And no one can stop you from there

That’s me

Hello, my name is Aurelius or Auri or, like some of my friends here call me: Amadelius. I always enjoyed being far away from my home in Schleswig-Holstein discovering new things and meeting new people; that’s how I suddenly found myself on the other side of the earth… But hold on a second there: suddenly? Are you kidding me? This whole thing was carefully planned more than three years ago and in 2020 I was so close to flying to Australia and only a global pandemic could force me to graduate high-school in Germany before the great adventure of a year in Australia could begin.

But still, I would say it was all of a sudden that I was coming here and that’s why: as I learned it from the Stoics, I live always in the present moment not worrying too much about the future and the past and trying to enjoy every moment in all it’s intensity. And in the months before I left, there was a lot to enjoy: The graduation ceremonies, a production of a musical at my school, a trip to Istanbul, a present from my grandmother, a course that gave me my tennis coaching assistant license the week before I left and lots more. And anyways, all the excitement was already throughlived in 2020, so I could land in Down Under with a feeling of balanced happiness. And how my life looked like and how it became the most fulfilling six months of my life so far will be discussed after the commercial break.

My life in Australia

Okay, we’re back… In a nutshell, my life in Australia was great and dominated by my two big passions: sport and music. I’m still impressed and incredibly grateful for the circumstances and facilities I’m profiting from in order to get the most out of my time in Australia. The biggest support was my host-family which made me feel welcome and at home.

A new home

My first encounter with Australia was Richard, my host-father, picking me up from the Brisbane airport. At that time I was in some kind of new state of mind not having deeply slept for almost 48 hours and being a bit worn out from the flight but at the same time excited, happy and grateful to finally be in Brisbane.

Richard took me home, a normal house. I had my room downstairs directly in reach of the bathroom, the laundry and the fridge which I find very practical. I met my host-siblings on that evening as well. A 15 year old, confident and friendly boy named Lachlan and Grace, a girl who turned 13 two weeks after my arrival.

I was feeling at home right from the beginning. I would describe my host-family as relaxed, dedicated to sport and kind. After the first day, when I slept 16 hours due to the jet-lag, a new normality of live began for me:

Not that new…

Of course not everything was different from how I used to live. For example the habit of jobs and breakfast were exactly the same. Also, that we did sport together and played cards and watched a film from time to time was very familiar, but some changes were there as well since every family is different:

Quite a few new things

I had to adapt a bit to the new lifestyle, but all the changes weren’t that big. One thing was that Richard always made dinner, while in my family all of us cook dinner sometimes to- gether sometimes we rotate. Another thing was that no one of my host-family had any relation with classical music, so the music we listened to was different to what I’m used to. Furthermore, I was the only one who made music. Even though Richard has a guitar, I never heard him play.

The family behind the family

The reason I haven’t talked about a host-mum yet is that Richard and Monica are divorced and live in different suburbs, but I get to know her and her part of the family anyways. The one thing was the birthdays of Lachlan and Grace. I was invited to Monica’s for the Birthday dinner and then for Christmas. There I met their cousins as well. On the one hand this was pretty cool, because I felt like knowing two families right from the start, but on the other hand I never knew exactly when the children were with their mother and when with us. When I made my plans for the holidays that lead to a funny scene where I asked Richard when the kids will be with us and he said: the usual… We sorted it out afterwards, but I still don’t understand the concept, it is way more creative than one week here, one week there. Nowadays I’ve got still the pleasant surprise when I see that the children at home.

We are the Kelvin Grove State College… forever?

Next to my host-family, my school plays a very important role in my life here. The Kelvin Grove State College is something I strongly identify with and something I am proud of being a part of. I came to that school with a really positive attitude being sure that I was going to the one school that offers the best programs and facilities for my interests, but on my first day of school I was overwhelmed anyway. Not only the facilities with tennis courts, an oval, a pool and a huge stadium impressed me, but also the programs and facilities like the music program with an auditorium, many pianos and other instruments, the theatre organ in the huge collage hall etc.

For the first term my subjects were Drama, Philosophy, Legal Studies, Tennis, Maths and English. In all these subjects I felt welcome and surrounded by kind and respectful people. I definitely learned a lot and had fun. Legal studies was probably the most interesting, but also the hardest subject for me as it was completely different to what I used to learn. Although I understood the advantages and the reasoning behind the Australian legal system, especially the concept of the precedent, I could not feel sympathy with both the legal system and the tasks we were given. That is why I dropped this subject when I decided to join the volleyball excellence program in term 4. So from that day on one third of my subjects were tennis and volleyball. For me that was a huge upgrade which made me even happier that I’ve chosen the KGSC as my school.

