Last Saturday (31st May) my wife Merrilyn and I went on a Matilda cruise around Sydney Harbour. Very nice in the (very) late autumn sunshine! We met Paul on the boat who is a Canadian but now lives in KL Malaysia. He was out here checking the Shell refinery before it re-opens after a maintenance shutdown, and decided to stay on for another 12 hours instead of rushing back home. I think he had an enjoyable cruise and I hope the rest of his day was as good.
We left the boat at Darling Harbour, had lunch and went on to NIDA (The National Institute for Dramatic Art) where our daughter Beth is studying Costume Making. It's great to see her there in such a great learning environment. I hope she makes it through the 3 years.
I've sent off an email to the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) co-ordinator, who also happens to be my German lecturer, about a scholarship to go to Germany next year to do a language course that runs 4-6 weeks. The first hurdle is, is there an age limit? The cover letter says there is (32) but the website doesn't mention it. If that's ok and other details fall into place, there's a choice of venues: Berlin, Leipzig, Essen and Freiburg. A very difficult decision!
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Bushcare
Bushcare! What does it mean to you? Today I went for the first time to help the Mighty Duck River Bush Restoration Collective. They are trying to do something for the poor old Duck River here in Sydney. Once 5 times wider than it is now, and full of clear water, it is now a muddy creek. Nevertheless the Collective is patiently restoring the natural habitat along one shore, removing the weeds, and even removing some of the rubbish.
It was really good to get out on a bosker autumn morning and forget work, and even Uni, and do something for the environment. Ok, not much, and who knows if the effects will last, but at least to try. The others in the Collective are very knowledgeable, and very friendly. It was very interesting to look at our area through an environmentalist's eyes. The whole exercise made me feel useful, and got me away from the eternal pressure of competition for a while. I felt a little bit of a celebrity being the new kid on the block, but I hope that goes away soon and I can just help out. I like the relaxed, green, left-of-centre outlook of the people.
I definitely plan to go next month, the day after my last exam for this semester, and the end of Arts II!
It was really good to get out on a bosker autumn morning and forget work, and even Uni, and do something for the environment. Ok, not much, and who knows if the effects will last, but at least to try. The others in the Collective are very knowledgeable, and very friendly. It was very interesting to look at our area through an environmentalist's eyes. The whole exercise made me feel useful, and got me away from the eternal pressure of competition for a while. I felt a little bit of a celebrity being the new kid on the block, but I hope that goes away soon and I can just help out. I like the relaxed, green, left-of-centre outlook of the people.
I definitely plan to go next month, the day after my last exam for this semester, and the end of Arts II!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
A Beautiful Autumn Day
Just got back from my German class for today. That marks the "three quarters of the way" point through this course. In just over a month (DV) I will have finished German language at Sydney Uni. There is no more to do. From then on it's literature courses to the end of the (Pass) degree, hopefully at the end of 2009. Then I hope to do an honours year (actually 2 years for me, because I'm a part-timer). Then that elusive PhD in Germanic Studies??!!
I feel it's a bit wrong, ticking the days and years off like this. I don't want to wish my life away at all. It just helps to break a 16-year project into digestible chunks. To create some sense of progress through what seems like a very long journey through the woods.
Here in Sydney it is a beautiful autumn day. Not only in the University grounds but along many of the streets I drive through to get there, there are really colourful autumn trees! Although I'm counting the days and years, life is really not about progress at all, but about being in tune with the moment. Today sitting in class and walking under the trees may well be as happy as Graduation Day. I just wish I could feel like this all the time.
On the way back a former editor of "Honi Soit" (Sydney Uni's student newspaper) and a member of the present "Honi collective" who now writes the paper were on the radio. The former editor was there in 1966. In those days only the privileged could afford to go to Uni and do Arts, and they had a wonderful relaxed time (or at least they say so now). Les Murray, the famous Australian poet, says something similar. Listening to people from that era makes those days come alive - when people wanted to be educated, and were not driven by a need to be economic. There were no vocational guidance centres then! Mm, a great life if you were one of the privileged ones!!
I went to Sydney in 1970, but I wasn't one of the privileged ones. Instead I went on a scholarship. I lived in Wesley College, which was full of students who had gone through the GPS (Greater Public Schools, i.e. private school) system. I felt so out of it there, though I longed to be in it. I don't think it was the diference in money, it was a difference in self-perception. The other students just assumed they had the right to be there, and to be the doctors and lawyers of the next generation, but I had no such confidence. In the end I couldn't stay. It's fun but weird to do it again now - to feel all the feelings from that time, but looking through the telescope into the past, rather than looking to the future as one does at 18. That future (of a career, family, etc) is behind me now, rapidly receding. I need to keep looking to the future with optimism, confidence and enthusiasm. That's not hard academically, because that's how I feel. But the idea that I will ever work in a job where I feel optimistic, enthusiastic and as I do at Uni seems beyond me., a kind of polite fiction, that surrounds me because Unis are not "ageist" places! But I still do think it is theoretically possible. That's why I keep reading seek.com!!
I feel it's a bit wrong, ticking the days and years off like this. I don't want to wish my life away at all. It just helps to break a 16-year project into digestible chunks. To create some sense of progress through what seems like a very long journey through the woods.
Here in Sydney it is a beautiful autumn day. Not only in the University grounds but along many of the streets I drive through to get there, there are really colourful autumn trees! Although I'm counting the days and years, life is really not about progress at all, but about being in tune with the moment. Today sitting in class and walking under the trees may well be as happy as Graduation Day. I just wish I could feel like this all the time.
