Suzy McHale’s Journal: 2018
January
Wednesday 3/1: Frozen USA
Three days into the New Year. No particular resolutions, as usual, except try to motivate myself to do something creative.
The weather is heating up; it is currently predicted to reach 41°C on Saturday, the first for this summer. In the Northern Hemisphere – in the USA at least – the weather is the direct opposite; people there are enduring a brutal cold front across much of the country. I found Melbourne’s relatively mild winter bad enough!
I had a head full of topics to write about, but this seems to evaporate once I manage to sit down at my computer. I can’t seem to focus on anything for very long.
Wednesday 10/1: Roasting Melbourne; wandering alien planets
Melbourne had its first 40°C day last Saturday 6th (41°C). A cool change came in the evening and the following day was a much nicer 21°C, with a little rain. The extreme swings in temperature are hard to adjust to.
I am fatigued. Don’t feel like doing much. I do read, but skip from one book to another depending upon what I feel interested in. My rather odd “comfort reading” (a book that I re-read a lot) has become Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle (see my review), perhaps because the narrator endures a lot of discomfort during her stay on the planet Orthe and I can relate to it a bit? I am also reading A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason (not in print, so I had to order a secondhand copy), which is sort of similar; anthropological science fiction where the characters wander around an alien planet and interact with the native aliens (mentioned in my 21/11/2017 entry). The novels are older but still a good read; it is frustrating they are not in print anymore. They are a lot better than the currently in-vogue ones.
I listened to the much-hyped The Martian by Andy Weir as an audiobook. I found it execrable; I was struggling to get through it. The narrator character in the novel was very annoying after a while; his dialog was endless snark and sarcasm. A very shallow read, and it is disappointing novels of this poor quality get so much attention (a movie was made out of it) while the ones I like are almost forgotten.
Thursday 11/1: Bushido photos; motherhood devalued
I added a page section with the photos from the Bushido exhibition I saw at the National Gallery of Victoria in September 2014 (15/9/2014 entry).
“When did we lose our love of motherhood?” The Age (originally in The Telegraph). An opinion piece lamenting how much motherhood has been devalued in modern Western society, and how women having children thus struggle to cope as traditional family support (advice and help from nearby relatives) has often vanished due to many family members living far away (other suburbs, cities or countries).
Simply, we live in a non-maternal world. Witness the shelves of parenting books aimed at middle class, well-educated women. They interpret the foreign sounds and strange expressions a baby makes. In the past, stay-at-home mothers and extended families would have initiated the newbie into her role. Now, Granny is likely to live in another city and, in any case, to view this stage of her life as “me time”. Most families are small, autonomous units, rather than big broods where future mothers (and fathers) can practise nurturing.
At university, career advisers talk about the importance of building skills and networks, not staying sane with someone who sleeps, weeps and eats all day. Job interviews encourage putting yourself forward, not placing others’ needs first. All around us, celebrations of celebrities and moneymakers send out the message that this is what matters, drowning out the rare plaudits for homemakers.
Younger me might have scoffed; the me of now agrees with the article. Such disassociation and fragmentation is not healthy for humans and society. Humans have evolved to live in close family groups and how the society I live in now – with its excessive emphasis on individualism – is structured is psychologically damaging.
Friday 12/1: Earth tremor, maybe?
I woke at 2:47 a.m. after what I thought was an earth tremor while half-asleep. My bed was shaking noticeably. I don’t know whether I dreamed it or not. There is no earthquake showing for the relevant time on the Geoscience Australia Earthquakes site, so perhaps I did imagine it? I don’t know if I should report it on the site.
Today is warm, humid, wet, stormy and generally unpleasant – tropical weather.
Tuesday 16/1: Creepy cruise liner death
I was looking for a particular comment on a Reddit thread from some years ago and managed to find it, so I will note it here for myself:
Or my personal favourite, people who disappear. Obviously people fall off. Or jump. Or whatever. We know that, and we prepare. Doesn't matter if you're in the hot tub, on your balcony, or gambling. If you aren't completely inside your room or the restroom, you're being watched. You may not see the cameras, but they're there.
Why? Because people do odd things. A few years ago a teenage girl met a boy she liked on a cruise and found by some stroke of luck, he was next door. She was invited over to his room but she couldn't open to main cabin door without disturbing her parents. So what does she do? Tries to jump from her balcony to his. It was only a short way, but it's slippery. She fell from damn near the highest level, hit the water and nobody saw her again.