Another discovery here were the assemblies. I think it is a really great idea to gather the whole 350 people of the senior school once a week to celebrate the success and the projects of this school. Every assembly finishes with the traditional school song which I genuinely enjoy singing (after 11 years I assume I would get tired of singing it like the locals, but for now it is a great thing). Another great invention of the Australian school system is the concept of the exam block. It is effectively two additional weeks of holidays with some extras.

In total, I will spend a whole year at this fantastic school.

The longest Holidays of my life

Counting the exam block as holidays, I had ten weeks of holidays over Christmas, a huge amount considering that I am used to have a maximum of three weeks over Christmas. In the end, these 70 days felt like one week, so what did I do over that period? During exam block the tennis program was still running, so I played a lot of tennis at first starting at 7 in the morning, but then I got injured, so I had to do other things (see chapter 3.2). Then we got a Drama performance which we rehearsed for quite a lot. I am really happy that I chose Drama as one of my subjects. I used to hate acting when I was younger, but during the last two years I really learned to love it and this love got event stronger during my time here. The only exam I had was a philosophy exam, I had to write that exam with ice on my shins (due to my injury) which was a pretty interesting experience because the ice melted and my feet got wet and cold. During the second week of my holidays I played at the AVSC which was a wonderful experience (see chapter 3.3). So another week came and went away so quickly. Then there was Christmas and the new year. I used to celebrate these days less intense than other people do and my family here didn’t do so either, but at least some effort was still put in. The rest of the holidays I played the organ and the piano and watched tennis. I went to the United Cup and to the Australian Open which was an amazing experience and definitely worth the effort I had to put in to get there.

Why I came here: Sport

The reasons why I came to Australia were the language, the culture and more, but the main reason, why I wanted to go to the KGSC was the sport. Tennis is probably the one thing that drives me the most and the second thing (next to sugar) I am most addicted to, so I chose the school with the best tennis program in the whole continent. Back then I didn’t even knew that there is a volleyball program as well.

The sessions provided from the school and the eternal quest of finding a way to play more

The KGSC tennis excellence program offers one session each morning (next to the three afternoon sessions) where we do different things like yoga, sports psychology, fitness, gym and of course technical and tactical training on the tennis courts. Unfortunately, I live 30 minutes away from the school, so I have to take the bus at 6:30 every morning which is a huge difference to my life in Germany where I can leave an hour later. But in the end it is definitely worth the effort, because we do not only improve fast, but it is also a great way to start the day with some physical activity outdoors. Sometimes it was a bit hard as well, because tennis can be very demanding mentally.

The sessions started to get abruptly better during exam blocks and worse before tournaments, because during exam block the sessions were not compulsory, so the people who are not passionate about tennis did not show up and some people always had exams, so the groups were smaller meaning that each person got more attention by the coaches making them improve faster. And before the tournaments the intensity dropped dramatically due to a misunderstanding of training matchplay. Not only some students stop trying to improve when we play matches, but also the coaches stopped to give feedback during matchplay sessions which hurt me the most since everyone has more money for private lessons where they can improve their technique. In my vision of coaching it is sufficient to play a match once a month with coaches present to improve the mental side of the game and to make some tactical adjustments. The rest of the sessions should be drills and points without counting and instant feedback from the coaches.

Even though the program includes eight hours of tennis, I never felt satisfied with the amount of hours on the court, so I was always trying to find hitting partners for afternoons and week-ends. The number one hitting partner was obviously my host brother, but I also hit with the people from the program quite a lot as my host brother was often with his mother and sometimes he had other things to do. On the other hand, I played with everyone who had time. Especially the first holidays, when I played five hours a day, was good to spend time with my peers at school. For the record: I also said no to someone asking me to play tennis for the first time in my life, but luckily it happened only once. I also never played with girls outside of school although I asked three, but they never had „time“.

