What Justin is thinking…

“i’ve nicknamed you swivel hips”

That is what a lady said to me the other day, i had only spent about half an hour in her company and she had already coined a cutsey name for me. I was surrounded by alot of blokes, pretty blokey blokes too, engineers, ute driving blokes – generally not the sort of guys you want to be surrounded by when a lady calls you ’swivel hips’. But despite this, i was rather chuffed at the compliment to my hips. You see we were playing Oz tag at the time and ( i’ll be honest with you) I was carving up the opposition like a molten hot knife through microwave softened butter. I would get the ball and just duck and dive this way and that, it was like i could read exactly where they thought i was going to go and i’d just go the other way. I was in control and dominating them. I think i scored three or four tries – yeah I seriously rocked! And it was for this reason that i graciously accepted the nick name ‘Swivel hips’.

Now the story could end there, but i think that that would be pushing the ‘omiting certain details’ rule right over into the ‘telling a bit of a porky’ side of the school yard. See,  as it turns out we were playing a ladies team that night – i ran rings around a bunch of girls. Now the other thing is that I didn’t pass the ball at all. When i get it, i run. I can’t think of anything else, i just make up some ground and I do my weaving thing. I know that this sounds terribly selfish and hoggish, but have you ever actually played oz tag? It is alot harder than it may appear to pass the ball – i’m alright with the catching and throwing, but the reading of the play is harder than reciting shakespeare backwards. There are plays, switchbacks, calls, dummies – it is all very complex. I see other players doing it while i am sitting on the side, but as soon as i get the ball, i put my blinkers on and think of nothing else but skimming through the opposing team.

So i think i might have to really knuckle down and try to do a few passes, dummies and superballcutbacks or whatever. I’ll work on that, but in the mean time swivel hips rules!

Since I last wrote I have been back living on the farm with the family outside Tamworth. For the first week i was working on the farm with my Cousin and my Dad fencing and picking up rocks, and now I am doing a weeks worth of Work experience at ABC local radio. It is interesting comparing the two types of work as it throws up numerous differences, but also some interesting parallels. One is quite physically demanding, the other I sit a great deal at a computer; One involves thinking quickly and talking elequently, the other allows me to drift off into a mental numbness or allows me to natter my little heart off on any whim that I desire to who I am working with; One requires me to dress quite neatly, the other I wear the exact same tattered clothes everyday; Yet both have me exhausted at the end of the day.

The farm work is fair enough, but it always surprises me that I get so stuffed after a days work at the ABC. I guess it must be because I am constantly doing things and that I still feel a little out of place there, also it might be because i’m giving my noggan a bit of a work out after it napped during the first week. Despite the exhaustedness I am finding the work experience valuable as I’ve certainly learned a great deal more about the industry and what is expected of a Uni graduate. It has also taught me more about working in general, and that it will be a bit of a shake up after the 13 hour a week uni course that I’ve been doing.

Although as my sister did point out today it still doesn’t sound all that cool, being the work experience kid. Hmm, it is the title that a fifteen year old would get if they did a bit of work while filling in time after their school certificate. However, I think i have just found a way to make it cooler, when someone askes me where i will next be doing work experience, I can truthfully tell them that it will be with Enough Rope on ABC TV. I doubt I will be finishing each day with much left in the tank then.