My journey started back in early July (9pm EST on the 8th, but who’s counting), since my last update I have been quite busy and hence have neglected keeping much of a record of my goings on, though I will try to recall what I can about the various experiences.

August-November was the 6th semester of my Mechanical Engineering degree at the University of Western Australia, all in all it was a fantastic semester which included among other things, twenty-two 21st’s (one of which was my own, more on that later), The two Ball’s (the formal type, with free/pre-purchased alcohol), and a hole host of college events from Anything But Clothes party’s to a Carnivale Celebration with 1000 people in W.A.’s best neighborhood, Northbridge.

By some stroke of fortune I also managed to be elected Senior Student or President of my College’s Student Club. No small part of that appointment I am sure came from the people who knew me and my ways all to well see the commitment I made to something like Hello Sunday Morning and entrusting me to make an even greater commitment to Georges (which of course I will).

Joyously I have been able to achieve mostly all of this without any yearning for alcohol, there were certainly times when I left a party earlier than I normally might have if I had been drinking, however there were other times where I partied into the wee hours of the morning, the last of my mates did not leave my 21st until 330am and I didn’t get home until 5am (Lucky I enjoy driving as I have become the token Designated Driver).

Whilst it was surprisingly easy to  get by without alcohol at Uni and my friends adjusted pretty quickly, only dosing me with shit for couple of weeks, it can be said to be a different story over summer. Since December I have been working at a Gold/Copper Mine in Central NSW, completing the practical component of my degree. While the job is fantastic and the guys and girls I work with are with exception amazing people, the constant questioning of why I do not drink has become a little boring.

For this however has come a significant positive of forcing my self  to re-evaluate and ask that same question, why? Something I have not really done since I settled into a routine in August,  and the answer I recall was that I hoped to make a significant positive impact on my community.
As such going into 2011 I hope to revive this space and share some more of my experiences with you all, hopefully as well we might be joined here by the successor of my previous position as President on the Inter-College Association, who has an interesting story to tell about his NYE (sorry Gerry)

Thanks for reading ,

Simon Noordhoek

Last Drink captured on camera

Hi HSM bloggers and readers, my name is Simon Noordhoek and I have just started my own HSM experience.

Reading through some of the blogs a lot of people seemed to have begun with their HSM after a particularly big night and a particularly painful morning. Before I bore you all with my own story I will tell you a little about myself, I am a 20 year old Engineering student at UWA in Perth. I live in the fantastic college that is St Georges, I am also heavily involved with a few of the residential student clubs.

My story begins in Brisbane where I was in attendance at a dinner that Chris (Raine) was speaking, however sitting at the back of the room I was more concerned with getting my fair share (or a little more) out of the two bottles of wine we had been afforded. I guess however that I heard something Chris was saying, or at least my mate did, as after knocking off the remaining Litre or so of goon punch from the bottom of a trash can come punch container I was incredulous to hear that he was going to begin his own HSM program that very night. I decided that this was very regal but that I did not want to sacrifice a great week at the conference by not drinking, this however planted a seed.

When I woke the next day I discussed with the same mate that I would as well begin a 3 month HSM but after the conference, I thought this was fair enough, one last big week then three months off the grog. Unfortunately later on that day another friend pointed out that if I was going to go through with my plan I would not be drinking at two college ball’s as well as my own 21st and copious 21st’s of good mates who I have grown up drinking with. This really through a spanner in the works and I decided to put HSM on the back burner until I had finished up some of these big events.

So getting on with the week at hand I had a couple of great nights not going over the top with the alcohol but certainly enjoying the odd beverage and the social confidence that came with it. During one of the evening social events however I struck upon the sudden realisation that there would always be something getting in my way, always some excuse I could fall back onto for not beginning HSM so I made the commitment then are there to stop drinking for 12 months obviously there are a massive number of benefits that will come from following through with this commitment however I hope that maybe possibly people in my own community will read this and question the social practices that we consider to be norms (anybody who does know me and is reading this, yes I do feel like a massive douchebag hypocrite saying that).

That is basically my beginning, I have been going 8 days, have attended a Pub Crawl the Ball of a National Conference and been out 3 nights and have had fantastic albeit different experiences without alcohol.

Cheers,

Simon

Also, I have left this post mostly unedited as one of my goals is to improve my writing skills (keeping in mind I am an engineering student)