During the exam block of the first holidays, I asked the volleyball coaches if I can play volleyball as I did not have classes at that time (I played volleyball on a reasonable high level back when I was 13 and 14). After some complications falling sick that week I met the coaches and the players the second week of the exam block. It was really fun to play, so I decided to put a lot of effort in playing regularly. After some misunderstandings with the tennis coordinator and several weeks of delay in the international office it was all set: The subject change was official and I played with the year 10s and 9s three times a week. The subject change was pretty interesting though: Initially I tried to drop English as I had English at the time the volleyball excellence program is training. My English-teacher was really nice, so she agreed that I can play volleyball instead of coming to class for as long as the subject change needs to be sorted out. I was kind of surprised when I saw that I had a lot of unexplained absences in my calendar that week, because I thought the English teacher would mark me present which she did not. At least that had no further implications and everyone was happy, but at the same time I talked to the international office about that and they said I have to do English as it is compulsory for every student, however I could drop a different subject and then have English at a different time playing volleyball at the time I normally would have English. I agreed and happily dropped legal studies, but it took more than three weeks until the subject change was official. From then on I was asked regularly if I am in two excellence programs, so I had to explain that I’m playing with the volleyball excellence program, but I have volleyball only as a subject meaning I play during class time three times a week and not in the morning as well like the other people do. The only difficulty with doing so much sport at school are the uniforms: I have three t-shirts and two shorts only, but I have sometimes three sessions a day with tennis, volleyball and gym, so sometimes all my t-shirts are used during one day and I have to wash them before the next day. Another issue were the sweaty socks and shoes. I always had to carry two pairs of sport shoes with me as well as plastic bags for the sweaty socks and t-shirts, because otherwise my whole schoolbag would smell really bad after some time. I got the habit of leaving my socks, shoes and t-shirts outside of the classrooms during the other subjects, so they can dry.

The worst weeks of my tennis career?

The worst thing that can happen to a tennis player is not to be able to play tennis while standing on a tennis court. This is exactly what happened to me during the last week of school 2022. Unfortunately it was exam block and I was fired up to play as much as I could. The weather was brilliant and everything was great and then my shins started to hurt. The pain was there for quite a bit beforehand, but I always thought it was just a bit sour because I played so much. This week though, it started to hurt a lot. I got to see the physio at the school and he diagnosed me shin splints. I was crestfallen because I could not play tennis for two weeks, but at the same time I was relieved that it was only two weeks. I immediately had big plans: Going crazy with my recovery work, doing callisthenics and doing gym work every day, but I was not strong enough, so I watched the US Open the whole night and was tired all day. At the same time I had to focus on my assignments in order not to disappoint a lot of people, so I did okay with my recovery, going to the pool 3 times a week, stretching and massaging every day, but other than in a 500 push-up challenge, I fell short in all of my aspirations. On the other hand I had a wonderful time watching the US Open, improving a lot in clash royal and there were also some fortunate events happening: I got into coaching, so I started making some money and I got selected into the team for the Australian Volleyball Schools Cup, the biggest volleyball competition in Australia for students.

Tournaments – The well-earned highlights of the program

The first tournament with the tennis-program was a one-day tournament against other schools. I was incredibly happy to be selected for the team, but the competition itself was a bit of a flop. The expectations were high as I saw that the school actually has busses with our logo in it. The bus brought us to the venue carrying big trophies from the same competitions last year. In the end, it turned out to be first to one set matches against (at least in our division (open boys)) opponents who did not stand a chance against us. So we won easily and our school won all the divisions although the year 10s had tough times playing strong opponents.

There was also the opportunity for me to play normal singles tournaments outside of school, but it took me forever to get IDed for Tennis Australia and then I was convinced to not have enough money to play tournaments as they were really expensive. As a consolation for me: I’m also part of the volleyball excellence program, so I had two other tournaments. The first one was a beach-competition on the Gold Coast. Before that competition not everything was going according to plan: The person I wanted to play with (and who I trained with) had to pull out, so I played with a different player I haven’t met before. The other tough part was to get there. The competition was running Sunday and Monday, but the school’s own busses were only available on Monday. As I was thinking I could get a lift from my teammate who had to pull out last second i was not worrying about that for most of the time. In the end I could not find anyone from the volleyball program who could give me a lift during the last day when I knew I had to find someone. Luckily Richard had a golf tournament not far from the beach that time, so I could get there with him avoiding three hours in public transport and waking up at 4 in the morning.

When we arrived at the beach, I was amazed by the beauty of that setting. The sand and the ocean in combination with the beach volleyball courts and the CBD of the Gold Coast on the other side of the bay outclasses the beaches of the Baltic sea by far. The tournament itself was great fun and it was really cool to spend two whole days at the beach with a lot of people I know doing sport. We did not win the tournament, but it was definitely a highlight of my time here. The second day of the tournament was less great as I missed the bus from the school by two minutes having noted the wrong time spending multiple hours in public transport and forgetting to put sunscreen on. It was definitely not the best idea to spend a whole day at the beach in the sun without protection, but four days later I did not feel bad anymore.

