Thursday, February 23, 2006

Small update

Coding begins.......new information available to Justice mainframe. Please enter security passcode and follow links for further briefing on international affairs. Message ends......

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

----A warm summer's evening----

.....some time after 2200 hours........lower pacific........a little known island called ********..........covert mission status: blue. Message continues - security clearance Bravo Echo Romeo November Alpha Romeo Delta 7

Armed with my wolf hat and a mug (much have I learnt from the chronicles of riddick) I leap from rooftop to rooftop of our village avoiding detection by the evil forces of the 'normal police'. Their mission: to bring everyone into normality alignment. I shall never surrender.
As the wind whips my face, my keen eyes watch the landscape for any sign of movement. They have become tricky these past days.
My mind wanders back....
.....to earlier. A short relaxation by the pool. Again the wind blows across our tanning (by which I mean cooking) bodies after a cooling swim to calm our savaged minds.
I enjoy the warmth of our solar radiation, intensified by the lack of ozone layer and feel the irritating courseness of my newly unshaven beard. Now 5 days after our acceptance to grow beards in honour of national moustache day (1st March) I begin to suspect that the year of the dodo has brought its first downfall. I am pleased with the current state of beardedness I possess and yet an emptiness within my soul haunts me - is this all I was created for?

A very real dilemma grips me. Why am I here? There must be more than this - surely? I search amongst my triumphs and trials of the past weeks and uncover a basic disatisfaction, there is something out of alignment that tears at my soul little by little. I dive deeper into the murky water of my mind......
....and emerge. Spluttering slightly and wholly disatisfied with the taste of natural 'gorge water' after having thrown myself off a 10/15 meter rock into what turned out to be warm but greenish water. We had driven many miles from our home (home? a curious word for such a place when everything we know is left so far behind) The Po to make a daring excursion into The Cest. Our deeds are upsettingly easy to accomplish - some thermal wear later and a trip to try on dresses (other people's not mine) and we leave for the gorge.
The gorge it turns out is some kind of natural.....gorge.... located on the outskirts of The Cest. A veritable slash in some kind of volcanic rock face it is a quiet paradise tucked away amidst what is already a quite beautiful country. Expecting to have to pay a hefty fee for entrance I am pleasantly surprised to enter a huge area lined with trees, miniature waterfalls, a pool and lake, and changing area bathed in sunlight - all for the sum of precisely no earth pounds. God bless the australians, they haven't yet devised some evil money making scheme like the natural trust to suck your money away in return for an amazing day out. In a place like this you could easily believe that values and fun are still open to us without the use of social narcotics or biological enhancements.
We walk across a small rock bridge up through trees and around to follow the course of the river. Trekking along the side of the gorge we come to a bench and have arrived at our destination of: the rock. Not The Rock of course, we are not mad. To Pinny and Tem's delight we have been beaten there by the Tan-Man - a boy of approximately 16 years with gross fake tan and a died blonde (read:yellow) streak in his hair. We notice also a girl whom we encountered back in the Cest [with the dresses] -it's possible that she is a foreign agent and stalking us, but no she got here first- who I have upheld as a shining example of beauty and fashion sense. Tim is not convinced. She leaves almost immediately so perhaps she wasn't too impressed with us anyway - no doubt our pasty complexion wasn't a winner compared to the magic of the Tan-Man.

An afternoon of swimming, diving and dubious rock climbing ensues until our tired bodies force us to return to watch movies back at home - via a trip to the Mac to sample the Oz burger or whatever it's called. We leave with some distress, swapping a magical cove of natural beauty for the badly (if not cheaply) woven entertainment of Hollywood, and sink back into a world where values assault us on every side, tempting us to live a way that strips our spirit of its life. And so we drive back (plus music courtesy of Mr Rowe).....

.......the pool swims back into focus on the canvas of my mind. How do I describe The Po? It is a curious place as young people have fun in front of me without even a hint of competitiveness, exclusiveness or spitefulness. Young and old they are at home with each other, and those who are younger than even my class mates offer a hand of friendship and hospitality in genuine warmth. It is amazing to be somewhere with so many broken people coming and going, where even now I find emptiness inside me whilst being surrounded by comfort and truth, where there is such a respect and love. I find strangely that as I open myself to the possibility of brokeness, to have my mind reorganised around a village that seems so strange and bizarre and alien, that in some ways I have come home and that there is a great well to draw strength from. And so broken inside we hope that this sunlight might yet pierce what's going on and make a difference.

