Why I love living where I live... (part 2)

...because I can go swimming in a 50 metre open-air pool on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Autumn, with a wide lane all to myself (and no one in the lane next to me) and watch birds flitting over the water catching insects as I breast-stroke my way along. Absolute bliss!

See Why I love living where I live... (part 1).

Buckle has been approved

I checked my citizenship application this morning and it seems they have finally approved me. I have no idea why it took them so long: almost 6 weeks. How come they didn't just take one look at my application and say "oh she looks like a nice girl; we'll have her. Tick"? But at least they have finally come to their senses and realised they would be proud to call me an Aussie.

To be honest, the thought of dual citizenship is a wee bit strange. I could never give up my British citizenship because I feel British through and through. Even though there may be some elements of the British psyche that bug me, I just can't help it. It's who I am, it's how I was brought up, it's who many of my close friends and relations are and despite its faults (and in some cases because of them) I love it.

That said, I do feel increasingly Australian. You can't live here for five years, immerse yourself in the culture and not let it rub off on you. Obviously there are things that bug me about the Australian character too, but it's much easier to fob that off saying "oh but I'm British" ("and far superior" is the inference there, I suppose). When I return to England I remember my Britishness but my Australianness is also highlighted: that's the bit that makes me different to my fellow Brits. And my Britishness makes me different to my fellow Australians. So, I'm neither one nor the other and I guess that's the way I have felt for a while now.

So, although I can never be constantly 100% Australian, or constantly 100% British, I can now be sometimes 100% either, or always 50% of both. See what I mean about it being a bit strange? I think I will still have to barrack for England in international tournaments, and the "friendly rivalry" between the two sporting nations could very well tear me apart, but I do think I have the best of both worlds.

Now I just have to see if they can squeeze me into the last citizenship ceremony of the year in 2 weeks. I'll practice my national anthem in the meantime.

Australians all let us rejoice
For we are young and free
We've wealth for toil and earth to soil.... no , that's not right
We've wealth and toil and earth and soil... nope
We've wealth and soil and Mrs Doyle
Preparing buns for tea... no hang on, that's Ireland.

I am a pantheist.

I have just discovered that I am a pantheist. I have often struggled to define myself in religious terms. Sometimes I'm a christian (by birth, not practice), other times I am an entirely non-religious atheist and then there are times when I'm a naturalist/universalist/believe in the inter-connectedness of all things known and unknown spiritualist and why isn't there a word for this? Well, apparently there is. It's pantheism and I discovered this when reading the following passage in Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion:

A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them).

This is what most of the world's religions are: theists. Clearly, this isn't me. Although the small part of me that is Christian, the part that was christened when I was five, which clearly is a very small part of the thirty-two year-old me, still wonders if God knows when I'm naughty and will send me to hell as punishment, and can be known to make a quiet prayer when there's something I really want (or don't want) to happen. But deep down, I know it isn't going to make the blindest bit of difference. But wouldn't it be cool if there were a such thing as miracles?

A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs.

Now this is an interesting concept, and one I haven't really considered. However, as Carl Sagan said, "if by 'God' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying ... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity." Gosh, how I laughed when I read that. Still tickles me.

Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.

So there you go. Dawkins does go on to argue that such "believers", if they can indeed be called as such should refrain from referring to their metaphorical spiritual force as "God":

The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason.

I am happy not to call my interconnecting energy God, but I would like a name for it. However, for now I am happy to put a name to my general belief. Pantheism. I shall now go google and wiki it just to be sure that that's what I am. I'm only up to page 41 of the book so there's a good chance I could change my mind by the end of it but "sexed-up atheism"? I can live with that.

How could I forget?

Silly me! Of course I have something to report... well not exactly yet but the thing is about two weeks ago I did the Australian Citizenship test and then, after getting 100% (I'm such a girly swot), I applied for citizenship. As part of my preparation for the test Toby kept teaching me the Australian national anthem. It's surprisingly catchy. That's about as exciting and interesting as that story goes.

