#emanuel school

[perkingthepansies]

And Then There Was One

I received sad news of the sudden and unexpected death of someone I once knew well. Paul and I were firm friends at secondary school. We were in the same first year and bonded over comparing packed lunches in a ‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ kinda way as we walked around the playing fields at break time. His sarnies were always more upper crust. It was 1972 and salami and other fancy…

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[perkingthepansies]

Queer as Folk

I was bullied from the moment I first flounced through the school gates. Nothing physical, you understand. That would be unseemly at a traditional grammar school with a 400-year-old charter granted by the Virgin Queen. Besides, beatings were reserved for the teachers to dish out. I suppose I hardly helped my cause by being a bit lippy and totally rubbish at rugby. Poofter, bumboy, shirt-lifter,…

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[piecesofreiss]

A beautiful soul of a human, Jeremy Spinak, passed away recently. Jeremy and I were in the same year at high school, and in addition to his brilliant academic mind, Jeremy will always be remembered as a mensch. Here is a transcript of a speech he gave to high school students in 2011:

Jeremy Spinak 25 May 1982 – 15 November 2018

“It is a real pleasure to be here today, thank you so much for inviting me. I know very often at speech nights you hear from accomplished professionals who have “made it”… and their advice is very important. However, by that point some have forgotten the exciting, challenging and nerve-wracking period of their teenage years and early 20s. The very period you students are about to enter.

 I, on the other hand, have just gone through that period, so I am hoping to give you some advice that I would like to have heard when I was sitting in your position as an Emanuel student 10-15 years ago. So, although I’m not an “elder statesman”, I do hope you will take on board what I’m about to say. 

I attended Emanuel School between 1994 and 2000. My family has a long tradition here, as my sister was enrolled on the very first day the school opened. My brother soon joined her and from 1983 to 2000 there was at least one Spinak at Emanuel School. In more recent years, my younger cousins also enrolled at Emanuel and continued our family legacy. 

After graduating in 2000 I completed a double degree in economics and international relations, studied international relations at Georgetown University in Washington D.C, worked on U.S. Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004, was a legislative aide to the U.S Senate Minority Leader and, on my return to Australia, worked as a political advisor to former treasurer Michael Costa for four years. In the last few years I moved to the private sector and today I am managing director of my own property advisory business. I am also a vice president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and a director of the Sydney Alliance, a grouping of religious and community organisations. 

As I tell you what I have done since leaving high school, I think back to one speech day when I was your age – about Year 8. That year, we had another former Emanuel student address us. I think his speech was called something like The Keys to Success. Every time he referred to his success he only named work-related achievements. We got a lecture on his HSC results, his uni results, his latest promotion. I left that evening thinking that to feel successful I had to get a high paying job and be able to afford very cool things. 

However, what I have come to learn is that to feel “successful” you have to do more than what that former student had done. I believe that you can’t feel successful unless you create a well-balanced life. It is all very well and good to slave away for a material goal – for money, for a title, for recognition – but if you do not bring your life along with you, you have not succeeded at all. 

The best way to illustrate this is from a personal story. When I was at Emanuel I was obsessed with American politics. I was actually late to my 2 unit History HSC exam because it was on the same day as the 2000 U.S. presidential election. 

Throughout high school all I wanted to do was work on Capitol Hill. I knew that the only way I could get there was to first get into the prestigious Georgetown University and then use that visa to apply for a job on Capitol Hill. 

To get into Georgetown I worked my guts out. I stopped going out, I stopped hanging out with my friends, I became totally obsessed with my university marks. When I got to Georgetown, instead of the usual partying and socialising, I stalked Capitol Hill looking for an opening in a Senator’s office. Finally, I was accepted into the office of the leader of the Democratic Party, at the time the most powerful Democrat in America. 

One day, I was sitting in the Senator’s Capitol Hill office and I realised something. I was lonely, I was homesick. I had not had any fun in a very long time. I had ignored my friends, I had left a person I loved, I had given my family hell, and even though I had achieved my goal it had not brought happiness or a sense of success. 

In essence, I had achieved but I had not succeeded! At that point I realised that if you do not bring your friends, your loved ones, people who are special to you, and a truly fulfilling life with you, then you are just achieving for the sake of it and it won’t make you happy. I was at the very pinnacle of where I wanted to be but I felt very empty and alone. 

So as you strive to achieve your goals, just remember to take everybody with you. Work on your relationships as hard as you work on your marks. The second thing I have come to realise since leaving school is the importance of having interests. That is, having interests outside of work, grades and marks. 

The people I know who are the most dissatisfied with their lives are also the most boring and the reason that they are so boring is that they never pursued anything other than good grades and good jobs. They never read anything that inspired them, they never joined a cause that they believed in, they never tried to play an instrument, read a new book, go to new places or indulged in a pleasure. When they come home from work they don’t know what to do with themselves.

I’m not even just saying this in some fluffy, feel-good way, I also believe that pursuing wider interests and being well-rounded will actually help your professional life. For example: my interest in American politics has provided me with almost every opportunity I have had in my professional life. 

My interest gave me nothing more than pure enjoyment until second year uni, when I met then Premier Bob Carr. I knew that he also had a great love of American politics and that he ran a very exclusive society named the Chester A Arthur Society. All of a sudden, in the middle of our conversation Mr Carr started to quiz me about U.S presidential history. After I answered all his questions he invited me to the next meeting of his exclusive society. I gave his secretary my details and waited for 6 months, until one day I received an invitation in the mail. The event was to be held at the U.S Embassy in Canberra. 

