Strange things

Well, this is strange.

I had another job interview yesterday for the Children's Librarian position at Thuringowa. It seemed to go really well - well enough for me to wonder what I would do if I was offered the position and had to choose between this job and the ASC job.

You see, becoming a children's librarian has always been really high on my list of things to do. I love children's literature, I love reading to kids and I enjoy the kind of interaction you have with children and teenagers in a library setting (as opposed to a classroom setting)

But the job in Canberra would offer me the chance to do a lot of professional development, spearhead an information literacy component and help develop a Web 2.0 element for a national organisation. Exciting stuff - and they aren't expecting me to have gobs of experience.

The job in Thuringowa had a higher starting salary, would mean I could stay and help look after my family and not have the added costs of moving to one of the most hideously expensive places to live in the country. The job in Canberra would offer me the chance to break some old habits and build some new contacts - an adventure, in other words.

So, if I was offered the job in Thuringowa I would be faced with choosing between two different paths - both of which I really wanted to take, with two different ranges of opportunities and problems. In one job I could earn more, in the other I could learn more...

Fortunately, Thuringowa just phoned me to tell me I didn't get the job. I've never been so relieved to loose a job I really wanted. There's nothing like the threat of having to make a hard decision to make you truly appreciate having no choice at all.

SB

Applying for jobs is fun!

Okay, applying for jobs is no fun at all.

Unless people act really keen and make you feel very wanted.

When I was applying for work late last year/early this year, there were no nibbles. I sent away many a job application, and got very few interviews. The job I did end up landing (which I have quite enjoyed), I more or less got because no "quality applicants" applied for.

So, I felt good about being offered a job, but felt not-so-good about knowing I was the best of a bad bunch (actually, I don't think there was much of a bunch).

I have a theory that the lack of interest shown had nothing to do with the fact that I was a "bad" applicant, but that everyone was looking for something more. I had been working as a library technician for a year and a professional librarian for a couple of weeks on a locum position. Everyone wanted someone with more experience. No one wanted to be the library stuck with the inexperienced librarian.

Which does, of course, raise the question: how does one gain experience if no one wants to hire you when you are not experienced? Answer: by applying for the jobs no one else would want (the short term, part-time contracts) and being the best of a bad bunch.

Now that I have a year's experience under my belt, I'm much more desirable. I've had prompt contact back from every job I've applied for these past few weeks. Four job interviews so far and counting. I've even got an unofficial job offer (waiting on the official one).

So, I'm feeling much more loved than I was this time last year. Why, give me two years in an ongoing professional position and I'll be downright gorgeous.

What's in a name?

That's an old question, that is. And very much abused.

However, when you start looking into the strange and wonderful world of creative output, names become... interesting.

Take my name. Ever since I first got my Tax File Number I've known that I wasn't the only Sharon Bryan in the country. I figured there were probably more of us out there as well.

For instance, there's a real estate broker in Georgia and a lawyer in California.

I was kind of hoping I'd get to use my own name if I ever decided to publish anything. I've been writing poetry ever since I was a kid (big highlight: winning the Best Ballad award in the Dorothea Mackellar Competition in 1996), and I write short stories and plays (biggest highlight: having a play performed for a two week run by a local theatre group), and I've always harboured dreams of publishing something someday.

However, some other Sharon Bryan has gone and published three books of her own poems. Now, if I want to publish any of my poetry, I'll have to come up with a different name. Or at least a different way of presenting my name. "Sharon Bryan" is out, but I might get away with "S.R. Bryan" or "Sharon R. Bryan". I'll have to Google those.

Not that it really matters all that much. I've always felt strangely drawn to pseudonyms. In fact, the plays I've written have been under a pseudonym. I like to be able to hide, when necessary. Not that I think I need to hide, just that I like the game.

I'll probably end up publishing things under half a dozen pseudonyms, for the fun of it. Still, it would have been nice to have my name available for such things.

Feeling Old

I had a weird moment the other day.

I've been in one of my "I think I'd really like a tattoo" moods (yes, I know how stupid that is). Usually, when I get into one of those moods I remind myself how tattoos are put on and taken off, and that's enough to talk myself out of it, but this time round I've been thinking "maybe the pain won't be quite so bad, and I can always keep it instead of having it removed"...

So I've defaulted to my Plan B, where I tell myself I can get the tattoo, but only if I still want the same design in the same place in a year's time. Usually, the fact that I a) get easily bored with ideas and b) usually can't remember them in a years' time anyway pretty much guarantees that I'll have forgotten all about it. If I haven't and I still want it, well no one could accuse me of doing this lightly or on a whim now, could they?

This is where the weird moment came in. I found myself saying to myself: "If you still want it a year from now you can get it for your 29th birthday". Then it suddenly occurred to me - I'm turning 29 in about a year!

29! I mean, seriously! I was sort of okay with being 27 and still having nothing to my name (apart from the letter trail - for which the quest will continue), but I was sort of hoping to have some sort of life to speak of well before I turned 29. You know, a place of my own, a job I could keep for more than a few months, that sort of thing. What are the odds I'll get any of that within a year?

