Esperanto word of the day:

Mojoseco

(mo-yo-SETS-o)

It means "awesomeness".

Find someone you admire today and say:

"Mi amas vin pro via mojoseco."

(I love you because of your awesomeness).

Directions

These are the actual directions I gave someone last week:

Ah.  The thesis you want isn't in Special Collections - it will be with the others in the main section of the building, down from the reference collection.  

Do you know where the reference collection is?  No?  Okay, do you know where the naked man is?  Yep.  He's standing right next to the reference collection and facing the direction you want to go.  

Just keep going down that way and it goes reference books, then atlases, then theses, then microform.  If you hit the little boxes you've gone too far.  

Oh, and the theses have call numbers but they're actually in alphabetical order by author's surname, so ignore the labels entirely.

If you get lost come back and get me.

The good that I would...

I have plans.  Great plans.  Good plans.  Plans well founded in theory, well intentioned and reasonably well thought out.  Plans that are entirely reasonable, entirely achievable and not even remotely falling into the "you're-asking-too-much-and-this-will-never-work" category.

I have the same slight flaw with all of my plans - I don't actually do anything about any of them.

I know exactly what I need to do in order to revise my language stuff ahead of next Trimester.  It involves simply, but practically, going over a few exercises every day and brushing up any grammar rules I might have forgotten.

I've been intending to do this every day since the beginning of November.  So far, I've done it once (and then, only half the amount of work I intended to do that day).

I know exactly what I need to do to achieve the perfectly reasonable fitness goals I've set for myself.  It involves going for a 20 min walk every day and replacing that walk with a run (or a swim, or something else if I feel like it) three days a week.  Good plan, right?  Perfectly achievable.  Nothing too taxing about that at all.

I get through entire weeks without managing more than a single run and a couple of incredibly slow ambles up the street with my incredibly slow dog.

I know exactly what I need to do to improve my productivity at work.  It involves writing short lists of achievable tasks and scheduling time dedicated to doing nothing but a single task on that list.  So very rational and doable - every second magazine article on time management will give you this sort of advice.

Most days I barely remember to write a list.  By the end of the day, I can rarely cross anything off it.

In my head, I've got it covered.  I know exactly what I need to do, I've given myself achievable goals and all I have to do is pick the low-hanging fruit to make my life 100% more useful and effective.  Once I get the ball rolling, and the habits formed, I'll be miles ahead.

It's just getting the ball rolling that's the problem.

I think I might be sitting on it...

Support your local sport

I've been thinking about local sporting teams lately.

Following on from my fritterings in November about being more locally connected, my latent desire to support the sporting teams in my neighbourhood by occasionally watching them play has been growing.

I have this strange, half-formed concept of team-based sport as a sort of social glue.  A bit like the role being in a parish is supposed to play.  In theory everyone in a neighbourhood goes to the same church/chapel/rectory/what have you and, in doing so, we build a sense of "belonging to each other".  By coming together to regularly devote time and attention to the same thing, you build a sense of community and shared lives.

I think sporting clubs should, traditionally, do something similar for a community.  They provide this focal point that we can gather around in order to share something in common with the other people in our radius.  Some people might play for the team, others will be involved in various ways (coaches, volunteers, drivers), but there's also a role for people to just show up and watch.

To sit there, with other members of your community, and cheer on "the team" must do something for your connection to the people around you.  You might not know a soul on the team... at first.  I expect, after a while, you'll know a lot of people by name or sight.

You may actually get to know your neighbours, and form a network of people who might notice if someone dies - thus alleviating the growing problem of people's bodies being discovered some time after death (it's a thing:   Community groups call for system which prevents unnoticed deaths, a-lively-city-where-death-is-unnoticed).

It would probably make the people on the team feel pretty good, too.  You know, having people care about they're doing...

I don't know about you, but I'm not doing any of this.  I barely know what sporting teams are even in my neighbourhood, let alone go watch them play.

I'm not going to take the blame for this entirely, though.  If you're not actually playing sport (or related to someone who is), it's nigh impossible to find out when a game is on in time to go watch it.  The clubs themselves don't bother advertising at all.  Heck, nine times out of ten you can't even get that kind of information from their websites (if they have one).

I'm a librarian - I find information for a living.  If I have difficulty finding information about when and where a game is going to be held, then how likely is it that the other ordinary souls in the community will turn up to watch?

Ideally, the local newspapers would come to the rescue.  Once a week they would have a column somewhere between the classifieds and the sports section telling us what games are coming up on the weekend.  Then, anyone who has a "maybe I'll wander down to the park and watch that" moment would have the opportunity to do so.

As it is, my "local" newspaper barely even reports on the local competitions after the fact.  They devote most of the sports pages to what's happening at a national level.  I wonder if part of that is because my city has a few teams in those national competitions?  We have "local" teams competing at the national level, so maybe we can't be bothered lowering our gaze to follow what's happening in less lofty circles?

Many people in my city support those teams competing at the national level, and there is a sense in which the "big" teams bind us all together...  But I'm not convinced we're doing ourselves any favours by ignoring the grass-roots teams just because we have the "big boys" playing in town.

And, besides, my sucky newspaper can't even tell us when the big teams are playing half the time.  The other day they ran a story on a WNBL basketball match that was happening later in the week, and didn't feel the need to tell us when and where the game was going to be played (as previously noted, News Ltd journalists are bad at their jobs).

Maybe the local newspapers in smaller towns are more engaged in their local sporting teams?  I'd like to think so.

I'd also like to watch stuff, occasionally.  Surely it can't be that hard to find out when a game is going to be played in a park near me...?

Dolly Rocks

Dolly Parton is a bit of a legend.  Not only is she a pretty decent singer and a kick-ass song-writer with a wicked sense of humour, she's a champion of reading to children:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/11/25/3898166.htm

You gotta love that.

Pitched

Those of you who have been regularly keeping up with my various online outpourings may have noticed I've become mildly obsessed with baseball in the last few months.

Having managed to get myself hooked by watching several games in a row while home during the day and in a state of mild delirium, I spent the rest of the regular season and the post season following the fortunes of my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates* and trying to understand what everyone was doing.

I'm still largely confused by most things.  I only recently discovered that, when two teams play each other for four games in a row, those games each count as individual games.  I thought the whole series of consecutive games was tied together somehow, but I could never work out how it worked.

However, I'm currently in a state of mild annoyance.  The MLB has wrapped up for the year, but I've discovered there's an Australian league I can follow.  It's called, funnily enough, the Australian Baseball League.

I've nominally opted to follow the Brisbane Bandits (they're the team for my state, and they have "Bandits" in their name - which is almost like "Pirates")...  but I haven't been able to watch a single second of game time.

The American games were screened live on free-to-air Australian TV, but the Australian league (actually co-owned by the MLB, so I don't know why they haven't finagled some sort of TV coverage) can't even manage a "replay" at 2am.  They have some sort of weird "live" screening happening on the internet - which is about as useful as a cheeseburger to a drowning elephant if you can't (or would rather not) arrange to be sitting at a computer for those exact two hours.

