Thank you for the music

I sat down to watch The OC last week as I had my dinner. I didn’t really have any idea what was going on as I haven’t seen it for years (and I am sure it used to be funnier?), except for the fact that Marissa appears to have died, which made me exceedingly happy. But I was absolutely thrilled to hear (even before the picture came up on the screen), Placebo’s brilliant cover of the Kate Bush song, ‘Running Up That Hill. Such a brilliant song and played, almost in its entirety, twice during the episode. They played this song when I saw them a couple of months ago and it is haunting live (first time I have heard them perform it). Made me realise again how much I love their music, and just how much I love music in general. I do feel so fortunate to have music in my life (to quote ABBA: “without a dance, or a song, what are we? So I say Thank you for the Music, for giving it to me”!)


Speaking of things musical, I had a major triumph this week. I have been quite desperate to attend the Make Poverty History concert this Friday – a musical gathering, in the vein of the Live 8 concerts last year, to coincide with the G-20 conference in Melbourne next week. Tickets are free, but as hard to come by as tickets to U2 this weekend. I was lamenting this fact to two friends at breakfast (shout out to Clare and Tristan!) and when eight tickets were made available through work this week, they both scrambled to get me one – gorgeous friends! So I am off to see Sarah Blasko, Jet, Eskimo Joe, Evermore, the Hilltop Hoods, Paul Kelly and John Butler Trio on Friday night, and cannot wait. There will also be some excellent speakers and I truly hope that this continues the wave of grassroots efforts around the world to end poverty.

If nothing else – should be a ripper night.

Kate woz here

Wow - this is so cool...

Countries I have visited:
Really need to turn more of that white into red!

I keep going back to the same places again and again...*sigh*

I have been to 12% of the world's countries. Not very impressive hey!

(that is 29 countries by the way). I'm sure I must be missing some!

If you want to try this for yourself:
http://douweosinga.com/projects/visitedcountries

Practice what we preach

Interesting article about aid workers and their cars - food for thought:

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=288591&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__business/

(still not quite sure about whether I can just post a whole article, so am putting the link instead)???

Heee - totally cracked me up! Soooo Australian!! I rode a donkey in Egypt -they are surprisingly comfortable and can get up a bit of speed too...
Btw - the link for the article and picture is: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20717272-5001023,00.html

The race that stops the nation

So yesterday was Melbourne Cup Day.

For Australians, that will be fairly self-explanatory. For the rest of the world, I should explain.

I have the fortune of coming from the most sports-mad country on earth. One article I read recently suggested that it was because it was the only thing we did better than the rest of the world (not sure about that – I think our annual alcohol consumption has to be up there with the Germany’s and Russia’s of the international data…) but whatever the reason, we are mad for pretty much anything sporting, and crown our sports heroes the way Americans worship movie stars and the Czechs chess players.

There are several annual highlights of the sporting calendar – the Australian Tennis Open, the AFL Grand Final, the Boxing Day Test, but none has the glamour and universality of the Melbourne Cup. Australia has the distinction of being the only country on earth that stops for a horse race. Yes – the pinnacle of the Spring Racing Carnival is the $3 million Melbourne Cup and literally the entire country comes a standstill at 3.00p.m. on the first Tuesday of November to watch. It is a public holiday in Melbourne, and those who don’t actually go to the races, go to barbeques and luncheons. For the rest of the country, TVs are wheeled out in banks, offices and restaurants, and anybody strolling the streets madly finds the nearest electronics store so that they can watch the TV in the window.

This year’s cup was a massive win for the bookies. Apparently over $200 million was bet on the race this year, but the favourites are still running so the bookies have completely cleaned up. I remember watching them load up the horses into the starting gates and one of the commentators said “now there’s Delta Blues, who could be interesting – he has been overlooked in the pre-Cup lead-up but I think he has the ability” etc. etc. – and I thought, “that’s who I should have put my $5 bet on! Of course he went on to win, stunning the nation. I had put a bet on the horse that came second – Pop Rock, purely because I liked the name, but resisted my father’s suggestion that I double my $5 bet to allow for a place as well as a win, so lost my money!! (also an annual tradition!)

One thing that traditionally bugs me when watching sporting events is the post-race, post-match interview with the winner, when they are heaving and panting so much that they can barely speak, and all they really want to do is go to the changerooms and hug Mum, but they have to talk to Bruce McAvaney or some other twit about how thrilled they are. And no event bugs me than when they do this for the Melbourne Cup. Some git on a horse goes out with a microphone and chases the winning jockey around the turf, trying to get some sense out of him. And in this case, not only is the jockey exhausted and puffing, but he is trotting up and down on a horse, so you only get about one word in three anyway. So I was absolutely thrilled when they attempted this yesterday with the winning jockey. Problem was – he was (is!) Japanese. So his response to all the silly questions hurled at him was, “Berry Happy…Supa Hoss…Berry Happy…Berry Happy”. I was laughing myself silly – thought it was brilliant. Sadly, I don’t think it will deter them from doing it again next year, although I sincerely hope this chap comes back and repeats the performance!

Anyway – my actual point was a great story that I missed on the news last night. My parents screamed at me to come running to the TV to get the kick story on the news, but by the time I made it to the living room it had finished. And then, in between the prime-time news and the late news, the Senate voted to overturn the ban on stem-cell research, so as you can imagine, there wasn’t too much time for feel-good Afghanistan stories in the late news. But I will give you the story now, and a picture I have taken from The Daily Telegraph website – I hope that by linking and crediting I am not committing any copyright violations? This gave me a good chuckle…

Troops celebrate the Cup

COURAGE won the day as Australian troops in Afghanistan celebrated the Melbourne Cup with a race of their own.

