Chopsicles

Grand final of cricket tomorrow. So much of my life, and even happiness, has seemed linked to sporting outcomes. I used to go and watch Richmond and scream over the fence as if my efforts made a big difference to the outcome. Even more ridiculous, I used to do the same if I was watching them on television.

Tomorrow’s script is as yet unwritten. At the end of the day, 11 guys are going to be pretty disappointed while 11 others will be rapturous. As an opening bowler, I love the feeling of standing at the top of my run up, with the new batsman standing in readiness. Once the day is over, a result will be recorded with no amount of wishing or regret able to change it in the least but, at that point in the day, its all in our hands. So much hope and trust in these feeble arms, these rickety legs. I know I’m only 32, but it seems to make more sense to become aware of my mortality now, whilst I can use that perspective to enjoy my physical freedom, than to deny it until its irrevocably upon me.

To examine my sporting obsession beyond my own participation, I’ve been asked many times why I greatly admire someone like Shane Warne who has so many obvious personality flaws. My response has been, roughly, that it provides something like hope to see someone who can be such a dope and yet who can also rise to overcome the greatest minds and bodies in his chosen sporting field to deliver a nation. Plastic heroes are no good to me because they don’t tell me anything about who I am, but I can relate to a flawed hero. Take away the game and you still have qualities which are transferrable - perseverance, creativity, discipline, intuition - though I’d rather have a reverse Warnie and have the qualities in my private life than on the sporting field.

Anyway, we’ll know more tomorrow but I wanted to post something on this topic because its meant a lot to me. 

Edit: Well, that was rather an anti-climax, we were rained out that Saturday! Another week now until we know.

I spoke to a cockatoo in a cage this morning. I’ve never considered birds to be particularly intelligent animals, but there was a look in his eye that made me wonder. We started out with the usual ‘hello cocky’ banter. He was in a cage about 7 foot high, set back behind the fence between his house and the street on which I was walking. He jumped forward  and, holding himself to the front of the cage with his beak and claws, looked like he was trying to approach me, as much as his circumstances would allow.  

I noticed that the gate was ajar, so walked through and approached the cage. I put my hand up to the cage and he jumped back at first but, as I continued to hold the back of my hand towards him, he eventually came forward again. He said ‘allo’ and cocked his head to the side so he could look at me. 

I patted his beak as he continued to stare at me. I stopped and he hopped over to the small hole where the padlock and bolt secured the door. He poked his head through the gap and I patted him on the head again. Then he did something quite odd. He put his beak around the padlock and bit it while looking up at me. Anyways, this continued for some time and whilst it might just be coincidence of some sort, moved me to think of how sad it was that this bird was locked up in a cage, able to enjoy so few of his senses. In my head I ran through liberation scenarios.. me coming back at night and cutting through the padlock, or would it be easier to cut the wire? What would his owners think? I’d been past the cage before at night and he wasn’t there. Who took him in at night? Did they pat him? Could he fly around the room?

Eventually I said my goodbyes as he hopped around the cage saying ‘allo’ and ‘allo cocky’ looking, to my eye, a little saddened at his playmate leaving. It reminded me how, at various times, I’ve contemplated the lives of those born into slavery and how so many of the choices that seem so important to us, like which digital camera to get, what job to go for, whether that romantic interest is ‘the one’ or not.. how those choices just aren’t an issue to those people. And yet, they’re people. Capable of feeling like I feel, thinking like I think. By some crazy luck, I’m a guy born in Melbourne who can sit back in a cafe sitting lattes and thinking about these things. Actually, I’m not just using the stereotype there, I am sitting in a cafe sipping a latte as I type. I can’t really change that but I guess I can do what I can to make opportunities where there currently aren’t any, like through the work Trevor is doing in Macassar. There are the obvious sorts of slavery, but there are also so many other ways that prevent people from having choices, from someone born in a Cape Town township with few work or educational opportunities or someone working in Australia and trapped by their mortgage and income to someone who can’t overcome an addiction. I certainly think that mental and spiritual freedom is not dictated solely by our circumstances but I still feel an obligation to do what I can. Whether I can get over myself long enough to do something is a matter for another day.    

