Tuesday, March 21, 2006

The move

And so it came to pass last Friday that I was met by a mysterious woman on the way out of class who told me that I was being evicted from my house.
"For why?' I enquired.
"Because we must give it to 3 girls instead of you males" she replied.
"I see. [as though that's a good reason? - ed.] And wherefore shall I live?"
"They call it: THE LODGE."

However since then I have decided to call it: Possum Lodge, because on my first visit I discovered a strange and unenticing smell that reminded me of the dead possum that was stashed in the skip-bin next to the hall. My olfactory senses were in perfect order and I soon discovered a dead possum on the doorstep. Hurrah.

And lo, they shall call it Possum Lodge for it was there that they found a dead possum.

I started cleaning the house on Saturday to make way for the girls (considering the state of our abode that seemed fair). A generally fun task giving me an enormous sense of well-being, until that is, my 2 other housemates returned and trampled in crap everywhere. Honestly I don't know why I bother, and all they did was whinge.

A 9 o clock meeting cut short the cleaning, and then 10 o clock for the village working bee (plus free scones). I proudly took up the job of building houses along with Tim (the guy with the stripey jumper). Apparently all the people with experience and muscles were busy so they took us. Henk later regretted his decision because it turns out that Tim's drilling is about as straight as a deranged hippie boomerang, and I have an unfortunate knack for destroying power tools with my very presence. Still. by 4 o clock we'd done some good work - I'm not sure how much exactly I helped or hindered the process but all in all I had fun at least. Pictures included.

Home for some tidy up and a snooze - we working types like to nap. Sunday came and the move went on. A deadline of 3 pm fast approached but due to incredible amounts of experience over the past year my skills were well up to the challenge - transforming a disgusing hole into a clean haven of tranquility. [Alas the same could not quite be said for Possum Lodge.] I removed myself from 20 King street and went to media training then TNT training. On my return to number 3 PL I discovered a curious thing: My door is the only one with 2 handles. This is significant for one reason: it is the only door that expands and contracts with cold and freezes the locks so that at night you can't get in or out. I'm not entirely sure if it would have been worse to be locked inside or out. So there I stood in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt at 11 o clock at night freezing my goolies off and unable to get into my house - which by the way has been likened to a toilet block in appearance.

However if ever we needed even more proof of a God it lay in the house next door. We are allowed to use the lounge and kitchen there until ours is built (I have high hopes). In said house I investigated the available bedrooms. My choices were uplifting and I spent the best nights sleep of my stay in the Po - photos under the 'stuff' category on flickr. Alas in the morning I only had my grubby clothes and temperatures approaching absolute zero for company. I ended up so cold that I couldn't grip my pen during our quiz. A sucessful fail I am sure.

The sun finally shone and my door warmed up enough to be opened, at which point we ripped out its mechanical guts to ensure that no one is ever again caught by such trickery. Then I built a fire pit from 'boulders'.

I look forwards to my continued stay in said accomodation.

"Suffering before Justice"

Friday, March 17, 2006

A day in the life of.......cpn_justice

Despite having written a whole lot of rubbish on several subjects many people reading this blog may have no idea of what my life is like. In all probability I suspect that people may be generally bewildered by me anyway, no matter how well they know me.
And so I have decided to create this day in the life summary of me - it is unfortunate that I have chosen to do it on one of the more bizarre days of my life in the Po, but perhaps this will give you an idea as to why life here is a little intense:

Tuesday night: go to bed.

Sometime Wednesday morning: wake up from worst nightmare of life unable to distinguish reality from dreams. Spend some time lying awake too scared to move or go back to sleep. [I suspect that the quiche we had for dinner is to blame].

7 am - wake up again. Decide that after my awful night of 'sleep' I am not getting up early. Go back to bed.

8:30 am - wake up and get breakfast. Shower. Stumble round in haze but quickly leave my house (the scene of said nightmare). Wander round for a small while, turn up to class later than normal.

8:55 - arrive at class and sit in a different seat - many people express concern at my sudden change in routine. Little do they suspect.