The website that I applied on is typical of all goverment (or at least Department of Immigration) forms; that is, bloody awful. You have to visit the site a few times in order to know where to find things and even then, when I want to check on the progress of my application I have to go through about 12 screens of the application process to find it.

UPDATE 19/09/08: Richard showed me today that there is actually a link directly to the login section to check my application about one click into the site. It's just the pages are so damn long, and it was right at the bottom, that I missed it. So, still not an entirely user-friendly site but not as bad as I thought. I take some responsibility for that particular problem.

The form itself asks for a Citizenship test reference number. The paper given to me after the test had two references numbers on it but neither of them were called Citizenship test reference numbers so it was anybody's guess as to which was the right one to use. Thankfully, my British colleague, Richard had recently applied so he helped me out a bit, although really he was just guessing too and I don't know why I listened to him anyway as his application was delayed whilst they conducted an "internal investigation".

After I'd applied I was directed to a form which detailed what I had to do next. This involved filling in a proof of identity form and getting someone important to witness it. (I immediately thought of my friend Libbette as she's a teacher and apparently none of my other friends have important enough jobs.) The form indicated I would also have to get a passport-sized photo witnessed. Passport photos are difficult things to obtain here on the Sunshine Coast, lord only knows why. No such thing as passport booths you see. You end up having to go to photograph processing places. I could only locate one place that did them in the surrounding area and it wasn't en route to anywhere for me that day. Richard told me I didn't need a photo because they took one when I went for the test so I phoned them to make sure. The lady who answered said I didn't need to send anything else in, not even the proof of identity form. She did follow this, however, with the comment, "if we do need anything else, we'll contact you," which probably means she didn't really know. Rich had been given contradictory information from people he'd spoken to on the phone so he suggested I send the form in anyway. I got a colleague who's a Commissioner for Declarations (whatever one of those is) to witness it (because I forgot to ask Libbette) but so far I haven't managed to remember to post it.

So that's that. Rich and his wife, Sue have their citizenship ceremony on October 31st. It only seems to be us Brits who are humoured by the fact that they will become Australian citizens on Halloween. I guess it's not really an acknowledged celebration here. It's summer here at that time of year and Australians don't feel the need to break the depression of increasingly shorter, darker days with random holidays such as Halloween and Guy Fawkes. That, and they have no pagan history. Not that Fawkes was a pagan but to say Australia has no history would have caused an uproar and wouldn't have been strictly true. The Halloween ceremony is the last of the year, the next one being the biggie on Australia Day on January 26th. I'm really hoping I can squeeze into the same one, or one before that as I don't fancy making my pledge in front of all those people whilst 8 and a half months pregnant. Suppose I'd better get that form sent off then.

Australians all let us rejoice for we are young and free...

'Allo 'allo

I'm a little surprised at how long it's been since my last post. Work has picked up and has been quite busy and I haven't really had much to say on any other topic. Still pregnant, still painting the house, nothing much to report.

Except, I just have to tell you that there is a South African guy at work who sounds like one of the German officers from 'Allo 'Allo, either Captain Hans Geering (the one who hangs around with the fat Colonel and prounces Colonel as it is written), or Lieutenant Hubert Grubert (the one with a crush on Rene). Either way, every time he talks I have to giggle and when he talks to me it's terribly embarrassing as I struggle to keep a straight face and not immediately burst out with "Ha! Did you know you sound like one of the German dudes from 'Allo 'Allo??? So funny!!"

Bored!

I am so unbelievably bored.

Apart from one or two notable exceptions, no one has sent me an interesting email in days, and even Facebook is a bit like Scarborough in winter at the moment. Not that I've ever been to Scarborough. I've never been in summer, let alone winter, but I imagine not much happens there in winter. If there is a lot going on in Scarborough in winter then Facebook isn't much like it at all. It's possibly more like the moon. But less cool because the moon has a good view of the earth and the whole low gravity thing going for it.

That said, Facebook did recently go through quite an interesting and fun phase where I got to laugh at lots of old school photos (including class photos from when I was 9 and 13 ish). My sister's friends have started putting old photos on now too so I've been having a good giggle at them.

