Wasabi

So my last name is not really Wasabi, everyone back home just calls me that. The story behind it goes a little something like this:

My best friend in the entire world, through think and thin, and in good and bad health, is Misti Lace. Misti and I played soccer together and eventually started hanging out, after which, we instantly became best friends. When I moved out of home after finishing year 12, I moved in with Misti at "The House" in Sandy Bay, Hobart. "The House" was already crowded; Misti had moved down from Burnie with her little sister, Maddy, and their mum, Betty, when Maddy was accepted into the Tasmanian Institute of Sport for soccer. Lottie Wallace also lived there; she is a year older than Maddy and had also been accepted into the Institute. Her family couldn't relocate to Hobart so Betty, being the saint she is, said Lottie could board with her.

As you can imagine, it was a little chaotic and we were packed like sardines...imagine five ladies trying to share one bathroom in the morning. Amazingly, we survived.
Living with Misti was great and it really just felt like I was living with my twin sister. It wasn't long before Maddy and Lottie started feeling like family too, and I will probably treat them as my little sisters for the rest of my life.

Izzy Wasabi

At this point, Misti and I were both over 18, while Maddy and Lottie weren't, so us BFFs used to party and go out a fair bit. 'Hit the town', 'tear up the clubs'...call it what you will, we did it. One night we were out at SoHo when Misti ran into a couple of guys she played rugby with, so we sat down for a chat and a drink. As the night went on one of the guys was becoming noticeably drunk so his mate decides it's time to go. Drunk Boy has forgotten my name and is partially deaf due to the loud music and the fact that he is drunk, so after five failed attempts he concludes that my name is Izzy Wasabi. It has a nice ring to it so Misti and I just went along with it.

So Drunk Boy gets up to leave and thrusts his hand out to shake mine but forgets he has a full pint of beer in front of him still. It spills. All over me. Now, all my friends can testify to this, I can't stand beer. I don't like the smell or taste and now I'm covered in liquid that makes me gag. But I can't be mad because the situation is too funny. Drunk Boy is shocked and upset and is babbling, "Oh no! Oh dear, I'm so sorry...I'll buy you another one"
"It's OK...it was yours...beer makes me gag"
"I'm so sorry! Oh...oh dear...oh shit...oh...ok, we're leaving? Ok, bye Misti, bye Izzy...Wasabi, nice meeting you...sorry about the..."
"Yup."
And in a blink of the eye he was gone with the wind and I had a new name.
I also smelled like beer for the rest of the night.

Family Portrait

My family is best described as one huge complicated, dramatic jumble that I would not trade for all the gold in the world. My older brother and sisters all moved out after they finished school, so I was the oldest at home for a while. My little brother Kaleb, my two little sisters Abby and Winona (we call her Winnie) and I used to entertain ourselves by using our imaginations. I guess mum and dad were pretty strict on us as kids; when they said "Go outside and play," we went outside and played. We would build tree houses, pretend we were ninjas, made nun-chucks and grappling hooks, and made countless, terribly edited movies with our friends and cousins when they came over. We made friends with the kids two houses down from us, the Whites. The White clan was Charlie, a little boy Abby's age, Britney and Sara, who were around Winnie and my age, and another sister who was a few years older than me. Her name was not Susie...but for the story's sake it is.


We lost Abby once. This was when I was maybe seven or eight and we used to live in St Aubyn's Square, which was this neighborhood with a big square park in the center. We loved it. There was a playground in one corner with a slide, set of swings, some rocking animals and our favorite item to play on, a big spinny thing that you push then jump on. Yahoo! Answers seems to think this is called a merry go round....but it's not. The top border of the park was lined with some really great climbing trees, but it was the other end that we spent most of our time. The bottom end was bordered with overgrown trees and shrubs which created a number of little, and sometimes big, room-like canopies. Some trees had huge branches that were so weighed down that they seemed to droop perfectly, as if to say, "Come on over and chill under me, I make a perfect roof of leaves." They were the best. We'd choose which canopies we wanted to be our rooms and houses and then began our own life like version of the Sims. We would make pies from mixing mud with water and decorate them with little gum nuts that fell from the trees, and any other little colorful things we could find. Then we'd pay a visit to our neighbors and share the treats. By share, I mean that I don't think we actually ate them, but at the same time, I'm not too sure.


So we are all playing our Sims game in the park one afternoon with the Whites. Abby, probably about three years old at this stage, runs up to me saying, "I'm going over there, but I'll be back soon!" She toddles off somewhere and is back in five to say the same thing. She runs off again, but this time I forget to notice that she doesn't come back until it begins to get late, and we have to return home when it gets dark. The sky is turning red and pink as the sun is setting, and we freak out! In my little head I'm like, "Shit! I just lost my sister!"
I run home and look through the lounge room window where mum, dad and baby Kaleb are watching TV but can't see Abby, so I sprint back to the park and panic some more. We all round up our bikes and start riding around the neighborhood, and Susie told her mum, who even takes her car out and surveys the greater area to no avail. Poor little Charlie is crying his eyes out. He had given Abby a bunch of flowers he'd picked himself from his mother's garden only yesterday. Now she was lost and it was dark so we have to go home and confess little Abby had wandered off.

