38. Ironic - Alanis Morissette

The nights have gotten longer, its a hell of lot colder, and like Eddie McGuire on the Footy Show, the sun has been relegated to guest appearances.

So it must be Gold Coin time yet again.

Yup so that may require some type of explanation...

Way way back in 1999, I was just a wee tacker. Well not really, I was a naive and sensible teenager of indiscriminate age (probably 16ish?) on the constant search of whatever kids that age sought. And I found myself in the year 10 commerce class held by the venerable Mr. Graham. Hmm now that I think about it, it may have been Mr. Truman or Mr. Smith, but I digress; the actual name of the teacher really isn't the focal point of this tale of my halcyon youth.

Anyway, way back in year 10 I was studying commerce as an optional subject. I was always interested how commerce as a high school subject was only offered in the last few years while subjects such as geography was pretty much forced down our throats since year 7. That's not to say that geography was a wasted exercise, I know my life is that much more complete now that I can identify a cumulus cloud from a stratus cloud. And I still giggle like a schoolgirl when I talk about grassy knolls.

At some stage in that year, our teacher decided that he would give us a little class test. One of those last minute, 'I'd forgotten that I needed some form of assessment before parent-teacher night' tests. And in a form of academic stupidity that sadly does not disperse at university, a large part of the test consisted of a 'identify the abbreviations' section. Terms such as PAYG, or GST (which may not have been around considering it was 1999) were used, as well as 'GC'.

What the hell was 'GC'?

Well to cut a long story shorter by an inch, GC stands for 'Group Certificate', and is actually a term being phased out and changed with 'PAYG payment summary' this year. But back then, when my knowledge of commerce was surely lacking (as opposed to today *cough*), GC had my stumped, I had no idea.

But not my friend Jazz; in a flash of brilliance, he came up with Gold Coin. When asked about its relevance to commerce, I'm pretty sure Super Mario Brothers was mentioned...

So Gold Coin time is Group Certificate time, a time when I roll up my sleeves (not too far though, coz it is cold) and help my dad write up group certificates. Its a hard task (not really) but I'm pretty sure that I'm getting paid for it, so who is to argue.

In an interesting postscript, last year Jazz finished a commerce/bsys double degree and is currently working in accounting. And 1999 was my last year of studying commerce, having decided not to take it up in VCE, preferring the Asian 5 (English, Math Methods, Specialist Math, Chemistry and Physics) and Japanese. And while I've spent the last five years floating in the worlds of law and business systems, in a nice little bit of irony, I'm going to find myself working in tax next year. Yup tax, where GC is everywhere.

Now that beats a black fly in your chardonnay.

In other music/'83 songs' news; the new evermore cd has come out, and I have no money. Last week I was in JB-Hifi and actually did not buy anything, a great feat in my own little existence. But I'll admit I was holding the new Snow Patrol cd for a good few minutes. And there is a song from Dashboard Confessional called 'Don't Wait' that has a pretty cool music video, although I'm not too sure if Dashboard is the band name or the name of the singer... Cos that would be a bit weird, Mr. Dashboard Confessional. I mean, seriously.

Oh, and if you search for 'clouds' in google, you get a pic of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, further proof that nerds rule the internet.