Two large cups of coffee (extra shots) chugged down before the clock strikes 12:00pm. I am in the state of paranoia in Bb major and a hint of calmness. I decided, in my sleep, that I would beat the sun and awaken at 5 this bone-chilling weathered morning. An early start to the day is quite the understatement. This past weekend has been everything but mundane. Yet again, every weekend thus far has been like a Jackie Chan movie, so to speak. My lack-of-sleep weekend started at 10pm on Friday night. First “weekend” shift as a bartender and it wasn’t too shabby. I have always been a fan of watching people in their drunken stupor and for some reason, I enjoy talking to them as well. Serving them on the other hand… well lets just say it’s not as entertaining as to observing them from afar. My new co-workers are fantastic. They dance around behind the bar and make random noises. One of my co-workers – Barbara, even “meowed” the other day and a gentle, paw scratch like gesture followed shortly after. Reminded me of home. During my shift, the supervisor-Johnny, approached and guided all of us toward the end of the bar, where 8 unidentified shots were lined up. He trotted away and I was confused. I then felt a hand grab mine and the next thing I know, a shot glass was in my grasp. I have never taken one before. I have only watched. So my mind is churning with all the possible things that could wrong. For instance, I could imitate the action of taking a shot and end up missing my mouth and have it end up on me; or I could easily take it down and have it back-up in an instant. Thank goodness neither happened. I successfully had my first shot of I Don’t Know. Since this was my first weekend shift as a bartender, Johnny assigned Gillian to be my right hand gal. She wouldn’t serve any drinks. Her job was to answer any questions I had and to teach me how to make drinks that were not on tap. Excellent. She taught me how to make a Jam Donut shot, which I still don’t know the name of the three types of liquor that is required, I just know how the bottles look. By the end of the night, I was a pro in making them. I got off around 4 in the morning and stayed at the bar until 6. One of the many perks that come with the job, is that employees can drink an unlimited amount of anything after the bar closes. So as the three bartenders were soaping up the bar, one of them lined up 19 shot glasses and made Cowboys. Cowboys are made up of butterscotch schnapps and baileys. I didn’t want one because it looked too creamy for me and I am not a big fan of butterscotch. Too bad for me, Gillian begged me to take one. I do not cave into pressure, but I have a philosophy to follow: embrace the culture. Since drinking to Aussies is like drinking water to me, I took a Cowboy shot. Not too bad, just a bit sweet. I then caught the 6:27 tram and fell asleep around 7 on Saturday morning.

11am I awaken. Time for some footy with Dana! Footy, similar to football (but not really), is very entertaining to watch. Rules… seemed like there are hardly any when in comparison to American football. This game was Carlton vs. Essendon. We were told it was suppose to be a really good game considering there is some serious rivalry between the two. Coming into the game, I told Dana that whichever team wins, I would buy the winner’s paraphernalia. As I took my seat, I looked to the guy next to me and said precisely this, “Hi, my name is Abby and I will probably be asking you a lot of questions, seeing that this is my first AFL (Australian Football League) game.” I was then lucky enough to receive a play-by-play by him. He then proceeded to tell me to root for Essendon, AKA the bombers, because they are the best. His name you ask? I call him Mr. Darcy. Not because he resembled a haughty aristocrat or expressed his feelings ardently, but because his name is in fact Darcy and I just can’t help myself but to add the suffix “Mr.” in front of his name and call him that. “Oh Mr. Darcy!” no,no,no. Though I mockingly say that in a high, school-girl tone of voice. And to everyone’s dismay, I didn’t fawn over the guy- he is 16. Though if he were older, I could’ve “fawned”, and a relationship might’ve occurred, and then I could’ve fulfilled the bullet point – “I want a guy like Mr.Darcy”on my bucket list, only I would have overachieved and scored an actual Darcy. If you actually think I have that bullet point on my list, you are far out.

