Did you know that Madras and Chennai are the same place, or that Bombay and Mumbai are the same place? I am going to ace the next quiz night with THOSE new pieces of intelligence. I am basking in the glow of my own smartness right now, so let's leave the geography there.
In between attacks of the irrites here at work over the last few days, I have been browsing GREAT web journals maintained by other Aussies both here and abroad, and thinking about what they write and how they manage to sound so cool. Will I ever sound like anything other than a whinger, when my life really isn't that bad at all? So the "New Week Resolution" (can't wait for 31 December) is to write about thought-provoking things and engender in everyone the confidence that I am, in fact, cool.
But in the event that this resolution is never actually realised, let me give you some guidance as to why I might not (or might never) be cool. I have received an invitation to my 10 year school reunion. I don't think it's hit me just how long 10 years is. But yes dear friends, it has been 10 years since I donned the uniform and therapeutic footwear AND THE BERET (move on, nothing to see here) to patrol the Catholic school corridors and hand out pink detention cards like they were going out of fashion. And isn't it ironic, as Alannis would say, that it takes 10 years to forget your geeky school experience, and just when you thought you'd drunk enough beer to wipe out those brain cells that were holding on to evil school memories, the invitation arrives and WHAMMO, you're back there again.
I have nothing against the girls who are organising our reunion. They were always very pleasant and perfectly polite. Which is why they are organising the reunion. They clearly don't have the cultural intelligence to consider how much torture high school was for the vast majority of their school 'chums'. But faced with the remonstrations of at least one of my parents, I have to wonder whether 10 years is actually enough time to move on from those bad experiences. After all, I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago - so can I really assume that the girls are the same people they were? Do I really want to go there to find out?!
1 comment:
I am a geographic dunce. I only found out recently that Bombay is now Mumbai, and I didn't know until I read your post that Madras/Chennai are the same place.
You kind of have to go to your reunion, even if it's only out of morbid curiosity! My high school days were no picnic, but if I hadn't gone I would have wondered what it was like. Turns out I wouldn't have missed out on too much.
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