Things have not changed, the tear in my soul remains - disatisfaction and emptiness have not been filled. And yet a new perspective is dawning which threatens to comfort and heal, and to turn upside down everything I once knew. I will never be ready for it. Perhaps that is the best part, just to live.

.....My thoughts disturb and yet calm me. Perhaps not many will understand the things we bare. My task for the evening however is complete, a connection has been made that brought space back for just a moment and allows me to breathe this mountain air. The normality police have been evaded and their evil leader has been dispatched to the far corners of ********. For a time there is peace once more.

Transmission end.
Security coding complete.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Time runs away with ourselves

Very profound I'm sure. Life has been somewhat busy since last I managed to scrape my 3rd millenial cave paintings onto this global communications grid.
I have done a lot of swimming - in the morning, in the clouds, at night (technically probably against the norms) - and a small amount of dubious diving (1 successful attempt, 1 half way attempt, and 1 slightly painful stomach plant - what possessed me to leap from a 3 metre board after having dived twice in my life is well beyond me).

The year of the dodo [the dispassionate and obstinate disregard for obstacles] continues in fine style. It has led me to take several more risks than I would normally. I fear that one day I too will become extinct like our finely feathered friend and probably though some act of immense stupidity. Until then I shall enjoy leaping off diving boards and somersaulting off 10 metre cliff faces (camera clip to follow) - only slightly less dangerous than the child who backflipped off, or the one who nearly missed the water and landed on the rocks after our advice that he might want to try a safer jump. Apparently young people never learn.

Last week 2 of my very good friends left The Po (henceforth all names will be obscured for legal reasons). Zoc and Branwyn have scattered to further corners of the globe to pursure other ****** endeavours back in ******* and *********. I now have less friends here and no one to go early morning swimming or later night walking on the golf course with. Tim is proving to be an ok substitute for morning swims but the pink bikini top just doesn't suit him quite as well.

Kemar has left to go to ********* which is something of a relief. There is now much more space in our room and you can get up in the morning without listening to a cheerful jamaican singing the same 1 line of a song for 40 minutes (off key I might add). Yes we miss him really, but my own desire for personal space is currently winning out over my hospitable nature. Brondan still shares with me although he has disappeared over the last day and taken his duvet with him (called a 'doona' here for some weird reason). It is possible that he has gone walkabout, or that he has been captured by the vicious and infamous possum gang that roams the darkened streets of The Po. Secretly I suspect that he may himself be a mafia boss so perhaps he is otherwise engaged in some strange mission. Still, life continues as normal so we don't worry too much.

According to sources there is a 'cafe-style' church nearby that supplies its guests with a plentiful amount of tea and cookies and so I have decided to take the moral choice to go and check it out. After a hard day of fasting and praying I felt that it was only right to go and be blessed by them - and in turn to bless them by my presence and with my outstanding singing voice. I am sure that the Lord is approving my decision.

We have started a sort of informal worship gathering of a sunday evening led - apparently- by me. The quality is dubious but as with all things slightly vineyard-esque it is a good excuse to eat chocolate (cake is still my preference) and play some music. By which I mean I hit these 6 metal spaghetti type things stretched along the body of a curiously shaped piece of wood, and we all attempt to impersonate a dying kangaroo. It is also fulfills my desire to be a tortured artist as people are forced to listen to my new songs. It's a good job that God is our father otherwise he would probably come down here and tell me to get some lessons before I do any more giving of a musical nature. Still.

I shall save my travel log concerning the gorge (2 picures are now available on flickr - see the links to the right of this page) and the report concerning national moustache day until later. Suffice to say it's harder to be charming when you look like the wild man of the north's scruffy younger brother. More crazy pics and a video will follow.