Work is boring. I've finished off a lot of jobs and those remaining are in a pending state whilst I wait for various colleagues to get back to me. What's the bet they all get back to me at once demanding immediate resolutions?

Knocked up

It's probably about time I made an official announcement on this site that I'm having a baby early next year. Thank god! My pregnancy is the only interesting thing going on right now. It's quite fascinating once you get into it but I think I'm stretching the limits of how much even that can entertain me. (I won't go on about it by the way - I have another blog for that purpose - but I will mention it when it's relevant.) At least I know I'm unlikely to spend my days next year sitting on my arse whinging about being bored. I'll probably be wishing for such days to return to me.

Don't get me wrong, I can find plenty to occupy my time and mind with. I have millions of jobs to do at home (just not necessarily the money to do them), there are a gazillion things I'd like to read and as for things I'd like to do today, well, I've already been to the dentist and I plan to go to the gym but I also need to get petrol, fish and possibly some noodles because I can't remember whether we have any at home. The trouble is that these are not things I should be doing in work time and hence getting paid for.

Laptop battery bingo

I'm fairly pleased with myself at the moment in that I managed to successfully purchase a new laptop battery from eBay. My battery hasn't worked for about 6 months, which kind of made my laptop less of a laptop and more of a desktop, which isn't really what I forked $3000 out for. I tried to do this some time back and was bamboozled by the fact that none of the numbers on the batteries on eBay seemed to match those on my battery. I had already tried to get one from Dell and they quoted me $175 which seemed like rather a lot of money, given my computer was only 18 months old, and surely a battery should last longer than that.

I kept periodically returning to eBay and getting bamboozled so eventually I decided just to buy one from Dell. At least that way I could be sure of getting the right part and didn't have to try and figure anything out for myself. This time they quoted me $290!!!! For a battery!!! A new Dell laptop costs $750 and that comes with a battery! So I did a bit more research and discovered that the confusion is caused by Sony's insistence on measuring their batteries in watt hours (Wh) when everyone else uses miliamp hours (mAh), sneaky devils.

Thankfully, there is one common component on all batteries and that is voltage. Once you know the voltage and either Wh or mAh you can do a simple conversion using the formula:

watt = amp * volt

or

amp = watt / volt

Thanks to camerahacker.com for helping me figure this out.

It's probably a bit more complicated than this but it was close enough. I found a battery with similar power outage on eBay, which I could get shipped from Hong Kong for $87!!! What a bonus. A saving of over $200! At that price I figured I could take a risk as I wasn't able to get full use of the laptop, and I wasn't likely to pay $300 for a new battery. Well, the battery arrived yesterday and I'm happy to say seems to be working well. Kudos to me and ya boo suks to Dell!

Willie Wagtail pursues wife

Just for fun, and to stop everyone else becoming as bored as me, here's a lovely little photo of me and a Willie Wagtail on our wedding anniversary the other weekend (that's mine and Toby's anniversary, just in case that sentence caused any confusion). It was taken at Point Cartwright, near where we were married and the little bird seemed to be oblivious to the fact that I am now a married woman and was following me around rather ardently.


Right ho! I think I have procrastinated enough for one day. I shall go and do something a bit more worth getting paid for but probably terribly boring, and perhaps amuse myself with some Skunk Anansie (that's the kind of mood I'm in) for the remaining hour of the working day.

TTFN!

Do you remember the one with the Dambusters?

For some inexplicable reason, possibly relating to the deluge of old school photographs that are currently finding their wicked little ways onto Facebook, today I started to reminisce about really bad old music.

It may also have been due to the discussion in the office as to how London is possibly going to outdo Beijing in the Olympic Opening Ceremony and ideas as to what the London ceremony might consist of.

The Hairless suggested:

"I am thinking of Charlie riding in all dolled up in his medals and feathered hat upon his faithful steed Camilla mumbling "I'm here Mummy...where is the fireplace that needs lighting?" sounds like the best option."

Sanchez preferred a cockney theme:

"I can see Chaz and Dave getting a good cockney knees up going and the pearly king and queens performing a dance.