Computer viewing is for snippets of things and things you can pause.  It is for watching a five minute recap (which you stop halfway through for some random thing and then eventually remember to come back to later).  It is not for live sports coverage.

Live sports coverage is for TVs located somewhere in the vicinity of comfy furniture (like your lounge) or replenish-able beverages (like a bar/pub).

Why don't they have clips from the games, so that you can watch them later in a suitably asynchronous manner?  Why don't they convince Ten or SBS or something to screen the games on the TV (so that we could watch the live games in an appropriate manner, or tape them and watch them at a convenient time)?

It's 2013!  Surely they know that we a) don't have an attention span longer than 30 seconds when we sit at a computer and b) have no sense of real time?

Oh, well.  At least they have play-by-play recaps, so I can read the games.

Yes, I read baseball games.

That's not weird, is it?


*I've seen them play at least three times, and they have the word "Pirates" in their name.  That's good enough to make them my team, so I've been reading their games on a semi-regular basis.

The Buzz-cut experiment

It's had mixed results.

I spent about a couple of weeks looking at my hair, thinking: "Oh, sweet Lord, I need a haircut!" and then not doing anything about it - to the point where I started to wish I had a set of clippers at home so I could just hack off my own hair when the whim took me.

But, of course, a buzz-cut is hardly appropriate for a girl who keeps complaining about looking androgynous.

Yet, part of me just wanted to see what would happen if I did simply get shorn.  I've wanted a buzz-cut ever since I was a kid (my mother refused to allow it).  And then, someone at work mentioned that his girlfriend had gone to a barber to get #4 cut, and well...

The original plan was just to get an all-over #8 cut and see what happened, but I ended up having an 8 tapering down to a 5 at the back.

On the one hand - not completely horrible.  When I use wax to style my hair, it doesn't look significantly different to the pixie cuts I've been getting for the past year (a bit shorter, but it will grow).

On the other hand, when I don't use the wax I look like an overweight nine-year-old boy (with a bad haircut).

There's a very good chance I'll do it again before I travel overseas for any length of time, but I probably won't repeat it for my next haircut.

Support your local...

How much of what you need to live a full and happy life can you find in your own neighbourhood?

And, by neighbourhood, I'm referring to whatever is within about 15 minutes by foot or bicycle from where you live.  If you stepped out of your front door, hopped on a bike and rode a comfortable distance (not enough to really even raise a sweat), what could you find?

Neighbourhood is a strange concept, geographically speaking.  It doesn't necessarily overlap with other geographical markers.  For example, I've lived in three houses in Townsville, and in one house my "neighbourhood" takes in parts of four suburbs, while another takes in the entire of one suburb, and the third barely took up a quarter of a suburb (for some reason, they decided to just keep adding to Kirwan instead of making a new suburb - the whole suburb is actually bigger than some towns).

When I lived in Tasmania, my "neighbourhood" took up almost the whole town.

And I tend to think that we all have two neighbourhoods, anyway - the one around the place where we live, and the one around the place where we work.  For some of us, that's the same neighbourhood, but I know of people who live and work in different towns (something I used to do myself).

So, what's in my neighbourhood(s)?  How much of my needs (physical, social and spiritual) can my neighbourhood cater for?

What shops and services do I have close at hand?  What are my local neighbourhood sporting teams?  Schools?  Churches?  Clubs and craft groups?  Doctors' surgeries and dentists?  If I want to take up a new hobby, can I do it close to home?

I've long been fascinated by the fact that the older suburbs in Australian cities have almost everything you need within walking distance, while the newer suburbs don't.  It's like the fact that we have cars has lead to an expected lifestyle in which we no longer need local communities.

Our streets are just places where our houses are.  We sleep there and watch TV.  If we want to do anything else, we just drive to the other side of town...

Yes, I can drive my car to any sporting club in the city.  So what relevance do such clubs have for local communities any more?

Yes, I can drive to any supermarket in town.  So who goes to the shop that's just down the road from me?  And, if I don't, and my neighbour doesn't... then how long can it survive?

I want to be more locally engaged.  To know what exists in my neighbourhood and make use of it.  Unfortunately, I'm very bad at paying attention to things like this.  The best I can do is usually (but not always) getting my haircut somewhere near wear I live or work and only buying newspapers from shops within walking distance.  Which actually just means I rarely buy the paper (not a big problem, my local paper is pretty crappy)...

Even though I live in one of the older suburbs, and I can actually fulfill quite a number of my needs close at hand, I don't.  I drive all over town to find what I want (or buy it online) - making me firmly part of the problem.

Oh, well.  Eventually it won't matter.  There won't be anything "local" to support.

Why are journalists so bad at their jobs?

I'm just curious.

I keep finding articles in newspapers (mostly News Ltd, it must be said) in which the journalist in question clearly doesn't know how to use Google, as they failed to mention some really basic information (which would take any two-bit researcher two minutes to unearth).

Or, alternatively, they'll  write an article about something "amusing" (like, say, TV or sport) and get some of the facts flat-out wrong.  It's as though the fact that it isn't a hard-hitting news story means little things like research and fact-checking become irrelevant.

Call me crazy and old-fashioned (go on, I'll wait), but I thought journalists were supposed to find out stuff and report on what they have learnt.

So, why do they a) not bother finding out stuff, and b) report on things they clearly know nothing about?

Scarier than the bear

I've read in a few places that an "appropriate" method to fend off bear attacks is to run at the bear.

Apparently, generally speaking, bears do not regard humans as proper food and will avoid them if they make enough noise ("Hey, Bear!"), but sometimes they are particularly hungry and will actually run towards the noisy humans for the express purpose of eating them.

Climbing a tree really only works if the bear in question is not a tree climber itself, and running away is really only a good option if you happen to be travelling with someone who is a slower runner than you are.

Running *at* the bear is, supposedly, more effective than running *away* from the bear.

I think this works on the principle of appearing to be scarier than the bear.

Surely, anyone running towards the bear must be dangerous and scary, and perhaps the bear will think "Oh, dear, I am frightened by this attacker!" and run away from you.

Of course, the best way to appear to be scarier than the bear is actually *be* scarier than the bear.  Wielding a bat'leth, or something, might help with that (especially if you could actually use a bat'leth).

I've been thinking a bit about being scarier than the bear, lately.  Not in the woods, though - in the car parks.  And not actual bears; I'm being metaphorical here.

I don't know why I've been thinking about this lately.  I've always blithely walked through situations girls aren't supposed to blithely walk through without really giving a thought to what danger I might be in.

I've never felt threatened - and, I guess, part of me has always assumed this is because I don't look much like a girl.  I have previously commented about how useful a bit of androgyny can be when it comes to travelling the world alone.  The fact that I still get mistaken for a man (depending on what I'm wearing and how short my hair is) has lead me to be a bit careless about things like this.  I instinctively assume people look at me and think "some random guy", which renders me invisible and unlikely to be a target.

But at some point this year, while walking through a car park late at night, the thought occurred to me that being ugly is not a suitable defense.  Should someone with a mind to attack solitary women actually register "hey, it's a girl!" rather than glance over "some random guy", what could I do about it?