Later her family wanted to sue with a claim that the safety railing was the issue and they deserved compensation. It sounds terrible, but all the CL did was tap into the footage. It was all on film, every second of it. Her jumping right over the rail, slipping, and silently disappearing into the dark below.
An awful lonely way to die, which has remained in my memory. I dislike the concept of cruise liner holidays generally – such a closed environment is ideal for spreading infectious viruses for one thing – and the prospect of disappearing overboard is quite disturbing.
I was considering going to Wordpress for my Journal, but am still inclined to stay with my simple static HTML hand-coded one, though it lacks features such as tagging. For archival purposes and portability, the static pages are superior, in my view; blogging software such as Wordpress require a server installed and configured just to view their content (a complicated procedure), need frequent security updates and there is no guarantee they will continue to exist or be supported into the future. I can’t access my data directly as it is stored in a database. (See my Web design page for thoughts on this.)
Sunday 28/1: Hot; Armada review
Hot – 39°C today – and humid; the worst sort of weather for me (aside from freezing cold). It has been hot and humid since around Thursday. No relief until tomorrow afternoon (maybe).
I finished Armada by Ernest Cline. A teenager, Zack Lightman, finds his daydreams of escaping his mundane life through the scenarios derived from the science-fiction movies, books and games he consumes turning into reality. The majority of these are from the 1980s onwards, and there are a lot of referrals and quotes from all this pop culture media scattered through the text. As I daydream of such scenarios for myself (and was a teenager in the 1980s!), I could relate to the character and I generally enjoyed the story. It is a lightweight tale, but entertaining enough, and there were some genuinely moving scenes. A lot of readers and reviewers seem to have disliked it, however. I am now currently reading his first novel, Ready Player One.
Tuesday 30/1: Heatwave over
The awful heatwave combining humidity and high 30s has ended; the cool change came through late yesterday with rain, and today is much cooler. I, like many, am exhausted – can’t function in that weather. The usual havoc ensued, with power outages (fortunately where I live escaped this – we were supposed to have a planned power outage for several hours today also for maintenance, but this did not happen, presumably because the energy distributer is busy fixing unplanned outages as a priority). This bodes ill for the future; if the grid can’t cope now, things will get worse in the next few decades as the effects of climate change intensify. All essential utilities should be re-nationalized (The Guardian: “Privatisation is deeply unpopular with voters. Here's how to end it.”)
February
Thursday 8/2: The Class
A recent article in Good Weekend magazine details one of the latest exercise fashions in New York City as practiced by mostly women. This convergence of exercise and “New Age” thinking about so-called mindfulness, crystal power and so on is an oddly fascinating read for me. I am struggling a little to find the right words to express my feelings about all this – both of envy at these perfectly-presented women whose privileged cliqué I can never join, along with some skepticism (the creator of this, Taryn Toomey, is making a lucrative living for herself).
The reason women jostle for spots in The Class across its four locations (it has expanded to the hedge-fund haven of Greenwich, Connecticut, as well as Los Angeles and Vancouver), and that Jennifer Aniston and other celebrities pay thousands of dollars to participate in branded retreats, is not because Toomey is selling washboard abs or defined biceps – though those things certainly start to seem possible in her presence. Toomey is wildly successful because she is also selling a way of being. Up for grabs at The Class is not only the perfectibility of the body, but the mind.
I suppose this is all a form of escapism (albeit an expensive one, only for those career women on high incomes who live in a bubble) but also status signalling and an aspirational lifestyle. The website is nicely presented in soothing neutral beiges, blonds and peach colors, along with some crystal mysticism (and some nearly U.S.$2000 crystal necklaces for sale), which I have to admit I am partial to – they are simply pretty and the less rational part of my mind enjoys the “magic” aura around them. If this makes one feel better, why not indulge it?
Saturday 10/2: Gunters and geisha
For a contrast in writing styles these two novels I am currently reading – Ready Player One and Memoirs of a Geisha – could not be much more different.
I am listening to the Wil Wheaton-narrated audiobook of Ready Player One, which is making it somewhat more bearable to plow through (though his voice can grate after a while), but I don’t know if I will finish it at the moment.
The setting, a dystopian future, is initially interesting, though the author does not go into much detail about it. I initially felt some empathy with the main character as I could relate to retreating to a virtual fantasy world in preference to reality.
