Long live cricket

Just returned from a one-day cricket match with my Canadian cousin, Jonothan, who is visiting Australia, the place of his birth, for around 6 months. For those of you chanting "what is cricket?" (as per IPM 2003 in Estonia) you can go here for the basic summary or here to download the 42 laws and 3 appendices of cricket!

Don't worry this post isn't about an analysis of the Queensland Bull's victory over the Tasmania Tigers in this cricket match, but reflection on random acts of kindness and how good it is to be able to engage in "small talk" with random strangers. First random act of kindness happened as I was placing the $50 on the counter to purchase tickets for my cousin and me...a guy came and tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Here you go, I have a free spare pass, it admits two people". Well thanks mate!

I spent the first few hours explaining excerpts of the 42 laws and 3 appendices to my cousin and comparing it with baseball as we watched the game...and after a while the guy in front of us turned around and congratulated me on my explanations and said I should work as a commentator for Foxtel. This was the random small talk that led to a random act of kindness much later in the game, when the guy gave his Queensland Bulls' hat (official merchandise) to my cousin as a souvenir to take back home with him. Strangely made me proud to be an Aussie at that moment :-)

There were many acts of small talk with random strangers through out the whole day, not all of which led to random acts of kindness...but all of them definitely contributed to a feeling of connection and community with the strangers sitting around us as we all watched other strangers throwing and hitting a ball around a field for 7 hours. And this feeling of connection and community is a nice one.

I hope this memory helps to push me to overcome the language barrier and make small talk with people in Zurich, or wherever I end up working next year, to build these connections. Something that I didn't push myself to do while I was living in Rotterdam.

Long live cricket.

x Zoe