End of Ze World: A Prologue

The end is nigh.  

In five hours I will be on a plane.  By the time most of you read this, I will already be on a plane.  I really have too much to write about, too many humorous stories of five minute interactions I could stretch out into paragraphs and paragraphs... maybe even a full-length feature film.  But as my blogging has gone in the past, I pick one minor and rather uninteresting topic, throw in a few puns or clever descriptions and do my best to get a few chuckles out of the few Russians, Canadians and Hungarians reading this. 

I am spending my last few hours in Australia fighting off sleep, drinking chocolate coffee drinks, watching a wonderful series called "Black Books" and wondering what to make of the last three months of my life.  That last part might take a while.  I will try to recap some major motifs from the last few months.  Consider this the prologue to the upcoming series of final posting.

Oh heavenly days I cannot wait to be done with this blog.  Writing has, at times, felt like what I imagine spiders who get their legs pulled off by terrible children with freckles feel like.

For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, French Student Teacher is completely behind me.  But the idea of the French Student Teacher will always be in front of me.  You know what I mean.  Don't you?

Student Teaching is done.  I had a very warm goodbye from the staff.  Cards, cake and a farewell speech written by my cooperating teacher and who left sick.  I ended up giving my own farewell speech, really a bit of foreshadowing for when I will inevitably give my own eulogy due to a lack of interest and attendance.

I visited a class of grade 2 and 3 students.  They asked for my email, pulled my mustache and sang a farewell song to me.

People have asked me if I am excited to go home.  They have asked if I will miss Australia or what I rate my overall experience here.  If it was worth it or if I will come back.

The answers are: yes, yes, 9/10,  yes and yes if I can.  

I don't know what else to write at this time, except that above all things I have a bittersweet taste at the back of my mouth.  I will miss the people here and I long for the feeling Michigan dirt has on my feet.

If you read this, I will either see you soon, or never see you again.  Neither of those are sure things and sorry for the blunt honesty, but whether or not I see or don't see you again things will turn out alright.

Cheers,
Melmoth

Ice Shall Cover the Desert

I recently spent three full days in Melbourne city with four adults supervising fifty-five students.  The entire experience was better than Nicki Minaj though, like any experience there were moments that were worse than that woman whose voice has such a knack for grinding my gears, like sand... sand just gets everywhere. 

I noticed some things, I witnessed some things and I took part in some things.  I will do my best to include only the most interesting in this post.

The first day was the longest day.  Up early for school and a long bus ride into the city, followed by the house rules of the hotel.  By 11:00 AM it felt like a full day had passed.  That tends to happen when you are directed, guided and instructed.  Even as a chaperon I felt exhausted with the amount of information pumped into my brain.  Perhaps the students weren't as affected, simply because they only had to worry about themselves (which they followed through with perfection, every one of them) and not a group of veins bursting- with-hormones teens hopped up on adventure and American television.

Regardless, the first day is a blur of shops, bedazzled clothing, shoes on sale for 130 dollars, the weight of guilt from a homeless shelter visit and the sights of a tower nearly 300 meters tall.  I may take time to unpack the visit to the homeless "shelter."  Really a church trying to figure things out and help people, though their methods are a bit unorthodox.  Later perhaps.

Day two went the quickest due largely in part to the evening activity of ice-skating. This was the time I let myself be a student rather than an adult, at least in shifting towards the front of the line to snag a pair of skates.  It wasn't until I sat down, my Canadian friend Byron suggested I traded them in for hockey skates, as he had done.  At the counter, the staff member of the largest ice skating complex in Melbourne (dare I say Australia!?) eyed me suspiciously, mustache and all, and asked if I was with the school.  "Why yes, I'm on staff" I replied with a shrug of my flannel draped shoulders.  More hesitation from behind the counter.  I couldn't see his hands.  They could have been fingering a silent alarm, or a sawed-off shotgun considering how nervous he looked.  "Hey kids!  Is this guy one of your teachers?!"  He shouted towards the dozen students in line.  A unanimous "yes." rang out and he ordered a skate grunt to retrieve a pair of 11's, while apologizing to me thrice with "...I just had to make sure, ya know..."