Sure, I can project an image of being scarier than the bear, but unless I can back that up, what happens if someone calls me out on it?

A recent trip to Brisbane involved more hanging around train stations after dark than is normally part of my week and, even though I was never threatened, I still felt as though it was a slightly dangerous place to be.

I've come to the conclusion that I need to make an effort to actually *be* scarier than the bear.

I've been fencing for the better part of two years, but really - what good is that in a dark alley?  Especially since I don't walk around armed with a sword?  I did a bit of judo when I was a kid, but I don't particularly want to go back to that well.  It's too gentle.  I don't want to taunt an attacker by continually throwing him using his own momentum.  I want to incapacitate him and run away very fast.

So I've decided to take up something more violent.  I'm trying out kung fu and ju jitsu this week.  Later, I might give krav maga and karate a go.  I suspect there will be bruises involved but, heck, I've spent the last couple of years coming to work with bruises down my side from being attacked with a sword - so, nothing new there.

Hopefully I'll be able to find something that's both a fun sport to play and also equips me to be the scariest person in the car park.

Rahr.

Pray for Grace

There's an old joke that has been stuck in my head for years:

Sunday School Teacher:  "Now, Johnny, why do we pray for Grace at the start of every meal?"
Little Johnny:  "Um, is it because she's been a very naughty girl?"

I've been thinking a lot about grace, lately.

"Saying grace" is something my family used to do by rote back when I was a kid, but we let it lapse years ago.  It was a formulaic chant that was more habitual than sincere.  I think we stopped saying it because we had long stopped listening to it.

Whenever I hear other people "saying grace" or "asking for grace", I'm always struck by how often it seems like a formula, rather than a prayer.  It's like we, as a society, "say grace" (if we do) because that's what our parents made us do, and what their parents made them do, and so forth.

But...

Why should we pray for grace at the start of every meal?

Well, I guess that depends on what praying for grace actually means.

I mean, what it *means*.  To us, as people.  Forget doctrine and tradition, where does saying grace at the start of every meal touch on something we need for our souls to be nourished and our lives to be better?

Once upon a time, when food preparation was a bit hit-and-miss, we probably asked God to make sure our food kept us alive and didn't kill us.  And, when it was not certain that there *would* be a next meal, perhaps we were a bit more grateful for every plateful...

But in this day and age?  In our overstuffed, oversupplied and (let's face it) oversafe society?  When we can afford to eat badly not because we have to but because we want to?

If we don't need to care about whether our food will kill us, or where our next meal is coming from, do we still need to pray for grace?

Yes.

More than ever.

Because it's too easy to stop thinking about what we are putting into our bodies.

We need to take a moment, just before we stuff food into our mouths, to reflect on what it is that we're eating.  To think about where it came from and what's in it.

We need to take a moment to reflect on what the ingredients are in our food and ask ourselves if we can be grateful for what they will do to us.  Will eating this bring life to my body, or will it bring me joy in savouring the flavour?  If this is good for me, I should be grateful, and I should take the time to be grateful.  If this cannot bring me health or joy, then why am I eating it?

More importantly, though, we need to take a moment to reflect on what has gone into putting this food on our plates.

Am I eating something that was once alive?  What kind of life did it live?  What role did I play in the quality of its life (was it miserable because people just like me are more interested in convenience than kindness - could I be making a positive change in the lives of my fellow creatures by choosing different kinds of food)?

Where did it come from?  Am I happy with the journey this food has taken, and do I know what the consequences are?  Does it make a difference if my kiwi fruit comes from Italy or my mangoes travelled the length of the state twice?

Regardless of whether or not I can do anything about how my food was produced and transported, I should "hold it in the light".  The more I care about the food I eat, the more likely it is that I'm going to make better choices - to eat food I can be happier about - and be grateful for my ability to choose, as well as my food.

And, speaking of gratitude, whole chain of people have worked to bring me this food.  From the farmers who grew it to the packers, transporters and shopkeepers who brought it into my life.  A lot of my food is pre-packaged, which means a large team of people has also prepared it and cooked it for me.  I should take the time to be grateful for these strangers who are touching my life in this way.

When I eat with my family, usually someone I love has prepared the food for me, or someone I love has shouted us out to dinner.  I should take the time to stop and be grateful for these people who are so dear to me, and with whom I am sharing this meal.  And, if I have made this meal myself, for my family or friends, I should take the time to be grateful that I can do this for the people I love.

I've long stopped "saying grace", but lately I've been thinking it.  As I sit down to eat, I take a moment to think about what it is that I'm eating, and be grateful.  I forget to do it more often than I'd like - but on the other hand I worry that, once it becomes a habit, it will become habitual and I'll forget to mean it.

Is this food good for my body, my soul and my world?  If it is, I should be grateful.  If it isn't, what shall I do about that?

That was unexpected

Okay, I'll admit my attendance at church has been a bit sporadic over the last couple of years.  It's been awkward, and I'm lazy.

You see, I found a church I particularly liked, and started semi-regularly attending a particular meeting time... which they then "rationalised" away.  They decided they couldn't have evening services at both the main church and the daughter church, so they dropped the Sunday evening service (the one I could make it to semi-regularly) at the main church in order to keep the Saturday afternoon service going at the daughter church.

I switched to attending the daughter church, which I came to regard as "my church", but Saturday afternoons have always been awkward for me, so I haven't exactly attended regularly.  In fact, since Christmas, I think I can safely say I've visited other churches more often than I've attended my own.

Still, about a month and a half ago, I checked to make sure we still had the Saturday afternoon services at "my church" so I could come the next time I managed to have a free Saturday.

Yesterday (a Saturday), I had managed to block off the afternoon specifically for going to church.  I scooted over (literally - for some reason I thought taking the kick scooter would be the most convenient way to travel there) only to find...

You guessed it - they no longer have Saturday afternoon services at the daughter church.

But you probably didn't guess that the church wasn't there.

And, yet, *a* church is still standing exactly where my church used to be.  In the month or two since I last walked past "my church" and checked the times on the sign outside the building, the building has been taken over by a different church.

I came to the building from the wrong side (most convenient for scooting) and assumed they'd just changed the times.  When I walked around to check the sign, I discovered it was now a completely different church.  And I mean completely different.

It was St Oswalds Anglican Church.  It's now St Mary's and St George's Coptic Orthodox Church.

It's been so long since I attended "my church", I didn't even know they were getting rid of the thing.  I feel both amused and chastened.

The water will bind you, and keep you.

Every now and then, when I visit a place, I wonder if I could live there.  I've noticed, over the years, that my answer is almost always "no" if the town has no river.

It's a strange thing to have as your "deal breaker", but I've always lived in towns with rivers.  I've also always lived on the coast (which is a fairly normal thing for someone who grew up in Australia), but the ocean is something I see occasionally during the month.  The river is something I see almost every day.  Ideally, I would like to have both in my habitat but, if I had to choose one, I would choose a river.

I have great difficulty understanding towns that don't have a body of water near by.  Surely all towns were built on the water?  The water is what keeps your crops and cattle alive and powers your mills.  The water is what brings the ships (and the ships are what bring the goods).  The water is where the fish live - and fish are tasty and nourishing.  How could you build a town where there is no deep water?