My parents dropped me at the embassy. I was surprised that the place wasn’t teaming with people, in fact it was dead quiet. Not much of a party, I thought. I couldn’t get in through the front door so I walked around the back where I saw that a door had been left ajar. Again, no one was around. I pushed the door open and walked down a long corridor that led into a large reception room and there sitting around a table, was the U.S ambassador to Australia Tom Schaffer, former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, former opposition leader and foreign minister Andrew Peacock, Bob Carr and his wife Helena. It seems I was nearly an hour early and had just gate-crashed a very private dinner. Luckily they were very nice and invited me to sit down. 

Although I was super nervous, I began to realise that my years of study and interest had paid off. I was able to hold my own and I started to feel very confident. That night changed everything for me. Subsequently, Bob Carr wrote my reference to Georgetown. The ambassador also became a reference; I was able to secure my job with Michael Costa as a result of that evening and although I did not know it, two other of my future employers were there. When I went for job interviews later they remembered me from that night. Everything started for me from that moment and it all came about because I had pursued an interest for the purposes of sheer pleasure. So, you never know where your interests will take you, personally and professionally. 

The third thing that I think will really give you a feeling of “success” is community work. The most fulfilling thing that I have done since I left high school is my volunteer work with the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies.

I initially became involved because after attending one of their functions I saw that literally only two people were under the age of 40. The rest were old. The Jewish community has been so successful for so long because our people have been willing to put up their hands and contribute towards community life. Looking around that room, it worried me that all of the volunteerism and energy that made us great was not transcending down the generations. 

I really hope that you all think about how you can volunteer to make the Jewish community in Sydney even stronger and better than it already is. It’s really easy to get involved and you will be continuing a great tradition. I have found that pursuing a well balanced life through better relationships, new interests and community service also does something very important . . . it gives you a sense of perspective. I’m assuming you guys are very much like me, you go through periods where you doubt yourself and your self-confidence is very low. It happens to everyone. I found that when I was at school I was pinning my confidence and self esteem on my test results and marks. If I got a B+ instead of an A my world would collapse. I would completely lose perspective. Today we sit around and laugh about how worked up we used to get about high school tests and I can promise you not one of us can remember our marks from that time. 

My point isn’t that you shouldn’t study hard and try to do your best, you should, my point is that the world is not going to end if you have a setback. If you have strong relationships, outside interests and do community work, you are not basing your whole identity on your test results. It means you will have perspective. 

It is hard to cultivate a well-balanced life and I certainly go through periods where work, money and grades come first and there is no time for relationships, interests or community work. But it is important to try and find room for those other three areas of life, I think they are the real keys to success. 

Just a final note, you don’t have to wait to enrich your life in such a way. I should have just paid more attention to the opportunities around me in high school. For instance, the peer support and community outreach programs, the plays, music, Jewish studies, meditation, sporting and volunteer opportunities. So do as much as you can, you have the opportunity to do it now. 

You are very lucky that you are at a school that understands the difference between making a top student and a top person. Emanuel has always been and continues to be egalitarian, open, unpretentious. You can always tell who the Emanuel kids are in a room; they are the more accepting, and open to the outside world. They are less Insular and more humble. I couldn’t have done the things I have done if I hadn’t gone to Emanuel. 

When I was writing this speech I was trying to think of a way of closing that could perfectly sum up what I am trying to say. Then I realised that the School had already done it for me a very long time ago. So my strong advice to all of you is to work hard on developing your mind, your spirit and being... because I have come to understand that they are the hallmarks of not only a successful career but a successful life.”  

[perkingthepansies]

Those naughty young men at Warwick University Rowing Club certainly know how to perk up a dull day.  Since first getting their kit off in 2009 to raise money for their club and to combat homophobia in sport, they’ve raised over £200,000 in 77 countries. Not to miss a trick, the enterprising bunch have also branched out into posters, tee shirts, greeting cards and hoodies. They’ve dropped their drawers again for 2015 and have just completed a three-week promo tour in the USA. These boys are getting as big as the Calendar Girls.

Believe it or not, back in my old school days I used to row myself. No, really, I did. And I wasn’t the cox. It was infinitely preferable to playing rugby, a sport I loathed with a passion. Paddling up and down the Thames in the rain could be a bit grim but mucking about in boats during the summer months was a pleasant way to pass a warm Wednesday afternoon. I was bow in the B Crew and we excelled only at catching crabs.* As if to prove our uselessness beyond reasonable doubt, in 1976, we proudly came last out of a cast of hundreds in the Head of the River Race, an event that takes place between Mortlake and Putney every year. Quite a feat, don’t you think?

Here’s the school boathouse at Barnes Bridge.

Needless to say, none of my crew looked anything like the fit boys from Warwick. More’s the pity.

*A rowing error where the rower is unable to timely remove or release the oar blade from the water and the oar blade acts as a brake on the boat until it is removed from the water. This results in slowing the boat down. A severe crab can even eject a rower out of the shell or make the boat capsize (unlikely except in small boats). Occasionally, in a severe crab, the oar handle will knock the rower flat and end up behind him/her, in which case it is referred to as an ‘over-the-head crab.’ Source: Wikipedia.

Catching Crabs Those naughty young men at Warwick University Rowing Club certainly know how to perk up a dull day.