Cox's engagement party

Noteworthy: Tracy had on her facebook status that she got the date of returning to work wrong, and so missed the first day of work. Come on, you got to be pretty dumb to do that right?

On Friday night I went to get some Chinese takeaway from the restaurant around the corner, secretly hoping that the cute girl would be there. She was. But when I walked up to her counter and made the order, I got a really good close up look at her and realised she wasn't really that good looking. Oh well.

I ate my dinner while watching Seabiscuit, a movie recommended by Shuing. It was a good movie, but I was expecting more of a moral lesson, maybe because it came from Shuing. He usually has some good recommendations of movies teaching life lessons and that, but I couldn't glean it from this movie? I was just glad that it wasn't a sad ending (I thought they'd have to put down the horse or something).

Yesterday morning I handwashed some of my clothes and hung them out to dry, then washed my car, and then went out to buy COx a present. Since I had bought Ben a farewell gift, I thought I should give her one as well because they're the two closest people I know up here.

I had in mind a fragrance, and I remember over-hearing Jude talk about a chemist shop that sold them cheaply, so I decided to check that place out. I got there fairly easily, it's a lot closer than I thought. I was checking out the fragrances when the lady at the counter asked if I needed help, and I said I was looking for something for a colleague.

She asked me if it was a guy or girl, and if she was the light and bright type or the dark and gloomy type, and I said the former, and she asked me what my price range was, and I said $30 to $50. She picked out Britney Spears for me, and it had a nice packaging and smell so I chose that one.

It was nearly lunch time, so I went to the Subway next door and got myself a sandwich, and went back home to eat it over You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Funny movie, but I fell asleep during it because I was a bit tired.

I woke up and it was time to get ready to go to Cox's engagement party, so I got changed and cleaned out my car a bit because I had offered to drive Ben and his wife. I had a bit of a dilemma as to whether I should give Ben and Cox their presents now, since it'd be a good time because it was away from work so no one else would know, but on the other hand, it was kinda inappropriate to give someone a gift for one occasion whilst attending for another?

I decided against it, but then put the perfume in my car in case Ben had a present for Cox, even though she told me it was a no presents thing. She said that it wasn't really an engagement party, but her friends all wanted to catch up because of the news, so they decided to have a barbeque which was a way to not invite her relatives, so it was pretty informal.

I drove to Ben's place (surprisingly still remembered how to get there), and once I was there I called his phone and no one answered. His dog came to my car and I was a bit scared, lol, then Ben looked into my car from the other side. He was shirtless wearing a cowboy hat and jeans, and said he'd show me how to feed the cows.

I was pretty excited and scared at the same time. As soon as he let me into the paddock all sorts of thoughts were running through my head: What if they charge at me? Am I able to jump that fence? What if they don't like me and kick me?

Ben was giving me some tips about not standing behind them where they could kick you, and I was trying to absorb as much as I could. Surprisingly the cows seemed to back away from us, and Ben said it was weird cause they didn't seem to realise they were 250kgs and we were only one fifth of that.

I fed one cow some bread, but then dropped it when his mouth got too close, lol. When we got to the main herd, they started swarming Ben because he was holding the bread. He gave me a few slices and told me to hold onto them while he took a photo with my camera. The cows had began swarming me, and I was shitless as to what they'd do so I gave them the bread quickly, before Ben could snap a shot, and so the only photos taken were of me standing there surrounded by cows without bread, lol.

I was looking one in the eye and wondered what she thought. Was she scared of me? Did she think I was a threat? Or was she curious to see me?

The baby calf was so cute, he was running around like a dog, lol.

Ben took me for a bit of a walk around the place, which was really exciting. I seriously wondered whether I could ever live this lifestyle. It really was the simple life. No superficial and materialistic distractions that define Sydney.

After that he went inside to get changed and I had a bit of a talk with his wife Vic while we waited. We just talked about the farm, me returning to Sydney and Avatar.

They had suggested to take their car, which probably was a better idea anyway since I didn't know the way to Cox's place.

Conversation went pretty well during the half hour trip, and I soon found myself in a different neighbourhood. Cox lived in a suburb that could be seen as a middle ground between Lismore and Sydney. Maybe because it was close to the beach.

The three of us walked in to see a group of people sitting around in a circle holding their beers and chatting. We all just nodded and said hello, and then went in to look for Cox. She was in the kitchen, and her fiancee Ben2 was also there. There was a girl making drinks, and I caught her looking at me twice before we were introduced. When I showed them the photos of me with Ben's cows, she came over and had a look and laughed. I took it as a sign to talk to her, but ended up talking to Ben2 and then following Cox as she showed us around the house.

We stood around talking outside for a while, everyone with their beers and me with my apple juice, lol. Ben, Ben2 and I were in a group, whilst Vic was talking to the girl who had been making drinks.

Ben2 soon left and his trainer friend replaced him, and we talked for a bit before Vic, Ben and I moved over to the couches while everyone else sat at the main table. It was like that for the rest of the night, and there was a long spell were Ben disappeared to help with the barbeque or something and Vic and I were just talking about her travels and cats.

When Ben returned I managed to get some goss out of him about the office. Apparently Chris used to be the manager but then couldn't handle the stress and went on leave for more than a year. He reckons Jude may have backed herself into a corner by not getting along with a lot of people, and she apparently wants to be manager. Also, Don has had a run-in with her in the past too. Oh and the admin staff don't like her either because she treats them like shit. I remember over-hearing her talking to Sarah once and thought "that's not how you talk to people".

By the end of the night Cox and Ben2 had joined us as well. I thought they did a pretty good job distributing themselves even;y amongst everyone. I know Cox thought that was very important. When we said we were leaving, Cox lent me the book she had been talking about where some guy cuts his own penis off. Don't know why she thought I was interested, maybe she believed my nods were genuine.

Ben drove us back to his place and then I drove back home to finish watching Zohan.

During the night I thought it was kinda funny. I think it was only Friday that Shuing had told me over email about his thoughts on how white people could never accept Asians in this country, about how there would always be a "friction", and he even made fun of how they spent their time around barbeques.

Those thoughts came into my head as soon as I stepped foot into Cox's place. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was white, and I felt like I stood out because I was Asian. It was something I thought about during the entire night there.

I may have felt a bit left out, but was that because I was Asian? Or was it because I didn't know anyone there?

'Friction' may have been the right word, and I may have felt it, but again, can I attribute that to me being Asian, or just because no one knew me? Put it this way, if everyone there was Asian, things probably would've still been the same - I still would spent the night with Ben and Vic because I knew them the most.

So I am not so sure about how accurate Shuing's assessment was. But I knew one thing: I was more tolerant, open and accepting than he was. He seems to have made up his mind. My mind is not closed...fully, yet.

Oh and the girl mixing the drinks? I heard Vic say something about how her job was to help people re-visit their birth experiences...so it sounds pretty weird to me, so maybe I didn't miss out on much?