And yet, I have been to towns where the only water is a trickling creek some where outside the town itself... oh, and some underground thingy that probably should be left alone - I'm almost entirely sure underground water tables were meant to stay under ground.  Don't they feed the rivers and lakes in different parts of the country?  Should you really be pumping water out of them, just because you were too stupid to build your town on a real river?

Mostly, though, towns without water completely disorient me.  I feel like I have no sense of what is up or down until I can find the shore.  It's strange, the way water defines the boundaries of your personal map.  The coast marks the furthest reach of the land, and the rivers bisect it and divide it into meaningful spaces.  North and South, East and West...  they mean little to me without the water to provide the context.  I travel East when I head towards the coast.  I travel South when I cross the river.

More than that, though, the river is a place to go.  It's hard to explain, but there are times when you just need to go somewhere, and the river is a prominent point in my universe.  It's not where I always go, but it's where I often go.  If I need to ride my bike somewhere I'll often head to the river.  When I lived in Tasmania, I was walking distance from the river, so that was where I'd often walk.

If I couldn't go for a walk by the river...

I would find that a very hard place to live indeed.

My home town has a river running through it.  The name of the town is irrelevant, as are the state and country in which this town lies.  The river is not.

Raise your hand if you could see that coming.

For the majority of the last year and a bit:

Me:  I can do anything!  I can do everything! 
Most people I know: You should probably reconsider that.
Me:  Pshaw!  If I can handle X, then surely I can take on Y and Z at the same time!
Most people I know:  That is probably a bad idea.

Well, I was almost right.  I could do anything and everything right up to the point where I couldn't.  Then I just needed to sit down for a while and stop expecting miracles - but unfortunately, that was the exact point where I needed to pull yet another miracle out of my hat (and, about 15 hours of well planned miracles, at that).

I was expecting the prac to be no more taxing than everything else I've been juggling - except I've still been juggling everything else while trying to do the prac.

Oddly enough, it didn't work.

I was offered the chance to keep pushing and hope for the best.  I've decided to take a rain check on that.  I'll kick myself for it later.  Right now I'm sleeping a lot. 

If there is one thing I've learnt over the years, nothing is as make-or-break as you think it is... unless you break.  Right now, I'm going to give "not breaking" a shot.  If I really care about this, I can make it up later.

Those who can't

There's an old saying:  "Those who can, do.  Those who can't, teach."

It's a terrible saying that is meant to insult teachers (particularly, I suppose, university and trade teachers).

I've often wondered, though, where does that leave the people who can't teach?  What do they do?

I had my first "proper" teaching day at prac today, and it sucked.  I was so terrible I even surprised myself - and, quite frankly, I usually expect to be terrible, so I'm not normally surprised to found out I am.

I was over prepared and underprepared at the same time (no mean feat), and I was also just plain awful.  I was boring.  I gave the students work that veered wildly between "too easy" and "too confusing".  I had no sense of where I was with the crowd, and I could see all the horrible things I was doing as I was doing them...  But couldn't catch myself.  I just kept grinding downhill, and taking those poor students with me.

There are two things about myself that I know to be equally true:
1.  I'm a frickin' genius.
2.  I'm the thickest of dunces.

When I'm in the zone, and on a role, you can't stop me.  I can solve any problem.  I can handle any situation.  I just sit there and say to myself "Well, Sharon, you're a frickin' genius, how do we make this better?" and a few minutes (heck, sometimes just a few seconds) of frenzied thinking reveals a solution that was worth the arrogance.  Sometimes I can come up with something instantly.  Sometimes I can say "leave it with me", and by the next day I'll have an answer that works.  I have this power.

But I also hit these points where all I can do is make mistakes and repeat them.  I'll say to myself, "well, Sharon, you're a frickin' genius, how do we make this better", and from deep inside something in me says "I got nothin'.  Just keep doing that thing that isn't working and hope it gets better."  When I'm a dunce, I'm a serious dunce.  I can't even read the situation, let alone handle it.  It may take me five years to realise what's actually going on. (No, seriously.  On more than one occasion I've had the "Oh, that's what she said" moments several years after the event).

And then I'm standing there, feeling completely useless while part of me screams "make it better!  Make it better!" and the rest of me screams back: "I don't know how!  I don't know how!"

I had a large portion of those moments when I was a high school teacher.  I'm having them again, now.

Yesterday, because I didn't have any classes in the morning, they got me to catalogue some resources for them.  I solved six problems before lunch.  Yesterday, I was a genius.

Today I was teaching, and I feel like I'm drowning in my own incompetence.

If this prac has taught me one thing, it's this:  I really like being a librarian.

Actually, I already knew that.  I just thought I might also like being an ESL teacher.  I think, now, I can safely say I don't like being any kind of teacher.  It makes me feel stupid and useless.

Maybe "those who can't teach should stop trying to kid themselves" should be the other part of that saying.

Other people's houses

As a homeless vagrant, I spend a lot of time in other people's houses.  Most of the time it's my mother's house, but I've been doing a bit of house-sitting of late, so I'm getting to experience the joy that is "The Homes of Others".

One of the joys of staying in other people's houses is the fact that other people put their stuff in weird places.  This is not usually a problem, unless you find you need it and then you can't find it.  There was one place I recently house-sat on two separate occasions.  The first time I spent days trying to find the matches before I gave up.  The second time I spent days trying to find batteries before giving up - but I managed to find the matches in the process.

At the moment I'm staying at my aunt's house with her two youngest "children" (both in their early 20s), in which she has kindly offered me shelter while I'm on prac in Brisbane and she's away at a conference.

Whenever I stay with family I'm always amazed by how different their homes are.  My mother's home and my grandmother's home were always very similar in things like the basic location of bits-and-bobs.  Yet, when I visit places belonging to my aunts and uncles, they have their bits and bobs in entirely different places.  I spend vast periods of time opening and closing draws thinking "surely, these people were raised by my grandmother, so it must be here somewhere?"

And things that are hardest to find are always the things you need in a hurry.

When you cut your finger on the edge of a jagged can, a few thoughts go through your head at the same time:  "Well, that seemed entirely unnecessary", "hey, I'm bleeding" and "when was my last tetanus shot" for example.  Very quickly, though, one thought takes prominence:  "I should probably clean this with disinfectant and put a dressing on it."

I'm sure my aunt must have disinfectant in the house somewhere.  I can't imagine her not having it.  She had three children and a large succession of pets, so I'm pretty sure infection control was something that would be on her radar.  Couldn't find it though.  I asked my cousin if he new where it was.  He searched for approximately 5 seconds and then declared they probably never had any.

I swear that man is going to die if he ever leaves home.  He lives in this house, so I occasionally ask him questions about things that are worth knowing (mostly to do with food preparation, sanitation or simply "where is the...").  Nine times out of ten he doesn't know - something I've chalked up to the fact that he's a "boy" who lives in a cave attached to the house and only comes out to eat food which has been prepared for him or take-away.  However, not knowing anything about the location of the first-aid stuff was a bit alarming.

As was the fact that he suggested I wouldn't need disinfectant anyway, as the human body is good at taking care of that sort of thing and I cut myself on a sterile can...

Really?  That's you're understanding of reality?  You think the human body just happily processes infections and tin-cans that have shopping-center detritus on the outside and food on the inside are sterile?  Forget dying in a motorcycling accident, my man; you are going to get gangrene.

A bit of updating

Practicum stuff so far:

I appear to have survived the first week.  I have to admit, I was actually concerned I wouldn't.  As I was preparing myself mentally for this prac, I was remembering all of the things that went horribly, horribly wrong back when I was a high school teacher, and starting to freak out a bit.

People usually laugh when I mention that I was a really bad teacher.  They think I'm making some sort of self-depreciating joke.  I am prone to self-depreciating jokes, but it's actually a bit of a ruse - I occasionally through in comments about my real faults, and let people think I'm joking so that I can feel I've given fair warning without actually making anyone wary.

Yet, it's true.  I was a really bad teacher.  I really didn't belong in a high school environment, and I failed a lot.  I fail a lot as a general rule, but when you are responsible for the academic development of 80-odd teenagers, stuffing things up takes on a whole new dimension.  Nobody holds you accountable quite like a teenager.

One of the reasons I left teaching was I honestly felt traumatised by just how badly my little failures blew out of proportion in that environment.  I had let myself forget how much I hated being in that situation until this prac came up.  Suddenly, I remembered I'm still a little bundle of stuff-ups, and can probably fail this thing six ways to Sunday.

I'm at my best when I can help, but I can't hurt.  In a teaching environment, I can hurt big-time.  It's not my happy place.

So far, it's been "not horrible".  I've learnt a lot from watching the teachers in that environment - both things I should do, and things I shouldn't do.  I'll probably talk about some of them over on the other blog.

One thing I had forgotten about the teaching environment, though, is how tiring it is.  You start earlier in the morning than normal people (getting to work ahead of the students to get some extra preparation in) and spend most of the day on your feat, and "on".  It's like being on stage for four hours straight.  And then there's several hours in the afternoon spent trying to prepare for the next day.  Add in the fact that I have to get up at 5am just to get out of the house in time to catch the bus...

I'm bone weary.  Ich bin müde.  Ma olen väga väsinud.  No matter how you say it, I'm so dang tired I can barely think coherently.

And I have an assignment due on Monday - as well as lesson plans for 15 hours worth of teaching.

It is helping to crystalise something, though - I think I'd rather support teachers than be one.

The Dragon

I have a plastic dragon on my desk at home.  It’s an expensive toy I saw in an expensive toyshop, and I liked the look of it, so I bought it.  It’s not one of those new-agey things that people get because dragons are so, like, spiritual, ya know?  It’s a genuine plastic toy. 

It’s the kind of thing you might buy if you were a six year old boy who wanted to play dragons and warriors (and had parents willing to buy the expensive stuff).  I also bought a centaur and a gryphon (with a birdman riding it!) at the same time, so it really is dragons-and-monsters type stuff.

I bought it partly because I’ve always loved the kinds of toys they make for six-year-old boys*, and partly because it’s beautiful.  It’s just a glorious model.  Whoever sculpted the original just did a lovely job.  It’s so wonderfully detailed. 

You can see webbing in the skin of the wings, the tongues (two heads) are ever-so-subtly forked and there are various patterns of scaling in different parts of the body.  There are slightly different horns on each of the heads (intentionally so – not from lack of attention) and the musculature in the arms and legs is anatomically sound.  It’s also quite well weighted and balanced.

The paint has been applied by hand by someone who (although no doubt following a chart as he or she painted several hundred identical dragons) payed attention to shade and detailing.  It’s not perfect, but it also isn’t slap-dash and careless.  And whoever designed the details of the paint work did a great job.

The toy is a mass-produced plastic figure pumped out of some factory in China, but it is well designed and well executed.  It’s lovely.  The design and detail on the centaur and gryphon are also very well done, but this dragon is a thing of great beauty.  And yet, so many people would probably just see “plastic toy dragon” and assume it was therefor ineligible to be “art”.

We often dismiss things just because they are mass produced, or made for an audience we don’t want to be associated with or don’t respect (like children).  We fail to see the beauty and the art that went into the original design.  I have yet to see a “proper” sculpture that could top this dragon for attention to detail and depth of imagination.  A lot of figurines are like that, though – they are wonderful sculptures in miniature, and we just don’t see the art through the plastic.

So here’s to the artists behind the toys:  occasionally, someone notices how good your work is, and they are amazed (and hats off in particular to whoever designed the two-headed dragon in Papo’s 2005 toy line – you rock).

*Admit it - they have the coolest toys.

A short workout

So, this is something new I've been doing lately (not starting sentences with "so", even though the word doesn't belong there - I've been doing that for ages):

20-25 minute running work-out.

It's something I picked up from one of the trail running magazines I buy, and it had something to do with fitting in a work-out in your lunch break.  So far I haven't even tried to fit it in my lunch break (dude, I live in the Tropics; lunch time is seriously hot), but I sometimes throw it in for a morning or afternoon run if I only have a short time.

You have a five minute session, which you repeat four or five times depending on how much time you have:

• First 2 minutes brisk walk/slow jog
• Next 2 minutes normal run
• Last minute run like a crazy person.

Now, the "crazy person" bit involves jumping randomly from path to grass to road - dodging between trees, suddenly bursting into a gallop then going back to a sprint... running like you're being chased for a few seconds and then running like you're trying to leap over obstacles...  I tried skipping at one point, but found it easier to add leaping to my running stride rather than shift from running to skipping.

Then your watch beeps at you to tell you the minute's up, and you're back to the top of the 5 min with the brisk walk again.

Yes, it's basically a mini fartlek (and then a mini fartlek within the mini fartlek), but after 25 minutes you feel like you've done some exercise, so that's all right.

And I think my 16 year old me just said "you do what now?"

She would probably be more alarmed about the fact that I buy more than one running magazine than the fact that I actually try running workouts.

Running.  Never thought it would end up being my thing, but it's one of my favourite activities if I can find the time.

I'm not very good at it, but there's plenty of time.  Apparently (according to my magazines), if you start running in your 30s you end up getting quite decent at it in your 40s and 50s.

Something to look forward to.

Pharmacy or Kebab?

And now, time to play everyone's favourite gameshow:  Pharmacy or Kebab?

So, is this a pharmacist or a kebab seller?

Wii is a stupid name

So, I have recently decided it's time I became a gamer.  I've been thinking about it ever since I was a kid and my mother wouldn't let me have an Atari.

It's been a long time coming, but I'm a late adopter.  I bought a netbook just after tablets took off.  I recently bought a DVD recorder, now that most devices record directly to USB (I really wanted another VCR, but they stopped making those).  I'll probably buy an iPad 2 soon...

So, in keeping with my inability to commit to knew technology, I've just bought a Wii.

Yes, that's right, a Wii.  None of your fancy-pants Wii U thingy-whatsits for me.

