and sat down next to Joe and bawled my eyes out for something like an hour and a half…sure it’s a relief in a sense when someone who is so helplessly ill is finally ridded of such a long time filled with suffering horrible things, but my grandpa was still an important influential part of my life and who I was, who I am now, and perhaps who I will become in the future. After I drained my eyes and nose Joe and I chatted about him for a while which made me feel a lot better… then he took me to the zoo for the day :D.

Unfortunately, me thinking that I’d be going through this semester without any need for special consideration was short-lived. Whilst I was waiting those 2 weeks for the call from my mum I had 2 assignments I was meant to be doing, plus study for upcoming exams. it was really hard to concentrate when I was waking up each morning and the first thought that popped into my mind had to be “Please not today…” so I had to apply for special consideration for those 2 assignments which kind of bugged me but hey I guess you can’t let it get you too down.

The next Tuesday I went to the 2006 Transition Forum at Graduate House where first I filled in a questionnaire, treated myself to the massive array of food they’d put out for us for lunch, then joined my group to be interviewed. Funnily enough I was in Sophie’s group, so it was great to finally meet her, and to be able to have my say on the transition process from a secondary to tertiary-level education.

On Wednesday I was meant to go to the lunch organised for us bloggers but, of course I couldn’t make it (again). But it was because my grandpa’s funeral was on Wednesday. Back to Tuesday, that night I caught the train to Wodonga and Joe generously offered to come with me which I thought was really really REALLY nice of him- not many people would travel to meet their girlfriend’s family for the first time at a funeral! So we got into Wodonga (where my grandparents and aunties and uncles live) at around 9pm.

Wednesday morning was one of those “I really don’t want to face the day” mornings. But I finally got up and got ready, and then we made our way to the church. The service was beautiful, and because my grandpa was a major in the army, we were all given a red poppy to wear and his casket was sitting at the front with his medals, hat, and the Australian flag alongside it. Funerals are one of my two phobias, so it wasn’t long while we were in there before I was a bit…shaky.

I had to read a passage giving thanks to my grandpa, which I only found out the night before, which I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to do because of me already being hardly able to bear funerals themselves. 2 of my other cousins and I were asked to say something and I was last so it was even harder to be waiting behind them and see them walk back to their spots crying or with tears in their eyes, especially my younger cousin Stace…that really shook me up. Eventually I got through what I had to say and went back to my seat where I turned into a blubbering mess, and then my mum read a eulogy so we both didn’t really help each others’ situations! The funeral finished with my uncles, 2 of my cousins, and the man who was best man at my grandparents’ wedding carrying the coffin out with us trailing behind it through a guard of honor by other retired services which I thought was really nice. The burial was pretty moving too and he was buried with the Australian flag draped over his coffin, with poppies and rose petals we all scattered on top.

The most moving part was definitely when a last post was done as the coffin was lowered into the ground, and I found myself just standing there for quite a while I I guess that’s when it hit me- that sight: The flag, the flowers, all the remaining men who had been alongside my grandpa in the army saluting his coffin with tears in their eyes as they said their final goodbyes, my grandma sitting on the side upset, my family and friends upset, and even people who never knew my grandpa being moved by the burial…That’s when it hit me that this was to be my final memory of my grandfather, and it wasn’t the best thought, but I guess it’s inevitable. All of a sudden, my uncle said “I really wish we had an empty can of beer to put in there with him”… and it’s so true haha, he really was the image of a “Typical Aussie Bloke” while he was able to live life normally.

After the burial was the wake where we chatted and I was able to meet some people in my family I’d never met before, then we went around to my uncle and aunt’s house and just relaxed for a while in the blistering heat…this is also where Joe was interrogated by my crazy family lol. We both caught the train back to Melbourne that night.

Since then, I’ve just been getting back into uni work (again), we also had the sports dinner on Wednesday night where I came third in female sportswoman of the year, and won the best and fairest award for soccer…so that was lots of fun and I was pretty surprised to have come third with only a 1 point margin, because I was only able to compete in 4 sports this year!! Afterwards we went to PA’s and of course a good night was had by all. I’ve also been keeping at sport- water polo of course and mixed netball which is lots of fun…and I’ve been to a couple more animal places…Collingwood Children’s Farm and Warrook (sp?) Farm which was awesome- I got to feed various baby animals, watch sheepdogs do their work, learnt how to drag a sheep for shearing, the different sorts of wool and regulations on this, rode around on the back of a trailer, learnt the 2 methods for milking dairy cows, fed kangaroos and various birds and even made friends with a very social Galah!!

I went to the aquarium on Saturday with 4 friends from college which was lots of fun…it took us so long to get there though because we kept on stopping to take photos alongside all the different landmarks along the Yarra River!! On Sunday I played mixed netball, then went to Fitzroy to see a movie that one of the tutors here who is also a 5th year arts student made. It was meant to be in the arts festival but he submitted it too late!! It’s called “No Pride, Just Prejudice” and it was really funny…very straightforward and quite rude but you just have to take it the right way and know what they were getting at hahah.

This week brings my last few lectures and tutes, and the val dinner on Wednesday which should be good. I’m starting to hit the “OMGWTFBBQEXAMS” stage and am going a tad insane, so I can see that next week during SWOTVAC I will be a very anti-social hermit living in the reading room here at college. But I guess after the next 3 weeks of hard work it will all pay off and then it will be summer holidays!!

Speaking of summer, how nice is the weather here today?? Sunlight is definitely a major source of endorphins for Lara.

Good luck to all in everything you’re doing.

Lara.