I can't think of much else I might say without going on forever. Life here is still amazing with sunshine and beautiful places, plenty of craziness and people, and a touch of work in between. I'm probably going mad to be honest but I think that's more or less expected here.
In recent trips to The Cest I have seen no more llamas, although I have found the addresses of the local breeders so I shall go inspect them soon enough.

Last night we watched Crocodile Dundee and The Man From Snowy River (no snow and no river) with our C4 class. Notably with Tim our emo (not to be confused with emu) friend and Ironball Mackensie - the Father of Mack. We just about made it through thanks to the magic of TimTams and no small amount of pirate impersonations - if you will insist on putting a one legged man searching for gold in what do you expect?
Other than that I still miss everyone and will try to write more frequently from now on - a good solid week of going partying was necessary I thought so e-mail was scarce.

Rock on Justice dudes, I love hearing from you so feel free to write - I'll even accept things from My Stamp even though they'd be almost guaranteed to be offensive. If you could all stop having children or doing other extremely significant activities til I get back that would be wonderful.

Catch you on the flip flop (by which the australians mean: thong)

ps I haven't checked this for typos and because I write in white you can't see what you've written until you post it - just in case anyone thought my university education was oing to waste

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Time for some introductions

It is now an indeterminable amount of time since I left England - days sort of seem to blur together here and I haven't managed to work out how to use a calendar yet. I can say with some degree of accuracy that today I wasn't in lectures and I was in church - of course that doesn't guarantee that I shouldn't have been in lectures and should have been in church, only that I wasn't.

Assuming that it's Sunday I have now completed my first week of official C4 lectures, been into the nearest big town (aka the real world) and had a weekend off. I have recovered marvellously from my illness thanks to the healthy Tasmanian air and lack of ozone layer, and I'm looking forwards to doing my first test tomorrow morning on the book of Haggai - true to form I haven't begun studying yet but I reckon how hard can it be? I have however completed a gruelling and rigorous set of investigations to share some facts about my southern hemisperian experiences:

1 - things in Tasmania are a lot cheaper than things in the UK - a fact somewhat lessened because I can't work whilst I'm here and so have less money, rendering the strength of the pound in the global economy somewhat irrelevant.

2 - people in Tasmania do not (despite certain vicious rumours) have more than one head or the incorrect amount of limbs. At least not the ones they allow out on the streets anyway.

3 - I attract a bizarre amount of strangeness - as yet there is no evidence to suggest why this might be.

4 - Austrlians have something they call 'chicken salt' (salt made from freeze dried chickens perhaps?)

5 - I have approximately a 50% golf swing/ball connection rate, a fairly good power to mass ratio, and absolutely no ability to aim.

6 - uploading photos to Flickr from this conection takes a little time.

And so on to other things whilst I wait:

The reason I like Tasmania (pop quiz): is it because golf here is (almost) free and no one minds if you can't play? Is it because the swimming pool is free and the weather is currently around the high 20s? Is it because Kemar has stopped getting up at a ridiculous time in the morning (in exchange for getting in at a ridiculous time in the evening)? Is it because the native animals here are cool? Is it because when I went to Launceston I found a park with monkeys in it? Is it because just before that I discovered that I had come half way around the world only to meet a dutch man called Ludo in Launceston high street leading an alpaca called Pablo by a leash? Is it because I live in some strange village with almost no contact with the rest of the world? Is it because Poatina normal tap water is in fact natural spring water?

Or is it because Poatina is a village sat halfway up the side of a mountain with amazing views - so far - great weather, lovely people, good food, great teaching and has houses that come equipped qith open fires and a plentiful supply of wood - what we like to call the bush.

Or last but not least is it because Australians (especially the women) are often suckers for a british accent and will often give you free things or be nice to you just because of the way you say things like 'scones'?
(The men by the way have an inferiority complex and so like to rip it out of you - but that's ok because I lived with Paul Lewis for a year and so my sarcastic wit has been sharpened in preparation)

Anyway, my photos are nearly uploaded now and so this blog entry must draw to a close. There is something important that I've forgotten to mention but I'm sure it will come to me in time.
Oh, and my luggage turned up in the end at Manchester airport - strange story apparently.

Alas my mind is still a blank so whatever it was can't have been that important or that funny. Check out my flikr page, there are now some photos on it. Love to y'all