Teenage Song

Sorry for the recent lack of communication but things are a bit crazy in my life at the moment. Work has been busy, life is busy, and I haven't really thought of much to blog about. But this, I just had to share, it's so funny. For those of you reading this on email you may need to visit the site to watch this youtube movie but it's worth it.

Apology: Historic day for Australia

This morning Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, formally apologised to the indigenous people of Australia for a policy referred to as the "stolen generations". In an emotive and carefully worded speech Rudd apologised on behalf of the government for past policies that resulted in generations of aboriginal children being taken from their families, homes and communities and forced to integrate into Western culture.

The policies started in the 1860s and continued until 1969 and involved primarily mixed-race children. They were based upon the belief that aboriginal society was dying out and that integrating the children into western society would be for their benefit. Later on it was thought that mixed race children were at risk of abuse and neglect within their communities and they were removed for their own saftey. It is clear from personal accounts that this wasn't always the case. One such account was published as a book called The Rabbit Proof Fence and a film of the same name was released in 2002. Some children never saw their parents again.

After ten years of the previous Liberal government, led by John Howard, refusing to formerly apologise, this is a momentous day in Australian history. The apology was broadcast outside Parliament House and watched by thousands. I felt quite emotional watching it as Rudd told a story of a woman remembering her childhood before the age of four, sitting around campfires and dancing, before being taken from her mother whom she never saw again. I imagined being taken from my parents as a child and how losing them was the subject of a recurring nightmare I had when I was young. I'd worry about being abandoned and I'd dream that I'd come downstairs for comfort after waking from a bad dream. I'd see my parents sitting on the settee watching television. When I walked around the front of the settee though, I'd realise they weren't my parents. They looked like them but they had different faces. It was terrifying. Then I'd realise they were wearing masks and rip them off but they'd still have different faces underneath. Then I'd realise that the new faces were also masks and so it went on until I woke up.

Imagine living that nightmare. Okay, so maybe the authorities didn't dress up as aboriginal parents and start ripping off their own faces but the feeling that I felt, of not knowing where my parents were and wanting nothing more than to find them, would have been very much how those children would have felt. I can still remember the way that dream made me feel and it makes me want to cry when I think of the 100,000 children being taken from their homes to a completely different culture.

I think it's great that the Prime Minister has apologised. I'm amazed at how many people are against it; 30% I read on one website. It means so much to the indigenous communities to have it said; does it really mean that much to the white Australians? Why do they so passionately believe that the government shouldn't be sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not saying I'm responsible but I'm sorry that it happened. The apology was more about understanding and acknowledgement of the hurt caused than about admitting responsibility. How can anyone not want to say to someone who was taken from their parents, "I understand that this must have hurt you and I'm so sorry this happened"? We say sorry to people who are bereaved but that doesn't mean we are admitting responsibility for the death of their loved one.

The opposition leader Brendan Nelson, possibly the most uncharismatic party leader in the world, also stood up and formally acknowledged and backed the apology and made a speech that I lost interest in. He went on about the problems in aboriginal communities today, problems of alcoholism, violence and drug abuse. Granted, these are problems that are rife and need to be dealt with but did they really need raking up on this day of celebration and reconciliation? Talk about killing the party. The crowd outside Parliament House turned their back on him, clearly unimpressed with the leader of a party that has had the opportunity for ten years to say sorry and yet pointedly refused. Nevertheless boring Brendan kept droning on. Seriously, the Liberals are never going to win an election with him as their leader.

If you want to read the apology, check out this website: http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/apology/text.htm

To read Australians' comments on the apology go to http://www.news.com.au/comments/0,23600,23206140-2,00.html

Reasons I love working in IT - No. 1

What was my colleague talking about during a meeting this morning when he said (and I quote):

I played with it again this morning and tried to get it up...

Cracked me up as it did a few of my less mature colleagues; or maybe just the ones who were paying attention.

The Shift: A movie about an evolutionary shift in the collective consciousness

I stumbled across this film clip this morning on a blog called We The Change. I thought it was pretty cool and that it should be shared. Unfortunately it seems the film-makers are still raising funds to finish the movie so I don't know when it's likely to be released.

If you have some spare cash lying around and you're in the business of supporting independent film-makers then you can make a donation at The International Documentary Association website. Visit the film's website at The Shift Movie.

If you don't behave yourself I'll take you back to the shelter

I don't think I've ever actually threatened the cats with a trip back to the shelter but Zadie has been behaving a tad strangely since her visit there on Friday.

I was taking both of them down for various things. Monty ceased his days as the full monty and had his balls taken care of. Zadie had the injection the shelter should have given her back in November before we took her home. They were both microchipped.