I was so nervous entering the lounge...and then I saw Abby sitting on the couch too, where she'd been the entire time. My jaw must have dropped to the floor, literally. I blurted, "I thought you were lost!" Then I got in trouble for losing her in the first place, even though she sort of ended up not being lost...
I always felt hard done by when I was growing up. I'm not saying I had a terrible childhood, but it definitely had it's downs as well as the ups. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, my brothers and sisters and I all witnessed some pretty turbulent times that I know my parents aren't proud of, but when I look back on my younger years I think it will reassure them to hear that I only ever look back on the good memories, unless otherwise prompted.

I'd like to give a shout out to Mr. Walt Disney for giving me so many happy childhood memories. In Disney movies, I would find pure happiness and peace of mind. Except for in The Lion King, when Mufasa dies. That breaks my heart every time. But for the most part, I call those happy times the Disney Days, the days that I would spend with my friends and we would engulf ourselves in these colorful movies. I remember making tee-pees out of sticks and blankets with my friends, then we would put headbands and feathers in our hair and smear colorful zinc cream on our cheeks like war paint, and then settle down to watch Pocahontas. It was gorgeous fun.

I actually have a tattoo now which in part pays tribute to those Disney Days. It is a sparrow on my right arm, wings spread and his head tilted up. He is holding a banner that says 'Hakuna Matata,' which means 'no worries'. I like to think that in my times of despair, I can always look down on my little sparrow, and he will remind me not to worry. Most of all, I want it to remind me of those Disney Days, of all my innocent fun experienced by a youthful mind and soul. And I want it to remind me to keep some of that in me always and forever. Over the years I have realized, the people that still, and always will, bring me back to that state of mind and that feeling of home, are my family and my friends that are so dear they might as well be blood related too. I want them in my family portrait too.

Let Me Introduce Myself

Call me Ishmael....nah, just kidding. Everyone calls me Izzy but my real name is Isolina. I was named after my great grandmother on my Italian side of the family. Isolina means "little island", which is fitting as I was born and raised on the Island of Tasmania. My biological mum is South African, so I'm sort of black...
I grew up in the small city of Hobart with my dad, Lorenzo, my step mum, Janet, and a large number of brothers and sisters. My family and friends have always been a huge impact on me as a person and I really have them to thank for shaping me into the person I am today.
However, I have Kiera Knightley  to thank for my life so far. You know when you used to have that celebrity crush as a teenager? Mine was Kiera Knightley. Honestly, I think I've been attracted to both males and females my whole life, so on my bedroom wall was always a huge montage of posters of Zac Effron, Ryan Sheckler, Kiera Knightley, and other attractive people. I watched "Bend It Like Beckham" when I was 13 and decided then and there on the spot that I wanted to play college soccer on scholarship in the US. Previously, I'd only ever played soccer at our big, Italian, family gatherings, so amazingly, it all kinda just fell into place.

I played for my school teams, then joined a club after I turned 16, and at that point I started looking for scholarships in America.  I'd had maybe half a dozen real scholarship offers over the span of two years but for one reason or another I had to turn them down. Then about a year later, by some crazy twist of fate, something happened when I had moved out of my family's home and was living at "The House" in Sandy Bay. Picture this: It's a random night at 2 or 3am and somebody is outside rapping on all the windows and doors. I'm a very deep sleeper so I don't hear anything initially but I wake up eventually to someone outside my window knocking and yelling my name. I look down at my phone to see what time it is and see about fifty missed calls from Mum Janet, who is outside raising hell.
"Mum! What's wrong? What are you doing??" I thought someone had died...she'd scared the shit out of me.
"You have to come with me!" She says, "A coach from America just called and he's going to call back in a few hours." At the time I was far too tired to comprehend all this so I just went with her. Looking back I can't help but wonder why she didn't just give the coach my new phone number....

Long story short, Coach Bo Bronswick, was offering me a full scholarship to go play and study at Georgia Community College (GCC) in America. His goalkeeper had injured herself right before the season and, whilst he and Assistant/Goalkeeper Coach Saul Richmond were looking for recruits, Saul stumbled upon my skills video. He saw that I had potential and pushed for Coach Bo to sign me. Which meant I had to take an impromptu trip to the US Embassy in Melbourne to get my visa. Which ended up being one of the most hectic trips of my life...

