Conversation and Reminiscence

So the whole point of blogs is text, right?

Well I was talking to my old friend Jason last night on msn. MSN, do you still use that? Yes, yes I do.

Anyway, we got talking about the last 8 years or so of life, as we had only seen each other maybe twice in 2003 and once in 2005 since I left my original school.

And this is where I take a break to explain:

Whilst I finished my secondary education at Frankston High School, I did originally go to a school called Bayside Christian College. Essentially it was a small (400 kids from Prep-Year 12) Christian Independent School, originally started by the Dutch Reformed Church, and some local Presbyterians as an alternative to expensive Anglican church schools such as Peninsula and Toorak, with a more hands-on Christian ethos. It was what became fashionably known as a parent-controlled independent school. 

It was the kind of school where they pushed things like Abstinence and Creationism, often in very unsubtle ways. Many of my class-mates ended up pregnant in shot-gun marriages, or got married early and suddenly had children (surprise, surprise). Many of the female members of the class took things like Home Economics and Health and Human Development, specifically (it seems) to become Mothers straight after High School (or during). That was not so much a criticism as a statement of fact, many of them are fine mothers. The boys were mostly interested in Sports, Hunting, Fishing and Outdoor Pursuits with a small rebel clan of computer nerds. Again not so much a criticism as a fact - I wish I could have been like them, but I wasn't.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my upbringing, through conservative churches, schools and to some extent through some people I knew at college who shared that upbringing, led to a very much pink-blue dichotomy, that could not be breached in real life (although I understood that homosexuality, and other different sexualities existed, I was unable to place them in a normative environment. I remember discovering that my very good friend (unnamed) was a homosexual. It was a shock - and yet everyone else knew long before me. I just couldn't conceive of a normal person being so different to the above - maybe Carnaby Street, but certainly not in suburban Melbourne.

I guess all of this rubbed off on me, though I don't know how. I thought I had followed my own path, quite self-consciously while I was at school. I was always off with the fairies, constructing some left-field fantasy world - always more interested in words and dreams than anything practical-minded as above. So I think I may have been alienated by myself, and while I tried to fit in, my interests where by comparison to the school a bit too foreign. However, one cannot escape the surroundings of one's youth.

Anyway, Jason remarked to me that he didn't have much of a school spirit when he was at school. I remembered that that was corrrect, and I had been under the impression that my own school spirit was lacking. And to some extent it was, at least for a time. However, ironically, before I left the school it had made me love it, in an almost Orwellian style. In fact, the longer I've been away, the more I've found it influencing me.

I'm not much of a creationist, and I fully support condoms and proper sex education, my politics are definitely on the outer in the Liberal Party - definitely more Malcolm Turnbull than Tony Abbott (just wait readers, just wait), my "manly" interests in outdoor pursuits are... limited, and my wife is happily unpregnant, my religion is largely private and I certainly don't overtly proselytise.

However the values of my school: 'running the race', competiveness, capitalism (whether physical, intellectual, or fiscal), a real faith in God, a strong handshake, and a sense of discipline leading to achievement (no matter how small or large) are still with me, and I can't seem to shake them (not that I really want to). At that school, there was real encouragement, and comradery, and the lessons about life that I learned there can't be shaken, nor do I want them to be.

And Jason and I are still friends, with strong shared memories and experiences,and it was good to catch up with him, and open up our shared past. He is now doing very well for himself, as a helicopter engineer, and generally having a good time - this is a job he has wanted since he was 16.