The Sunshine Army

Being a part of the Sunshine Army

This weekend in Sydney, the University of New South Wales volunteer program “Yellow Shirts” celebrated its 25th anniversary. Yellow Shirts are a group of 100+ students who give up their time to help orientate (orient?!) new students, geographically, academically, and socially, arriving at UNSW. Orientation Week, or O-Week, is one of the largest programs of its kind, runs for a full five days from 9am til late, and is filled with activities from campus tours, to jumping castles and giant jenga to clubs and society events and live bands. Volunteers receive extensive training, and become a part of an amazing group of people once referred to as the “sunshine army”. 

Seeing the images and stories from the anniversary pop up in my facebook feed made me nostalgic and strangely homesick. Memories of my four years as a Yellow Shirt volunteer pop up in fragmented fashion. Before living in America, before cutting off all my hair, before engagement, before world travel, there was uni, and there was Yellow Shirts. 

Squads, OT, double squads, quadruple squad outings, the importance of FAFYing and CWEFLS, and never using terms and abbreviations that outsiders/newcomers wouldn’t understand. Running around late at night at training camp and accidentally bursting into a room where two Muslim volunteers were quietly praying. Rehearsing for the band in the Huts and heading up to the Rege for $5 steaks (before I was a vegetarian...) and card games. Sitting in Coffee Republic whilst the O-Week Coordinator consoled me, above and beyond her duties, because I hadn’t been selected as a squad leader - and how that year I was placed with one of the most amazing people I have ever encountered and how he changed the entire way I looked at leadership. The year it poured with rain and we moved everything inside the Roundhouse, and how one squad provided tarp-covered escorts up the Main Walkway for arriving students. The relationships that formed, the boys I fell in love with. The couples still together, the families born. One day soon there will be second-generation shirts...

Beyond the memories of those four years, reflecting this weekend has reminded me how much that time has shaped me as a person. My time at UNSW was marked by the height of my depression. One volunteer recruiting session, which lasted well into the night, saw me escaping out into the cool night air, and sitting sobbing at the top of main walkway and contemplating if I should just end everything. Despite the pain and grief I was suffering, I look back now and think of my world at UNSW as an extremely happy and productive one.

Volunteering gave me an immense number of skills, practical not only on a CV checklist but in the real world. Talking with strangers, engaging with people across cultures, and barriers of language and age, organizational skills, team work, leadership, problem solving, and event planning. These skills have allowed me to confidently venture out into the world, and directly led to paid employment in three different countries in a variety of fields, including theatre, sustainability, retail, teaching, and running my own business.

Being a Yellow Shirt led me to the Contact Coordinator role, a part-time paid position overseeing the running of an information and referral centre at the university - often referred to as the O-Week outside of O-Week. That job covered my rent and expenses whilst I finished my undergrad, and gave me the skills of managing a team of 100 student volunteers, and overseeing the success of a crucial student service at a time when student services were being reduced, or cut altogether, at universities across Australia.

Beyond the skills, the greatest part of volunteering was the people. Like-minded souls with similar interests, people who pushed my comfort zones and broadened my horizons. They opened my eyes to the world around me, taught me about leadership and teamwork, and the bounds of friendship. My fellow volunteers are among the most wonderful, creative, talented, and lovely folk I have ever encountered. They are now dotted around the globe, and have gone on to be come scientists, doctors, lawyers, analysts, economists, historians, writers, politicians, actors, musicians, journalists, mothers and fathers. I am a lucky soul indeed to be able to count them amongst my friends.

Since becoming a Yellow Shirt, I have volunteered in theaters, bookshops, and on farms. I have learnt to put my hand up for projects, and roles, where there is little or no monetary payment, that have gifted me with friendships, books, food, and impossible-to-price experiences.

I have often joked that working a day job allows me to pay for the experience of volunteering. Those countless volunteer hours, in a variety of programs, not only gave me tangible skills, and a degree, they undeniably shaped who I am. And for that, I am eternally grateful. 

Sunday in the Park

It is 8 degrees (46 fahrenheit)
And the sky is blue
And the sun is shining
And you jog to the park
And there are kids playing soccer
And rugby
There are other people running
You smile at each other in runner code
It's (relatively) warm! The sun is shining!
We're running without thermals on!
We can RUN without fear of slipping!

