One-year-old Aussie

Yes, I am finally celebrating my first year as a fully-fledged Aussie - beer-drinking, backpack-carrying, sports-loving Aussie ...

How does it feel? For one, I actually forgot all about the anniversary, and it was actually my friend who reminded me about it. I don't quite know why I forgot actually, cos it was a pretty big decision for me to take up Australian citizenship, but my memory can be quite woolly at times, and lots of things have been happening in my life recently, so that's my excuse!

Things haven't really changed that much since I got my citizenship. Most people still think I'm not Australian because of my accent and my appearance, and I still pay as much tax as I used to(!!!). What was exciting though was travelling overseas on an Aussie passport. For some reason, the moment I said I was Australian, all the other backpacking Aussies (and there were plenty of them) were very friendly and I immediately had a whole bunch of new companions to travel with even though I was travelling alone!

Prolly the one thing I have been looking forward to is voting at this weekend's elections. The vote itself is a bit of a farce really and there isn't really much of a choice for us voters, but to actually be voting - that's a biggie for me!! I'm sure I'll soon turn into a political-apathetic Aussie, but not just yet ...

Better than sex?

I finally scored my second goal in indoor futsal. It was an amazing strike - a beautiful curl around the player guarding me and the goalkeeper and straight into the top left-hand corner of the goal. I was so excited that I even wanted to take my shirt off, which is not really something I can do as a female player. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I can still replay the shot in my mind in slow motion and for once, I felt like a proper player, not just some huffing and puffing weekend warrior trying not to twist my ankle on the court.

Some professional football players have said that scoring a goal is better than sex, and it did feel a bit like that. Imagine playing in front of 70,000 screaming spectators in a stadium and scoring a spectacular goal. How amazing a feeling that must be! It's like having sex with 70,000 people - a million times more adoration is thrown at you! Ok, maybe I'm taking the sex analogy a bit too far, but it was a good goal, and I'll milk as many analogies as I can just to remind myself of that one second.

Another strange thing about the goal was that I scored it with my left foot - the same foot that I scored with for my first goal. I am such a right-hander and right-footer with everything that I do that I'm really surprised that I can do anything at all with that left foot of mine, let alone score such a fanciful goal. But hey, I'm not complaining!