On the way back a former editor of "Honi Soit" (Sydney Uni's student newspaper) and a member of the present "Honi collective" who now writes the paper were on the radio. The former editor was there in 1966. In those days only the privileged could afford to go to Uni and do Arts, and they had a wonderful relaxed time (or at least they say so now). Les Murray, the famous Australian poet, says something similar. Listening to people from that era makes those days come alive - when people wanted to be educated, and were not driven by a need to be economic. There were no vocational guidance centres then! Mm, a great life if you were one of the privileged ones!!
I went to Sydney in 1970, but I wasn't one of the privileged ones. Instead I went on a scholarship. I lived in Wesley College, which was full of students who had gone through the GPS (Greater Public Schools, i.e. private school) system. I felt so out of it there, though I longed to be in it. I don't think it was the diference in money, it was a difference in self-perception. The other students just assumed they had the right to be there, and to be the doctors and lawyers of the next generation, but I had no such confidence. In the end I couldn't stay. It's fun but weird to do it again now - to feel all the feelings from that time, but looking through the telescope into the past, rather than looking to the future as one does at 18. That future (of a career, family, etc) is behind me now, rapidly receding. I need to keep looking to the future with optimism, confidence and enthusiasm. That's not hard academically, because that's how I feel. But the idea that I will ever work in a job where I feel optimistic, enthusiastic and as I do at Uni seems beyond me., a kind of polite fiction, that surrounds me because Unis are not "ageist" places! But I still do think it is theoretically possible. That's why I keep reading seek.com!!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
A Daydream of England
The other morning driving to work along my usual route I had a day dream. The suburban street ahead seemed to morph into an English village, like Elsworth in Cambridgeshire where we stayed last year. The Catholic church up ahead seemed to become the medieval Anglican parish church while the Telephone Exchange on the opposite corner with its mobile phone towers seemed to become (believe it or not) a castle. The road leading off to the left between the trees seemed to offer such promise, an adventure filled with new things. Naturally I had to turn right to go to work!
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could detach from our own world and enter that magical world of our dreams , which the real world never seems to quite match. If we could explore that road on the left and if it warranted it, never return, but wander down country roads and lanes forever. Shades of Jim and Huck Finn floating down the Mississippi, although even that had to end eventually.
Laurey captures the mood for me when she sings in 'Oklahoma!':
Out of my dreams and into your arms
I long to fly
I will come as evening comes
To world of waitin' sky
Out of my dreams and into the hush
Of fallin' shadows
When the mist is low
And stars are breakin' through
Then out of my dreams I'll go
Into a dream with you...
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could detach from our own world and enter that magical world of our dreams , which the real world never seems to quite match. If we could explore that road on the left and if it warranted it, never return, but wander down country roads and lanes forever. Shades of Jim and Huck Finn floating down the Mississippi, although even that had to end eventually.
Laurey captures the mood for me when she sings in 'Oklahoma!':
Out of my dreams and into your arms
I long to fly
I will come as evening comes
To world of waitin' sky
Out of my dreams and into the hush
Of fallin' shadows
When the mist is low
And stars are breakin' through
Then out of my dreams I'll go
Into a dream with you...
Being a Nerd
How does one find a job as a Nerd? Somewhere, somehow employment always comes back to efficiency, submission and just plain making a dollar. On the other hand I love going to Uni - even as I walk into the place I feel better. I feel as if the pressure to conform, to submit, to be profitable has lifted, and I can be myself. Wouldn't it be great to have a job where one felt like that! Good luck to Steve Jobs and even Bill Gates for being nerdy and being successful, too.
Unfortunately, my thing isn't computers. I mean obviously I have a bit to do with them, but a computer geek I am not. My thing is German language, and language generally. A cryptic crossword? Bring it on! Reading Der Spiegel-Online and learning the words I don't recognise? I'm up for it! But at work (an engineering job) I'm so unpopular (and I feel like a square peg . . .) because I just want to think about things and can't get enthusiastic about producing . . .
Yes, I know. Lazy. But it's not exactly that. I try hard (off and on) but no matter how hard I try I never do what's wanted. Just not the right type.
Wouldn't it be great if I had the same feeling of fun exploring in my job as I do in my Oxford-Duden? Is there such a job, or is a job by very definition a grind? I get so mad when I hear people say "I love my job!" Anyone else out there feel the same? Somehow "love" and "job" don't belong in the same sentence.
But maybe I'm wrong. I'm looking in the on-line ads, and even in the Uni employment website, hoping that maybe there is job out there that I could "love". Possible? I don't know.
Unfortunately, my thing isn't computers. I mean obviously I have a bit to do with them, but a computer geek I am not. My thing is German language, and language generally. A cryptic crossword? Bring it on! Reading Der Spiegel-Online and learning the words I don't recognise? I'm up for it! But at work (an engineering job) I'm so unpopular (and I feel like a square peg . . .) because I just want to think about things and can't get enthusiastic about producing . . .
Yes, I know. Lazy. But it's not exactly that. I try hard (off and on) but no matter how hard I try I never do what's wanted. Just not the right type.
Wouldn't it be great if I had the same feeling of fun exploring in my job as I do in my Oxford-Duden? Is there such a job, or is a job by very definition a grind? I get so mad when I hear people say "I love my job!" Anyone else out there feel the same? Somehow "love" and "job" don't belong in the same sentence.
But maybe I'm wrong. I'm looking in the on-line ads, and even in the Uni employment website, hoping that maybe there is job out there that I could "love". Possible? I don't know.
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