8:56 - Penny arrives and choses to sit next to me. An unfortunate event because she was one of the people in my dream trying to bring about my total insanity and death. I try my best to be nice.

9:00 - class starts with Hebrews - no not a bunch of ancient Israelites but a study of the book in the bible. I find it hard to concentrate because of the high volume of adrenaline running through my veins and the fact that I am physically shaking because I am still actually scared from the nightmare. Emotional pressure begins to build until I feel that my head is about to explode.

9:30 - still scared, pressure high.

10:00 - time to go for morning tea. We are late and I should be doing the PA. Run up to community hall and set up sound desk. Tea happens, I pay somewhere around the zero attention mark.

10:40 ish - a stumble back through the sunlight to class once more.

10:50 - Class starts agin with Old Testament survey 3 (of 4). Fear still present.

11:40 - 5 minute post/tea break. No post, I elect to have tea to make up for it.

11:45 - class begins again with more Hebrews. My brain is turning to mush with biblical overload. Am resisting the urge to break down or kill Penny just in case she really is a witch and trying to kill me.

12:40 - Class ends, have spent a lot of time staring at the desk. Stealthily leave and avoid human contact.

1:00 - eat lunch. I can't remember what I had. Go to shop and buy milk, clean up, play some guitar and sit quietly for a small while rocking back and forwards.

1:35 - walk back to class. Get more tea. Still no post.

1:45 - Class begins on adolescence. Possibly most frustrating part of day as we cover the same ground several times over. Upshot is that by halfway through I am so annoyed that I have stopped being scared and the nightmare's grip is gone. We then spend some time making a collage (spelling?) out of old magazines (who said C4 was hard work?). My favourite magazine is 'truck and bus' and is most representative of my teenage years - at least from the choices available. I also take half a girl magazine and cut out random quotes and pictures of people I think are attractive.

3:40 - break time. More tea, some more cutting and sticking because I am having so much fun.

3:50 - one more lesson on Hebrews. Time for a little more engagement with subject, but a lot more tiredness. I have probably now invented half the message of Hebrews by only having a small proportion of my mental faculties available to me, if anyone ever asks me to write the bible down we'll be in trouble.

4:30 - class ends. Argue with Penny - possibly due slightly to my emotional turmoil. First argument with class mate, a threshold is crossed. Go home and journal on fieldwork/nightmares. Play guitar. Meet with Kelly.

5:00 - phone call from Penny to apologise/make up. Intriguing if not totally satisfying.

5:50 - community tea. Wander around village looking for correct house, am rescued by someone else from my group. Eat lots of food, including chocolate pudding (called self-saucing pudding here, a ridiculous name and one I am trying to have changed to 'magic-pudding').

7:30 - leave community tea after washing up and go for our evening tutorial: a sex education video. I'm not sure quite what they're trying to teach us but we all try to look interested - there is a 15 second segment on the brain which I enjoy but is over too quickly. At least it's presented by Winston.

9:00 - leave tutorial. Meet with Glen about TNT, recount dream and watch possums running around. After a short trip back to my house I discover that in the dark it is scary and go back to pray with Glen for half an hour.

Somehow time disappers between this and about 10:30 when I go home and do some assignment work. I drink more tea, eat several biscuits and work until about 11:45 - then I decide that today has been strange enough and go to sleep.

All in all a fairly average day. You might call the process of living in the Po being 'tenderised'. Right now it certainly feels like it - I can only hope that at the end of it I am less tough and chewy and more like magic pudding.
Now I go to return to my odd version of reality once more.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

One large hill and a small amount of pain

It has been a little while since I posted last - a great sadness to all my readers no doubt. In that time many many things have happened, too many to possibly recount - an excuse which allows me to not have to put in the hard work of thinking and remembering.