Not to be outdone by the celebrations back home, the diggers yesterday held the inaugural TK – short for Tarin Khowt where they are based – Derby donkey race at the Australian base in southern Afghanistan.
The field was slightly smaller – six donkeys – and the course a little shorter than the two miles run at Flemington – the donkeys did one lap of the ring road inside the Australian base.
Lieutenant Colonel Mick Ryan, commander of the Australian task force, said the race was won by Trooper Tim Brush, from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Darwin, who was riding a donkey called Courage.
"We had six riders, all the riders were Australian soldiers ... and that was followed by a big Aussie barbecue," Lt Col Ryan said.
"The race went very well. It was quite a bit slower than a normal horse race, of course, but there were no injuries and all the riders completed the race."
Lt Col Ryan presented the victorious jockey with a polished replica of the Melbourne Cup which was made by soldiers in the workshop.
This morning the troops enjoyed a breakfast before watching the big race live on satellite television.

hmmm - the jolly picture is not uploading at the moment. I will post this and then try to add the picture later

Life, or something like it

I have been fairly overwhelmed recently with life-in-general and not fulfilling my vow to single-handedly enlighten the readers (all four of you!) about Afghanistan. And it probably won't happen tonight either - I am tired and have a cold, so my head is all blocked up and I am fairly incapable of thinking straight! I have seen The Departed tonight, and my brain really isn't up to much more than trying to decide whether or not Leonardo Di Caprio has had hair plugs (seriously - I think he used to have a much more pronounced widow's peak, didn't he?) I also think he has put on about fifty kilos. At least he no longer looks fifteen! But that was a fun and escapist few hours, so I am not complaining. I needed a Martin Sheen fix now that I have watched the very last episode of West Wing - ever (excuse me while I go rock in a foetal position for a while).


Anyway - Spring has sprung in Melbourne and I am enjoying the truly bizarre weather that traditionally brings - 35 degrees one day and 15 the next. The city is incredibly dry - we are continuing our drought and once again on severe water restrictions. The next level came in last Wednesday. So what did I do right before hand? I washed my car. What did it do on Thursday? It rained on my clean car...*pbft* I was so tempted to not emerge from the house all day, in order to preserve my car's cleanliness, especially as we can now only wash them with a bucket (such a performance).


We are also onto daylight saving's time, which is another reminder to me that we are coming in to summer. I have now had two solid years of summer weather and am fairly fed up with being hot and sticky! Guess I am in for another six months or so of it.


Yes - that's right. I am sticking around Melbourne for a while. I have agreed to work on my Philippines project for a few months over Christmas/New Year (although based in Melbourne, not Manila, as management of the project is transferring here). I will be starting on that as soon as I finish my Afghanistan work and cannot wait to get back to Manila to visit. That will keep me busy until February, when we have a family skiing trip planned for Aspen. So I guess my life is fairly well mapped out right now, hey?


I am still missing Afghanistan a lot, but am more slowly getting back into life here. I constantly worry about Afghanistan and my colleagues there - I am always asking for updates about people and checking that they are okay. It is weird how much it is still present with me - I was thinking this morning about one of the team houses we had in a rural zone - I could see perfectly, in my mind's eye, the screen door that led the the bedroomw - I could see the angle it hung at and how the bolt on the door wouldn't close. I can still remember exactly where the surface of my desk was chipped and how my curtains hung crookedly. I suppose, with time, this vividness will fade, which will be healthy. My room isn't even my room now - it has been packed up and is awaiting shipment back to me (well - my personal effects - they are not sending me the curtains!)


I am also embracing life here more and getting on with normal things. Although not a fan of hot weather, I like summer - I like days that are light until 9.00p.m., I like gelati and walking along the beach and of course there is the tennis - I love the tennis and will be a fairly regular feature at the Australian Open, I imagine. I have been getting madly into Harry Potter lately - finally one too many adults told me how much they loved it, and I have firmly jumped onto the ship, whizzing through them so that I am now half way through the sixth book. I also tried to get into something that was on television (man - is it just me or is most of the stuff on TV rubbish now?) I started watching Grey's Anatomy - mostly because many of my friends were and I could discuss it with them. However, I was absolutely thrilled to have the season two finale last week feature my favourite ever Snow Patrol song - Chasing Cars. I now remember reading posts on amazon by people who said they came to the band after seeing this in America - it didn't mean anything to me at the time as I never watched the show. I think that their increasing popularity might have something to do with this - always a dilemma when a band you have loved for a long time suddenly become mainstream. While you are happy for their success, a mean part of you wants them to remain your little secret and another part of you desperately hopes they don't sell out and start writing like the Backstreet Boys *snerk*


I suppose the sum total of these musings is that life here is becoming depressingly normal. I was speaking with another friend who just returned from a year in Africa and we were dwelling on the fact that life back home is exactly the same. Which can be hard to slip back in to. I also don't feel like I want to become too comfortable here - my goal remains to be working in the field and within six months or so, I truly hope to be back overseas. And I know that the more attached and settled you become, the more difficult it is to make the break from home when you leave again. So I find myself in a sort of limbo, which fortunately, everyone is being very patient with.

I will definitely be back with more Afghanistan posts - when my sinuses clear! In the meantime - here's to home and the brilliant convenience of life in Melbourne!