The endless 80s pop culture trivia and mentions gets very tedious, even though, like the author (who was born in 1972), I am of Generation X and was a teenager in the 80s.
In contrast with Memoirs of a Geisha or The Tiger’s Daughter (29/10/2017 Journal entry), the prose style is ugly, utilitarian and dreary.
A certain sexually explicit paragraph in chapter 19 was quite off-putting for me, and soured me more on the story.
I was not, and am not, into gaming, so the monomaniacal focus on this as the plot – a virtual quest to solve puzzles and retrieve objects within the OASIS – ultimately bored me. The players are referred to as “Gunters” – a portmanteau of “egg hunters” (“Easter eggs” being hidden clues throughout the virtual world).
Much of this criticism can also be leveled at the author’s next novel, Armada (see 28/1 Journal entry). I listened to the audiobook to get through this, as well. Though I initially liked parts of it, and could relate to the main character somewhat (who dreams of escaping his mundane reality), the story is similarly a 1980s-nostalgia-driven narrative. On reflection, I do not think I could read it again and there were distasteful elements to that story as well, such as the main character describing his mother: “My mother was also ridiculously beautiful. I know people are supposed to say things like that about their mothers, but in my case it happened to be a fact. Few young men know the Oedipal torment of growing up with an insanely hot, perpetually single mom.” Ugh.
Both novels are lightweight and ultimately forgettable. There are plenty of critical reviews about them on the Internet.
Memoirs of a Geisha is a fictional account of a geisha narrating her life story. The author is himself a Westerner American who interviewed real-life geisha to provide background. The writing style is poetic and flowery; it is quite pleasant to listen to as an audiobook. Some quotes, via Wikiquote:
- I felt as a bird must feel when it has flown across the ocean and comes upon a creature that knows its nest.
- We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.
- Dreams can be such dangerous things; they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes consume us completely.
- I felt as a simple smelt must feel when a silver salmon glides by.
- I felt as the waves of the ocean must feel when clouds have blocked the warmth of the sun.
- Everything around me seemed to grow so quiet, as if he were the wind that blew and I were just a cloud carries upon it.
- He was like a song I’d heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.
- (Of Hatsumomo) She was like a fabric taken from its warm closet and hung out of doors where the harsh weather will gradually consume it.
- A tree may look as beautiful as ever, but when you notice insects infesting it, and the tips of the branches that are brown from disease even the trunk seems to lose some of its magnificence.
- If you’d asked me why I wanted these things, I would have answered, why does a ripe persimmon taste delicious? Why does wood smell smoky when it burns?
- A winter scene, though it may be covered over one day, with even trees dressed in shawls of snow, will be unrecognizable the following spring.
The profession and society are somewhat exoticized by the author, and there are some inaccuracies; this aspect of the novel has received criticism because of this (“Orientalism”). It is nonetheless a compelling story. I like reading about the cloistered world of the geisha, and the details of their training and beautiful kimono.
Saturday 24/2: Profiting from elders; welfare-bashing
I was disgusted to read this article below from last year, during an influenza outbreak that led to a high death rate amongst elderly people in some nursing homes in Australia. The article, from the business section, is only concerned with the decrease in the “occupancy rate” for a privately-run aged care provider. Profits before people is the general attitude of these companies, and it is an appalling aspect of our society that a lot of old people have to rely on these places for any sort of good care – if they can afford the exorbitant fees. A society that respected its elders would not allow this trend.
Aged carer provider Japara reveals impact of flu outbreak
Sarah-Jane Tasker, December 19, 2017, The Australian
Aged care provider Japara Healthcare has revealed its occupancy rate was dramatically hit by the deadly Australian flu season, which claimed the lives of a number of its residents.
The company told the market today that its occupancy rate during fiscal 2018 had been impacted by the unusually severe influenza outbreak, which it said was experienced across south eastern Australia.
Japara’s occupancy levels declined from 94.2 per cent at June 2017 to a low of 91.7 per cent at September.
The deadly flu season had hit Australia a month earlier than usual, and after the peak had claimed nearly 600 lives, mostly the elderly.
A fast-mutating and evolving strain of influenza A – H3N2 – was blamed for the majority of deaths. At the start of December, there had been 234,869 laboratory-confirmed notifications of influenza in Australia for 2017, more than two-and-a-half times the number compared with the previous season.
Andrew Sudholz, chief executive of Japara (JHC), said it was unfortunate that the influenza outbreak was so severe at the company’s facilities.