We also had to wear helmets.  As Byron said, "It just feels so right!"

I can tell you really want to know why I loved skating so much.  I still can only half skate backwards.  I still can only half stop.  I still am kind of fast and mostly stable.  Compared to the Australians, I was like Michael Gretzky, three time curling champion!  But even this was not the reason I will always remember skating in Australia.

I am in a country where I feel as though I mostly fit in.  I feel that people mostly like me, at the least they pretend to like me to my face.  While I was shredding that ice like a every Parmesan cheese grader advertises it can shred Parmesan cheese, I felt like everyone was back in Michigan with me, rather than me being in Australia with everyone else.  I didn't feel home, but it is the closest I have gotten to feeling at home in Australia, to even feeling known or understood.  The simple pleasure of moving on the ice (and oh when the Zamboni freshened the ice) carried me thousands of miles and made me fall in love like I haven't felt since...

The final day of the trip was the students "Amazing Race."  The other teachers and myself wandered, shopped and ate food.  For an hour and a half Byron and I sat in the garden at St. Patrick's Cathedral and asked students theological and philosophical questions as part of the race challenge. 

Here is an overhead shot of St. Patrick's

I will not include the questions here because that is a great way to start a string of arguments involving people wanting to be right.  If you want to hear what kind of questions an America exchange student and an ex-Canadian now Australian ex-youth pastor asked 9th grade students while sitting in the garden of a beautiful cathedral, you can ask me for them and I'll send them along, also including the answers and why your answers are wrong. "Dead wrong."

Tomorrow I dine on Crocodile Pie.

Cheers,
Melmoth

And let me tell you, that ice-skating was better than Nicki Minaj more so than anything else I have written about.

The Edge of the Guest House

I remember my dad telling me a story about the phrase Eureka!; this phrase must always be declared as an exclamation.  

I am not sure if I asked where the phrase Eureka came from, or if he had read it in the paper, or made it up to entertain me, as many fathers should continue to do.  I do know that I will never attempt to validate or refute the story's authenticity.  I would rather be wrong for the rest of my life then tarnish, even if menially and superficially, the memory and story my father gave me.

Some scientist... a forefront thinker.  I forget who.  I know it is someone obvious like Galileo, or Plato, or Da Vinci, was floating in a bath tub pondering something about things floating and mass and the idea of displacement. 

(It is amazing how much we remember and how much we forget all at the same time.  I remember so much more than I realized by simply typing out the introduction to the story, but cannot recall the main character's name!)

He suddenly had an epiphany, as most people who are remembered or half-remembered do.  He immediately jumped up out of the tub and, in a flurry of white scientist beard and eyes sunken in wrinkles he ran down the street to screaming his wife's name "Eureka! Eureka! Eureka!" stark naked for all Glycon and Zeus to see, oozing with jealousy. 

And so, Galivincto solved a problem that had been giving him quite the itch and is remembered for his catch-phrase as well as his ability to run through a street naked and be remembered as a hero.

Today I asked another teacher what they missed most about Australia when they spent a few months working in England.  Three things stood out.  The first was space: Australia is to England as an Obese American is to an Irish midget.  

Too far...?

The food.  An obvious one here.  How huge a role food plays in our lives, and how little notice we give to eating it, and how little thought we put into not eating it and all the time in between.  Yet it is always on our minds.


I don't know what I would do if I couldn't eat.  I know what I couldn't do if I couldn't eat.  I couldn't do a lot of things.  I suppose I could decompose if I couldn't eat.  I like eating.  We all do.  I had McDonalds for the first time in Australia today.  It tasted like America and boy was it the worst way for me to feel like I was at home.

The third thing was just a sort of mishmash of missing the familiarity of the soil and all the things you do on the piece of soil you are most comfortable with. 

Sitting in an internationally focused "Guest House" hostel, I feel more at home than I have yet in Australia.  Perhaps because Melbourne on the surface is a big city like Grand Rapids or Chicago or Indianapolis.  Perhaps it's because I have thousands of Ronald McDonald calories sinking my gut through the bed mattress like an anchor cutting through sea water.  Maybe it's because I am flying home in seven days and everything but my body is already there. 