Slim to none, I'd say.

Feeling old. Feeling slightly pathetic. *Sigh*.

Clutter

"I've enough of useless clutter
Kept in boxes, long forgotten,
Filling space that needs no filling
In the corners of my world!"

So I set my hand to purging
Set aside some time for culling -
Loosing things that need no keeping
From the corners of my world.

Like books on bookshelves - never read
Or never to be read again.
Lib'ries are for keeping these things,
Not the corners of my world.

Or magazines I've kept for years
For articles I once enjoyed -
Do I really need to keep them
In the corners of my world?

And then there are the gifts from friends
I had forgotten that I had.
Do I keep them for the givers,
Tucked in corners of my world?

Things I barely want and don't need
Save for mem'ries I'd forgotten,
Things I wouldn't miss if lost from
Little corners of my world.

In my past I courted clutter
Saved things for the mem'ries in them
All my past seems held in items
Kept in corners of my world.

Now I'm dreaming of a future
Free from boxes filled with clutter -
Open space and room for breathing
In the corners of my world.

Many things I thought I'd cherish
Now belong to other lifetimes
And it's time the me(s) I once was
Left the corners of my world.

So I purge and I de-clutter
Striving to be strong and steadfast
Sweeping old dreams and past futures
From the corners of my world.

Things I'd kept for lives I won't lead
Work I'd laid in place for nothing
Things I'd kept with hope and promise
Stowed in corners of my world.

And when they're gone, will I miss them?
Will I remember them at all?
Or were they just passing time there,
In the corners of my world?

And the things I choose to keep now
(Far, far too much, if truth be told) -
How long will they get to stay there,
In the corners of my world?

S.B.

Food for oil?

Someone pointed out something to me today that hadn't occurred to me before, but should really be rather obvious, when you think about it:

Making food the new oil is a bad idea.

Okay, say someone comes up with a wonderful plan for making fuel out of corn syrup. Huzzah, we have a renewable resource, right? Well, not so much. You see, while you can grow more corn in a year that you can "make" crude oil in a century, you've got a slight problem in that there's still a hell of a lot more oil in the world than corn syrup... and we use more oil than corn syrup could possibly supply.

So, what happens? Corn syrup becomes a valuable commodity. We intensively farm it to the detriment of other crops (including, ironically, corn) - but for biofuel purposes, not food. The price of corn increases until it becomes too expensive for the average house-hold to have on the table once or twice a week. Corn - long a staple part of many a diet - becomes something out of the reach of most people. At least, if you wanted to eat it.

All those wonderful, traditional foods using corn flour and the like become prohibitively expensive, and the average packet of corn chips becomes either a) a luxury item or b) something that doesn't actually include any corn.

Oh, and we probably decimate the world's corn supplies, leaving us with only a few strains of corn that have been genetically engineered to produce a higher yield of corn syrup (and probably a kind of corn syrup that makes a better fuel for cars, and would be bad for human consumption, as likely as not). Hence the comment above about intensively farming corn being to the detriment of corn crops.

Now, extrapolate that so that they also make biofuels out of sugar and grain. Would you rather run your machinery plant or eat bread? Sounds ridiculous and far fetched? Look around you. If there is one thing our species does not do well, it's ration.

If the grain and sugar is needed to keep the wheels of industry turning, no one is going to think twice about whether we have enough left over to make bread affordable for the average family.

Face it, biofuels are not the smartest idea we could come up with. Unfortunately, we seem to think it is, so we'll probably stuff quite a number of things up right royally before we come up with something else.

Would someone out there like to come up with a Plan B, please? Preferably before sugar becomes so expensive that they stop giving it to you free when you buy a cup of coffee...

He sails the fields on wooly sheep!

I just wanted to give a plug for one of my favourite comic strips at the moment:

Little Dee, by Christopher Baldwin.

It has a sort of inspired, charming lunacy about it that really speaks to me. It's kind of like Bear in the Big Blue House, only with psychopaths and lost children.

I mean, the guy wrote a Sea Shanty about a riding on sheep. And then comes up with this strip as a way to segue to the next story-line:


You have to admire that level of oddity.


.

This is Odd

I've been thinking about the word "odd" lately. Not only because people insist on applying it to me, but also because I use it a fair bit myself.

I'll often see something and say "that's odd", or become aware of a piece of information and summarily declare that it is "odd".

Most of the time I use this word as a synonym for "weird", which it has come to be. But it does have another meaning. Something that is "odd" can be "singular", as in, "one-of-a-kind".

I was going through another one of my "literal language"* kicks the other day, when I went to call something "odd" on reflex. I stopped myself, wondering whether I could literally call it "odd", when it wasn't weird, just unusual. Then I realised it was "odd", because it was singular - an event that was unlikely to have happened before or happen again in the same manner.

I started feeling quite pleased with this revelation - that the word "odd" is a way of describing something unique, something which is unlikely to be duplicated or surrounded by other things just like it. We are all "odd" in our own little way, and it is something to be celebrated.

