Singular Scene

Don’t you just love it when you find yourself holding onto the perfect gift? And better still you unwrap it and it’s all for you???
I’m totally into it… and am thrilled to be on the receiving end of this little perler from my buddy Shoe…

It’s a book. A really old book, older even than me given that it was published in 1959. She bought it on a whim and it has been sitting in her library for a couple of years just waiting on the perfect recipient!!

Me!

Hurrah!

It seems to me only fair in having received such a bounty that I share some of the very important information therein with you. Just in case any of you were thinking of becoming an Australian.

In truth, I’m wishing I had read this BEFORE I signed on the dotted line…

So, this entry, the first extract from this tome of great import, I thought was very timely, given the stirring that’s been going on as a result of recent bloody efforts to sell Australia to the world…

How to Sell Tourism
Just leave it all to the Phascolarctos cinereus.
As you will discover if you study Australian travel publicity overseas, the only reason why American millionaires prefer a long journey to Little Coogee to a little journey to Long Island, or why English milords holiday in Murwillumbah rather than Menton, is because of the irresistible phascinations of the Pfascolarctos C. – which means to you and me “native bear” or “koala”.
Just as Australia, as a whole, lives on the sheep’s back the Australian tourist industry lives on the koala’s back. But the koala (average weight 12lb) has a much smaller back.
This accounts for its worried look.
The relative economic, social, and cultural importance of the koala family is fully recognized on Phillip Island, Victoria where notices on the main road warn motorists to…

New Australians often ask why this rare, anti-social and comparatively insignificant marsupial, rather than the proligerous and impressive kangaroo has come to symbolise the Australian Way of Life on travel-posters, calendars, and Christmas cards.
The reason is that no other living creature large or small, so closely approximates in its private life and social habits to the behaviour of the typical Australian male.
And, of course, only males matter.
While to touch circumspectly on more delicate matters the koala’s love life might well come straight from a Kinsey report on the Sexual Habits of the Australian Male. “The male during the mating season utters a call that has been compared to a harsh cough…”
The name koala comes from an aboriginal word “implying the animal seldom drinks in the wild state”. This of course, is what makes it wild.
Just as it would any decent Australian.
Extract from ! So, you want to be an Australian by Cyril Pearl ©1959 – slightly abridged…
Doesn’t it just make you blush with Australian Pride??
It did me…

It is an interesting place to find yourself; having someone talk to you about what they’ve perceived about you and for them also to be worried that their perception is correct.
I found myself in that unsual place this afternoon. I was at church service in a brand new baby church which is strange in and of itself for me, but also there, was a woman who has been lecturing in one of my classes at college* and from whom I’ve learned quite a bit in the 3 weeks I’ve been taking her class. Her name is [not] Scott and she’s a Dr of the Phd variety. Clearly a v. smart lady.
It would appear that I’ve surprised her.
People at work who have known of me for a long time actually remember me as a personal assistant. In those days I was assistant to a high profile [nationally and internationally] team memberwhich made me immediately recognizable. So much so that people [total strangers, mind] would stop me, say hi and upon occasion, even comment on my hair…
Bizarre but true.
It was an interesting time. On reflection, I think I checked my brain in at the door on the day I started that job and had it forcibly returned to me on the day my boss left work 2.5 years later. That’s another story a really long one and one I’m still not ready [read able] to tell. Anyway, it was back to that time to which Scott mentally referred when developing her perception of me.
In taking this class I’d handed in a short piece of work and participated in discussion and both of these had been the cause for Scott’s surprise and so when we met this afternoon she told me I’d been on her mind all week and she asked me if I was still a PA and also, if I’d ever been to University.
Of course, I said no.
It appears that for me to be still working as a PA would have been a waste [my interpretation of the conversation] and that I should consider going to University – that I would love it.
I have no doubt I would too.
The conversation continued with a discussion about what I am doing now, the business, the novel, the web princess job at the office and I think she was surprised and pleased that there’s more to my world than working at the church. Actually, I have the distinct feeling that she thinks I’m wasted working at the church.
I still think I have a lot to learn there…
… but I also have to ask myself whether she isn’t just a little bit right…
*I am studying this BA at an arts college – a vocational training (VET) institution. As it was always been referred to as college when I was a student there before. I shall continue to refer to it that way… calling it Uni sounds all wrong…