I don't know what I will miss most about Australia, and I don't know what I currently miss most about America. I will exclude missing people in my "What did/do you miss most" scenarios.  Missing people is a given.  


I do know that when I am not at the mountains, whether Rocky, Smokey or Appalachy, I miss the mountains.   I know that I miss moving East to West, following the sun and the trails walked ten generations ago.  I know I miss feeling family through the walls of rooms, or in their car as they drive home from work.  I miss knowing where police prefer to sit, and which gas stations give their donuts away at a certain time.

When I figure out exactly what it is I miss which may very well be what makes us all human then maybe I will be able to get away with running down the street naked, shouting my wife's name.  I am sure if I ever figure it out I'll be old and close to death.

Cheers,
Melmoth 

Instructions on the Bathroom Wall

A million to one.  Those are the odds I just made up that a shark will attack and or eat you when you are swimming, surfing or body boarding.  Every time an individual enters the water they have a million to one shot that a shark is going to ram into their body, eyes rolled back with their pointy teeth bulging into bones.

For those of you unfamiliar with odds... imagine you are a gladiator fighting in an arena.  In order to be given you freedom you have to beat a certain amount of guys.  The almighty Caesar points at you and bellows, "You must fight off one million mans, or all your base are belong to us!"

In all reality, the odds are probably more like ten million mans against one man.  Often people use the phrase of comparison that may sound something like, "Dude, that was a drive in movie night of biblical proportions!"  Well, if we want to go Biblical proportions on man versus man odds, Samson killed 5000.  One of David's Mighty Men killed 800.   Anyone in the Bible kill a million people?  Nope.  Do people get eaten by sharks?  Yup.  So a lot of people are swimming.  More than a million, or ten million a year.

What I am trying to say is that, it could happen to you, but it won't happen to you... it shouldn't happen to you.  What I am really trying to say is that fear is to paper as logic is to rock.

So would I rather take my chances putting my meager life savings on the roulette wheel or swim every day of summer in the ocean?  That would only up my odds of coming into unsavory contact with a meat eating aquatic monster to around ninety mans against a million mans.

I say, "Let it ride Black Thirteen!"

I did manage to stay in the water for an extended period of time, and even tried surfing.  I now know the literal definition of "catching a wave" though I was unable to trap one myself.  I came close, but they are so dang slippery.  Like an squid's head.

After my blessedly uneventful foray in the waves, I took a walk down the beach and found a mini-peninsula between two coves where the waves crashed into each other at more or less right angles.  They would barrel through one another like a relentless game of "Red Rover" and continue on into the ocean.  They left behind a sort of crisscross "X" of ripply waters full of sand and wood bits that moved like crawling bugs as the waves receded, pulling everything back only to smash it all on the shore moments later.  It was peaceful and made me think of Isidora.

On the way out, I stopped in the bathroom.  For men, peeing takes place in a long, chest high metallic trough. At eye level were the words, in a fat black marker, "Stand up on the step and piss in the urinal."

I took a picture and followed said directions.

Cheers,
Melmoth


PS
By request, here is the photo.

The Pains of Dolores

Predictions:

Church in the heart of Melbourne: Better than Nicki Minaj.

The Puffing Billy Train Ride: Better than Nicki Minaj.

The Melbourne Zoo: Worse than Nicki Minaj.

William Rickets Sanctuary: Better than Nicki Minaj.

Are you among the people in the world who have run out of gas while driving?  Me too.  Are you among the people in the world who have run out of gas while driving in a foreign country?  Neither am I.

While driving to work the other day, I noticed the gas tank was dangerously close to that big scary "E."  While rounding a corner the gauge would flex bringing that warm honey colored light on, accompanied by the harmless sounding "ping" that warns you, "Hey, your car is about to turn into a 2000 pound block of immovable plastic and steel."

That honey colored light, akin to slipping down a large flight of stairs or staring down a rather vicious looking dog in the middle of the woods, caused my life to flash before my eyes.  It was only a small piece that flashed.  It was more of a feeling than an actual memory, and with the feeling cam images.  It was dozens upon dozens of little blips of a gas gauge flexing towards that big scary "E" accompanied by a polite "ping" and the kind of sweaty stress from knowing you're going to be late.

