It probably sounds really vain, but the person I most want to be like is myself...
I want to think my own opinions. I'd like to say by myself, but then I do want to be influenced by other people, because otherwise I might as well be a hermit. Sometimes I would like what I think to be static, finished and stable, but then I reckon if I get new info and change my opinion, that is actually a better thing than stubbornly sticking to something I have learnt is wrong. Perhaps what I want is to think!
I want to wear what I like without trying to wear things that look cool on other people but look awful on me, or make me feel uncomfortable. I want to wear my hair just exactly the way I like it, rather than worrying about what anyone else thinks (I'm pretty good at this one, at the moment I'm looking a bit like a floor mop as I grow it out again).
I want to have more spontaneous outdoor adventures (and planned outdoor adventures too). I've got out of the swing of this, and miss it. It's a part of me that has been abandoned in the last few years. Babies, neh?
There's a part of me that needs to learn how to draw. Its getting an airing after the thesis. Cos there is a part of me that I've found that is a bit gentler on me, and doesn't try to do everything NOW, without any rest or relaxation! I'm glad I found that bit, it keeps stress levels manageable.
I don't know that I am ever going to 'be cool' but as I get older I am getting better at being me, recognising me, doing the me thing - and that IS cool.
Finished another chapter in the weekend ready for the leader to pick apart again. Still feel good about another milestone on the way.
Wonderful to have a long weekend so got to spend time with the sprat and the hubby. Went to the beach - really good, though my input to the trip was basically to fall asleep behind a log...
Put irrigation in the garden, used it as things were dry, hey presto, rain this morning! typical.
Now off to fix a document my project team is calling pyscho. Not a good sign in something that needs to be finished at the end of this week.
I never met anyone blind before coming to Wellington, now I see reguarly four blind people.
One of them is in an electric wheelchair, and I am really interested to see how she works her dog from the chair. Soon we will have 2 guide dogs in our train carriage.
And there is that poetry braille sculpture on Willis Street...
Just got time to sneak in a quick post reporting on a busy and highly productive day which also included some interesting issues to get the tattered remnants of my mind to grapple with.
They have measles at C's childcare - hope he doesn't get it as he would have to be off for 10-14 days. But it was his best mate who come down with it. Good thing he is vaccinated as even if he gets it, he won't die or anything.
Wonderful stunning weather in the weekend - got burnt, but only lightly, and it made me feel like it was really spring. I'm told the long weekend will not be as good.
Have seen Bro 3 times in the past week, and have seen him 3 times in the preceeding 9 months - something odd is going on. He owns the ugliest shoes I have ever seen - glow in the dark blue, and with ostetatious engineering things on them so everyone knows they cost a lot (runners). His other pair are dayglo orange. Quite civilised in comparison.
Train time...
On the Friday theme
Summing up this section of the HSNO Act it says that between 29 Oct 2001 and close of 29 Oct 2003 the Authority (Being the Environmental Risk Management Authority) must NOT Csider or approve applications for importing for release or release from Ctainment of new organisms (which happens to include GM organisms).
And the question that springs to most minds is so what? Well, there'd be very few people that wouldn't have noticed that the moratorium is ending soon. What many don't seem to understand is that the Government isn't lifting it, it was programmed to come off anyway. So if you were determined to get it extended, then you needed to get in MONTHS ago, because to get the moratorium extended, you had to change the law. That takes an incredibly long time. It is not a secret process however, and the eagle eyed ones would have noticed that there has been a piece of legislation going through called New Organisms and Other Matters ammending the HSNO legislation. So, the protests should have been months ago when NOOM was first begun.
The end of the moratorium will mean nothing for a while. Who knows how long? It means that if an organisation thinks that they can make enough money from growing something to recover the hundred thousand or so it will cost to apply for an approval (which is the same cost for a decline), that they might risk the political fallout of being the first appicant for a GM release in NZ.
I see a Comar-Brunton poll shows 53% of NZer's have no faith in ERMA. I Cfess, I'd also love to know what they do know about ERMA! I've found most members of the public that are not involved in science or active GM protestors have never heard of ERMA. And certainly don't know what the process is.
Friday theme - kissing
In the course of the average day I might get
- a french kiss from the dog, who gets very excited every morning when she is let out of her kennel, and forgets she has been told NOT to DO THAT every time she has done it
- little nose push kisses from Taj the siamese, who needs thorough loving every morning to make up for the neglect all through the night
- multiple kisses from hubby, just because we do that stuff
- maybe a kiss, maybe a lick, maybe nothing from the son, who can feel very affectionate or not depending on something we haven't tracked down. Perhaps it really is random...