I've decided that I'm quite taken with the word "odd" and all it implies. Such a simple word - so elegant in it's construction, an with such an appealing array of meanings. Definitely kinder than "weird", and somehow more classy, I could quite happily be called "odd" any day of the week (and I probably am).

The word "weird" is a strange one. Technically, one of its definitions actually is "odd", as in "out of the ordinary course, strange, unusual; hence, odd, fantastic" (OED). However, it also applies to things "partaking of or suggestive of the supernatural; of a mysterious or unearthly character; unaccountably or uncomfortably strange; uncanny" (also OED). So it's kind of like "odd" only with a "we don't like your kind around here, stranger" sort of feel to it. It's been loosing that meaning over the years. Everything slides towards neutral.

"Weird" kind of half-equals "scary" (which I've been called more than thrice), while "odd" is closer to "eccentric" (which I've been called at least once). Both really mean "not like me, or what I would expect", when you think about it. Coming from that perspective, almost everyone and/or everything in the world is "weird" or "odd".

Welcome to my world, weirdos.

*Take the Literal Language Challenge: For as long as possible, you are not allowed to use any words you don't literally mean. For example, an inanimate object cannot be stupid unless it could also be intelligent. So the "stupid door" is not stupid at all, merely inconvenient. Also, anyone using the 'F' word as every second adjective might want to reconsider the implications...

Honest Joe's Used Church Yard

The problem with Pentecostal Christians (at least, one of the problems), is that we are all essentially used car salesmen. The whole "Great Commission" thing ("Therefore go and make disciples of all nations" Matt. 28:19) has been taken very seriously in the culture of the Pentecostal denominations, and it's sometimes to our detriment.

Not that I think we shouldn't be trying to "make disciples of all nations". If we honestly believe in what we believe in, then keeping it to ourselves would be the most selfish, thoughtless thing we could possibly do. Like a doctor who found a cure for cancer but decided not to do anything about it.

However, like most people who are trying to sell something, we have a tendency to gloss over the things that should probably be pointed out. Anything we think might not be perceived as 100% positive, we try to avoid. Or we try to re-cast it in a different light so that we find the silver-lining and sell that instead of the cloud.

The most useful thing someone selling you a used car could do is point out that the tyres are still okay at the moment, but will need to be replaced soon. Or that certain features aren't original, and might not be fully compatible with the make of the car. Of course, a salesman never mentions that - he tells you it's all completely perfect and hopes like hell you believe him.

I guess another analogy would be a politician who stays on message regardless of how many questions he/she is asked - even if the frank answers to those questions might be more accurate and relevant than the message that the writers have come up with.

The really annoying thing is that we do it all the time. Even amongst ourselves. We're absolutely convinced that, if we mention the balding tyres, we'll be discouraging people from buying the car, so we don't talk about it. If someone else does, we immediately leap to point out how many miles you'll still get out of them. Even if you've already bought the car, have no regrets about the purchase and no intention of parting with it, talking about those balding tyres is just not done.

You can recognise it personally, and make plans to fix the tyres or get rid of the spoiler which wasn't part of the original model and is showing signs of rust - as long as you do this in the privacy of your own privacy. Should you mention it to someone else, they might think you're not happy with the car, and that will damage your ability to sell used cars to other people.

It seems to be a compulsion. I do it myself. Even though I'm at a point in my life where I'm taking a hard look at what it is that I actually believe in and trying to strip away all of the things that have been added on and glossed over for generations so that I can happily recognise the difference between something worth fighting for and something that's just a nice story, I'm hesitant to talk about it with anyone. Instead, I either gloss over things,avoid mentioning them or point out the "many miles left" when someone else brings up one of the subjects that I've been thinking about.

It's starting to bother me a bit, actually. I've noticed I have a tendency to either shut-up or stay on-message even when I'd rather talk about what's been on my mind about certain subjects - if my thoughts don't fit the sales-pitch, I don't know what to do with them.

I don't feel as if I can talk to non-Christians about them because they might think I'm not happy with the car and they might use that as a reason not to buy one (which would, literally be a tragedy). Plus, the current climate in secular circles has me in defensive mode at the moment - the things I care very deeply about have been viciously attacked and slandered from several quarters, and I'll be damned if I offer anyone anything they might be able to use as ammunition.

At the same time, I don't feel as if I can talk to other Pentecostal Christians about them because I know exactly what they're going to say - the usual sales-pitch. I know the sales-pitch back-to-front and I don't need anyone to parrot it back to me. I need someone who'll engage me in a conversation - someone who'll talk about the balding tyres and the non-original spoiler without feeling as if the entire car is under threat.

It's no wonder we come across as close minded and somewhat deluded. The sad truth is that we sometimes mistake the packaging for the package, and that we often hold onto things that maybe we shouldn't hold onto. If we could just admit that - if we could get to the point where we could comfortably acknowledge that the tyres will need replacing and the rear-spoiler isn't one of the original accessories - maybe the things we hold onto will be a little more credible. Maybe the people are thinking about buying the car, but aren't sure if they can really trust us will have an easier time figuring out if we are on the level with them.