“This was an abnormal event and our occupancy is now improving, although more slowly than expected,” he said.
“We anticipate occupancy will return to historic levels of around 94.5 per cent as fundamental sector drivers remain favourable and enhanced marketing and referral strategies are applied to the affected homes.”
The flu impact is forecast to drive the Australian-listed company’s earnings lower in the first half of fiscal 2018, a warning that has seen Japara’s shares drop almost 5 per cent to $2.02.
EBITDA from operations for the first half of fiscal 2018 is now expected to be approximately 15 per cent to 17 per cent below the prior corresponding period due to the lower than expected occupancy levels. Full year 2018 EBITDA is forecast to be 5 per cent to 10 per cent below the previous year.
The company said its management expected the second half EBITDA from operations to exceed the first half, on the belief that its occupancy levels will recover.
“No excuse for rorting,” 11/2. Time for yet another morally outraged article from the Herald-Sun tabloid demonizing welfare recipients. This is full of emotive language, contrasting “hard-working” families “doing it tough” whose taxes supposedly fund the lazy lifestyle of welfare “bludgers”. As the welfare is well below the minimum wage, it is barely enough to live on. This disgustingly biased piece is an obvious attempt at scapegoating, and will, sadly, be effective in doing so for many. “As anyone who has ever had a job knows, the benefits of honest work are far more than just money.” Bullshit – being in a job one hates can be extremely demoralizing and dehumanizing, as I know from sorry experience.
March
Sunday 4/3: Clumsy me; fox sightings; slow worldbuilding
Last Monday I managed to trip over a pavement rise and fall, skinning my knees; the week before I overbalanced and fell backward on the back door steps at home and was saved from worse by the railing Dad had installed there a few years ago. So I have been a bit sore in various places lately!
I have also seen a fox or two on my early morning walks, around a local primary school. Foxes are an introduced feral species. They are very shy and run off as soon as they spot me. They are a similar size to cats, but have a distinctive shape and gait. I hope the foxes eat some of the native possums, which are a real pest in the suburbs and make a mess all over the footpaths.
It is now Autumn; still some warm weather left, though – not as extreme as that of last month.
I am tired as usual and find it hard to focus. I am doing a slow reboot of my worldbuilding project, including a redesign of the big starship – I am considering just having spin gravity rather than the “magic” generated gravity found in some sci-fi. Spin gravity, generated by a spinning centrifuge structure, is the only plausible form of gravity generation in reality, though it still has engineering challenges. The other plausible gravity is that caused by the acceleration of a spaceship; it has to continually accelerate though. As it can’t do this forever, it has to accelerate to halfway to its destination, then flip in reverse and decelerate at the same rate till it reaches its destination. The Artifical Gravity page at the Atomic Rockets site describes the various forms of gravity generation.
I still want a Jump/foldspace drive though! Although this is also mostly “space magic,” there is currently no other way to traverse the huge distances in space in a reasonable time (for fictional purposes). Even the mostly-realistic The Expanse book series (which I am just starting to read) has some “magic” alien technology in later volumes, mainly involving alien-created wormholes.
Friday 23/3: Dentist visit; sore foot
I went for my annual dentist visit last week (Tuesday 13/3). Thankfully there were no new cavities. The dentist said I should really get my top two wisdom teeth out, though there is no urgency to. An extraction costs $350 per tooth, though, which is money I don’t have (unless I dip into my meager savings). If one got a cavity I would get it out anyway – wisdom teeth are not worth saving.
The outside of my left foot has been sore since last time I wrote here; it is making walking difficult, and this is my main form of exercise. I think it is an inflamed tendon, but I can’t rest it, unless I find a way to levitate. (My bicycle is old and almost unrideable, and swimming is out of the question.)
April
Sunday 1/4: Foot still sore; welfare demonizing
My left foot is still very sore when walking, and has been for nearly 5 weeks now. I do not know if it is a strained tendon or stress fracture. The pain location is hard to pinpoint, but it is mainly along the outside of the foot. It is very frustrating.
The Herald-Sun (and other Rupert Murdoch-owned papers) stigmatizes welfare recipients yet again (as it does every so often – last installment 24/2 entry) – a disgracefully and blatantly biased article, typical of this tabloid. They are clearly scapegoating the disadvantaged to turn public opinion against them.