To summarise the blogging talk given earlier today, the best way to understand blogs is to try one out for yourself! The two main blogging sites mentioned were wordpress.com and blogspot.com, each of which have a simple sign up process and you really only need an email address to get started. If you want to start an anonymous blog, sign up for an email at gmail.com, hotmail.com or any free mail service and use that address, though your email address is generally hidden by default anyway in most blogging software.

The examples of different blogs on the internet shown today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://gizmodo.com/
http://lifehacker.com/
http://icanhascheezburger.com/
http://www.treehugger.com/
http://chopsicles.com/ (this blog!)
http://openobjects.blogspot.com/ (my sister Mia’s blog)

Also mentioned was a blogging site http://posterous.com/ which will create a blog from any emails posted to post@posterous.com, which I thought was pretty nifty and perhaps useful for people who don’t like the standard way of blogging. There are also numerous other ways to create and use blogs, like installing one on your own server but I’ve chosen not to address that option in detail. 

Finally, to prove that youtube embedding works in wordpress, the video shown today:

Carole’s site seems to be pretty much complete now. Check it out at http://www.lumierecine.com. I still need to fix a png transparency issue under IE, but it should mostly be there. Drop me a line if you notice any major issues.

Johnny and I put together this video for the celebration of Philippa becoming a pastor. If only I had more time to do this sort of thing… its rather fun.

Many a thought has passed through my head but never when in the mood to blog. Johnny and Stacey wrote a song which we played in Burwood the other week. Here ’tis

Well, after much mucking around and many failed shortcuts, I’ve now moved old bloggacino to a new server and upgraded to a newer version of the blogging software. I became somewhat disenchanted with my previous web host so I’ve moved to a new mega server which offers a ridiculous 500GB storage. The whole moving process was slightly traumatic but has served as a useful precedent for the various other sites that I need to also move across.

In other news, I’m back working with the Police and have been using my blogging time on other activities. I’m with the police 4 days a week and spend my other day doing a bit of freelance stuff, mainly web development. One of the first of these, Sam’s site is up and running and you can check it out at soulspire.com.au. She has some lovely designs on there. I’m working on another site at the moment but my 1 day a week really flies by and evenings are getting eaten up a bit.

Other things haven’t progressed as quickly as I’d imagined since coming home. When away, one can make all sorts of resolutions about life changes and activities to undertake upon return but, through limitations of either resolve or resource, time can stretch before any of these are enacted. To do a quick brain dump, I’ve been contemplating singing lessons, bass and/or drum lessons, joining a band, learning spanish again, volunteering at a refugee/new migrant centre and a host of other less persistent options. At first, the limitation was funds as I came back pretty skint and had to conserve. Its amazing how restricting that can be… even getting out of the house costs money, but its a good reminder which makes me really appreciate earning money again. I’m now hitting the other limitation - not having enough time. It seems that finding balance is a lifelong journey

Well, its something fairly difficult to do, but we’ve been having trouble getting the gear together to donate to the project so I’m putting it out there in case anyone is able to help out. I’ll be trying to rustle up a bit myself but any assistance would be a big help and would, of course, go wholly to the project. Here’s an email summarising the situation - I’m the ‘friend’ Daryn refers to.
–

Subject: FW: An Opportunity…

Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:50:56 +100

Hi all…

As many of you know, I’m heading off to Africa in a couple of weeks (actually October 15th is when I leave), to work on a number of community projects in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Congo.

One of the projects I’m involved with is called “Restoring the Sound”, based in the poverty-stricken suburbs of Capetown, South Africa. Started by local Capetown musician Trevor Sampson, it is a music-based program that provides musical training for kids, most of whom face an uncertain future due to poverty, lack of education and violence. The vision of this program is to be a vehicle for these students to develop their musical gifts and break the cycle of poverty over their lives.

I received an email from Trevor just today, and give this extract to give you an indication of the kind of impact he is having there:

“I will be taking two of Macassar’s worst drug addicts, both 21yrs old to a drug rehab 800km’s from here tomorrow morning. These were the guys i took the knives from a couple of weeks ago. When they are so drugged up they just get very violent and rob people and do the evil things. They came to me saying that they are tired of their lifestyle and want to change can I help. I managed to get sponsorship for them both about R70 000* worth for the 12 months.

