Yee-Haw…
The weather has been splendid this week, sending a message as faint as the sweet fragrance of an early blooming camellia, that spring is coming. I expect this week is just an exception and next week will be especially cold and wintry. It is just a hunch, but I tend to be right about these kinds of things.

The college is magically undergoing a transformation this week, which coincidently corresponds with the upcoming ‘parent’s weekend’, where residents’ parents come up for the weekend to visit, funny that… The corridors are smelling lovely after being sprayed with eucalyptus, new dining room tables are in the process of being installed, the lawns are being mown, the netball ring has been re-erected and the gardens are being manicured. It is quite laughable how superficial the college heads can be. Surely every parent has already been told about the sometimes unliveable conditions of the college. Maybe they just want to make us look like liars. Satisfied parent: “Oh I don’t know what you’re complaining about, it is lovely here.” Student in disbelief: “But…but… it is never like this normally, I swear!” Angry parent: “I’ll give you something to swear about!”

I don’t really mind, I find the whole thing rather amusing. I’m just going to sit back this week and enjoy the good weather and the comparatively pleasant smell and look of the college.

I’ve been up to a few things lately, notably the ‘Bush Dance’ and a ski trip. I didn’t really want to go to the bush dance, I had neither the time nor the inclination and I wasn’t thrilled about having to part with $35 to go. However, through a poor response from college residents generally, the organisers became quite desperate. They were asking me almost every day if I was going. Each day politely I told them that I hadn’t quite decided, but it wasn’t likely. I mixed that technique with avoidance and thought I’d be able to get out of it. The dance was for charity, but the way they were promoting it sounded as though it was going to be one big booze fest, which I wasn’t at all interested in. “5 free drinks and $2 drinks thereafter,” the advertising material boasted. Sharing a bus back to college with drunk residents dressed in country clothes isn’t my idea of a fun night.

I thought I’d been successful in getting out of it until two organisers knocked on my door and tried with extreme desperation to get me to come. I have quite weak resistance to desperate pleading, plus I imagined the worries that they were going through about not selling enough tickets and making a loss, so I begrudgingly reached into my pocket, took out my wallet and bought a ticket.

I thought perhaps I just wouldn’t go and would just write off the monetary loss, but a few of my friends had been roped into going as well, so I thought I might as well go along. The theme was country and western, but I showed up in a very metro outfit, which consisted of a striped French cuffed shirt (with cufflinks), a black jacket, dark RL denim jeans and Zu shoes. Not exactly very county, but I didn’t care, I was felt it was good enough of me just to turn up.

The dance was held in large barn, made from corrugated iron, which was down a dirt path in the middle of nowhere. Every attempt to be true to the ‘country’ theme had been considered by the organisers, right down to the stench of farm animal excrement that lingered in the air. Mmm… got to love that country air. We had the right side of the barn to ourselves; there was a divider between our area and the left side. I have no idea what was on the other side of the barn, it could have been anything. The floor was wooden, the roof was high and the triangular trusses were exposed, the walls were a rusted corrugated iron colour and hay bales were scattered sparingly for good measure. A band was set up on a makeshift stage that imposed itself on the room, but the focal point would have to have been the large mechanical bull that was surrounded by a blow up cushioned ring.

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but Canberra gets cold at night, in fact very cold, into the negatives for most of winter. That night was no exception; it was cold, very cold. It turns out that large open iron barns aren’t terribly great insulators, so most people were shivering, especially the girls in short skirts and abbreviated tops.

The party, just like the barn itself, was taking a while to heat up. I chatted for a while with Vijay and Garima, who both seemed a little bored too. We moved over to watch people riding on the mechanical bull, which was rather amusing. The idea was to climb on the bull and stay on it as long as possible, while it bucked and spun. After observing for a while I noticed a pattern as to who was good at riding the bull and who wasn’t. Firstly, girls tended to do a lot better than guys (I’ll assume because they have better balance, but you can draw your own conclusions), thin people did better than fat people, short was better than tall and confidence seemed to help also. I was even thinking of how I could build a model to predict riders’ times, until I realised what I was doing and stopped. You’re at a ‘fun’ event, don’t think about statistical models…geez.

Vijay and Garima both had a go on the bull and they did quite well, Vijay even broke the record I think. After their turns we headed outside, where the temperature must have easily been below zero, and ate a barbeque dinner. We shivered as we ate and quickly raced back inside as word began to spread that our head of college was going to ride the bull. As my model would have predicted, he didn’t do at all well (maybe I should have built an age factor into the model as well… Stop it!). After the crowd around the bull dispersed, I decided I would have a go, so I climbed on and it started bucking and spinning. It was rather fun, albeit a little strange. Given that I am of reasonable height, thin, male and wasn’t confident, as the model would have predicted, my performance was average; not brilliant but not terrible. It was fun though, especially when I hit the cushions with a thud after being thrown off.

The crowd started warming to both the band and the venue and soon people began to dance, either to keep warm or because they’d be drinking. You could easily tell each person’s reason. The band played covers of well known rock songs and were quite talented. I especially liked it when they played ‘Living on a Prayer’. No night out is complete without that song being played, I feel. Eventually though the night drew to a close and I caught the bus home, which actually wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined; no one was drunk enough to the point of vomiting.

On Saturday, it was an early wakeup call, then a bus trip to Perisher Blue for a ski trip. The trip was all paid for by the college as a thank you to all the voluntary academic mentors. I was glad to get another chance to go skiing, especially when I didn’t have to pay for it.

The bus arrived at bullocks flat and after being decked out with skis and boots we all caught the train (or the ‘ski tube’) up the mountain to where our lesson was being held. The lesson was quite useful, as finally I learnt how to do parallel turns, although I’ve not mastered them yet by all means. After the lesson a few of us had lunch together and then went off for free time. I went off in a group of four, but very quickly we were separated. I ended up skiing with Caz, as our abilities and our confidence were quite closely matched. We started off on the beginner slopes, and then tried our luck on a random green level slope. Perhaps we took a wrong turn, because after a while we were skiing on a narrow steep path with large trees and rocks either side, which was rather scary. At one point there was a steep decline leading into a corner and I was right behind Caz, I watched as she fell in spectacular fashion, spinning at least 4 times before coming to a rest. Since I was watching her fall and wasn’t concentrating on going down the hill, I had an equally spectacular fall. When I got up I heard cheering from some people on the nearby chairlift and I waved in acknowledgement. My goggles were laced with fine fragments of snow and had ended up around my neck. I went to check on Caz and noticed her poles were about 15 metres away from where she’d fallen. We brushed ourselves off, collected our poles, high fived each other and then were on our way.

We didn’t have a map and got a little lost, but after a while ended up heading in the right direction. We successful rode the T-bar up to the terminal and caught the train in time after meeting up with the others. On the bus I took my jacket off and I smelt terribly! I was really embarrassed and regretted not bringing deodorant, but fortunately, everyone else seemed equally as smelly, so the only one who would have noticed would have been the bus driver…poor guy. It certainly was a fun day, but something was missing, I didn’t enjoy myself as much as I had on the falls creek ski trip.

I have been missing a certain somebody far too much lately, so this weekend I’ve decided to go back to Melbourne to see them. I’m sure glad I won’t be at college for parent’s weekend.

Until next time,

Take care.