Robot Claw

We recently got a new printer, which is also a scanner. I always have a few blog ideas floating around, and having a scanner enabled one of the more needlessly narcissistic of them.

To whit, pictures of me through the ages. Feel free to ruthlessly comment 🙂

For starters, we never had much of a camera as I grew up, and as a result there is not a great deal of photos. Furthermore, much of what exists is in Australia with my parents, so I have scant few images of me pre my (first) college years. What I do have, is mostly sporadic ‘school photos’, such as these:

< 1979, 1982, 1984 The dates are estimates. The first two show the 'St Joseph's' school uniform so must have been before 1984. The one on the right shows the 'St Mary's' uniform and must therefore be between 1984 and 1987. Given I still look quite young, I'm guessing I was about 12 at the time. I look like an angel on the left, a devil in the middle (check out the freckles though!) and a charmer on the right. Note, in the middle photo, the white spot on the edge of my right collar. This is because I had a habit of putting that end in my mouth and sucking it. Eventually I sucked the material off, I suppose. Ah, the joys of youth. But soon after I started growing up, and becoming self-conscious about my appearance: < 1985? which I think dates to 1985. BFS may remember, and please comment if you do (since you took it, and I daresay you'll have a better memory for which home it was taken in). Note the extreme 1980s hairstyle. It just screams Depeche Mode circa 1985. Furthermore, I faintly remember a school camp in late 1985 to help decide the school captains (for St Mary’s) and that was the time I died my hair in high school. Looks awful doesn’t it?

But it gets much, much worse:

< 1987 Even if I live forever, I doubt my hairstyle will ever look as bad as it does in the above era. I honestly, for the life of me, cannot imagine what came over me (nor what I was influenced by). Especially since this was about the time I really ‘got into’ Nick Cave and the more ‘gothic’ bands. Mmmm…

And doesn’t my head look deformed in that leftmost image?

Anyway in 1988 I went off to college (year 11 for USA readers) and my look changed again:

< 1988, 1989 I remember well how much I loved that 'Temple Of Love' t-shirt (a song by The Sisters Of Mercy). I wore it ragged. The photo was taken by a classmate (an Italian girl with long hair, whose name is lost to time) during an excursion for our 'creative photography' class. The image on the right was the school photo taken of me as school captain of St Francis Xavier. I must have spent a long time getting my hair looking (relatively) perfect that day! I can remember, in year 12 (1989) the school had a fairly rigid code on appearance. No long hair, facial hair etc. At the time we had already befriended some older 'goths' around Newcastle who were bound to no such rules. Once we graduated and moved on to university, neither were we: < 1991, 1992

I love the photo on the right. As in really love it. It was taken at MMN’s house in the Newcastle inner city. And no, I’m not smoking in it. I just love the look on my face and the way I’m sitting and even the fact you can see my then-beloved knapsack (note Sisters Of Mercy written on it) hanging behind me. I have other photos of me during this era when I had a full beard and look a little like Lemmy from Motorhead. My look was hardcore for a year or so back in 1991…

< 1993 The photo on the right is the last ever photo taken of me (by SMC) before I left Australia. That was May 11 1993. Looking at it now, I'm not surprised I was almost cavity searched upon landing in LA. That look was a bit scary... I changed on that day. And I don't mean my appearance, I mean my attitude. Although I'd always been a positive sort, it wasn't until I actually decided to come to America that I truly believed that anything was possible. Apparently though, keeping my long hair wasn't: < 1993
This was taken shortly after arriving in America. The hair was summarily chopped off. I can’t remember the actual decision, but I can remember how uncomfortable the humid summer was that year (with long hair). I have never regretted getting it cut, and doubt I will ever return to the days of long hair (not New Romantic enough anyway!).

Shortly after arriving in America I started my working life (or at least, one working life):

< 1995, 1996 These other two shots above are during the 'working era' (I was probably wearing contacts in the rightmost shot). I look sullen don't I? And that's not a coincidence. Even though our photographic record is slim during 1993-1999 (when we got our first digital camera) a disturbing amount of the photos of me seem to show a very different person from the me of today. For instance, compare with this shot: < 2000 What's the difference? A (manic) smile, for starters. But what the photo doesn't show is the fact that this image dates from after I decided to return to school (in 2000). Apparently this was a great thing, since I'm positively joyous in the vast majority of photos taken since then, such as: < 2001, 2002 Or this shot, taken in Tokyo in 2002: < 2002 And yes, my hair was bright red. Lest you think school has been a laugh riot, I did manage to find a few showing the darker side: < 2003, 2004 Rare shot of me doing homework! (Joke! I spent hours on homework over a five year period). The above two were actually taken a year or so apart, despite me wearing the same shirt and having more or less the same haircut!

Which brings me to one of my all time favourite photos with myself in it:

< 2004, Momo & Izumi That's Momo (left) and Izumi, two charming girls we met in Kyoto in 2004. Browsing through the photos of that trip, as I did just now, is like looking into a fantasy travelogue. We so need to get back to Japan again... < 2006 You've all seen the above. It happened to be one of the most popular photos from the Japan '06 blog (remember that?). And so we're caught up to date. But before I go, a glimpse even further into my past: < Year 1 report card The above is a scan of the last page of my grade 1 (5 years old) report card, which I amazingly still own. (In fact I have every single report card from 12 years of school...). Anyway, note the last two entries...apparently I wasn't the best listener at 5 years old and may have also had a bit of an attention deficit. (Kristin says the only reason I got a 'sometimes' for 'Requires Minimum Supervision' is because there wasn't a 'never' column!) I humbly apologize to everyone who I ever distracted in any class (and I know some of you read this). In my defense, I can only suggest that my tendency to relieve the boredom I often felt during school by ceaselessly distracting every nearby student may have been pathological, and had begun to exhibit itself as early as age 5 🙂

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 5:37 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.