Monday, June 2, 2008

Fiery: Guest Speaker

Shortly after Protium first invited me to Australia, he asked if I would be a guest speaker at the Perth Atheist Meetup group that he was organizing, specifically to "give a 30 min talk about your Lutheran background, becoming an Atheist and religion and home schooling in the US of A from a sepo perspective?"

He later revoked the sepo reference feeling bad that sepo is Aussie slang for American and derives from "septic tank" which rhymes with "yank" and you know Aussie's are all about the rhyme. Me, I think "sepo" perfectly describes the average American and America as a whole as well "full of shit and in desperate need of a flushing of the floaters that we've got". LOL! Yep, sounds about right to me.

I think the whole meetup went off rather well, it certainly was a lot of fun to do and it looked to me like a lot of people there had a pretty good time and the rest of them had a fantastic time. I'd call that a success! :D

I really REALLY wish that I had video or audio to put up here so you could hear it. (WOW The arrogance of that is overwhelming!) but it didn't work out so all I've got are my notes (you can see them on the seat next to me in the middle photo- how cool is THAT! *snerk*) a few pictures and some wonderful memories. Hopefully more pics will show up on the Meetup website.

Here is a pic of a bit of the group mingling beforehand.


Yours truly is in the brand new bright red shirt. (Betcha can't guess my favorite color?) Protium is on the far left, Thump is on the far right.


I don't gesture when I talk... nup... not at all. lol If it wasn't going the wrong direction you might think I was miming talking about flute playing.



Throughout the talk there were questions from the audience as needed for clarification or further details. This is one of me listening attentively...lol. From the direction of my gaze, I would guess to the young man from Singapore who was talking about tribal thinking and growing up in compulsory diversity. (In Singapore they have ethnic quotas and in an apartment complex, once they have enough Chinese, or whatever... no others from that background can buy a flat there. Plus the various ethnic varieties are deliberately dispersed throughout the complex so as not to form racial pockets and territorial issues.)

It was a fantastic evening and I met some truly fabulous people there. Now I want to live in Perth more than ever just so I can hang out with them. YAY PERTH!!!!!!

9 comments:

Protium the Heathen said...

It was a great meetup and you were a star Fiery. Thanks for doing it.

Poodles said...

Caption for the second one down... "and I swear he was THIS BIG!!!!"

:p

Half rabbit said...

That's a nice room that the meeting is held at. What exactly is it (rented meeting room, protium's basement etc...)

Fiery said...

Poodles- ROFLMAO!!! Busted!

HalfRabbit- the venue was the perfect get-together/meeting room at Perth's very own "Flying Scotsman" which was amazingly appropriate since there were 3 native to Scotland there and 3 of Scottish descent as well.

Sean Wright said...

Cool. I thought that might have been the pub where I starte my alcohol poisoning but no.

Protium the Heathen said...

Shame you can't make it Sean, I bought heaps of beer for you ;-)

Green-Eyed Momster said...

I don't like that nickname that they have for us. They really think we're all sepo's? I sure hope not!

Fiery said...

No dear, they don't all think we're sepos. It's a nickname only used by a rare few to describe the more obnoxious tourist element that they get over here.

Don't worry yourself. :)

Protium the Heathen said...

Tracey: I didn't know the term sepo until Fiery used it in a comment to me some time back. I asked her what it meant and commented it didn't sound very nice.

As for your comment "I don't like that nickname that they have for us"

I had never heard the term used before so I think you may have created a strawman here... but Australia forgives you ;-)