Having experienced the joys of taking Zades to the shelter previously, when she went to have her stitches taken out a few days after she came to live with us, I insisted that Toby stick around to help me get them in the car. Monty was no bother. We only have one pet carrier so we stuck him in a cardboard box. He seemed quite happy. Then we tried to get Zadie into the carrier. We couldn't put her in a box as she's incredibly vicious in her attempts to escape. I tried to coax her into the carrier head-first. Her legs went the other way. We both tried. She refused to cooperate. She's surprisingly strong. We took the top off the carrier and Toby placed her in (still with stiff-you-can't-make-me-go-there-legs) whilst I struggled to try and clip the top back down and re-attach the front, her pushing her head through the side, front, top, trying to make a bolt for it, whinging at us. It took so long that Monty started trying to escape from his box so we had to parcel-tape him in. Then he tried to escape through the view-port I had kindly cut out for him so we had to parcel-tape some cardboard over that.

Eventually, with both cats securely in their respective carriers, I began the 20 minute journey to the shelter. Monty's head and one paw were permanently squished as far as he could get them through the now-mini viewport (more like a breathe hole really). Zadie yowled and scratched and bit at the bars of her box and attempted to dig her way out.

Once we got there they were a bit better behaved. The lady that looked after Zadie for a while before she was our cat was pleased to see her and fussed over her, and they got to sit in a cage together. When I went back later that day to pick them up Zadie was sitting in the litter tray and had been all day, the vet told me (weird cat). Monty was drowsy after his operation but Zadie perked up as soon as the vet and I tried to get her in the carrier again. And again, it took two struggling adults quite a while to get one small (but strong) cat fastened in. Yowling and biting ensued for another 20 minutes on the way home.

Zadie didn't eat for two days after that. Monty didn't eat much either but that was expected after his anaesthetic. She has also been more affectionate than usual. I'm sure she thinks we took her there to show her what would happen if she was naughty. Monty slept most of Friday but had almost fully recovered by early Saturday morning, which he celebrated by jumping on my feet with his claws out at 5am! Nice! I think he's forgotten the whole thing ever happened now and in a week or so, when his wound is healed, he'll be able to come and go as he pleases during the day rather than being stuck in the house all the time.

One sad thing about the trip to the shelter was the discovery that two of Zadie's kittens were still there. I wouldn't change my cats for the world but it did feel a bit strange, given that we'd originally been going to take her and one of her kittens (but Monty insisted we take him instead). One of them, Morgan, was being desexed at the same time as Monty. He seemed so much younger than Monty although there are only a couple of weeks between them. He was incredibly cute, with Zadie's beautiful face and Monty's colouring, and over a kilogram lighter than Monty. I only wish I could have taken him home and fattened him up but two cats is enough.

It's been a while since I last checked in here, over a month in fact. I don't know about you but that surprised me. January has flown over and here we are, a little over a twelfth of the way through 2008 already. I must be getting old because time is speeding up. It's been a very social month, what with 30th birthdays, our house-warming party, a baby shower.

Toby and I realised yesterday that it was our "demiversary"*. Six months since our wedding day and we still haven't been on honeymoon or got our wedding album. But let's not speak of the have nots; at least the 'moon is now booked and the album is with the photographer so it's out of our hands. We celebrated by drinking beer with the neighbours.

We now have our top wedding cake tier back in our own freezer; it had been staying with Lucie since the period of homelessness. The fridge situation is still a little odd in our house, in that our fridge sits in the garage not doing anything, not even plugged in (and I'm a little concerned this is bad for a fridge) and some big, huge, old oddly-shaped thing that lived in our house before we did is in the kitchen keeping our food cold. It's deep and wide until you open the doors because the fridge and freezer are side-by-side. It has an ice and cold water dispenser which we never use (and which doesn't work when you do want to use it, such as at a party) and which merely serves to take up room in the freezer which seems to be missing a basket anyway and consequently is a bit of a rubbish freezer. It's good for parties though because you can load bags of ice into it. The point I'm trying to make is that the cake is now residing on a jaunty angle because it doesn't actually fit into the freezer.

I'm not sure how we're going to get along with decorating and choosing furniture if we can't even sort out our fridges. I spent yesterday cutting the nasty colours off green paint colour charts. White and pale green is about all I've narrowed it down to for our living area. I can't decide between mint and lime but I don't want a yellowy-tone. I'm not sure how pale to go and I've no idea whether to paint the dado green and the wall white or the wall green and the dado white. I attempted to calculate how much paint I'd need but that was too hard. I think I'll just paint the whole thing white and take it from there.

Interesting DIY note: polyfiller is called spakfiller over here.

* I'm not convinced this is a real word. I thought I'd made it up but a quick search on Google uncovers plenty of other people who believe the same thing. Dammit!