Opposite side of the world and I have an epiphany including gas tanks.  I remembered the stress of being late.  I don't know what I thought I was missing, or what unbearable consequences I was worried about facing.  Add to these fears of missing out on the beginning of something the potential for missing out on all of that something when the gas tank turns up bone dry halfway up a hill and I recall being quite the bundle of nerves. 

It was an odd moment, where two version of me collided.  Granted, I often imagine what would happen if two versions of myself met.  Often though I imagine the two of us racing, wrestling or critiquing the other's lack of intelligence.   Often these day dreams end up looking something like that Jackie Chan movie where Jackie is told he is "The One" and he must travel to alternate universes to destroy robotic versions of himself so that his child can grow up to lead a resistance against the impending automaton apocalypse. 

The car I currently drive, Dolores, has a funny gas gauge.  It's about 1/8 of a tank off.  So when it looks like you have 1/8 of a tank left, you actually only have none.  None gas left.  And driving down the highway with none gas is Worse than Nicki Minaj.  That means that I would rather be driving and listening to Nicki Minaj if the alternative is sitting on the side of the highway, gasless, with zero Nicki Minaj.  A scary thought. 

When Dolores fooled me the first time with her gas gauge, I was given a lecture by a close friend's father.  The phrase I will always remember, "It's easier to reach into your wallet to fill up from a half tank down than it is to fill up a full tank." 

I find that it is difficult to fill up a gas tank whether it is half full or empty, so I'll just drive my car to bone dry every time.  Less fill-ups means less pain.  I can say though that I don't think I'll ever really be stressed by that honey colored-light or the "ping" again. 

Cheers,
Melmoth

P.S.  On the topic of pain, I heard a very painful phrase while conversing the other day.  The phrase was, "Well, I want to have a flexible job because my other half moves around a lot..."

I'll let you figure out who said it.

Time Trees and the Spirit of Giving

A man wiser than me just said, via my computer, "Love is not sentimentality, love is not feeling... has nothing to do with feeling.  It's not Romanticism..."

But I'm just typing that so I can read it later.  I like reading something I've heard.  Who am I talking to?  You are a blog.  You are not a: person, community, group, sentient being, penguin, cup of tea.  It is much easier to say what you are not, than to say what you are.  You are: a blog and you are turtles all the way down.

I suppose it's easier to say what something isn't rather than what it is?  Does this epiphany make me a scientist!?

My good friend, Dr. Pebblegrasper (head of the prehistoric archaeology department at Sanford U would say, "No, you are not a scientist anymore than Jesus was a Raptor."

Well, maybe I'll be a scientist yet.

I'll not write of the French Student Teacher again.  It is too painful to bring up love lost.  Too painful to think of what could have been.  As Dr. Brown described in the fifth "Back to the Future" movie, if you change one thing in the past, you "could" (scare-quotes mine) change everything in the future.

A more complex idea of this would have, not on future branching off, but thousands upon hundreds of thousands of branches branching off of branches.  Try imagining you are an avid gardener with some form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  Your new neighbor is Captain Planet and he just planted an ocean of mammoth Weeping Willow Trees lining every border of your property.  In three weeks you drown in your attic, buried under millions of thin, plant Willow-whips.  That's a fraction of the outcomes of your life based on choices.

As things look now, my choices will lead me to drowning in tears of lonely sorrow in a lifeless attic of my own.

Do not get so caught up in the choices you make that decide to not make choices.  It will destroy you.  It's like, trying to convince yourself you are "nothing" or like believing that you can help everyone in the world.  You aren't nothing, you can't help everyone.  If with every decision that ever presents itself to you, you sit and ponder and wonder and think think think and try to figure out the best course of action which would give you the next best course of action which would in turn give you the next possible course of action, you will bleed out your mind and soul in a cascade of splintering dominoes.

The decisions you make affect every other part of your life.  Don't worry about it.  You will do nothing and you will go mad.