It has been pointed out to me in that time that I am unable to spell the word 'the' and more often end up typing teh. Should that occur throughout the process of this masterpiece please bare with me, every true genius has their blind spots.
However the most significant event of recent memory - a memory which is being fast turned into mush because of a strange but unavoidable process of mental degradation inherent in life in the Po - concerns a certain breakout that took place last weekend. Anyone who hasn't had to take a breathe during that last sentence is doing well. Everyone else: you should work on your lung capacity.

Over the last week we have studied several very interesting subjects....all of which escape me. Oh wait, biographical studies. Biographical studies is essentially a lesson in which we listen to radio productions from the 70's on famous people, all of which sound like gothic horror radio plays. No doubt my dad would approve - from the sounds of things they probably had moving scenery. In actual fact it was a great subject and I would highly recommend it.
The very best subject that we have done however was Hosea. Taught by the half bald man from a local town (for local people I shouldn't wonder) I would have to say that it is incredible how you can make the word of the living God quite so dull. I only barely survived by consuming a lot of sugar, distracting myself by looking out the window and inventing haiku poetry on the subject of irradiated badgers (and their detrimental effect on the world ecosystem). I am considering publishing a book under the stage name of Bernard Wiebretchtenstien and donating the proceeds to greenpeace.

After a hard week of biblical study (all of which paid off when I failed the test on Monday morning) I was ready for youth cafe. I honed my backgammon skills - still in fine working order and ready to take a certain Mr Richard B. Stamp to Chinatown and back when I return to the UK - played several random games and created a masterpiece of art on today's culture of mixed-up love. Midnight came, and 6 hours later I was awake and ready to spring into action for our 3 hour bus trip to Strahan. Thanks to an incredible amount of windy roads I felt sick on the way there. It was fun.
Our arrival at the Strahan sand dunes (the biggest dunes I've ever seen in my life) we climbed a hill whilst tied together, had lunch and got into our small groups - in reverse order. A certain amount of sun tanning, hill jumping and activities later we rocked up to Ironballs Mackensie for our final activity of the day. It came and it went.
And then one of our small group said: hey there's a huge hill here that we can jump down. I said: "well ok. But be careful." A short conversation on timing followed whilst my group threw themselves over the precipice. At least I thought they threw themselves over it.
So I looked at the dune and thought: I can run down that. When I hit the ridge in the middle I'll slow down and then when I hit that small ridge at the bottom I'll run up it, jump off it and fly through the air like a bird. (see fig 1)


There were several flaws in that plan as it turned out.
The first flaw was that the hill was slightly steeper than I anticipated. This was ok, I am fairly good at cliff running and so I took it all head on. Hurtling toward the first ridge I think: man this is steep, gonna have to keep running to keep balanced. True to form I keep running. As I near the first ridge I think: wow, that ridge is smaller than I thought and the hill below it is steeper than the first bit. Again, this was ok and I conclude: think of the cool air time I will get from jumping out at the end. Pain, after all is fleeting.
My plan of action is now modified: (fig 2)

As I near the bottom I become aware that perspective from 30 or 40 metres up is slightly misleading. The ridge at the bottom is slightly larger than I had thought and I muse: hmmmmm, does that look steeper than I first thought? Optimism prevails once more - score one for cheerful enjoyment - and I decide that in any case I'll just stuff it a bit and we'll all laugh as I fly like a concrete elephant. It will at least bring joy to my group and that's more or less my job as a leader. The plan is modified with a happy result: (fig 3)


I am now travelling very fast. Not quite the speed of sound I note as I make a quick physics calculation based on the space between group members interspersed down the hill and rate at which they pass my field of vision, but nevertheless fairly fast. It occurs to me at this point that many of my group are in fact not this far down the hill havign stopped at some point. I think: that's strange. As my attention is brought back to my death defying leap at the point at which I would normally shout: hey watch this, (but they were already looking with some strange expression that later turns out to be horror anyway). I think: damn that ridge really is big. And steep. In fact it's not as close to the ground as I thought either. I update my plan: (fig 4)


If my calculations are right I can still make it over the ridge and fall down the gap causing some pain and much hilarity. Unfortunately this is precisely the point at which my brain and body are no longer connecting in the way necessary for me to make any coordinated movements. I think: jump now! My body fails to respond. I think: at least it's a sand bank and will be soft: (fig 5)


I'm no physicist to be sure, but somewhere in my brain a part of me knows that impact has something to do with how fast your going when you hit a big object. I'm also now fairly sure that the hardness of the object you strike has some kind of multiplying effect.

