Of Course! It's Smile Brigade!

Hi! 

Welcome to my new blog, Smile Brigade. It’s very nice to have you here. I hope you enjoy yourself. I’m thinking I will enjoy myself, so I reckon that will probably translate to you. As you probably know I've been living in Melbourne, Australia for the past eight months and before that was traveling in Southeast Asia. I will be in Australia for about three months more before moving on to the next adventure. This blog will focus mainly on my travels and extended stays, although who knows what else I may choose to write about? I certainly don’t know.

Pictures! There will be many pictures. Here’s one:

Holy pictures it's a koala!

Okay, I know that most of you know what a blog is, but I had to start this out somehow. I don’t know how often I’ll post, so feel free to check every day. Also, commenters will be rewarded (how?! comment and find out, suckas!), because it’s really fun to get comments on blog posts. Just ask Nate about it, he’ll back me up on this one.

Smile Brigadiers

I think a big reason I haven’t been starting a blog is because I've been overwhelmed by the backlog in stories I’d like to tell. This is obviously counterproductive and repetitive. Very original, I know. So I’m just going to start from today and I’ll insert "postcards" from the past as we go along.

It’s currently February 14th, which means it’s still summer in Australia. There are a million tiny details here in Australia that differ from the States, which make it add up to seem really different. But aside from the cars driving on the left side of the road, nothing is actually that different. They pronounce things different, like “peninshula” instead of “peninsula,” or “hayche” instead of “h.”  The “bacon” looks a lot like ham they often put beets on their hamburgers. They love their “footy,” which is a sport that relies very heavily on punting and punching a rugby-shaped ball to one another that eventually leads to them punting the ball through a set of uprights with no minimum height. The uniforms are short shorts and sleeveless shirts, they have an absurd amount of trouble picking the ball up when it hits the ground, and the whistle blows whenever anyone catches the ball after it’s kicked (which is a lot). All in all it’s pretty hilarious to watch. You've just read a perfect summation of Australia.

Me, Nate, Luke, and Kayley at a Magpies footy match in the MCG.

Anyways, I've settled in nicely to my life here. Until last Friday I had a job working with an organization that provides a variety of services to young people up to 21 years old who have drug and/or alcohol problems (more on that later). I have a bike, although the public transportation here is ace, and I’m picking up some great Aussie slang!. I play indoor soccer on Tuesday nights and I've been brewing beer, at least up until Nate left. All in all life here has been swell. A lot of this has been because of the great location of my house and my very amiable roommate situation. Until recently I lived with three Aussie guys in their twenties. Ben, the young outdoors man 

Night Kayaking Enthusiast

who doesn't have a bank account or driver’s license, often goes night-kayaking and is very good at starting fires. Paul, the businessman 

Harry and Paul

who loves cooking tuna pasta, has a nice car and television, and sometimes takes me with him to dance clubs. And Jake, the sound technician 

He's the Jake in the middle. Another Jake on the left, Jordan on the right.

who works (in addition to being a sound technician) at an Op-shop (Opportunity shop, more commonly called a “Thrift Store” in the States) and brings home crazy stuff all the time, takes pictures of people on the street when they’re not looking, and plays bass in I don’t know how many bands (at least two, possibly many more). I really like these guys a lot and it was really funny how little they interacted with each other. It did make for a very comfortable transition into a house, though, as I was very quickly as comfortable with all of them as they were with each other, so I didn't have to break into an intimate friend group or anything. But now this has all come to an end, and I live with new roommates now who I'll talk about another time.

About this job, though: I had been in Australia for two months, I was living with the three Aussies for about a month after leaving the couch of my good friends Nate, Remi, Aviv,

The aforementioned 'good friends' and your narrator

and the Canadians. I had been trying to get any number of jobs at that point, but with no luck. It wasn't that getting a job in Melbourne is hard (it’s not), I was being picky. I didn't mind service industry but I didn't want to work every weekend, I wanted to work with young people in a mental health setting but I couldn't travel too far without a car, I finally even relented to working on the street as a canvasser (asking people to donate to charities) but said “no” after my interview because I didn't get along well with my interviewer/would-be-boss. Anyhow, the job hunt was dragging and funds were dwindling (Australia is not like Thailand

Australia is expensive, so two months without a job is really unwise if I want to keep traveling after Australia, which I do) so what did I do? I went to a bar with my friends Kayley and Mike in the afternoon, of course. Before we’d even settled into our first beers we were asked to move tables, as the one at which we were sitting was reserved for a function later that evening. A function! What fun! I found this terminology to be humorous (though I’m unsure exactly why, as it seems an appropriate term) and vowed to Kayley and Mike that I would join in the fun with the functioners after the function was under way. As people arrived to the reserved tables I had an eerie sense of familiarity with the mix in ages and styles of dress. Older people in more business attire, younger people in more casual attire, although more than a few in either age group belonging to the opposite clothing style. 

It reminded me very much of my days of working the mental health job in Portland. Could it be? I didn't rush over right away, who was I to join in a good function uninvited before it was properly underway? I had a few more beers and felt properly oiled before approaching a small group of functioners. Lo and behold - youth workers! They worked with young people up to age 21 who struggled with substance abuse issues, and were always in need of casual employees who could work shifts at the detox unit or day program, both of which were hilariously easy to get to from my house. 

This is an example of how creative young people can get when they really want something. Those are two shampoo bottles, tape, and a straw.We found it hidden in the bathroom of the detox. Cheeky buggas. 

I spoke with their boss, who had put down at least as many beverages as myself, and we loudly agreed that I would be ideal for the position. She set me up with an interview for the following Monday, and they left to get shwarmas while Kayley, Mike, and I opted for pho. So having started the day unemployed and making ill-advised and expensive drinking choices, I ended it a lucky drunk full of Vietnamese soup on my way to a great job in a great location with flexible hours and great pay. Ha! It all comes full circle tomorrow, when I'll have a function at the same bar to say goodbye to the good men and women I've worked with for the past six months. 

So for now I must say goodnight. It feels good to finally have a blog going.