Imagine, if you will, a young man’s room. The bed lies in disarray. Sheets, blankets and covers twist together to create a mess that is part performance art and part abstract sculpture. On the carpet, tiles or lino there is the “floordrobe”, a repository for all things wearable — and admittedly some not so wearable. The open wardrobe doors sit waiting forlornly for someone, anyone, to hang clothes, clean clothes, wrinkled clothes…any clothes inside. The desk that hugs a far wall is weighed down with textbooks (really!), a laptop, a charging phone, various bits and pieces, more clothes and randomly strewn Lego blocks. Imagine if suddenly, in this abandoned chaos, these plastic bricks were to come together. Piece by piece linking, clicking and attaching, by themselves, to finally form the toy or model they once were; a car, a boat, a life-sized model of the Millennium Falcon (apparently something from Star Wars). Or perhaps in a wave of Hary Potter like magic each article of clothing rises from its haphazard location, to hang cleanly, neatly and in meticulous order in the purpose built, now full wardrobe.
Amazing you might rightly say! This process, of components coming together by themselves to form a whole, is called self-assembly. It occurs in nature every second of every day. Snowflakes self-assemble, fluffy intricate patterns crystallised from frozen water. Viruses self-assemble (beware the coming flu season), they infect, multiply, change and affect our lives intimately, non-reversibly. The proteins in our bodies self-assemble, coming together from smaller molecules to make muscles and skin and all the organs that make us human.
I’m so proud to say that our young men, Eddies Men, like a force of nature, also self-assemble. On Wednesday, at the Inter-House Swimming Carnival, as the swimmers ploughed their way through the pleasantly cool waters of Bundamba Pool, our staff and young men dressed in their intense multicoloured finery, gathered around the pool deck shoulder to shoulder, one team, one community.
I’m reminded of the times when our Eddies Men self-assemble, and the College song rises into the air strong and proud. “Place of faith and glory…” “Brothers must we be…”. In moments like this, the experience of community, is special. These moments bring our young men together. “How shall we extoll thee…”. These times of belonging are so much a part of our way. They represent the essence of who we are at Eddies. The forces that bring us together, our faith, our traditions and our culture make us who we are. Who is that? St Edmund’s College…” Ipswich CBC”.