I think I've stretched this metaphor as far as I feel like stretching it for the moment.

Except that, I think it's about time I started talking about my used car in more open, less on-message kind of way. I'll probably do a bit of that here, in this blog. I am perfectly happy with my car, but I know it's had a few owners and has clocked up a lot of miles over the years. I know the tyres will need replacing soon. I know a lot of the previous owners have added accessories that aren't part of the original, might not fit the make and model perfectly and could probably be done away with quite happily. That said, I'd still happily recommend it to anyone. It's a good little car, and well worth having.

Okay, now I think I've stretched this metaphor as far as I feel like stretching it.

The Saga of the Enormous Chair Continues

Heh, life is a funny old thing. Now, you see, I could have sworn the chair I saw in the store wasn't as tall as the enormous chair that wound up in my living room. My mother, who saw the chair in the store during that time when we bought the "even more enormous chair", also thought the one in the store looked smaller.

Last weekend we bought the one in the store. It was because we wanted to find a second-hand chair that would have similar characteristics for use in my grandmother's room - the idea being that it was a sturdy chair which she might be able to get out of without using some sort of electrical device, thereby giving her more than two items of furniture in which to exist. We also thought it might give her something solid to lean on when she was trying to get out of bed. We haven't had the chance to test that yet, but I think we'll find out tonight. We couldn't find one anyway, so we went and bought the newish one in the shop.

Why second hand? I hear you ask me. Doesn't your grandmother deserve new things? Well, of course she deserves new things. She just doesn't like them. I've never met anyone who was harder to shop for. She'd rather stick with her old, broken chair or her ancient, lumpy mattress than get something new. We thought a second hand chair might slip under her objection radar and be accepted more readily. Besides, we're all mildly convinced she's going to die in one of these chairs, and there's a limit to how much money you want to spend on something you'll have second thoughts about using later.

Anyway, they're the same size. The chair I came home with originally is no more enormous than the chair I thought I was buying. I have no idea why I thought it was smaller in the shop. I still maintain the fact that the other items of furniture surrounding it were equally huge, thus distorting my perception.

Who needs furniture that big? Seriously? Being 178 cm tall and rather long of limb and broad of shoulder, I've always regarded myself as closer to giant than pixie (let's be kind and say Amazon, shall we?), but even I don't need furniture that big. Heck, I have a friend who makes me feel short, and even he doesn't need furniture that big.

Mind you, I do find it easier getting out of the ridiculously large chair than the lower armchairs. I don't feel I have as far to get up...

Things We Want to Keep

And, in a massive stroke of irony, today I threw out a film called "Things We Want to Keep."

"Stinkin' Esto"

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is finally official. I am an Estonian citizen. I have an Estonian passport and I'm enrolled to vote in Estonian elections.

Now all I have to do is learn Estonian and spend some time in Estonia (preferably at least a year) - earning Estonian Kroonid and paying Estonian taxes.

It always amazes me when people ask me why I would want to do such a thing. They can understand the idea of getting the passport (EU and all that), but if you can get the passport without speaking a word of Estonian or setting foot in Estonia, then why not? What possible reason could you have for wanting to learn such an obscure language or go to such an obscure place?

Apart from the fact that I've grown up wondering about the place my grandmother came from and I've always wanted to go there and see it for myself, there's a little something I like to call "fairness", mixed with a touch of "politeness" and just a dash of "respect" and "decency".

The same people who want to know why I'd bother learning the language if I don't have to would find it a bit rude if someone tried to become an Australian citizen without any intention of learning English. The same people who would, apparently, quite gladly accept a passport from a country without ever intending to set foot in it would be disgruntled by the thought of someone waving around an Australian passport if they have never been in Australia in their life.

Here in Australia we have this newish thing called the "citizenship test". To become an Australian citizen you have to have a certain base amount of English and be able to answer questions like "who was the first prime minister?" and "What is our national floral emblem?" (Barton and golden wattle, respectively). Now, I'm sure there are a number of loop-holes for the descendants of Australians which would allow them to obtain citizenship without any basic knowledge of the culture or the language, but there's something deep inside the heart of every Australian that would like to say "Hang on, that's not quite right."

Now, most native born Australians who grew up and attended school here would probably struggle with answering a lot of questions on the citizenship test (not because they were never taught, just because they couldn't be bothered remembering what they learnt in Year Five). By the way, if anyone is interested, the information that an Australian citizen is expected to know (and appreciate) has been compiled in a booklet that can be read here.

As an aside, I think it's worth pointing out that the "Australian Values" mentioned in the booklet (such as "Freedom of speech", "Freedom of association" and "Tolerance, mutual respect and compassion for those in need") are not constitutional rights, and are therefore not legally enforceable. They're just things that all Australians should think are pretty good ideas.

