Day 37: The Entertainer

It is a good thing that I'm not an ostrich today - it would be impossible to find any piece of dry sand to bury my head in. It has rained cats and dogs, old women with clubs, men, some frogs... and still it rains. And judging by the rainfall patterns, it is going to keep on raining well into February.

The rain does not deter Aussies from going out and having some fun though! On the contrary, it inspired some inventive blokes who happened to own a boogie board, pulley system with a long rope and a short ramp, to make good use of the flood water next to the road. This to great entertainment of the small crowd which has spontaneously gathered next to the road in expectation of at least one spectacular fall. With some disjointed encouragement from the bystanders they tried again and again to achieve a passable waterski and jump off the ramp. 

Ironically enough, it would be less entertaining to watch if they simply succeeded. The true entertainer would either woo the crowd by progressively outdoing himself, OR by performing a vast array of nearly successful attempts, with each one just being the slightest bit closer to success than the previous one. Of course, the MASTER entertainer would keep this up for exactly as long as he intended, building up the tension to unbearable heights... and then finally allow the audience to let out the breath they've been holding by finishing off in one grandly executed leap of triumph.

Now the fact that I considered burying my head in the sand today - provided of course that I could transform into an ostrich - should give some indication to the outcome of The Test. The good news is that statistics can still be trusted, and as such, we maintained the 50% pass-rate at Southport and husband is now the proud holder of the Document that Defines your Identity in Australia. 

(It still defies all logic that the same document in South Africa is only good for one thing: driving. Despite it bearing a photo AND fingerprint of the bearer, it is very often of no use proving your identity. Especially to banks! They need the Identity Document, which has no fingerprint, no barcode, and more often than not a very unrepresentative photograph...)

The only really bad news today is that I came to the realisation that I'm not much of an entertainer at heart after all. I will be perfectly happy to pass my test at the second attempt, and then never repeating it again!!

Rain in Queensland