People are walking their dogs
And the dogs are ecstatic
The grass has become muddy
The dogs' legs and bellies are covered in mud
The kids who have been playing sport
Are covered in mud
Across London tonight
There will be washing machines full of muddy clothes and towels

There is a solitary patch of snow left in the grass
A man is stomping in it
Perhaps he is reliving his childhood
Perhaps he is cleaning his black shoes
Perhaps he just likes snow

It is a little blustery
But the sky is blue
The grass is green
The sun is warm
And it is delicious

The end.

The Best Things

In the past 7 days I have had several beautiful, inspiring, and exciting experiences...

On Monday I went down to Canberra (the above image is actually a photo of the air con and personal light on the bus!) to visit my good friend Susie La Q and her boyfriend Ryan, and after a delicious lunch in the CBD, we headed off to the Australian War Memorial. Even though I have been to the memorial countless times, each visit is an emotional, confronting, and inspiring. It is a beautifully designed space, and the exhibits never fail to move me. It seems that the more I learn about conflict around the world, the less I understand it. At closing time, the crowds are ushered towards the exit, and we were privileged to witness the “closing ceremony”, a simple service at the Pool of Reflection. A different soldier is remembered each day, his story read out to the crowd, and at the conclusion, a moment of silence followed by a lone musician playing The Lament on the bagpipes. Looking around the crowd, a multicultural mix of tourists from all around the world, I couldn’t help but wonder, what is the point of all this conflict? I am standing with people whose nations at one time or another Australia has most likely been at war with. And for what? Has it made the world a better place? Or does it just make people more mistrusting of each other? 

On Tuesday Susie and I visited Floriade. If you ignored the carnival rides and Easter Show-like stalls, you could almost believe you were stepping into an Impressionist painting. The rainbow of colours of poppies and irises and English daisies and chrysanthemums, the light green of the weeping willows dotting the perimeter of the lake was breath-taking (I love how in the photo below, the image has pixelated and it looks like a painting). The gnome knoll was a surprise highlight, with a myriad of brightly and imaginatively painted gnomes grinning up at intrigued passers-by. Thank you to Susie La Q and Ryan (and Sulley!) for a lovely couple of days! 

On Thursday I took Phoebe and her friend Sara (aged 7 and 8 respectively) to the Rock’s Discovery Museum for a school holiday program called HMS Discovery. Each “sailor” was given a passport, and the embarkation point, Plymouth, was stamped onto the yellow page. The year is 1792. Captain Natalie (not quite historically correct having a female captain, but we’re willing to be a little more open minded these days) reads her crew of 10 sailors, ranging in age from about 5 to 11, a letter from Captain Arthur Phillip to King George, requesting supplies for the colony of NSW. A projected image on the wall behind the ship tells us we are at the Plymouth dock. Over the (anachronistic) loudspeaker we hear sounds of a busy wharf - sailors stomping up an down the gangplank, cows and pigs mooing and oinking, the horns of the ships.

The crew were briefed on how to run a ship by playing Captain’s Coming, and were quickly inducted into the technicalities of port, starboard, bow, and stern, climbing the rigging, sewing the sail, and scrubbing the deck. The crew assembled in the Plymouth Storehouse, and were ordered to load the ship. Sacks of tools, timber, flour, and sugar, heavy chests with currency, a large sack of mail and cages of animals were quickly despatched onto the ship by the willing crew. Once all were aboard, the gangplank was removed, the ropes were thrown in, and the sail let down. 

The ship was off! The image on the wall changed to  a painting of a ship at sea, and the sounds of the ocean could be heard all around. The eagle eyed crew quickly spotted that the ship was overrun with rats, and spent time running around the ship throwing fat black squeaky rats overboard. Each sailor took turns in the important tasks of furling and unfurling the sail, throwing the ropes, and steering the ship. As evidenced by the sound effects, and a new image on the screen, the ship sailed into a storm, and the crew tied themselves to the railings to avoid being flung overboard by the rollicking sea - thankfully everyone knew how to tie a reef knot! They charted their way down around South America and found themselves in Rio de Janeiro. The crew avoided scurvy by eating lemons, limes, and bananas, and dancing to the music of Rio de Janeiro. But the stop was only a short one, as there was still a long voyage ahead. 

Finally, after 8 long months at sea, the crew could hear seagulls, which meant land was at last nearby! The distinct sounds of the NSW bush could at last be heard - cackling kookaburras and lilting lyre birds. The image on the wall transformed into Sydney Cove, and the crew rejoiced at having made the long voyage successfully. The cargo was unloaded into the Sydney storehouse, and all sailors were given a new Sydney Cove stamp in their passports. A most wonderful way to spend an hour in the school holidays... now I need to find a version for adults! 