Govt collected $1.4 billion in welfare crackdown
The Federal Government is promising to keep up its efforts to find welfare cheats, after recouping more than $1.4 billion dollars in almost two years. From July 2016, more than 1400 cases of potential welfare fraud was investigated in the past 18 months and prosecutors pursued almost 1000 recipients.
A DOLE bludger breached Centrelink’s rules 117 times last year but only lost his welfare payments for five days as the government targets welfare cheats who continually flout the law.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the repeat offender missed or behaved inappropriately at 99 job interviews, triggering eight interventions by the Human Services Department.
He also failed to show up to 10 meetings with his employment services provider.
Payments for welfare recipients can be axed and the jobseeker can face financial penalties if they fail to meet mutual obligations such as job interviews, training courses or jobseeker programs.
But the department waived five penalties, meaning the disobedient dole bludger continued to receive welfare payments for 99 per cent of the year.
On one occasion the repeat welfare cheat was partially penalised, meaning he lost income for the equivalent of just five days.
From July up to 80,000 welfarerecipients could lose their taxpayer-funded handouts each year after strict new laws passed Parliament last week.
The change will see welfare cheats lose their payments for up to one month if they fail to look for work or attend job interviews more than five times in any six-month period.
Lazy jobseekers will accrue driver-style demerit points every time they breach the rules. Welfare cheats who continue to flout the rules after accruing five points will lose half their fortnightly payment.
A second breach will see their payments axed for one week and a third failure will see jobseekers booted off welfare for an entire month.
Last year 78,749 dole bludgers breached mutual obligations set out for them by Centrelink six times or more, meaning they could lose their government handouts under the new regime. Half of the all the rulebreaking welfare cheats lived in NSW or Queensland, while more than 14,500 Victorians repeatedly flouted the rules.
Social Services Minister Dan Tehan said Australians are generous people but it was “time to shape up”.
“This system will target non-genuine job seekers who will accrue demerit points when they don’t meet their mutual obligation requirements, just like people accrue demerit points on their driver’s licence,” he said.
“Anyone on income support who is doing the right thing won’t be affected by these reforms, but if you’re on welfare and you’re not meeting your mutual obligations by looking for work and looking for job interviews, then you are now on notice.
“People don’t want to see their taxpayer dollars funding the lifestyles of people who refuse to look for work and do the right thing.”
* Follow Annika Smethurst on Twitter @annikasmethurst
Originally published as End of the welfare super bludger
Saturday 7/4: Glorious Autumn; foot a little better
The weather for the last week or so has been perfect: no rain, mostly sunny still days, not too warm or cold (though the chilly mornings are returning). Perfect Autumn weather, and I wish it could last forever. I would be happy to never experience rain again. I have been going for a short (30 minutes or so) ride on my old bicycle around my neighborhood most days, though heavy traffic makes this unpleasant (and dangerous). I also wish I could afford a new bicycle, or at least get my old one serviced, but the latter would be expensive and there are no bicycle shops nearby now.
My sore left foot tendon seems to have improved a bit in the last couple of days, but I am still being cautious with it as it could too easily flare up again. It still aches a bit after prolonged walking, but the acute pain has subsided. Hope it continues to improve. I am sure that trip-up on 27/2 (70 days ago now) did some sort of damage to it then.
Wednesday 11/4: On The Last Jedi – not impressed
I finally got around to watching the latest Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, the second in the new trilogy. I did not particularly enjoy it; in fact watching it felt more like a duty or chore to follow up The Force Awakens. The movie seemed a disjointed montage of frantic scenes, with various characters rushing about from one planet to the next. There was none of the charisma of the original trilogy; the presence of Luke and Leia aside, it could have been any space opera. I hate what Disney has done to the Star Wars mythos; as far as I am concerned, true Star Wars ended with the prequels (which I enjoyed), these being directed by George Lucas, and the follow-ons are fan fiction (the latter not meant as a compliment). I really wish he had not sold the franchise.
I have not felt inclined to read most of the Star Wars novelizations, unlike those of the Halo video games, nearly all of which I have read (and own). Halo seems to interest me in a way Star Wars does not – perhaps one reason being that Star Wars has a lot more cultural visibility to the point where pop culture is oversaturated with its products.