Aside from my Pride and Prejudice rant, whilst watching footy, I concluded that it is composed of three (maybe four?) different sports: Football, basketball, and wrestling. It is similar to football in way that the players are running from one side to the next with a ball, trying to score a goal through two towering poles. OK, that sounds like our football. Allow me to “americanize” it some more since I had to do that throughout the whole game: imagine a football team, but only the kickers; that is a footy team. Yea? Anyways, I then asked Dana the question, “do you think they all have cankles?” That remains a question to this day. Basketball is represented in the game in a way that in the center square, when the referee slams the ball into the ground and it ricochets up, a player on each team has to strike the ball over to the other side. Also, the field is marked like a basketball court. Wrestling is also seen in the way how the players tackle each other. I saw one guy literally throw the opposing player into the ground. Rough, rough sport. Thrilling to watch though. Most of the time, each tackle was a “face down, ass up” kind of result. When you watch an American football game, the referees usually run along the side lines and wave as if they were trying to land an airplane. The refs in footy are quite the opposite. I feel like they get a good workout in every game. They have to strategically line the ball, and then use all the power they have and throw it back in a perfect curve for the players to fumble over. There are also “runners”, like in Tennis, to literally run into the game to deliver messages to the players from the coaches. It is quite humorous to watch them. When I was intensely watching the game, I spotted two orange shirted  guys dart into the game, furiously chasing after a specific player. It’s like a game of tag within footy.

See the similarity to a basketball court?

Goal posts

Yay footy! Yellow footy ball prop, supplied by Mr. Darcy.

Lucky for us, during the 1st quarter, a brawl broke out and it seemed that the officials had no care in the world. Also, please hone in to the far right of the picture.

Rules of Footy: 1. a kick through the two tall posts = 6 points. A kick through the shorter posts (surrounding the tall posts) = 1 point. This is the main objective of the game; 2. Whilst running with the ball,  player must bounce the ball intermittently; 3. Player can tackle an opposing player from any direction (back, front, side). The structure: six forwards, six defenders or “backmen” and six midfielders, usually two wingmen, one centre and three followers, including a ruckman, ruck-rover and rover. Only four players from each team are allowed within the centre square at every center bounce. Also, whenever a 6 point goal is scored, the game is brought back to the center square. (After 20 or so 6pt goals were scored, I finally caught on to this fact).  Like American football, it consists of 4 quarters and a half-time, but the clock is continuous.

I believe I enjoy watching footy more than football… The score?

Womp womp, it was a rough/embarrassing game for the bombers…
It was kind of funny though. After the Blues (Carlton) were up by 30, every goal they made afterwards, the only thing I could do was to chuckle a bit. I bought a carlton plush toy. I also spent $8 on coffee and hot chocolate at the game to keep me warm for a good 5 minutes…

That night I had work again and didn’t get off well into 5am. I was beyond exhausted. At the very beginning of my shift, I downed two mothers (like Red Bull) within the hour and when 2am clocked past, I was about to crash, hard. After work, I grabbed a taxi home and in my delusional state, admired the sunrise as I entered my room.

Considering I fell into REM sleep on Sunday morning, I should have awoken that night or Monday morning, but instead I woke up at 11am… again. Blerg. I pranced around CBD for a few hours and then decided I should go back to the room, do some laundry, and do some intense deep cleaning. Now this part is about to become quite tantalizing. When I got back to my room, I decided to dress for comfort. I figured, since I would be doing laundry and didn’t plan on leaving the room, I would put on some soccer shorts and go with no support. To put it bluntly, I went bra-less. I did NOT go shirtless, even though it was an intriguing thought; I had an oversized sweater on. So I gathered up my laundry bags and detergent and headed out. As my room door slammed shut behind me, in that instant, I realized I had forgotten my key. My mind exploded with profanity and surprisingly I was tacit. I then proceeded to head to my neighbor’s room and calmly knocked on his door. Lucky for me, my surrounding neighbors are all of the male gender. Tom opened the door and I, cross-armed, asked if he had the R.A.’s number. He didn’t. So I explained to him how I locked myself out and he invited me into his room… to look up the R.A.’s number. He couldn’t locate it, so he lent me his key so I could do my laundry. I believe the shade of my face by this point was apple red. I loaded up the washing machine and then headed to the lobby to see if my luck would change for the better. I spied with my little eye, a person sitting behind the desk, yet another male, and I sprinted over toward him. Now that I think about it, that sprint was more like a wobble run due to the fact that I had my hands tucked away in the abode of my armpits. He let me into my room and I returned Tom’s key back to him. Welcome to my embarrassment of a life. From here on out, I will always do laundry with full on support, no matter what. Lesson learned.

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” ~ Jim Rohn