In October big parts of the tennis program got really excited as the national school championships were just in reach. Too bad for the people participating there that the coordinator failed to put me in the team estimating our levels would be relatively different on grass courts. In the end it did not matter as I was getting injured just before the tournament anyways.

So I spend one whole week at an apartment at the gold coast, having fun playing volleyball with my mates of the program and having an incredible time. I also managed to get a lift there and back, so the transport was easy. I did not play all the time, but I had my time on court and I contributed cheering for my team. I was amazed by the venue, a gigantic sports complex with a big AFL stadium, and indoor volleyball courts in an uncountable number. Even though the level of the sport was really high, I was a bit disappointed with the attitude, body language and noise level of pretty much every team in the competition. It might be a cultural difference between German volleyball and Australian Volleyball.

The second passion: Art

For as long as I remember sport and art had been my predominant occupations complement- ing each other perfectly. When it comes to the performing arts I equally love producing and consuming while the building arts is a one-way relationship: I really enjoy contemplating every type of building art, but I hate producing it myself. So even though the decision to come to the KGSC was primary based on considerations about tennis, I was still sure that I spend a lot of time and energy in pursuing the performing arts. Luckily, the school has a big performing arts department with wonderful people, so it was easier than expected to get started: I have drama as one of my subjects and I rapidly built connections with the music department. What all that has lead to is incredible:

My biggest and most ambitious project – Who is going to help me?

There are two character traits which make me do extraordinary things: I love intensity and I dream big, just as the GOAT of tennis, Novak Djokovic, encouraged me to do in this years Australian Open victory speech. But I do not only dream big in sport, but in general.

So when I wrote a musical for a competition in Germany, I immediately visualised me performing it in Australia. And I am pretty fortunate to have such amazing circumstances and infrastructure here at the KGSC. There are enough people, musicians and actors, and the facilities are great, but there has a lot to be done and I won’t make it alone. So after two weeks I started to talk about this to my drama teacher and to the head of the performing arts department. My first step was to translate the musical as I wrote it in German initially. That took me some time and then I had to arrange the music as well since I had included music for very different types of ensembles in my play. Next up was a copyright question. Only one of the songs are not from me or a composer who died a long time ago, so I had to make sure that I have the composers consent. I wrote him an email and the question developed to a nice exchange between me and the composer of that song, who is the playwright of the musical we performed at our school in Germany as well. I got his consent and then I asked for feedback for my translation. I collected feedback from an English teacher, a drama teacher and a philosophy teacher because the play is about a philosopher, Marcus Aurelius. The teachers took definitely a couple of months to complete the feedback, but as I had enough going on, I was not angry that it took so long. Next up on my to-do list is to rework the script by applying all the feedback and then I can start to gather people to perform it. I got 20 weeks before I leave. Let’s see if I’m gonna make it, or if it just stays a dream forever. Either way, it is worth dreaming and committing to the dreams you have.

Peaceful Piano Playing

Instrumental classical music is a wonderful thing my family cultivates passionately. I learned to play the cello and the piano at a young age and I used to sing in a boys choir. So it was clear that I would try to continue that in Australia. Unfortunately, I could not get my hands on a cello, but I could compensate that by playing more piano. At my very first day, I saw a piano at school which I was allowed to play, a few days later I noticed ten more. I began to play as soon as classes were over and I stayed at the piano for hours, sometimes three, sometimes five. I quickly started to look for a violinist and a cellist to play Mendelssohn’s first piano trio, a piece I played on the cello during the months before I left. The piano part is a lot harder than the cello part so I had to practice a lot, but when Christmas was near, we managed to play the first and second movement. It was not always easy to find time together, but it is definitely worth it.

When the first holidays approached, I was a bit scared that I might not be able to play the piano, so I did everything I could to find a way. First up, I asked the music teachers, but they could not help me, then I asked my host-fathers ex-wife, but she was uncertain when she was home and finally, I got the courage to ask the principle and that courage was rewarded. She could help me by making it possible that I could play at school during the holidays. For the Christmas holidays, she had an even better surprise ready for me: Her father in-law is part of a theatre organ society who plays the theatre organ at the school. Getting in contact with these people changed my life in a very positive way. I did not only meet some super friendly people, but I also fell in love with the theatre organ and one of the people even got me an electric piano she did not use at the moment. So for now, I’ve got a piano at home and can play whenever I want.

Conclusion

So would I do it again? If I had the money, I would stay here for another six years. I have an amazing time here and I improve as an athlete and a person, so thanks a lot to everyone who made this experience possible and so enjoyable. I’m grateful to be one of the happiest people alive.