But, as usual, I digress. The point I was trying to make is that we think it's only fair that someone who wants to be an Australian citizen should a) know a thing or two about Australia, b) Be able to talk to other Australians in the "native" tongue and c) think about visiting Australia once in a while. That's not too much to ask, in my book. (Feel free to substitute the name of your own country for "Australia" in this paragraph if you want it to be more relevant to you).

If someone technically didn't have to do these things to get Australian citizenship, we'd probably think it was only polite if they did anyway. Someone who wants to get something from us without even so much as a "how d'you do", on the other hand, would be regarded as a "bludger". It really shows a lack of respect to try to get the privileges of being a country's citizen without making any effort to "belong" to that country in any way.

So I'm learning Estonian (even if the grammar is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Fourteen cases! Who on earth needs fourteen cases?), I'm learning a bit about the culture (the national floral emblem is the cornflower) and the history (they were independant for a whole four days after the Germans left and before the Soviets took over in 1944), and I'm planning to visit. Next year I want to go over for a couple of weeks for a holiday. The year after that, I'm hoping to find work over there and spend some time living as an Estonian.

In my mind it's only fair. It's my way of showing my basic respect for a country that has given me a passport and told me I can go to it's embassies if I need help.

If that seems weird an unnecessary to you, then perhaps you need to think a bit about what it means to be a citizen. Treat it lightly if you want to, but make sure you apply to same standards to everyone who would claim citizenship in every country - even yours.

Letting Go.

(originally emailed 24 October 2007)

A couple of weeks ago I had one of those cathartic thingies where you take stock of your emotional baggage and decide to leave some of it behind.

There was something in particular that I realised I didn't need to hold onto any more. It wasn't necessarily bad or good (in many ways it was actually quite positive), but I realised it definitely belonged in the past, so I let it go.

It was strange how much lighter I felt as a result of this. It wasn't like I had lost a heavy burden (I didn't really regard it as a burden), so that I felt relieved of a weight... more like I had let go of a balloon and watching it fly off made me feel just a little bit uplifted.

It was a perfectly amicable parting of the ways.

The other night, though, I realised something I hadn't noticed at the time. The thing which I had let fly off quite happily was actually attached to some other things that I'm not sure if I was ready to give up just yet. There was more than one balloon attached to that string, and when I let go of one thing I accidentally let go of the others as well.

I'm not sure how I feel about that, because they were hopes. I had let go of a hope I didn't think I needed any more, but the other hopes that went with it were for things I think I should still hope for. I have this strange 'nothing' feeling sitting where those hopes used to be.

It's not like I've lost hope for those things, or had my hopes dashed (both of which would result in feeling something, even if it was painful and negative). I just don't have any hopes for those things right now.

I don't feel sad about loosing them, but I also don't feel happy about it. I feel... odd. I feel like I should feel something and I can't work out why I don't.

A lot of the anxiety that went hand-in-hand with the fear that those hopes would never be fulfilled (or would be dashed) has gone away, which is a positive thing. On the other hand, on an intellectual level I know that those hopes were for good things, things everyone hopes for, and I should feel depressed about not hoping for them any more. I don't feel depressed about it, though, and I wonder if I should feel depressed about that.

Maybe I'll find a new reason to hope for them again. I don't know.

A couple of 'ow's

(originally emailed 24 October 2007)

There is pain in my world. I recently a) fell over and b) got new glasses. Both hurt.

There is this weird point when riding my unicycle when I just seem to find a spot where I'm balanced, whether I like it or not. When I hit that spot, I can't seem to tip forwards or backwards without putting in so much effort that I can't control my dismount and I end up falling hard. Sadly, I only seem to find this spot just as I'm about to crash into something and I'd really like to dismount. This was how I found out that my elbow and wrist guards were a good investment. Last night it was how I found out I should have made a similar investment in knee pads.

After whinging for several months about my old glasses giving me headaches, I decided to get new glasses. This is the first chance I've had to use them since I picked them up on Monday. Trying them on at the shop didn't fill me with confidence, and actually using them for a few hours has revealed the sad truth - they are horrible, and my head really hurts now. The weird thing is, I can't say that they are any better or worse than my old glasses. They are definitely different (which might also be contributing to the headaches), but not necessarily worse. A different kind of horrible. I think I'll return them.

My pain is, of course, nothing compared to the pain of others (my grandmother, for instance), but I still like to whinge. Who wouldn't?

Children's Album

(Originally emailed 15 October 2007)

In my (some might say misguided) attempt to learn Estonian, I have taken a couple of occasions to purchase Estonian children's books from Apollo Raamatud (think the Eesti version of Angus & Robertson) to get a feel for the language at a simple, easily translated level.

This has proven to be an interesting exercise, as I have been buying books based purely on the cover art. I have no idea what the titles mean, I can't tell what the books are about or what ages they are aimed at. They have written descriptions on Apollo's web site, but I can't read them. I just decide the cover looks about right and part with money.

