21.02.2007: extreme weather guy

On the 16th of November 1989, two weeks after completing my final HSC (Higher School Certificate) exam, I attended my high school formal at a frightfully prestigious venue known as the Newcastle Workers' Club. This turned out to be quite a large event in my life, and the calendar date is permanently etched in my brain. At the risk of inducing catatonia, let me explain why.

First, there was the fact that the HSC was finally over, and I hadn't died while attempting to complete it. I knew there were some things about high school that I'd miss - like studying Revolutionary Theory, which was my extra history unit (and which I suspect was one of the factors that ultimately led me to Russia 16 years later). But overall, I was pretty damn pleased to be alive and kicking at the end of it all. Or at least alive and smoking.

Then there was this rather bizarre twist: I can't remember how I'd managed it, but by some means or other I'd found the necessary courage to ask Megan O'Brien to the formal with me. And stranger still, my request had drawn an unexpected reply from her - she'd said "yes".

To explain the significance of that: Megan was the person with whom I'd been utterly obsessed throughout my last year of high school, and who may or may not qualify as my 'first love'. So her willingness to accompany me as we graduated into the world of adulthood was a pretty mind-blowing thing at the time.

All sounding good so far, but there are definitely some less pleasant memories that accrete around this calendar date as well. Like the moment when I discovered that Megan had disappeared during the ceremony to join her much-more-glamorous quasi-boyfriend Ashley in the salubrious downstairs bar of the Workers' Club. As far as I was able to work out, Ashley's glamour mostly derived from the fact that he was older and more 'experienced' than me, he treated Megan like a used tissue, he was a borderline sociopath and he had an exciting drug habit. Oh no, hang on, there was something else: he was cute. Very cute, in fact. Much more so than, say, me for instance. So in one sense I did understand why I was second fiddle in the Megan O'Brien Symphony Orchestra. I was the silly, geeky friend, Ashley was the classic 'bad boy', and we were both very good at our jobs. So props to him. Still, all that perspective didn't really help me much at the time :-(

Luckily, though, as the the night wore on things improved. Megan re-joined me at the formal, and I guess Ashley got sick of waiting for her in the bar, so he sloped off with some disreputable associates. This was good, because after the formal Megan decided to come out with myself and a group of classmates for a night on the tiles. Which leads to the fifth (and final) reason why 16 Nov '89 looms so large in the memory banks - namely, that after we'd spent the night doing all manner of silly things in the inner suburbs of Newcastle, Megan and I fell asleep next to each other. Or at least, we dozed for a bit on a friend's lounge room floor, before hastily clearing out and packing our bags to get the hell out of Newcastle once and for all.

The next day, our post-high school lives commenced when we boarded the same train, bound for Sydney.

I could happily go on with this story, filling several pages with the strange convolutions of the following years. They're really quite ... well, strange and convoluted. And the story ends up with Megan and I discovering just a few years ago (after a long period of not seeing each other at all) that we were living just blocks from one another in Stanmore. Me in share housing, her with partner and child.

But I won't, because none of that is actually the point.

The thing I actually set out to tell you is this: exactly one month after that night when I entered the Newcastle Workers' Club for the first and only time, the entire frikkin' building was reduced to rubble by an earthquake.

So let's review:

1. High school formal
2. Anthony & Megan escape to Sydney
3. One month's worth of business as usual at the Worker's Club; and
4. Destruction, chaos, nature's wrath, bodies being pulled from under shattered cement blocks and identified from dental records.

I'm pretty sure that, if I was reading this, I'd now be thinking "Ah-huh ... so what exactly is your point, you silly man?". But here's what you don't know yet, and what I myself only realised this week. I, Anthony 'Word Nerd' National Namesake Cook, have finally found my purpose and function in this world. And it's as follows: I'm Extreme Weather Guy.

While you cool your skepticism let me cut to January 2006, when I was commuting every day through the outer reaches of Moscow in temperatures that frequently dipped below -20C. I wrote about this at the time and so I apologise for repeating myself. However, I just want to remind you briefly of one detail. While we all know that winter in Russia is always a pretty frigid affair, I happened to be there in the year when even the Russians themselves were freaked out about how cold things were getting. In fact - as the BBC helpfully informed me - the winter of 2005-6 was the coldest Russia had endured for 27 years. And what was different in 2006 to any other January? Simple: Extreme Weather Guy was there.

In case you're still loitering in the realms of the unconvinced, let me tell you about what happened here tonight. At about 9pm, while I was sitting in my Herne Bay flat trying to work out how to explain the difference between "will" and "going to" when discussing future intentions, there was an earthquake. True story. And not just a little tremor, mind you, but the largest quake this town has experienced for 30 years. Large enough to close the airport. Large enough to make every dog in Auckland bark more or less in unison for about three minutes. Large enough to bring audible cries of "whoa!" to my ears from other apartments in my building. Larger than ... um, okay, I've temporarily run out of large stuff to mention, but I'm sure you've tuned into "large" theme by now, so let me tell you what else it was (aside from large):

It was cool.

To add to the fun, this happened on a day when I'd taken about 30 students from my school on an excursion to Mount Eden (one of the volcanoes in central Auckland - mentioned in a previous ramble). While we walked around the crater, I decided it was time to frighten some of my star pupils by telling them the facts about Mount Eden and its sister volcanoes. And the facts are basically these: they're all part of a massive volcanic field that sits directly beneath Auckland and is still active today.

I pointed towards Rangitoto, brooding in the harbour like a big broody harbour-dwelling volcanic thing, and told them that it wasn't there 600 years ago and that it appeared suddenly one day while the Maori were working in their fields on adjacent islands. I pointed around us to all the other cones we could see, which were numerous. And I told them the prevailing scientific belief that none of these volcanoes are likely to erupt again. Instead, scientists say, the lava, magma and other deadly goo will break through at a different location in the city, and Auckland will have a new volcano for visitors like us to marvel at. Everything I said was true.

And then, that night, we had a 4.5 earthquake.

A couple of minutes after the ground got wibbly-wobbly, I sent the following text to my Kiwi buddy Greer: "Wow ... volcanoes, glaciers, frikkin' earthquakes. I love your country!" And that's true too. Of course, it wouldn't have been quite as much fun if we'd gone a point higher on the Richter Scale and my flat had crumbled around / under / on top of me. But it didn't, and I wasn't (crushed to death, I mean). So that was okay; just another one of those things that served to enhance my authentic Kiwi Experience.

Now the dogs have shut up and I'm sitting here in the picturesque calm of Herne Bay, thinking about my obviously magnetic effect on extreme weather systems. What should I do with this newly-discovered ability, do you think? Move to Washington D.C. and rent a flat as close as possible to the White House, maybe? Hmmm ... suggestions, anyone?

Actually, I'll tell you one thing I could do. I'm planning to return to Australia for a few months during 2007, so if there's any part of that country you'd like to see obliterated, please let me know. For a modest fee, I'd happily swing by your neighbourhood of choice and concentrate really hard on making the Earth around me crack, boil, freeze, violently invert itself, be submerged by molten lava, toads or flood waters, or whatever else I can think of at the time. You don't have to answer right away; have a little think about it and see what you come up with.

While you do that, I'm off to get some sleep. Bye!