"Then we will bring on an army of chavs to drink 5 pints of stella and have a fight.

"I think the finale will involve the Queen waving her hand as usual.

"Quality...."

I liked the cockney theme but went for something a bit grander:

"I think there'll be a million morris dancers prancing around the stadium with their handkerchiefs and sticks, jangling their bells, followed by a massive 500 metre may pole with lots of coloured ribbons and more prancing around.

"Then about half a million cockneys, accompanied by pearly kings and queens and the odd beefeater, will march in and do the lambeth walk. Then we'll bring in a huge replica of the spanish armada, light torches all around the stadium to signify the warning of the armada's approach, then set the ships of the armada on fire (and they'll be full of fireworks so there'll be a massive firework display... in fact... we might even have a few of them sail up the Thames just to be a bit beyond-the-stadium, like in Beijing) and use that to light the torch before flying off to bomb a German factory."

Before I go on, can I please point out that I do not advocate the bombing of anything German and that reference was meant to be purely tongue in cheek. However, Sanchez picked it up and suggested a Spitfire flyover and some tribute to the Dambusters, to which I recommended getting all of the athletes to dambust around the stadium on their march, to the Dambusters music, arms outstretched pretending to be aeroplanes, or fingers round their eyes as goggles.

This, of course, is what triggered the old memory of the song that used to always get played at parties where everyone did the actions and sang along to the Dambusters theme. I got confused and distracted at first by the Superman song (remember that one? Comb your hair, spray, Superman!!) but eventually I identified the Dambuster one as being The Music Man. Both were recorded by Black Lace to annoy people at parties for the duration of the eighties and most of the nineties. And so, for your delight and delectation, here are some awful YouTube versions of both. Reminisce to your heart's desire.

Randoms doing the Superman song at work:



Black Lace sing Music Man on Top of the Pops or something. Bad copy but it's the best I could do. Dambusters are about 2 minutes 50 seconds in for those that can't bear to watch the whole thing.



And just for a laugh, and to show I'm not proud, here's one of the old photos a school friend put onto Facebook, depicting me and my good friend Bev, her with classic poodle perm and me with scary Michael Jackson-style white-face make-up:

Everything is arbitrary

We recently had the University website redesigned by an advertising agency. One of the requirements was that the site must conform to Priority 1 World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at a minimum, and that it should also conform to Priorty 2, preferably Priority 3.

On delivery I noticed they had a green box with white text. The green was mottled and graduated and became yellow in places. It was obvious to me, with my reasonably good eyesight, that white text is not easy to read when on a yellow-ish background (it doesn't really take a genius or a blind-man to figure that one out now, does it?). So the Marketing team sent the image back to the agency and requested a new one.

The new one was much better. I could definitely read it. Just to be sure I ran the colours through an online colour contrast analyser. The difference in colour and brightness was still not quite enough to meet the Priority 2 WCAG checkpoint 2.2 regarding colour contrast. However, it was pretty close so I left it up to the Marketing team to determine whether they were happy with it.

They weren't.

The agency sent another image along with the following comment:

"The algorithms are a useful guide to ensuring sufficient contrast and colour difference, but the precise thresholds are somewhat arbitrarily chosen (strange that the human eye works in such neat numbers, 125 and 500 ;)"

Isn't this a bit like saying:

"Hmm, it's a bit strange that water just happens to boil at exactly 100°C, isn't it?"

or

"How perculiar that 1 Litre of water weighs exactly 1 kilogram."

or

"Strange, don't you think, that a day is exactly 24 hours long?"

Well, I've got news for you Mr Smarty-pants-Multi-media-degree-don't-you-know-Ad-agency-man, a day isn't exactly 24 hours long. We make it that long so that it's easy to measure. Water only boils at 100°C because we decided that would be a good way of measuring temperature. Time is arbitrary, everything humans measure with is arbitrary. Don't you think perhaps they decided that 125 and 500 were nice, round, easy numbers to remember and developed algorithms accordingly? Dear me...