Actually both Star Wars and Halo both have something in common: the magic of the original creations was ruined when they were bought and taken over by different companies (Disney from George Lucas/Lucasfilm in 2012, and in the case of Halo, 343 Industries taking over in 2011 from the original creators, Bungie). I like Halo up to around the 3rd game (note I have never played the games but am familiar with much of the lore and stories); after that 343 began to exploit it commercially, changed much of the iconic design and colors (I hate the redesign of the Sangheili, for example, and the desaturated “gritty” visual design of later games and media, which has been regrettably trendy for a few years in games and movies generally) and revealed too much that was a mystery before. For me, the original Star Wars and Halo are the true visions.
My left foot is improving, but still gets a bit sore after prolonged walking, so I will have to be careful for some time yet.
Friday 13/4: Offline again!
Frustratingly, we (parents and I) are offline for a few days as something has gone wrong with the outside phone line connection around 3 p.m. yesterday (Thursday 12/4) and we have neither Internet (ADSL) or landline telephone access. Dad has a mobile phone (which he rarely uses), so he used that to phone the telecom company – mobiles use a separate network of towers. Troubleshooting via instructions over the phone was not successful, so the telecom will need to send out a technician to look at the connection (Monday or so). This last happened on 17 April 2015, co-incidentally enough (17/4/2015 entry). So I am Internet-deprived again! And I am having withdrawal symptoms already. Can’t look up information or visit my favorite sites.
Update: a technician came today, surprisingly quickly, and went up to the local telecom exchange to fix the problem, so we are back online (hopefully!).
May
Tuesday 1/5: Bicycling again; school class reunion invite; NBN approaches
Autumn weather has been mostly fine and sunny, thankfully, though there is rain coming later this week. Cold this morning, though. Foot is still a bit sore at times. I have been riding my bicycle most days for half-an-hour or so, but it is ancient (bought in 1991) and heavy to ride. (I can only look at those who have thousands of dollars to spend on a bicycle with wistful envy!)
I received an invitation to my school year group’s 30-year reunion for 18 May (1988 Year 12 class). As with past reunions, I probably will not attend, mainly out of shame at the failure my life is, and I did not graduate from Year 12 (dropped out after Term 1 due to a nervous breakdown). From the occasional mention of classmates on the alumni section of my school’s website, they all have been successfull in their lives. They would probably gossip disparagingly about me.
A notice arrived in the mail today that the “NBN (National Broadband Network) construction is commencing in your area … you will be contacted as soon as your property is ready for connection to the NBN network.” The rollout of the NBN has been very trouble-plagued, no thanks to the Liberal Government deliberately and spitefully sabotaging it from its original design under the previous Labour Government (Kevin Rudd). So getting this (for my parents’ home) feels rather like a threat than a promise!
Sunday 6/5: Injured again
I am in pain and not happy as my feet are troubling me again – this time it seems to be the tendons on both my heels, to the point where I can barely walk. This pain flared up last week, and I am now hobbling around awkwardly. I am stubbornly persisting with some moderated exercise – I can walk on the spot without too much pain, but my normal outside walks have been curtailed. I have been bicycling, but not excessively. I don’t know why I am having all these physical issues and it is very frustrating. So I probably won’t be in the mood to write very much until/if this injury resolves.
Wednesday 16/5: In agony
I visited a doctor on Monday. The GP confirmed what I had feared: I have plantar fasciitis, an inflamation of the tendon under the heels. I cannot walk without pain – each step is like getting spikes stuck in, or an electric shock in my heels. Walking is my main form of exercise, so that is now out for I don’t know how long. I shuffle and hobble along slowly like an old woman. The only activity I can do without pain is bicycling, but that is very unpleasant when the weather is bad (rain and wind). I try to do half an hour or so most days on my old bicycle. The condition could take weeks or even months to heal, if it ever does. Realistically I cannot stop walking anywhere – if I want to go places I have to walk, however painfully. I am in despair and pain and nothing seems to relieve it.
Sunday 20/5: Hobbled; a tacky wedding; absurd indulgences
The weather is damp and miserable, which I hate. I am still in pain when walking.
A royal wedding last night. I am not impressed with Meghan; I think she is tacky and a social climber (her being biracial, however, does not bother me). There is much mention of “breaking traditions,” which seems to be regarded as a positive in today’s society. I have come to dislike this attitude intensely; traditions (and taboos) are sometimes there for good reason and provide a sense of stability and continuity with the past. The society I live in, though, seems obsessed with breaking and abolishing these, as well as regarding change as positive.
This article about a pet charity was recently published in a local newspaper. What stunned me, though, was the founder spending $35,000 on surgery for her dog. Granted, she wanted to and could afford it, but it still seems an absurd indulgence for an animal. The rabbit mentioned is also needing nearly $3000 for its treatment. People in many cultures would regard this expenditure as insane.
Jed can’t walk on his own and is incontinent, but the love of his human Jennifer Hunt ensured a happy life for him and hundreds more pets
HE can’t walk on his own and is incontinent, but that hasn’t stopped Jed saving hundreds of lives.
The Border Collie, 17, is the inspiration behind the Pet Medical Crisis Fund, run by his human Jennifer Hunt from their home in Melbourne’s south east.
The not-for-profit charity helps pensioners and disadvantaged people pay for emergency care for their pets.
Ms Hunt started the fund in 2010 after spending about $35,000 on treatment for Jed after he ruptured two discs in his back in 2009.
“We were lucky because we had the money and were willing to spend it on Jed,” she said.
“But it made me think about the people who don’t have the money and end up having to have their pets put down because they can’t afford the care.”
The charity has now helped 450 families provide life saving care to their pets.
It donates a maximum $1000 towards each case and sometimes when more funds are needed helps to raise that money.
Ms Hunt said the organisation was currently raising money for Thumper the rabbit.
Thumper has bilateral ear abscesses and needs surgery on both ears.
It will cost his family $1100 per ear and an extra $800 for care already provided.
Thumper lives with Karen Danvers who is a single Mum and carer to daughter Kal, 16.
Kal has Cystic Fibrosis and requires regular hospital stays to receive antibiotics via an IV.
“He is so important to us. We lost our dog a few weeks ago and are still mourning him. I can’t bear the thought to saying goodbye to Thumper as well,” Ms Danvers said.
To make a tax deductible donation visit givenow.com.au/petmedicalcrisisfund and write Thumper in the message.
“We will make sure that 100 per cent of donations goes directly to assist this family and get Thumper back on his feet,” Ms Hunt said.
Monday 28/5: Kick him out?
‘You have to work!’ Judge sides with parents who want to force 30yo to leave home. This case predictably received much negative attention, vitriol and mockery last week. (MetaFilter, Reddit, Daily Mail, The Guardian. ) It is dismaying to see how much stigma being in such a situation (living with parents, relatives) has in modern Western society. This comment was made in the Reddit thread:
The leaving home as soon as you’re an adult thing is quite a recent phenomenon, held onto mostly by Western Baby Boomers. Before the recent past the dynamic was quite different (and in most cultures, has remained so).
Yes, it was common to move out when getting married, but it was equally common to retain close living or care arrangements with parents or other family, especially for people who remained single, or who were studying etc. Prior to the Boomer generation, many parents lived with their older children, relying on reciprocal care for young children and the aged. Many parents lived with their kids after marriage, often moving into granny flats or similar. “Moving out of home” was not emphasised (as recently as Howard’s early years), and the idea of being supported by one’s parents, and later supporting one’s parents, was considered the norm. It certainly didn’t attract the weird derogatory connotations it does today.
The “still living with your parents” and “I’m kicking the kids out the day they turn 18” tropes basically only came into being around the 70s, and are going to become laughably unrealistic in an aging population.
An opinion piece from the Herald-Sun, which is predictably nasty in tone and in favor of the “kick them out” option – and does not mention that such a situation is relatively new in society and that it is not always easy to just “get a job”:
We are to blame for today’s ‘bratitude’ kids
May 28, 2018
WHEN 30-year-old New Yorker, Michael Rotondo, refused to move out of his parents’ home, he was ordered by a US State Supreme Court Justice to vacate.
This landmark decision generated a great deal of discussion about parenting, enabling, living at home, entitlement and a range of other issues.
According to a variety of sources, Rotondo’s parents, Mark and Christina, sent their son numerous eviction notices and gave fair warning they’d take legal action if necessary. Advising him to “get a job”, they also offered financial aid along with other measures designed to help him kickstart an independent life.
Fronting the judge, Michael, who hasn’t worked in eight years, not only claimed he was focused on being a father – to a child to whom he lost visitation rights to two years earlier – but that he required six months’ notice to quit his parents’ home.
The judge sided with the parents.
While Michael appears to be a self-serving, idle sponge who believes the world owes him, there was something about this extreme case that struck a chord.
For the first time since the 1880s, young people are staying under their parental roof longer. Research from the OCED indicates that in 2016, 54 per cent of young people aged 15-29 in Australia were still living with their parents.
