Smarty pants...

Many moons ago, when I was in high school, I had two thoughts –

1. What am I doing here?

2. Fuck, I don’t know the answer.  

I never saw the point of high school. I never knew anything and most of my time there was trying to bunk off sport and go work at McDonalds so I could get  money to travel to the UK - or keeping a low profile so no one could ask me things like math or science questions. Religious education?  Ah no, Mum agreed I could be removed from that because I considered it a load of bollocks and there was that incidence where I may have expressed an opinion to a religious type who took it badly. Phys Ed? How is running around a school sports oval going to do anything but piss me off? Actually, I was only thinking on my morning run, this morning, that when I was 12, and playing netball at school, we had this Nazi as a coach. She was an uncaring jockette who made us run and run and frigging run. I enjoyed being last on each of her runs because I’d already worked out a shortcut and never, ever, did that bitch work out I never ran the full way. But I digress…the main point of this ramble is today someone asked me a general knowledge question about the kings and queens of the UK and I rattled them off one after the other in succession. They were amazed. How did I know this stuff? By reading books – and not history books – Jean Plaidy. Really? Yes. Remember her? By reading her stories based on the lives of the Tudors and Plantagenets etc, I learned to love history and accept textbooks.   

My point? Wanna be a smarty pants? Sometimes the road less travelled when it comes to education is the best.  

        

Two things I learned today…

One…I’m a lot shorter than I think I am when I kick off my docs and walk around the office in my socks. That sudden loss of an inch surprised me. Typical it’s easier to lose it in height than in width. And two, after thirty odd years of not playing netball…back then I was a part of the mighty, albeit constantly losing, Snowflake team in primary school when I was 8  to 12 years old…that when faced with desperate strangers needing ring-in players or they forfeit, I can don the bib once more and be as pathetic now – albeit enthusiastic – as I was then. So, in reality, I’m shorter and I played netball - ipso facto I’m in my second childhood.      

The mighty Snowflakes...

A thousand years ago when I around 8 years old I played netball. I was part of the mighty all losing team called the Snowflakes. We were, in essence, pathetic bordering on hopelessly unco yet we turned up to every game. Looking back now I think it was because we got fed orange quarters at half time. Anyway, after the Snowflakes were confirmed bottom of the ladder, we didn’t despair. We came back the next year as the Defenders – crap name but one of the parents I believe thought it would inspire us to actually do stuff like defend, not run into each other or duck when the ball was thrown at us. Ah, those were the heady days. That year we actually came second last due to the fact one team had to pull out after only two games so they went to the bottom. You can imagine our euphoria at not being last. That spurred us on to become – the Hot Shots…oh yeah, a winning name for any other team but ours. But we soldiered on back down to the bottom of the league once more. And it was then that an epiphany came upon us – let’s go play hockey. The ex-Snowflakes players came second that year in hockey. Moral of the story? Hockey - so much potential for revenge.

Why I ramble on about this now is I have decided to make a netball comeback in Cairns – after all I feel it’s my obligation as I was actually vice-captain of the mighty Snowflakes and it's probably, possibly my professional due to take the court once more. Yep, you can't keep a snowflake down.





Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book