I flew up to Melbourne that afternoon; thankfully, my friend Candice was living there for university at this point. I met her at the train station, used the loo (for Americans, that means toilet), jumped on a shuttle bus, dropped off my luggage at her apartment, then we went back down town to check out the Crown Casino. It was only when I tried to buy dinner that I realized I didn't have my wallet. I'd zipped open the side pocket of my backpack only to grasp air. I propped my bag up on a nearby chair and searched all the compartments. It wasn't there. I kept calm, but on the inside I was freaking out. Actually, freaking out doesn't even begin to describe what was going through my head at that point. I think my brain was so stressed out that I just went completely numb. I just kept thinking, "This is not happening." My wallet was my life, especially then, because I had the visa interview in the morning. My ID, credit card, bank cards, money and a ton of other stuff was in that wallet, not to mention it was a really nice wallet too.
I knew I would die without it.

Candice already had her food so I calmly asked her for directions to the Southern Cross Station, calmly exited the Crown, calmly made my way to the Spencer St, then sprinted my heart out and didn't stop till I got to the depot. It was about a mile run and I'm not even joking when I say I made it there in about five minutes. I didn't care what people thought when they saw me running through downtown Melbourne like a madwoman. I didn't care if I got run over by a person, car, bike or truck. All I could think about was that bathroom stall with my wallet sitting on the toilet paper dispenser. I nearly cried when I burst into the women's bathroom and couldn't find it anywhere. At the same time I hadn't really expected to find it, and I sure as hell didn't expect anyone had turned it in.

Nevertheless, I trudged up to the nearest desk and asked anyway. I almost pissed myself with happiness when the guy behind the desk pulled my wallet out, some lady had handed it in, God bless her soul. I returned to Candice, who was astounded I'd actually found my wallet, and we finally ate and went back to her apartment. She helped me map out the trip I had to take in the morning to get to the Embassy by tram because she doesn't drive. It wasn't too confusing or complicated, it was just going to be a long ride and I also had to change trams at one point. The docket for the Embassy said to be there at least half an hour before my 9:00am appointment, and I just had a feeling something would go wrong again, so I set up everything that night so I could just wake up in the morning, grab what I needed, and walk out the door. Too easy.

The trip to the Embassy went rather smoothly; I woke up super early, made sure I caught the right trams, traveled for about 50 minutes and was almost at the Embassy when I realized I'd left my passport at Candice's. I look at my phone, it's 7:56am. My brain goes into freak out mode again. This time I panic a little more. I bolt out of the tram the second the doors open and jump into the first taxi I see. Taxi Man sees that I'm hysterical and as we drive back to Candice's I fill him in. He's a nice guy and we chat a lot, mostly about soccer, as his niece plays too, in Sydney, apparently she's very good at it, but she's still a young'un...
Taxi Man's life story keeps me distracted from the fact that we are in peak hour traffic and it's taking forever to get to Candice's. She's waiting outside with my passport so I bound out of the taxi and back in again, and with passport inside the vehicle, Taxi Man hits the gas and we settle back into the barely moving, peak hour traffic.

As the clock ticks past 9:00am I start to realize I'm actually late for something just a little bit important...my brain is going haywire at this point and there is no calming it down. Traffic is NOT moving, we have at least half an hour till we reach the Embassy, I'm trying to call the main office but can't get through, there is nothing Taxi Man can do and I think he's even starting to stress out for me. This is not fun.
It's a bit past 10:00am when we finally get to the Embassy and I am not a pretty sight. I'm on the verge of hyperventilating, I'm shaking, I'm kicking myself up the bum because I just wasted $110 on a taxi ride, and I can't even talk and sound normal. You know when you're on the verge of crying and you try and talk but your voice is all wobbly and it hurts to try and speak? I know what that feels like. I sob out a barely audible apology to Taxi Man as I figure this must have been a terrifying start to his day.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be all emotional like this..." I say as I hand him my credit card with a shaky hand, "It's just that this is so important to me and now...if I miss...the...If I..." At  this point I have tears actually running down my face and I'm trying so hard to compose myself for this poor man.
"It's all gonna be ok." He says, trying hard to reassure me, "They'll see you, they can't just turn you away."
His words gave me hope and I gathered myself out of the taxi, waved goodbye to the man who tried his best to keep me together, and entered the Embassy. Turns out that they were not as strict as I had assumed. There was no such thing as "appointments," it was merely set up on a first come, first serve basis, which was excellent for me but incredibly annoying that I wasn't aware of this in the first place.

So, after that ordeal was all sorted, I went to live in Atlanta, and it's been about a year and 5 months since I left Hobart. What I like best about America is that everyone seems to love Australians. I feel like a bit of a celebrity here and I sort of don't want to be normal again. People catch on to your accent real quick and get all excited and want to hear you talk non stop. They tell you to talk as if you have a speech prepared or something. I did not have a speech prepared, ever, so instead I would tell tales of my homeland, which were pretty much all the funny and epic moments I'd created with my friends and family back home.

It got me thinking, I have some pretty entertaining stories that I don't ever want to forget. So, I decided to write them all down and  share them with whoever will listen! Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading.