Disorganised

Its happened again

I asked for too much

She was there and drew me away

She commanded a place in my heart

I was confused but let her in

Now as it ends the space is not empty

But filled with happiness

This isn’t too painful.

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(No need to worry about me, I just thought I’d channel my feelings into some crappy prose, I haven’t written a lot of poetry at all in the last few years plus I needed an emotional outlet.)

Finding a Host

Okay… so life hasn’t gone exactly to plan the last week, but I’ve had no choice but to focus my attention on ‘mini-projects’ that I’ve needed to finish for a very long time.  (Time to rebuild that self-esteem of mine.)

I’ve finally got this blog hosted properly and the transition has been relatively pain free… and has me brimming with confidence. The process has involved learning about ‘name servers‘,  ’Domain Name Systems (DNS)‘ and learning how best to transfer files over from one ‘host’ to another.  I’ve heard lots of horror stories about disappearing posts, lost customised designs, etc that for it all to have worked almost first go for me is actually very exciting!

I’m  now looking at options for ways to share my photographs and now that I’ve got a relatively reliable host, I’ve got some ideas but many are totally beyond my own hobbyist-IT skills.

So, welcome officially to Polysyllabic Nerd! Though there are no real layout differences, there are lots of functional changes that makes me very happy.

WARchild

WARchild

I’m going to preface this review with something irrelevant and comment on how much I’m loving Summer in Sydney. Ordinarily, I would be travelling this time of the year, but the short-of-the-long-of-it is that I’m not. Not travelling and not working has resulted in time(+++) to read.  I don’t think I’ve had the chance to read so much for a very, very long time and although I’ve tried to read consistently throughout the year, often work related reading has meant reading-for-pleasure be put on the back burner.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve read a book where I’ve simply not being able to put it down and thus I’ve managed to finish this book in a matter of a few sittings which is uncharacteristic for me as I’m a very slow, reflective reader.

WARchild – A boy soldier’s story by Emmanuel Jal is a brilliantly written book which I lack the superlatives to describe.  I’ve returned to my genre of comfort in an autobiography and the book is about Jal’s experience growing up in Sudan.  As the title suggests he becomes a boy soldier in the “Sudan People’s Liberation Army”.  Another fancy name for one of the many politcal groups that existed during the Sudanese civil war.

The book is heart wrenching and often left me in shock as to the horrors that Jal both experienced as well as handed out, in his role as a soldier. Jal is only about seven years old in the early stages of the book and he doesn’t know his birthday and so like many of the other boy soldiers he adopts the 1st January, 1980 as his birthday. From that we get a rough time reference (not that it matters particularly) as I’m obviously not reading this for its historical facts although accuracy is nice too.

The book (and it’s not Jal’s fault) really depressed me as a result of the brutality in which humans can inflict on other humans.  I guess it’s no different to any other war, war in itself is senseless and barbarous. In the very early chapters of the book Jal describes the memories of ‘Arabs’ beating his mother (he witnessed it), soldiers mindlessly beating civilians because they had the power to do so and reality a general state of anarachy in Sudan.

Jal’s father was a leader in the SLPA and had encouraged families to send their children to neighbouring Ethiopia as there was no war there and that the children would be educated, fed and housed.  As it turns out the boat sinks and only about a quarter of the children on the boat survive, which when you consider they not only needed to survive drowning, but hippos, crocs, snakes and wildlife, I’m suprised any survived at all.

When Jal makes it back to shore he realises that he’s been abandoned and so he manages to get on another boat trip to Ethiopia whereby he soon realises all the things that his dad had told were lies. The people all ended up in a refugee camp where there was no fresh water or food and people were dying from starvation and an assortment of diseases.

Without going into tooooo much more of the book there is one chapter in the book that really put things about the situation in Sudan into perspective for me.  Jal is confronted with the decision to turn to cannibalism in order to survive. What happens you will need to find out for yourself.

The book goes on to describe how Jal tries to rid his demons and his hatred and you’ll be glad to know that things do sort of work out for Emmanuel Jal.

I first heard about Emmanuel Jal when I was visiting a client for work. I was listening to Conversations with Richard Fidler on the drive there and heard about his story and his music. The interview can be downloaded here on the ABC Brisbane website.

Word of The Post: Change

As defined by the Oxford Dictionary: verb 1. make or become different 2. exchange for another 3. move from one to (another) 4. (change over) move from one system or situation to another 5. exchange (a sum of money) for the same sum in a different currency or denomination.

noun 1. the action of changing 2. an instance of becoming different 3. money returned to someone as the balance of the sum paid or money given in exchange for the am sum in larter units 4. coins as oppose to banknotes 5. a clean garment or garments as replacement clothing 6. an order in which a peal of bells can be rung.

It wasn’t very long ago that “change” to a lot of people who graduated high school in the year 2002 was a dirty word overused and over analysed in the 2002 HSC. I have to admit that the word had lost meaning thanks to the English curriculum. The meaning and the ideas of making “change” has been a bit of a lost concept.

Recently, I have been co-inspired by Wyatt Moss-Wellington and dear friend Louise Nutting in our combined discontent (I suspect that Wyatt may have stronger feelings) of the current situation we live. The positive person within me wants to say that we should appreciate how lucky we are to be living in such a fortunate country, but as time goes on I can not simply ignore how I don’t agree ethically and morally with the views portrayed by “our” politicians and also the lies that are being perpetuated by the mass media on a global scale.  Not only do I disagree ethically and morally on many of the federal government’s standings on issues, I also believe that we can not simply be counting our blessings and say that we have it “pretty good” here in Australia. Yes it’s pretty good here in Australia, but we should be better, in fact we should be leaders in the world.

I can’t but reflect on the lessons that we were taught in high school, particularly in English and how the aim was to teach us how to reflect, consider and analyse the different perspectives, view points or opinions (whatever you wish to call them).  We were taught through the use of Frontline to look through the ‘dodgy’ practices of a current affair programs, yet my feelings are that our newspapers and television media have degenerated to such a state that it is no longer just the current affairs program that we need to take with a grain of salt, but also the wider news that is available to us on news website and television news bulletins.

We should all be demanding to know the truth, yet the problem is knowing when it is you’re being lied to. My fear with “not trusting” all the time is that personally you can run the risk of being an overly sceptical person which when unmonitored can slowly turn you into a cynical person.

One of the first things we need to do as part of the process of making change is to find a way to spread the truth.  As for the rest… we have much planning. Even if things are in vain, at least we’re going to try and make a change.

Word of the Post: Fortunate

As defined by the Oxford Dictionary: adjective 1. favoured by or involving good luck 2. auspicious or favourable.

It’s not often that I feel that I am the most fortunate person in the world, but everytime I spend time with friends I realise how lucky I am to have such awesome people in my life.  There are always friends you ‘like’ more and friends whom you get on better with, but by-in-large, everyone brings something different to the table and each friend teaches me something about myself.

It can’t be understated, that it is only because of the actions of some of my closest friends that I am still here and for that I am fortunate and blessed.

Graveyard Shift

Graveyard

One thing I have learnt about myself since after turning a quarter of a century old is that I am no longer cut out for all-nighters.

Saturday night was the first night I’d done an ‘overnight shift’ since finishing university and working full-time during the day and I’ve realised after one rather uneventful night that I’m NOT cut out for that stuff anymore.  I used to do crazily long shifts over the weekend.  With a pattern that resembled something like….

• Friday evening go out after uni til early hours of Saturday morning, sleep in car at work carpark.
• Saturday 4am to 4pm work at Woolworths
• Saturday after work – nap
• Saturday evening get up and go out from 6pm til 10pm
• Saturday night 11pm to 7am (Sunday) work at RIDBC Respite Service
• Sunday sleep til 12:30pm – Get up and have lunch
• Sunday afternoon 2pm til 2am (Monday) work at Woolworths
• Monday morning get up at 10am to be in time for 11am lectures

I somehow managed to cram 32hours of work (30 hours of paid work) into the space of weekend.  Oh and the rewards were enormous, especially since I have no HECS debt, a sound attitude toward hard work, where nothing is below or beyond me.

Again back to my original reason for posting, my first overnight shift was somewhat painful with a complete lack of stimulation and by that I mean entertainment.

• My work computer login account hadn’t been setup which meant NO internet
• Foxtel was DOWN which meant NO TV not even free-to-air
• All the DVDs in the house were children’s movies which I’d already seen because I’d been working with these kids for so long
• The radio reception in the house was pathetic with a lot of static.
• The internet I was trying to leech had a “poor” signal which meant in dropped out every 2seconds and thus created more frustration than relief.

I finished my ‘duties’ after a couple of hours and then managed to watch MILK which I’ll write up about later.

Perhaps what caused the most pain was the fact that I was the only one on, where as in the past there were two staff on allowing each person the luxury of 45minutes rest in between each check. With just me and no one to share those half-hourly checks, I couldn’t really take a nap.

I’m going to give myself a couple of months, where as in this past I would say that I’m doing it because I really care about the kids, I’m going to be frank and say that I’m doing this so I can finally reach my goal and travel the world!

Running on Empty

Lately I’ve been feeling…? down? I’m not sure that it’s so much down as it is just unmotivated or perhaps uninspired with a touch of longing.

I can’t really describe it, perhaps the closest explanation is that I feel as though I’m the water in a two week old rock-pool with the remains of organisms floating about and the next HIGH tide nowhere in sight.

I’ve tried to narrow it to a few things, most of it has to do with the fact that I’m hoping to travel long-term and thus I don’t feel like I can commit to anything, whether it be study, sport, long-term projects at work or relationships. I feel at the moment that I’m stagnant and all of sudden everyone on the open highway is over-taking me and I’m having to merge into the slow lane.

Aside from the fact that I know that I’ll be travelling, I seem to know little else. In short, for the first time in my life I feel rather directionless.

I can’t help but think that what I thought would be beneficial (working full-time in the one position) is actually stifling me and has created to 9-5 monotony that I’ve avoided for much of my young working life.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, I have enormous job satisfaction but there’s a distinct lack of social stimulation and atmosphere at work, whereby past 2:30pm on most days at work I’m the single employee left at the office. This you might think would normally lend itself to mischief, but unfortunately when you’re working in health and education being mischievous can have some pretty bad consequences.

Hopefully things will take a turn for the better and I suspect when I don’t have to deliver 2.5hour long presentations on Tuesday nights I will stress and worry less.

One job, One employer and One team

This probably sounds more like the ‘One Country, One people, two system’ slogan from the reunification of Hong Kong, but in the 7~8 years of my working life. I’ve always had multiple jobs at one point I remember having up to 4 con-current paid jobs. If you counted voluntary work I would have almost always had 4 jobs and at its peak probably 6 jobs at any one time. In terms of paid employment this year has been the year where I’ve started to cut down the number of jobs, not all by choice.

In April, the Respite and Recreation Service for which I continued to work for long after finishing university finally closed down and although I went through the interviewed process and offered a casual position at the new Respite Service, I ultimately declined the opportunity to work in care again.

Finally at the end of May I was offered the opportunity to work full-time at Lifestart which I have worked for since I graduated. Incidentally, I’ve had an association with Lifestart for a number of year now, as I used to volunteer there as a student.

From the start of this month and hence for the last two weeks I have been working at the one place.  It was a hard decision to make in leaving The Spastic Centre, but now after having endured a month of wrapping-up and wondering what it would be like, I have to say I’m feeling the benefits in terms of stress and overall happiness in the work place. The Spastic Centre is undergoing a number of changes and on top of that, my own frustrations with the limited resources for my caseload was getting to me a bit. There wasn’t one reason that contributed to my decision to leave, but for those who decide to make decisions based purely on finances I urge you to read on.

I would have been significantly better off in the long-term had I remained at The Spastic Centre, but happiness and the reduction of my stress levels far out weigh the benefits. I guess my point there is that unless you’ve got some exuberantly large debt and you can do without some of the materialistic ways in which we live, choose the option where you know is going to be ‘health’ wise better for you. I guarantee that you’ll be a happier person.

Updates Galore!

Okay, I’ve got a whole lot of catching up to do on this blog, I haven’t been lazy so much as lacked the motivation because everytime I looked at my blog it reminded of how much it desperately needed a bit of a makeover. It’s by no means finished, but it’s at least closer to where I want it to be.

I’ll be heading down to Melbourne soon, which I have to say I’m a little in different about, which makes me wonder why I’m actually going.  Most times when I plan for holidays I get excited about them a week or so before I go on them, could it be… that I’ve been to Melbourne one toooooooo many times? I have to say that everytime I go down, I love the bloody place. *shrugs* who knows, it may actually have something to do with the way I’m feeling right now, which is tired and a little in different, a contrast to the excitement in my belly the last couple of weeks.

Canberra and surrounds

Canberra

A few weeks ago now, Kieran and I went on a day trip to Canberra, just because we could.  It was a beautiful day to start with and it only started to rain as we were having dinner.  We worked out that with the exception of our trip to India, it has rained on every FINAL day of our trips together… is it a sign? or sheer coincidence?

Given that Kieran isn’t a morning person I took the reigns for the drive down to Canberra, stopping only at Goulburn for some breakfast at the Rose’s Cafe (Montague Street – Next to Courthouse), it was a hearty breakfast, a nice warm cup of hot chocolate went down beautifully with my Bacon and Eggs.

We continued on our merry way to the National Gallery of Australia where currently until mid-July they have a Soft Sculpture exhibition.  The soft sculptures were actually very interesting and I like the idea of creating sculptures using a variety of mediums.  I have to confess I don’t know much about art, but I appreciate the thought and design processes that go behind them. I always take a moment to think about it and similar to when I read books, it often conjures up other memories and ideas.

After looking at some of the other exhibitions including the ‘Sculpture Gardens’ which I have to say is a bit ‘fail’ in that there aren’t many sculptures and there didn’t seem to be many new additions.  I’m not expecting a massive ‘sculpture park’ it is afterall a ‘garden’, but there didn’t seem to be in my humble opinion much perspective given to the relative size and positioning of some of the scupltures.

We decided to head into the Civic to find something to eat, not that we were particularly hungry.  In a stroke of genius (mind the hyperbole) we decided to head into Borders to check out the Canberra Good Food Guide (GFG). There were either not enough restaurants for Canberra to have its own Good Food Guide or that it’s just such a hole that it didn’t warrant it’s own edition of the Good Good Guide like the many of the other major cities seem to have.

Regardless we managed to find one whole page filled with places to eat in Canberra.  So for lunch we decided to head to Silo Bakery where I ordered Toulouse Sausage and Oysters, which was amazing in that the pepper and spices in the sausage balanced the fresh Oyster with fresh lemon taste. There was a simple olive-oil dressed salad in between which blended in beautifully with both the oyster and the sausage.  I’ve not had something at it, but my decision to choose something from the menu that was ‘different’ was rewarded.

Our next stop after lunch was Questacon, which in all honesty hadn’t really changed much since I was last there, still it was lots of fun and relatively interesting. Kieran was extraordinarily proud of himself when he managed to get closest to 15 seconds on a stop watch like gizmo, what he won’t tell you is that he cheated.

Petrol and dinner were the last things on our agenda and although the thought of sniffing petrol crossed my mind we ended up after a failed first attempt to get into a restaurant mentioned in the GFG to dine at Ottoman Cuisine in Barton. The food there was that good that I’d want to drive down to Canberra just to experience it all over again. I had for entree the ‘ enginar ‘ artichoke hearts filled with goat’s fetta & pine-nuts; served crisp with a light yoghurt sauce; and for mains ‘Sis Balik‘ – skewered Hiramasa king fish pieces marinated in lemon & bay leaves, char-grilled served with leeks braised with local extra virgin olive oil.

Whilst the entree and main was simply delectable the dessert was in a world of its own.  The ‘kazandibi” sounded enticing on the menu, when it arrived it looked alluring and it tasted simply sensational. All it was, was baked custard with mastica extract served with morello cherries in syrup and pomegranate ice-cream.

It was a pleasurable way to end the school holidays. Good food in the company of a good friend.