This has had mixed results. I'd say about eighty percent of the time I've managed to accurately gauge the reading levels of the books. I have been landed with a few books that I probably won't be able to read for quite some time, but most of them were more or less exactly what I was after - picture books which are designed for being read to children.

There are some very nice poems and rhymes in a number of these books. I have no idea what most of them mean, but I love the sound of them when I try to pronounce them.

I have, however, been slightly thwarted by the Estonian Grammar. I spent months trying to figure out why I couldn't find these words (supposedly aimed at small children) in any dictionaries, but now that I've got a decent self-study book on Estonian Grammar (also bought based purely on the cover), I'm starting to work it out. It's slow going, but it's happening.

There is one random purchase that I have to say I'm particularly pleased with (apart from the grammar book, which is very handy indeed): Võluvitsa vägi.

I apologise if the Estonian vowels didn't manage to cross the electronic divide. They looked okay on my screen.

Now, I can't tell you exactly what the title means. Something about charms and magic (maybe wands). I can't tell you if Diana Liiv wrote the story herself or adapted it into Estonian. I can't even tell you what the story is about, really, although I'm looking forward to finding out.

I can tell you that it comes with a CD that features a guy with a fabulous speaking voice (who may or may not be Indrek Sammul) reading the story, interspaced with music from Tchaikovsky's "Children's Album".

Man, I love listening to that story. I have no idea what he's saying, but I love hearing him say it. He has such a clear, expressive voice that seems so perfectly intoned for reading a children's story. And, of course, Tchaikovsky's music is always a pleasure to listen to.

Plus, there are children's toys and toy instruments threaded throughout the musical pieces. I don't know if they were meant to be there, or if Liiv put them in for this particular production. All I know is that it's great to hear a rubber ducky in the orchestra - where it truly belongs.

From my best estimations, I think Diana Liiv wrote the story to provide a narrative for the set pieces of music in Tchaikovsky's "Children's Album" in order to give young children an introduction to the wonders of classical music. At the end of the book are instructions for making your own musical instruments out of stuff lying around the house (although you'd have to have a pretty weird house to have some of that stuff lying around).

It took me a little while to notice, but the book also has the musical notation for the toys written in, so you can play along. I thought the bars of music were just there to show you different timings (after all, they only have one note), but I managed to pick up on the fact that the ducky squeaks or the castanets clack right on that note every time. Kind of cool, really.

Allow me to write the words 'Tchaikovsky's "Children's Album" on more time. It took me days to figure that out. In the book they refer to Pjotr Tšaikovski's arrangement "Lastealbum". Now, I knew that laste meant children, but I couldn't find lastealbum any where. I was convinced the last half of the word must have been one of those insane portmanteaus Estonian seems to be littered with.

It was only after I found a list of Tchaikivsky's works that I realised it was actually exactly what it looked like: "album". Laste album - lastealbum - "children's album". I spent two days trying to work out what the word "album" was. I could have kicked myself.

Anyway, it's a great little story-book. I've listened to it several times (not always with the book in front of me), and I get the same sort of buzz from it that I got from watching the Nutcracker a couple of years back. It makes me want to stage the darn thing, with an orchestra on stage (so you can see the musician playing the toys), a narrator and a couple of dancers fleshing out the story for people who aren't familiar with Estonian.

It has to be narrated in Estonian. I'm sure the story (whatever it is) will hold up to a translation into some other language (heck, it could have been translated from another language into Estonian, for all I know), but it sounds fabulous in Estonian.

Disconnect

Here's something I find interesting about humanity:

Everyone wants everyone else to do things for them for free.

Everyone wants to get paid for what they do.

No one seems to see the problem there.

The Next Best Thing

(Originally emailed 12 October 2007)

It seems the All Blacks lost their match against France and are out of the World Cup. It seems the New Zealanders are taking it badly.

I was listening to the Sports Report on ABC National this morning (yes, I know, I listen to the word's most boring radio station), and they were talking about the abject misery that Kiwis are feeling as a result of loosing the Word Cup again.

A guest commentator was the (former?) coach of the New Zealand national basketball team - an American. He made the interesting comment that New Zealanders, in general, were really bad at loosing. They had no perspective when it comes to playing (especially Rugby) - it's either win or loose. If they win, they don't even care or notice if it was a pretty dodgy win (just dumb luck), it's still the best thing to ever happen - a great victory. If they loose it's simply the end of the world. There's no sense of "pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again."

He talked about how they seemed to think they were owed a win (because they had put so much money into the game), and were seriously shocked and angry that they had lost. He talked about how they were probably going to stress about it for the next four years instead of just moving on.

He even said it came down to immaturity - they weren't mature enough to be able to take it in their stride. Now, when an American calls you immature, you know you're in trouble.

It put me in mind of a song that's currently one of my favourites, called The Lucky One. It has a wonderful line in it that just resonates with me:

"You know the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and loosing."

I've always been about as competitive as a dish cloth. I play games because I like to play, and sometime ago I found out that you often have the most fun when you're not playing to win. As a result, I don't get too cut up when 'my team' looses (which does annoy a lot of other people, but such is life).

