James: Australia Day, Sickie Day and more

Hi all the people who read this blog, I know it's been a while since my last post but in the holidays I really can't be stuffed to do anything at all except sleep, eat and watch tv. In Australia at about this time every year we always talk about what it is to be Australian, seeing as it is almost Australia Day. So here is what being Australian means to me:

1. You don't care what happened on Australia day all those years ago and instead focus on getting yourself totally pissed. Lamb is usually what people eat, not because it's the nicest type of meat or even because it's cheap but because Sam Kekovich will come around to your house and beat you if you don't eat it.

2. You get thrown out of the Big Day Out, or at least leave in the back of an ambulance. See us Australians we will take any opportunity to drink too much (see point 1 for more details), so of course going all the way out to Homebush for a festival which the aim of going is seeing how fast you can get kicked out (much like our visits to the school library, but more on that another time).

3. You take a sickie on either the day before or the day after Australia Day. This great Aussie tradition dates back to the first fleet, when the convicts would chuck a sickie to get out of building buildings for the British. Now-a-days though you don't get beaten for having a sickie in fact it's quite the opposite, you get a nice day on the beach enjoying yourself with the 20 million other Australians who took a sickie too. Our wonderful, totally independent *cough* *cough* premier has been talking about a different national day for us to celebrate and I totally agree. It should be called "Sickie Day", and everyone phones in on Sickie Day and tells their boss that they're sick, but of course the boss doesn't care 'cause he's sick too. the problem with this is it would create another 2 Sickie Days, one before and one after, and to respect the wishes of the Australian people eventually every day shall be known as Sickie Day, and when we get to that point then of course we will no longer need an excuse to get pissed and instead just enjoy not remembering anything and dying young, but hey, at least we're doing something with our lives.

4.(Yes I know that the last point was overly long and pointless)but the final 2 reasons that you know you are Australian are being talked about a lot in the news lately. You favour a republic. I personally am surprised that there is still debate going on about this, everyone knows that we Aussies want to become a republic because it's one more thing that we have beaten Britain in. But seriously, the recent visit of Prince William has showed people like Tony Abbott that we still want to Monarchy but really we want to be a separate country so we can celebrate another public holiday for that.

5. If you are Australian, then you are a racist! This is the rest of the world's view of us. First Blackface; then the KFC ad; then the bashing of Indian students; what next, because the sand at the beaches is white, we are racist? However most Australians I know are not racist. I am sure that there are lots of Australians out there (such as my grandparents) who are scared of the other cultures, but I think we should be embracing them, as us Aussies took the land over from the Aboriginals on Australia Day 1788, so what would be the difference if they took over us on Sickie Day 2015? Australians should see that the bulk of our culture is not made up of all the things above, although they do form a major part of who we are as a nation, but no we should think that our identity come from being a Multicultural nation who strive to offer opportunities for everyone and a nation that is accepting of people from all around the world, so that they can enjoy the wonderful things Australia has to offer (Points 1,2,3,4 and 5).

So in conclusion us Australians must celebrate tomorrow as if we had another day afterwards to recover, which thankfully we do, thanks to Sickie Day.

From a Proud Aussie,
James

p.s School goes back on Friday so expect 3 different moaning and groaning later this week from Alex, Anthony and myself as we complain about finishing our holidays