The War Memorial visit re-inspired me to keep learning about conflicts around the world, and after a delightful couple of hours in the City of Sydney Library on Tuesday afternoon, I have a new stack of books on Afghanistan to keep me busy for a while. Yesterday I finished reading Three Cups of Tea, a powerful book about the importance of providing education in Central Asia. Once again, the more I learn, the more I want to know, and the less I seem to understand... the contradictory joy of learning!

So a very busy and wonderful week, with much to inspire me! And the best part, all of these activities were free! WIN! 

Run, Lulu! Run!

Bright blue sky, crisp air, and 80,000 of my closest friends. A perfect day for running the iconic City to Surf. Now in it’s fortieth, and my first, year, the City to Surf today was an amazing event. The logistics behind these kinds of things always staggers me. Who has to make the decision about how many plastic cups to buy? Organises the online registrations? Packs bibs and electronic tags and stuffs bags full of newspapers? Organises the marshalling of 80,000 runners?! It’s mind blowing. But it is incredible to be a part of. Dad and Phoebe dropped my s’Mum (step-mum for the uninitiated, and pictured with moi above at the end of the race) Meg and I off at Hyde Park and my adrenalin started pumping. The park was full of people in sports gear, stretching, jogging, and greeting fellow runners. This is what life should be all about. People coming together to celebrate health and fitness and the beauty that is Sydney on a bright sunny, albeit chilly, Sunday morning in early August. 

The race start is divided into 6 groups based on previous experience (ie. the super duper runners start first), and safety (ie. the walkers and mum’s/dad’s/carers with prams are up the back). Meg was in the blue group, so I bid her farewell and made my way through the park down to College St to join the yellow group. I giggled at the long row of porta loo’s through the middle of the park, and the patient queues of runners lined up to use them (something about peeing in the middle of the city with but a wall of thin plastic between you and thousands of people is immensely amusing... after all is said and done, we are all human...). 

Are you ready yellow group?! Cheers and waves. They called the start of the race, and we were off! Sort of. The sheer mass of people meant we really couldn’t get moving beyond a slight shuffle. Thankfully as we rounded the corner to William St, the pace picked up, the crowd thinned a little, and I was able to run right from the blue mat (the point from which the electronic tag attached to your shoe starts recording your time... Ah technology! Back in my old running days it was a volunteer with a stop-watch...).  And from then on, except for a couple of drink stops along the way, I pretty much didn't stop running until I hit the finish line.

It was humbling, inspiring, and emotional to look up to the end of William St and see a mass of humanity running toward the tunnel. The sound of feet pounding the pavement around me, the smell of tiger balm, the spectators cheering us on. I was totally pumped! Running through the tunnel people were whooping and cheering, and a lythe young Mexican woman with a giant sombrero and an Ipod speaker dock, was playing awesome Latino tunes, all the while cheering and running, (and totally outpacing me)! I had to keep reminding myself to not let the excitement (or emotions) get a hold of me, and focus on running! 

I was shocked when we reached the 5km mark to realise we had already done 5km, because I was feeling good! The sheer momentum of the people around me, the bands playing along the roadside, the people who had come out onto their lawns and driveways to cheer and play music, the gorgeous day, it felt fantastic to be a part of it all. Heartbreak Hill was demanding, but with so much going on around me, people dressed in costumes - from Star Wars to Spiderman, several gorillas, a giant frog (how do people run 14km in head gear?!), wigs and capes, tutu’s and fairies, inspirational t-shirts, and people from all walks of life, young and old, walking and running, I didn’t have time to remember I was willingly running up a 5km hill, let alone a 14km race!

Rounding down the hill down Military Rd and Campbell Parade, I remembered why I love living in Sydney (especially my days of living in the east). Bright blue sky meets glorious blue ocean meets beautiful harbour foreshore. It's fairly spectacular. And coming into Bondi Beach was a mixed bag of emotions. I was excited, proud, tired, sad that it was coming to an end so quickly, and pumped that I had finally achieved something I had said I would do since I was about eleven years old. I’m a little sore tonight (ok, make that a lot sore... when Mum called out to say the race was on the news, I could barely make it from my room to the tv... go figure!), but I feel like I can achieve ANYTHING I put my mind to... look out world!