At the last second my neurons fail to fire and I hurtle at a velocity in excess of a cheetah on speed into a large sand bank, perfectly parallel to my body and considerably larger than I am. I also discover that the effect of years of sand compacting turns an apparently inoffensive dune into something resembling a large amount of concrete. Ironballs Mackensie and several other spectators claimed that the sound of the impact was "like smacking a mattress with broom" and could be heard all the way across the Henty dunes. I expect that it looked something like this: (fig 6)

If ever we need proof that there is a God it probably lies in the fact that if I had made it over the ridge I would have been falling 10/15 metres to the hard almost rock forest floor - another small miscalculation on my part. I didn't, and so I didn't die. Next to that at the las second my body flailed all my limbs out to absorb as much of the impact as safely as I could - saving me from a broken neck and either total paralysis or that tricky state of affairs we like to call death.

A short climb back up the hill and I was able to evaluate my wounds - later to develop into one of the stiffest necks and backs I have ever had. I suffered only minors injuries and a face-full of sand. Pride was actually boosted because of the tremendous obstacle I had overcome - viz. near death. And from then on I received many acclamations from the people who were there. It also turned out that my group hadn't run down it because they weren't stupid - which was why they weren't at the bottom.

For all the official pictures please follow the Flickr links to the right.

Other stuff apparently happened on the breakout but my memory is a little hazy.

Until next time people - love ot you all

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Zero hour…..

The time has finally come, the hour is upon us, and a horror of biblical proportions has been unleashed over the land. I speak of Tasmania National Moustache day.

At a slightly unfair advantage by being blonde Tim and I nevertheless rose to the challenge to join the Father of Mack, Michael George Parker – the bare chested bear beater, Greg “let me sell you a used car” Alexander, and ‘Handlebars’ Townsend for a week of beard growth. Folk lore has it around these parts that at the turn of the 19th century there was a legendary law man known only as ‘The Garvinator’ who cleaned up local town of Dodge (now a ghost town after the infamous hydro-nuclear-electric explosion of ‘72). The Possum gang ruled Dodge and the surrounding farmsteads, and could be easily identified by their overly large moustaches and love of Tim-Tams – then a local delicacy made from kangaroo meat and dutch sugar. For a year they had run the town, bribing local officials and forcing man to slave labour. Enter lawman Garvinator. In a matter of months he had rounded up every member of the Possum gang save one and they had been tried and convicted of crimes against the state including the ownership of biohazardous facial hair. The single escaping member is rumored to have gone underground vowing to take revenge on Dodge at the appropriate time. In honour of the great exploits achieved the local citizens declared 1st March as National (let us hope one day international) Moustache day. Since then every year there has been great rejoicing when local simple people grow moustaches and eat Tim-Tams to commemorate Tassie’s most famous home-grown hero.

And so it was that this year we unearthed the legend and decided to take part. Ultimately Tim cheated by dying his moustache black, but since he also dyes his hair we couldn’t complain – and it was so funny that it all seemed worth it. The prize for the day (a free 24 hour supply of Tasmania air) went jointly to Handlebars Townsend and the bear beater who displayed great zeal and excellence in the matter of moustache growing.
I am definitely never growing a moustache ever as it is disgusting.

In other news my luggage has disappeared once more into the ether along with Maya who apparently has been suffering from a sort of inverse were-kangaroo affliction such that 3 days in every lunar month she turns into a kangaroo in the day. She was last seen hopping down the main street wearing my rucksack – any attempts to bring her in should be non-lethal. Enjoy the new photos people.

Ps life here is the same as normal, more lessons, fieldwork starting soon, weather hot, lots of sun, cool mornings and evenings. I am well.