I took Saathi for a walk tonight.  She is a good dog, but a terrible listener.  Still, it is amazing what a fifteen minute walk can do.  No music, no people, and a dog that at least pretends to listen to you as you rant about things which must be ranted about.  Other good listeners include: pillow, steering wheel, toothbrush (can be difficult to communicate) an open field, angry storm clouds, tombstones and pizza boxes.

While probably the worst listeners of all animate and inanimate objects (aside from grandparents who are starting to lose their marbles) cats are excused from criticism on this subject, because they simply don't care about your feelings... at all.  Your personal possessions would, if they could.

I'm leaving this country soon.  If you are an American I know, tell me if you want a gift.  It would be great if you told me exactly what you want.  That makes my life easier.  If you say, "Oh I don't know bring me back something Australian."  I will bring you back the Australian Common Cold, or some dirt.  It won't be pretty red/orange dirt, it will be gross brown dirty dirt.  Ya know, even if you tell me exactly what you want, I probably won't get it for you anyway, most likely because I don't like you.

If you are Estonian, Russian or Hungarian, I would love to get you and personally give you a gift for your faithful attempts at using my blog as a way to better improve your terrible English skills, but I will never go to Estonia, I will not look for you in Russia, and if I ever make it to Hungary, I feel like it would be similar to passing through a very small town without seeing it.

If you are Canadian, I do not want to buy you a gift.

Cheers,
Melmoth

That's a Strong Coffee

I do not know how to tell the difference, visually, between a strong and a weak coffee.  You can tell when coffee is watery, but then you just have dark water, not coffee.  I know how to make a cup of coffee, but I will never know the fine intricacies of the brewing a cup of "medium-strong" to "as-strong-as-it-can-be-without-turning-into-a-solid coffee" and everything in between.  I usually just throw in a teaspoon of sugar and a shot of milk to whatever I come up with and chug it down, savoring not the taste, but the sweet empowering magic of caffeine.

I'm more or less done teaching now.  This revelation came out of nowhere, though I am not complaining.  Students are preparing for their final exams and I have more or less finished both Plath and Macbeth (oh what happy semester it has been).  I still help out in the classes and teach here and there, but I'm on the down slide now, which is nice considering I've been fully teaching since September.

So, for those of you who have seen the Disney movie "Hercules" please cast out everything you saw in that film.  I know, I know, "Don't think about elephants," but I wanted to try and set the record straight, or perhaps give a bit of explanation to the fact that Zeus could have, and in fact should have been the ruler of the underworld.

So Zeus and Hades were brothers, along with Poseidon.  The three of them defeated the Titans, which were the gods before there were gods and as all of us Americans know, to the victor goes the spoils (see reference: WWII).  The three drew lots with Zeus choosing the sticks, and then choosing first.  Zeus drew the longest lot and received the sky, Poseidon gained the sea, and Hades, the underworld.  Some say Zeus cheated his brothers some say Zeus really just called dibs.  Either way, it could have just as easily been Hades in the sky. Poor guy is a victim of circumstance.

Either way, Hercules still kills poor Megara.

But because of Zeus and his greed, what does Hades mean now?  The waiting place of the dead.

In other Australian news, the queen (all rise) was recently on Australian soil.  She rode trams, curtsied young ladies, and wore silly hats.  She didn't stick around for "Cup Day" though.  Rumor has it she never has and never will.  "Cup Day" is the Australian version of the Kentucky derby, with silly hats called fascinators.

This is the best fascinator I could find... it is clearly better than Nicki Minaj.

Sarcasm is also better than Nicki Minaj.

So what I am saying is, fascinators in general are worse than Nicki Minaj

 Le France won the cup this year.  I know a lot of Estonians who lost money on that bet.  Betting of course, should be against the law everywhere.  Do you know what happens when you bet?  You leave things up to chance.  You know what happens then?  Chance gets rigged by your younger brother and you get sent to the waiting place of the dead.

Disjointed thoughts again, coming to you live from down under.

Cheers,
Melmoth

P.S.
I almost forgot.  A shout out to my comrades in Russia, currently in third place for views this week.