The deal is if they come clean and finish the programme, another four can come and when they are done the number can be doubled. So they have a huge responsibility to prove themselves.”

(*R70 000 is about AUD$14,000)

There is no website for me to refer you to in relation to this project but here is someone who is partnering with RTS to help provide musical instruments.

http://www.opendoorsmusic.org/content/2/0/

A friend of mine is accompanying me with the intention of staying for a couple of months to set up a website for RTS, as well as compiling and editing video clips, to help promote this work and raise more support.
In addition, my friend will train some of the kids in video editing, again to provide a skill-base and therefore some hope for a better future.

So, aside from letting you know part of what I’m up to, I also seek your assistance. We’d like to donate a computer, preferably a Mac, to RTS to facilitate this video editing and website development. Your opportunity for involvement is this: do you or someone you know have an iMac or similar (obviously needs to be capable of video editing) that could be donated? Or would you be willing to contribute money to for the purchase of a new iMac (about $2000)?

I’m generally averse to asking for such things, however I am very keen support this project [hence I'm forking out the money to go there!] and hope that maybe you might be in a position to help out in some way, big or small. Of course, if you want more information about any of this, come and have a chat to me about it.

Regards,

Daryn

I was on the way to church on Sunday morning and met a guy on the tram. He came over and asked what sort of guitar I had so I showed him. He asked if he could have a go and I let him until the driver told us that you couldn’t play loud music on the tram, which is fair enough. In fact, I had been trying to work out how to suggest that the other passengers might not appreciate his playing. Anyway, it turns out he was on the way to the city to round up some money to score. He was on state trustees and they held most of his money. He got shots once a week for a condition which, at a guess, might have been schizophrenia. He had a court case coming up because he threatened someone over the phone. After I got off the tram I sat in the park waiting for other people to arrive and saw a man cooking up his breakfast on the free barbeques outside the building where we’re meeting at present. It looked like a well practiced routine. I went up to him and said “I’m going up the street to get a coffee, can I bring you back something?”. He looked at me like I was from another planet. It was apparent that my way of helping didn’t match what he felt was needed in his life and I felt kind of foolish. It reminded me of a general tone in the book “This is the grass” by Alan Marshall which I’ve just finished. Alan suffered from polio as a child and had to use crutches throughout his adult life. However, in much of the book it seems his greatest desire is not for any sympathy or assistance but to be respected and treated normally. By going up to the man in the park the way I did, I felt I undermined his dignity, not through malice but perhaps through ignorance. I think listening to my friend on the tram was a much more effective demonstration of goodwill. Gotta keep learning.

Still trying to work out how to drive this blog thing and what sort of stuff to put in here. I’ve been reading a book by Alan Marshall called ‘This is the grass’ about his early adulthood. There is a passage where he writes about the experience of his first office job that resonated with me somewhat:

I found the work easy, but before the day finished I was longing to get out into the sunshine. Office work, I thought, cuts you off from the world. Cooped in by four walls I have lost association with the earth. Birds have been singing today, things have been growing and I have been unaware of it. A day in my life has been completely wasted.

I thought of all the confined days ahead of me and realised with horror that the seasons would go on changing the face of the sky and the earth and I would never witness it. Each weekend I would see the results of a week’s magic but never the process.

‘Completely wasted’ is perhaps slightly stronger language than I would use to describe my time thus occupied but I guess that most people would know the sort of feeling. If nothing else, I’m looking forward to the variety of the next couple of months. I’m pretty sure I won’t be bored in any great quantity. We had a meeting last night with some other people who are going over to Africa for the first part, after which I’ll be staying on in Cape Town. It looks like I’ll also be making a stop of around 2 weeks in Kenya, training some teachers in basic computer skills. As I understand it, they’ve probably not seen a computer before. One of the languages spoken in Kenya is Swahili so I’m interested to see what happens when I tell them to double-click!