Stop Mucking Around

Today was the final day for the year twelve students at school.  It's a day called Muck-Up Day.  To muck up means to screw up.  It might have been mock-up day... but I am sure it was "muck."  You're probably thinking, "It was Mock-Up day, that actually makes sense."  You have (probably) never been to Australia, you have no idea what does and does not make sense here.

I also say "year twelve" fellow Americans, because the phrase seniors would mean not only those students in year (grade) twelve but also those in year (grade) eleven.  Australians also call chickens "chooks" and being sick "crook." The only slang term that makes sense to me is the word crook, simply because no one who takes a sick day is actually sick, therefore making them a "crook" which of course Australia (and Georgia) is known for breeding mercilessly.

I have had many good conversations in the last week.  Two of the many touched on ideas of homesickness and loneliness.  Both of these conversations brushed near the idea of being known or being understood.  There is nothing more frustrating than being misunderstood.  Now, I don't mean screaming into a Drive-Through speaker like American's scream at foreign or deaf people.  No not that kind of misunderstanding.  This is more the misunderstanding where you tell an old lady that you're going to Central America and she tells you to, "Watch out for them foreigners."  The kind of misunderstand where you laugh with tears in your eyes, and everyone else forces a grin, like a fresh ironed shirt trying to show of a wrinkle.  Does that make sense?

Being misunderstood at the Drive-Through speaker and getting pickles on your burger is worse than Nicki Minaj.  Pickles alone are worse than Nicki Minaj. But, far worse than this green little devil is living in a world dominated by polite smiles accompanied by conversation about the weather, sports teams, the news, politics and the ever present "how was your day?"

These conversations are not bad or evil or boring in and of themselves (nothing really is), but after weeks and weeks and weeks of them, one may find a desire to do anything else.  It is not boredom.  Boredom is throwing a rock at a stump.  This is life that can take place anywhere, with anyone for any duration of time.  I have seen it.

I have glimpsed life behind a desk, and it is your ten favorite songs on repeat, playing all day, every day you are at work.

There exists, as Hardcastle would say, a cultural barrier as big as the Pacific.  There are a lot of similarities between Australia and America, but if one focuses on the similarities, it is only because they hope to be understood.  It doesn't work, I tried it.  It's asking someone to read an eye examination chart with binoculars through the fog across said ocean.  Now, I'm getting along just fine over here, but it takes time to adjust to a new school, a new teacher a new pair of shoes a new biological parent and a new culture.  I am working on it, latching onto similar things, adjusting to dissimilar things.  It is a process, and a difficult one, made all the more difficult that, while there are people here to support me, I cannot turn to a close friend and say, in a very American way, "What the crap was that all about?"

So Muck-Up Day was fun. Costumes, toilet-paper, glitter and dancing.  Students in celebration that soon they will not have to be students anymore.  For them it was a day marking an end.  I saw their ending and I appreciated it (less classes for me to teach!) and all of the shenanigans that took place.  At the end it was a gym full of people that even if I were to spend the rest of my life here, would always be a distance off  and in the fog.

I'm trying to explain something I don't have the words to explain.  This is easier to explain than love, at least, it's easier to try to explain it without sounding cliche... oh... love.  I met this guy at a rest stop in Ohio once.  He said his name was Cyrus, but I am sure he made that up on the spot.  Anyway, he was staring at the woods for a good five minutes while my friends and I filled up our water bottles and bought some vending machine magic.  I couldn't help but ask him what he was looking at as we left.  He said he was looking for a Bullock's Oriole.  I asked him what it looked like. He started to describe it, then stopped himself and said, "I can tell you what it looks like, but I can't describe it to you."

Cheers,
Melmoth