Newsletter for the Rotary Club of Western Endeavour - Issue No.: 373 Issue Date: 24 Jan, 2010

Happy Australia Day, everyone!

We've made it to that time of year - stinking hot days, suffocating nights, the constant need for a hat (for some of us anyway).  Uni is like a ghost town - the students aren't back for another month, and 90% of the staff seem mysteriously absent.  I almost expect to see tumbleweeds rolling across James Oval.

Australia Day for me seems to mark the end of the "holiday season".  There's always a Uni shutdown between Christmas and New Year, from which I come back to work feeling lethargic and uninspired, almost in standby mode.  Then the fireworks kickstart everything, the holiday is officially over, and everyone gets back down to business.

Something that seems to have sprung up in recent years is the proliferation of Aussie flags on cars around this time of year.  Don't get me wrong, I'm generally a pretty patriotic kind of guy - happily singing the anthem after meetings and covering myself with Aussie flags at the cricket - but the car flags don't really "do it" for me.  Maybe I associate them with the "____ off, we're full" type of bumper sticker bigotry that often seems to accompany them, or maybe I subconsciously resent them as another not-so-subtle Americanisation of Australia.  Whatever it is, they make me cringe a bit.  To each their own, I guess - diversity is part of what makes Australia so great to me.

I'll certainly be doing the Aussie thing of catching up with some friends over a barbie (the cooking thingy, not the doll) and a couple of cold drinks, and I'm sure the coverage of the Aussie team caning Pakistan in the cricket will get a run at some stage.  Whatever it is that you and your family have planned, have a great day!

(Just don't turn up at Meeka.  There's no meeting on the Aussie Day holiday.)