I ordered it online because they've stopped stocking the bundle I want in my local shops, so I haven't actually got it in my physical possession just yet.  All in good time.

I really like buying stuff online because I can't have it instantly.  There's something wonderful about expecting things, rather than just having stuff.  It makes mail interesting.  It does make me sad about not using my local shops, but I'd order stuff from them if they had better web sites.  But I digress.

I have actually been avoiding buying a Wii for many years now, because Wii is a stupid name.  I probably would have jumped much sooner if they'd stuck with "GameCube".

It's still a stupid name, but it's also less than half the price of a Playstation3 - and if I'm going to buy a seventh generation consol just as all the eighth generation stuff comes out, I'm darn-well going to buy a cheap one.

I actually want a Playstation for the playing blueray-DVDs-etc capabilities, but I can't be bothered getting a PS3 now and I'm going to wait until the PS4s have been around for a bit before I get one of those.

By then I'll probably been a confirmed Nintendo kid and never switch.  Do you know Nintendo used to make playing cards back in the 1800's?  That pleases me greatly, for some reason.

They also owned a chain of "love hotels" in the 60's, but I digress...

Memoro

He doesn't remember what I've told him.  He will ask me questions I have answered several times in the past.  Sometimes he remembers the story but forgets I was the one who told it to him, and will then tell me this story "someone" told him once.

He doesn't remember what he's told me.  He will tell me the same piece of news several times, and each time it will be like he's sure he should have told me, but probably hasn't:
Him -- "have I told you I'm doing this thing?"
Me (aloud) -- "yes, yes you have."
Me (in my head) -- "we've had multiple conversations about this, several initiated by me asking 'how's that thing coming along?'"

He has asked me for my contact details something like five or six times - even though they haven't changed.

We can go for almost a year without being in contact, and when I send him an email (I initiate contact about 95% of the time) I swear his answer sounds vaguely like "Oh, that's right, you exist!  How are you?"

I visited him on a holiday, and in the course of conversation it became obvious he couldn't remember that I had crashed on his couch before.  Twice.

We went some place together, and I walked over to look at something.  When I turned around, I noticed he had lost me - even though I was only 200 meters away and was looking straight at him.  In the two minutes I was out of his sight, he had completely forgotten what I looked like and was trying to recognise me in the crowd.

He's known me for years, but I'm not convinced he has any idea who I am.

And then, out of the blue, he will give me something he bought because he found it in a shop and thought of me - something that's so completely spot-on he clearly remembers things I'm interested in, even if he can barely remember me.

It's hard to peg.  Is his memory just working on a different level, or am I just not something worth remembering?

Yes, I am intolerant

This is the content of an email I probably should answer, but don't want to:

help apprec tku Mary-Anne this is journal i I am trying to access.. please advise .. I hv found journal but cannot open..this is it: Publication title: Capital & Class Coverage (any format): Spring 1991(no. 43) - present Show format availability Full text available ISSN: 0309-8168‎ Subjects: Business And Economics ; Political Science

"Mary-Anne", by the way, is the name of the person who wrote the email - not the name of the person it might be addressed to.

Here's the thing.  I know what this person wants.  It is in my power to decipher the convoluted reference she has given me (copy and paste from one of our pages, but taken way out of context) and help her find an accessible version of this journal.

But I really don't want to.

I just feel compelled to punish her for clearly forgoing any attempt to think about what she wants to say before writing and submitting an email.  The point of written communication is that you have the opportunity to say "could this be better?" and make some improvements before forcing someone else to read your poorly constructed writing.

I want to punish her for not taking the time to say "my name is Mary-Anne" or "I'm Mary-Anne", but thinking anywhere in the "sentence" is an appropriate place to throw in her name.  I want to punish her for using two full stops at the end of every half-formed sentence (why?  Where is this something people legitimately do?).  I want to punish her for assuming she doesn't have to spend time on making her meaning clear, because I will spend my time filling in her gaps and working it out.  I want to punish her for thinking this is an appropriate way to ask a complete stranger for help.

We don't write emails like this.  It's obnoxious but forgivable when used in chatrooms and discussion boards, because chatrooms and discussion boards are full of people who are too busy/lazy/stupid to think and type and the same time.  You, "Mary-Anne", are a university student who has written to a librarian for help with your research.  Take the extra minute to think about what you want to say before you hit send.

Is today a good day to die?

My cat is probably dead right now.  She had a 5pm appointment with the "big needle", and it's 5.30 as I write this, so...

The trouble with my cat is that we have known for a while that she isn't very well and dying of natural causes would probably be hideously unpleasant.  Dying in one's sleep is the "dream", but it isn't a common way to go.  It certainly doesn't seem like something my cat would do.  She's a hanger-oner.  She would keep trundling on, even as she became more and more emaciated.

When your pet suddenly deteriorates and is obviously in quite a lot of pain, it's easier to make the call to take it to the vet.  When they are slowly deteriorating, on the other hand, it's hard to notice how far they've passed the post.  They still seem relatively okay, in the grand scheme of things.  Not noticeably worse than yesterday...

And then one day you realise that things are bad, they're never going to get any better, and you can't win the war - just prolong it.  But still, you need something to noticeably change in order to spur you into action, when it comes to killing a beloved pet.  If it's not the pet, then it's going to be something in the surrounding environment.  And then, even though it is a kindness, you still feel like you killed something you love for relatively pathetic reasons.

Without a sudden, sharp decline in the pet's health, it never seems like a good time to put them down.

But, let's face it, there is no good way to die.  However it happens, it's going to suck.  It's going to suck for the nearly departed, and it's going to suck for the people left behind.  

That goes for all of us.

Natural causes are usually awful, and the alternatives consist of a) being killed and eaten by wild animals, b) being killed in battle and c) being killed by a freak accident.  These options are not very accessible in the comfy middle-class environment of the 21st Century.

I think the Vikings (and Klingons) had the right idea.  Convince yourself that it is good and glorious to die in battle.  Death is unpleasant, but quick, and you spend your last moments on Earth thinking "yes, I got this bit right!"

Certainly better than dying of natural causes, or waiting for someone you love to look at you and say "yep, time to kill her."

Today is as good a day as any other.

And it sucks.

Target ball

Okay,  I've been a few times now, and can officially say that lawn bowls are awesome.

It has this weird quality of being vaguely meditative while active and social at the same time.

I've also being playing petanque at home (right hand against left hand) and finding that thoroughly enjoyable as well.  The whole target ball thing is really floating my boat at present.

It's quite, quite different from fencing - and I suspect it will have a longer "shelf-life" as well.  While I'm enjoying fencing, I can't see myself lasting for more than a few years.

Actually, I've been having a bit of trouble with enjoying the fencing lately.  I haven't been for a few weeks due to sickness and other sundry excuses, but the past few months haven't been as much fun as they used to be.

It has taken me a while to figure out why, but I think it's because I'm crappier at it than I'd like to be, and I feel like my general crappiness is letting down my coaches.  I have a number of flaws that are getting in the way of overall improvement.  I'm improving slowly in some areas, but I'm not obviously improving at all in others.  It's starting to feel like the lack of improvement is all anyone can see (including myself).