We need to encourage that view in ourselves, each other and the next generation as much as possible, I think. It's not the world when we win, so it isn't the end of the world when we loose.

After all, the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and loosing.

My email signature

This is the email signature I've been using for my personal email account lately:

Sharon Bryan is a pseudonym for the authors of the "Tanglewood Trio" mystery series and the "Brown River Boys" adventure series, both published by the Green Syndicate. Orson Green, publisher of the Green Syndicate, created the "Tanglewood Trio" characters and contributed the first five plot-lines, but the books were written by a number of ghost writers, all using the name "Sharon Bryan" to ensure the rights for all of the plots and characters stayed with the company. It is believed his daughter, Prudence Green wrote the first ten books in the "Brown River Boys" series. The practice was continued by the publishers Jackson & Wynn when they bought the Green Syndicate in 1973.

Since 1946, when the name was first used, at least thirty writers are known to have used the pseudonym, including Carolyn Keene, Franklin W. Dixon, Victor Appleton, Laura Lee Hope, Arthur M. Winfield, Roy Rockwood, Dan Scott, Jerry West, Helen Louise Thorndyke, Allen Chapman and Clarence Young.

For further information, please read the wikipedia entry for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a rival publishing company which used similar methods.

It is, of course, a joke. All of the names listed above were pseudonyms used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate for their various series (such as the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books).

I'm in two minds about it, though. On the one hand, I enjoy the joke as it is, and don't want to qualify or lessen it in any way. On the other hand, I wonder how many people would get the joke - especially if they don't know about Carolyn Keene and the others.

I want to keep it, I want to change it, I don't know what I want to do with it.

An even more enormous chair

(originally emailed 11 October 2007)

Obviously, my success at physically brining a chair into my grandmother's house emboldened the rest of my family. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My uncle has an interesting habit of listening to everything we say and assuming we either a) are hopelessly exaggerating, or b) don't really know what we're talking about. We can tell him about things until we're blue in the face, but he won't *really* believe us until he sees if for himself.

My mother, on the other hand, knows that I'm probably right, but hopes that if she waits long enough whatever it is that I've pointed out as a problem will go away by itself.

For some months now I've been trying to convince everyone that my grandmother would have a better time trying to get out of her chair if we bought her one of those motorised ones which would give her a boost. My mother, I think, was working on the idea that if we waited long enough we, ah, ahem, wouldn't need it any more. My uncle simply never thought she was having that much trouble getting up - after all, he hardly ever saw her actually get out of the chair (largely because she tries to avoid it as much as possible).

The other day, however, my uncle saw just how much trouble his mother was having these days and suddenly - bam! We're off to the furniture store to buy a motorised chair that very weekend.

And I mean, that very weekend. Friday night he makes up his mind, Saturday he and my mother go chair shopping and Sunday we buy a chair and bring it home.

It always fills me with great feelings of confidence that I can say things for months and nothing will happen, but should any other member of my family get the same idea it's accomplished within a couple of days. Ah, the feeling of empowerment...

Anyway, the true adventure of this particular chair wasn't the decision to buy it, but the attempt to get it into the house. Until I managed to successfully bring in my armchair, it was understood that our door situation was too awkward to allow for furniture to be brought in or taken out. Now, we were going to test the limits of just what could be brought through our doors. We just managed to get her old chair out, but this new chair...

Do you have any idea how big motorised arm-chairs are? I made a point of recommending the smallest one I could find (one which my mother didn't like, but that my uncle could appreciate, so we got it), and it was still neigh-on impossible.

First, we tried the front stairs, which involved trying to work our way around the chair lift that helps my grandmother get up and down the stairs. Then when we got to the top of the stairs, we realised we couldn't get it through the door on that angle, but we couldn't shift the angle where we were. So, we took it back down stairs to try to change the position, but when we got it back upstairs we realised we wouldn't get it in without taking a door off its runners. But then we discovered we couldn't do that (to think of all the times I've accidentally knocked that door of its runners, this time we couldn't do it on purpose).

So, we took the chair back downstairs (not a light-weight chair, I must point out), moved the cars, moved the dogs and carried the chair to the back of the house. Once again, after getting it up the stairs we discovered that a) it needed to be on a different angle, and b) we couldn't shift the angle at the top of the stairs. So, back down stairs we go to alter the angle of the chair and take it up again. On this angle, the chair is almost impossible to move, so every step has to be fought for.

Finally, after carrying the darn thing up and down the stairs at least four times, we managed to get it into the house and into position. Everyone needed to sit down for a while after that.

Some time later, as I was sitting on one of the old chairs, something twigged. There was something about the two new chairs that was trying to get my attention, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. After looking back and forth between them for a couple of minutes, I worked it out. They had the same pattern. Slightly different colour scheme, but the exact same pattern.

Somehow, we managed to buy two different chairs on separate occasions with no thought to what they looked like (other than 'they didn't look ugly'), and they matched.