- no kissing at work
- repeats on the cat, hubby and kid when I get home.
Worst kiss - when my grandfather stuck his tongue in my mouth when I was about 8
Best kiss - dunno, there have been a lot of good ones actually
Longest - this guy I met from South America who didn't seem to need to breathe
Most memorable - this first time my son actually kissed back - he'd got the muscles sorted out, and was real pleased with himself, lots of mutual happiness!
The discussion on Beautiful Monsters about adoption got me thinking about my cousins.
They are about 30 now, and are identical twin girls, who are at least half fijian. My aunt is of solely european heritage, and she adopted the twins immediately after their birth. Aunt lost some friends over the twins - some of her friends were rude about the little brown babies, and so they were told if you can't accept my girls, you'll have to go. I've got a lot of respect for my aunt over that.
But the twins haven't only been the subject of racism. They are also discriminated against because they are adopted - they are not Csidered family enough to inherit family jewellery when women die in my family (so far).
And then they get twin discrimination - again when my grandmother was dying there were things they couldn't have, because there weren't two identical things for them to have.
But really the thing that sprung to my mind when reading the comments on Fi's blog entry was that it is not true that brown babies are not wanted by white middle class adoptees. There is a policy in the adoption unit in CYFS that they try to keep ethic groups together, but I don't know any adoptees that are set on having a kid of their own colour. Guess there are though - there's all kinds in the world, but most adoptive parents are just fair desperate for a kid, healthy. End of description.
I felt like I was pulling myself out of death this morning when the alarm went off. If sleep is the little death, I suspect it got a bit out of hand last night. Getting here yesterday and finding the clock assuring me it was only 7 in the morning was disturbing, but this morning the full pain of losing the sleep hit me. So I'm lying there, trying to get the molecules together when the cat took a shortcut across my face and scratched me just below the eye. That got me up - she spent a while outside, and was placed in the great outdoors with what I believe is called grim determination.
This daylight saving lark is not all bad, it was nice to get home in the daylight, and have time to titivate the garden before tea.
Still no outlook today, have no idea where I am meant to be or when. Even the university had a more reliable system - I don't believe the problem is outlook, I think the server has been pissed round with too much.
A friend was having a scan yesterday to see if her baby is still alive - keeps all the stress at work in perspective... We Cceived on the same day, making it seem much more personal.
Yup, outlook is down. No email and no appointments. One of the PA's came along before our last meeting saying bling bling, this is your reminder system!, you are now required in the meeting room. The thing she has over Microsoft is she smiles.
The day feels all wrong somehow without email, and the outage feels illogical when we have web access.
A lovely weekend with a good mix of rain and sunshine, so I got work done on the data sheet (its basically finished, with only some dates to add - yippee) and the garden and lawn got a once over.
There have been a couple of votes for television as the opiate, from the Chinashop and Talula. We haven't had a television for 7 of the last 9 years, if that much. We used to feel superior, but for me that has worn off. Now television feels irrelevant. When people talk about it, and I can't Ctribute, they seem to have a great time trying to explain what I didn't see. It fills in a lot of Cversation! It may be the opiate of the masses, but our household has stepped out of the masses it seems.
I'd actually vote for sport. It seems there are a lot of people that spend a lot more time on examining their favourite sportsperson or team than examining their own lives. And in this country the appointment of the coach to the All Blacks, and the progress of the team are front page news. Whole square metres of print (and no doubt hours of television but i dont' know ay?) have been devoted to the team selection and training for the world cup. The team hasn't even gone to the tournament yet. When they do we will be able to know about their diet, accomodation, personal lives, training. And I believe this devotion to sport distracts people from their own lives, making it by definition an opiate of masses.
It has been an unsettled time. There are so many things on, and so many things lined up, I am finding it hard to think in a straight line.
I have been working on the data sheet for the next chapter, and I think I have nearly got everything in there now. Tonight should be the last series of inputs, and so then I can start on tidying the thing up. Csidering how careful we were to keep very thorough records and to do everything in an ordered way, there are some odd gaps and double ups in the data... might take a while to tidy up.
I gave up on rotating the tower in Myst, and kindof cheated to find the exit code, and now I am working on a musical spaceship.
We've settled back into family life, its good to be together again. I'm looking forward to the weekend when we can go out and do something as a team.
Went to the "without a paddle" film set today, I was amazed (being pretty ignorant about these things) at how many people are involved in recording some people acting in a room... presumably it actually gets worse if they film outdoors. Amazing numbers of food stations, and very well stocked.
Work is attacking on at least four fronts at the moment - the theme tomorrow being opiate, I'm thinking I could use some.