I feel like I need to give myself permission to be crap at this in order to enjoy it again.  It's like I'm not playing any more, I'm just failing.  No one can enjoy that.

So, maybe it's no wonder that lawn bowls is looking more and more attractive to me.  Sure, it's not as physically demanding as fencing, and it doesn't encourage me to build my athletic base like fencing does, but at the moment it feels more relaxed and comfortable.

But where does the blood go?

I have encountered a number of different things involving amputees lately, and they have caused an old question to press on my mind.

People have things in their body, right?  Things like circulatory systems and lymphatic systems and sundry other things called systems...

A normal, fully limbed person has a network of veins, arteries and capillaries that go (quite literally) from head to toe.  The blood goes around and around these sundry tubes in a somewhat circular fashion - hence the term "circulatory system".

Under normal circumstances, the blood goes from your heart down to your toes (or out to your fingers) and back up to your heart again.

So, when you amputate something, where does the blood go?

I can accept that modern doctors would be able to stitch the ends of your internal tubing together so that the circulating things can still circulate, but microsurgery is a fairly recent development and people have been losing limbs for centuries.

All of those pirates and Civil War soldiers who had their limbs lopped off in the middle of battlefields or on the high sees would not have had someone carefully attaching their plumbing up the right way.  So where did the blood go?  How did they not just bleed out and die?

What strange magic is at work in the body that a continuous system can cease to continue, and somehow that isn't as much of a problem as you might expect it to be?

Out of the park.

For various reasons, I have just submitted one of the worst essays I have written for a long time.

I've decided to partly blame baseball.

I gave myself plenty of time to work on this assignment - including three "study days" at home a full week before it was due.

Then I spent those three days feeling sick as a dog and watching baseball for most of the mornings.

I watch baseball, now.  I've been doing it for, oh, about a week.  Not every game, obviously, just the ones I happen to be home for.

It's good, because I'd half decided to have the Pittsburg Pirates as my "nominal team" (because of the name, obviously), but now that I've watched them play twice it seems less contrived.

Also, it's a bit odd, but watching baseball matches while feeling weak and slightly delirious makes it really easy to get hooked on the sport.  I'm now feeling a bit like I'm going through baseball withdrawal.

I'm not sure how coherent my essay was, but I think I successfully managed to avoid using phrases like "bottom of the ninth", so I guess I'll have to just be happy with that.

World's Indigenous People Day

The VC sent around an email that included this sentence:

"We are very fortunate here at J-- as we have so many cultures represented including our visiting international students and staff, many of whom are Indigenous to their country"

And it made me sad.  Somehow, other people get to be "indigenous", even if they are in a different country.  Me?  I'm not "indigenous" to anything (not the country where I was born, and not the countries where my parents or grandparents were born either).

Not usually an issue, but today it makes me feel homeless.

Lawn

So, I tried lawn bowling the other night (barefoot bowls at the bowling club that is third closest to where I live - since they were the only ones who bothered mentioning that people thinking of trying bowling should come to a barefoot bowls night).

I had actually gone a couple of weeks before to learn how to throw those things, but this time I put my name down and joined a game.

It's very enjoyable, and slightly addictive.  I think I shall continue.

A couple of people mentioned I had good form and could, with a few months practice and some coaching, be good enough to compete.  I assumed they were buttering me up because I'm under 50 and I'm interested in lawn bowls.

However, I can't help but think it would be nice to do something like that.  I'm not likely to get to competition standard in fencing any time soon, and I've discovered that bowls can be a very... "rewarding" sport.  They have ribbons, pendants, medals and trophies.

I think one of those bowling trophies would look awesome in my house.

Not that it will ever happen.  Those retirees seem to be trying to keep the sport to themselves - why else would they schedule every "proper" club match and competition to take place during the day in the working week?

I'd have to quit my job if I want to take up lawn bowls seriously...

Existential thoughts

I'm having another set of "why am I doing this" moments.

Why am I getting another education degree when I already have two and I don't use them?

Why am I still studying this daft German course when I think I'd do better with a private tutor?

Why am I dumb enough to study two degrees for my own personal amusement even though they have nothing to do with my current career - which is one of the best jobs in the world?

Is "my own personal amusement" enough of a motivating factor to keep me going when the going gets rough?

Is the fact that I only have two subjects left to finish the Diploma enough of a reason to finish the damn diploma...?

Just... something

I can see clearly, now, the author's name.
He has a reason to know his field.
I know this journal is peer reviewed
And I'm gonna cite, cite this shiny source.

I think I can recognise this publisher
They publish textbooks and things like that
I think this is scholarly, not popular
And I'm gonna cite, cite this shiny source.

Look at this website:  Here's a last-updated date!
Look at this website:  I can find the authors' about page!

I can see clearly, now, the URL.
I know this site came from a trusted source.
I won't look stupid if I use this page,
And I'm gonna cite, cite this shiny source.

Yeah, I'm gonna cite, cite this shiny source...

Time, time, time

Generally speaking, I have no sense of lineal time.  If you leave me alone in a room without a clock, I honestly have no idea if I've been there for 2 minutes or 20.

However, I've now lost perspective on a grand scale.  I can no longer tell the difference between things that only happened last week and things that happened over a month ago.

"Why haven't I received my package yet?" (because they only sent the letter saying it was shipped two days ago).

"This thing is due tomorrow?  How did that happen?" (because I started working on it in June, and it's now the end of July).

This can't end well.

Hats

It has come to my attention, from watching the news and "period" movies and TV shows, that men like silly hats.

They like silly hats so much that, when given any kind of power (particularly something like an organised religion or a dictatorship), one of the first things they do is create uniforms for every single station in life - each with its own silly hat.

I suspect this is so they can measure their success in life by putting on their hats in the morning, looking at themselves in the mirror, and saying to themselves:

"Oh, yeah --  I'm totally the Vice-Sergeant General of the Eastern Quark.  I'm looking totally important in my Vice-Sergeants hat, and I am rocking this joint!"

Happy is the man who does not need a silly hat to feel important - for the silly hats can be given, and the silly hats can be taken away.  And then, all you a left with is an old photograph of yourself looking like a weirdo.

This sort of thing

Okay, so here's an example of a typical "conversation" with the lecturer I've been whinging about.  The background of this was that there were two Assignment 2s, with no indication as to which one was for the assignment in which I am enrolled, and which was for the other assignment that happens to share our teaching materials and platforms.

I worked out that I could only post a comment in the discussion board attached to one of these assignments, so I assumed that was mine - but just to be sure, I thought I'd post a question to check:

Me:

Can I safely assume that, since this is the only assignment I can post a discussion for, that this is the one intended for EDLA504?

Her:

I'm not quite sure what you are asking, Sharon. Each topic has at least one discussion forum where you can post a contribution. Towards the end of the trimester, choose three of your contributions to these forums, and combine them into one short paper of 800 to 1000 words, then submit this paper as Assignment 2.

Me:

It's a simple enough question, Susan, don't let the fact that I mentioned technology confuse you too much:

Is this the correct assignment for EDLA504?