Now we have three old chairs that match each other, two new chairs that match each other and a couch that's falling apart and doesn't match anything. After the trouble we had getting the armchair into the house, though, I think we're going to hold off on replacing the couch for a while.

Kernel Panic

I got this message in my work email yesterday:

"At 4:54pm today 8/10/07 the server tvl-gatcf3 abended due to a Kernel Panic."

I barely know what "server tvl-gatcf3" means. I had to look up what happens when it "abends" (but I'm not sure I actually understand it) and I haven't a clue what a "Kernal Panic" might be.

I sometimes get the feeling that the tech-support people are going out of their way to make up new words - just so they can maintain their mystique.

Evil Fish

I was looking at the Department of Primary Industries' web site to try to find some raw statistical data for some students when I came across this charming picture.

Is it just me, or does the fish look evil?

Wiv one enormous chair...

(originally emailed on 24/09/2007)

I bought a chair on the weekend, and threw my entire household into chaos.

It wasn’t really intentional. Buying the chair, I mean. I went to Harvey Norman looking for prices on an MP3 player. Didn’t find a player I wanted, but fell in love with a chair.

It was just one arm-chair, not in a suit, sitting by itself in a little corner behind the back of one couch and next to a couple of dining suits. I saw that chair and thought: “I like the look of that chair.” Then, because it’s what I do in furniture stores when I see chairs I like the look of, I sat in it. I thought to myself: “I like the feel of this chair”. Then I put my feet up on one of the dining chairs in front of me so I could see what it would be like with a footstool, and thought to myself: “This is my chair.”

Kind of like Goldilocks, only without wasting time breaking stuff.

There was one thing I didn’t like about the chair, and that was the $500 price tag. I wasn’t keen on that at all. I talked myself out of buying the chair, saying I would probably get it if it was less than $300, but not for $500. However, I kept coming back to sit on the chair, and the charming salesman noticed and offered to knock $65 off the price. In hindsight, that wasn’t really better. $435 is still too much to pay for a chair (and significantly more than my $300 limit), but the chair was calling to me and I was vulnerable.

Where it was, though, I didn’t realise how big it would be. It didn’t register to me at all that something which was the same height as a dining chair would be significantly taller than most lounge chairs...

So, I buy this chair on a whim, and the charming salesman tells me they have five new ones at the warehouse, which will probably be nicer than the display chair which has had every Tom, Dick and Goldilocks sit in it, and I believe him.

Part of me new how dangerous it was. My mother has made it absolutely clear that I am not allowed to bring any new furniture into the house (that may sound weird, but I have a thing for flat-packed anything, so it’s not entirely unwarranted). If I had been thinking, I would have remembered the disruption that was caused by buying a new stereo which was slightly bigger than the old one, and thought better of the chair. However, I wasn’t thinking. I just figured we’d move out one of the dodgy chairs that are on the verge of collapse and put my chair in instead.

Heck, it’s not like I was going to ask them to live with this chair forever. It would be my chair and I would take it with me if ever I managed to get my own place. A nice, functional and reasonably pretty chair like this would fit in almost anywhere, and would be perfect for my current dream decorating scheme (which involves a house full of things that don’t match, and there for fit in by virtue of not matching anything else)…

Strangely, my mother was not as objectionable about the chair as I thought she would be. She’s been uncharacteristically accommodating lately, and I’m starting to get nervous. Anyway, when I got the chair upstairs and out of its wrapper, I discovered a rather important fact about this particular item - it’s huge. Put it next to any other, normal item of lounge room furniture and the chair seems positively gigantic. We couldn’t just replace on of the other chairs with this chair, we had to arrange all of the other furniture so it could sit by itself. That was the only way we could stop it from looking completely ridiculous.

We spent a couple of hours rearranging the furniture in the lounge room, trying every conceivable combination (without moving my grandmother’s chair, which was off limits, and the buffet, which would have disintegrated if we tried). My mother, oddly, kept trying to throw out her own chair in these arrangements.

She has a couch which badly needs replacing, but she isn’t going to replace it until my grandmother dies and they can get rid of the lift that currently takes-up half of the front stairs. Even though she practically lives in this couch, and it would be a long time before it would ever be replaced, she kept suggesting that it should be given to the dogs and she’d just sit on one of the other chairs. I don’t think I could have coped with the guilt of that, but fortunately we managed to come by an arrangement in which the only thing that was removed from the lounge room was my keyboard and its stand.

The kicker is, the new chair isn’t as comfortable as the one in the store, and because it hasn’t been “broken in” yet, it’s actually higher than the one I fell for. So we have this huge chair that required the entire lounge room (and, by extension, my room and other parts of the house) to be rearranged, and it isn’t even as good as I thought it would be. Plus, none of our footstools are tall enough for me to comfortably stretch my legs out in front of me (and buying a knew footstool is not on the agenda).

Oh, well. I have hope that it will be broken in soon, and truly become “my chair”. Plus, you know, it means I always have a place for tall people to sit if they visit me. All I need to do is make sure I also own a chair that’s ridiculously low, and I’m set.