There were, you see, two Assignment 2s and two Assignment 3s, and I just want really CLEAR and OBVIOUS confirmation that the assignment description I am looking at is the correct one for me.

Now that the other assignments have been hidden, the question is moot.  But it would be nice if the assignment decription mentioined the subject by name somewhere.

Her:

Assignment 2, Sharon, is exactly the same for both units so it wouldn't really matter which description you read, you would have the correct one. Your capital letters suggest that my previous answer wasn't satisfactory. I'm not sure what extra information might be useful, but let me know if you need more.

Now, I can see why she might be confused (I really can - there's background stuff that makes my original question more confusing to begin with) but I can't see why she can't just say "Yes, this is the assignment for EDLA504" - or why she seems to think that saying "I don't understand your question, so I'll just tell you what is in the assignment description" is perfectly satisfactory, and I shouldn't have any problems with it.

Yes, I could have been a lot more specific with my opening question - except that I have found the more detail I include, the more likely she is to focus on some random point in the details and not answer my question.

I also can't see why the assignments wouldn't have the name of the subjects written on them somewhere in the first place.

These little details just keep stacking up on each other, so that eventually I feel like I'm drowning under an ocean of minor inconveniences.

And then I get snarky, and write replies that seem unnecessarily rude - and start contributing to the problem.

It's a vicious cycle.

Mothers

Is there any creature in the world more stubborn than your own mother?

I have noticed an interesting pattern emerging between my mother and I.  I can, apparently, kill any interest she has in anything at all simply by encouraging it.

I don't know what it is, exactly, but I suspect it is the same urge that causes my cat to go from "feed me!" to "you can't make me do anything!" simply by suggesting she might want to go into the kitchen, where the food is.

My grandmother's life shrank, over the years.  I can't remember hearing her talk about any friends at all - except for people she used to know years ago and hadn't stayed in contact with.  In the last few years of her life, she had three family members and a nurse with whom she was in regular contact - but looking back on it, her social circle had shrunk to family and neighbours long before she started to get too infirm to leave the house.

My mother is similar to my grandmother in many ways, and I am concerned that, once she retires, she will turn into a complete homebody with no contacts outside our tiny, tiny family circle except for the two friends she has managed to stay in contact with from her youth.  She seems to be relying on her work to provide her with socialisation, but she won't be working for much longer.

I noticed I was doing something similar myself a couple of years ago, so I decided part of my "exit plan" was to make sure I had at least one extra-curricular activity.  At the moment, that's fencing.  When I finally finish my current degrees, I'm going to try to get back into dancing and maybe join a walking club, or something.  Bowls is highly likely.

Maybe that's taking things too far in the opposite direction but, let's face it, I'm the youngest person in my immediate family, and unless that miraculously changes I'm going to be on my own after everyone else carks it.  Come hell or high water, I'm going to make sure I have an attitude to life that gets me out of the house and into the company of other people.

I'm trying to encourage my mother to adopt a similar attitude.  I figure, if she can catch "homebody" from my grandmother, she might be able to catch "club joiner" from me.

However, I'm finding this to be quite the challenge.  At first I would suggest things I thought she might enjoy, only to find that she would start to actively dislike those things just because I suggested them.  Then I tried to encourage her to do things she once expressed an interest in - only to find that she would completely re-write history and claim no memory of ever being interested in them.

I've tried suggesting we could do something together, which she vaguely considers for a few moments before realising that my nefarious plan is to get her involved in something so I can leave her to it.  Then she's not interested in it.

Now I'm starting to suggest things that I know she'll hate, and just telling her I'll shut up once she actually takes up a hobby of some description ("but I have taken up long-stitch" she'll say, willfully ignoring the fact that I want her to take up a hobby that involves leaving the house, dammit!)

"How can I do something like that?" she'll demand, making some snide comment about the fact that I'm never home, and therefore she can't possibly leave her post.  To which I feel compelled to say:  "Look, lady, I can be home early every Tuesday, if you decide you want to do something that's on a Tuesday night.  Same goes for every night except Friday."

Besides, at some point in time I'm going to leave town - which is more or less exactly why I want her to join some club or take up an activity:  so she can hang out with people other than me when I'm not here to keep her company.

I don't think she's afraid of taking up new hobbies or meeting new people - I think she really just objects to my attempts to mess with her lovely, comfortable inertia.

She's just a stubborn old lady (she's turning 60 this year, so I can say that).

It's in there, somewhere

My mother recently called me an "old woman" because a bought a potpourri container at the show.  You know: one of those lovely wooden bowls with a decorative lid designed to let out the aroma from the potpourri stored within.

I made some comment about needing to get some potpourri now that I have a lovely potpourri container, and she just looked at me and said "you really are turning into an old woman, you know that?"

I went to the show this year.

I hadn't intended to, as I usually avoid the show like the plague.  The last few times I went I found it rather unpleasant - full of loud noises, overpriced rides, ridiculously expensive showbags and tacky stalls all selling the same cheap Chinese garbage.

Yes, I realise I really do sound like an old lady at this point.  Let's face it, I was born a grumpy old lady - I'm just waiting for my hair colour to catch up.

Anyway, I have been harbouring a hankering to visit a "real show" - a proper country show with things like cakes and chutneys and cross-stitch and chickens and cows and sundry other things that may or may not involve the letter "c".  A real show, where people win prizes like "best in show" and everyone else bitches about them bribing the judges.  A "real show", where you can watch woodchopping and show jumping.  A "real show", which may or may not involve the sudden death of the local vicar in the middle of the jam judging competition - leading to an amateur sleuth helping the police solve the crime...

Okay, that last bit probably isn't a deal-breaker, but you get my drift.

As it turns out, I was house-sitting a place that was walking distance from the show, and I thought I might just go after all and see if I could find the show I wanted to see somewhere under the overpriced showbags.

So, I went to the show.  And I found it.

They had buried it deep.  I only found the craft displays and flowers because I new that particular space existed.  If you didn't know it was there, you would have walked right past it.  I found things like the military memorabilia exhibit completely by accident.  I found the chickens and the cows - but the time it took me to do so meant I missed out on seeing the circus.  And while I saw some woodchopping, it wasn't because I actually knew when it was on.

I didn't manage to get my hands on a time table.  I kept hoping someone on a loudspeaker would say "and now, on the such-and-such arena, you will see such-and-such" - but all I could hear was dozens of pre-recorded "Buy our stuff!  You totally want a dagwood dog!" messages blaring from the food stalls.

I wonder why people feel it has become necessary to shout "hot chips!" at passers-by these days.  I certainly didn't notice anyone suddenly going "Of course!  I had completely forgotten to eat deep-fried food!" as a result of the constant stream of noise...

Eventually, after doing a couple of loops of the place and having a ride on a Ferris wheel (I do love a Ferris wheel), I decided to go home and eat real food for lunch.  As I was walking away from the showgrounds, I realised I hadn't seen any cakes or jams.  Had I missed them?  Where they ever there?

Oh, well.  At least I got a nice potpourri container out of it.