Myths about adult children living at home have arisen as a consequence. Terms such as “kidults”, “kippers” (Kids in Parents Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings), “gestater” (which refers to adults living at home comfortably with their parents despite having few assets themselves), “boomerangs” (kids who left home but returned) abound – with positive and negative connotations.
Citing factors such as education (many are still at university and therefore remain at home), housing affordability, cultural factors, saving to purchase accommodation, desire to travel, workforce casualisation, waiting until marriage, what’s evident is that numerous young people are not only using the bank of Mum and Dad to get ahead, but exploiting its benefits.
While many parents are more than happy with this – albeit with caveats and time limits – you have to wonder, as Ariadne Vromen, Professor of Political Sociology at Sydney University does, how well society is functioning if the majority of adult children under 30 are still living at home. Believing this is a problem, she argues, “it tells us something about the difficulties that young people face in gaining financial independence by moving out of home.”
According to other research and anecdotal evidence, it’s not just lack of financial independence keeping kids at home. Sometimes, parents make life so comfortable for the kids, who don’t pay rent, get meals cooked and laundry done – some without lifting a finger despite blazing rows and tension – why would they leave?
Yet, lots of families dwell happily under the same roof, sharing chores (or doing their own), paying board/rent and respecting the rules. Emotionally closer to their children than previous generations, these parents like their kids enough to cohabit. The biggest problem most families sharing a house experience is lack of privacy. Modern houses with their open plans aren’t conducive to personal space.
No wonder the “granny flat” – only this time for adult kids – is becoming popular again.
Writing for forbes.com, lawyer Carolyn Rosenblatt believes “there is typically something not quite right with the adult child who cannot support himself (sic). He wants his parents to give him free rent indefinitely. A kind of co-dependency has developed between parents and this adult offspring.”
In many cases, parents and the parental home have become the gift that keeps on giving. Mum and Dad become the one-stop grocery, laundromat, cleaning service, motel, personal assistant/s, restaurant and corner store, never mind ATM. Nothing like free board to keep the kids under the roof.
This is more than co-dependency; this giving with no return expected or demanded, is enabling.
Instead of allowing kids to shoulder responsibility (which might include debt and struggle), too many well-meaning but misguided parents assume it for them, facilitating dependency and neediness, ensuring their adult kids remain children. This is often accompanied by a lack of respect for the parents and no gratitude for the sacrifices being made – only “bratitude”.
There’s nothing wrong with helping our kids, it’s how and why we do this and what we expect and get in return that’s important. There comes a time when we have to stop making excuses – for them and ourselves.
If there’s no mutual respect or give and take, there’s no real relationship. In other contexts, it would be called being ab/used.
As the Rotondo family painfully and publicly learned, the one thing you don’t want to raise is a lazy loser who’s being legally compelled to do what should be natural for the majority of healthy offspring: grow up, get a job and leave home (not necessarily in that order).
If that “should” be the attitude of parents, why bother having children?
June
Tuesday 5/6: Poetic vs. prosaic prose
Winter is here, with the dreaded cold nights and unpleasant dampness. I find it unbearable now, and living in a poorly-insulated house does not help. I dread the thought of being homeless and trying to cope with the winter.
The plantar fasciitis in my feet has improved a bit; I can walk around without much pain now, though I am still being careful. The last few weeks have been awful.
One author I have discovered recently is Benjanun Sriduangkaew (Wikipedia entry), a Thai writer. Her stories are similar to K Arsenault Rivera’s (29/10/2017 entry) in that the prose is lush and poetic, slow-paced and a joy in itself to read, as well as being a merging of science fiction and fantasy elements and is Asian-influenced (which I like). Some of her stories can be read on her website. My favorite so far is “Autodiadict” – “On Srisunthorn Station, the corpses of conquered stars are nurtured into ships. […] The ship’s nursery is checkered by gravity shells and asteroid maps. On the ceiling, engine constituents pulse, feeding off the radiative distortion. The star itself punches a hole into light, six-dimensional; only a facet exists in the nursery, but even behind the protective sheathing the sight of it hurts. Nirapha’s limbs are heavy–the gravity is higher here, on the outer edges of comfort. In the presence of divinity we sear away until we are choked dust, she recalls a classical verse. We break.” If only I could write like that! It is a refreshing change from the more usual prosaic style that is common in sci-fi and most modern fantasy, though not to everyone’s taste. The actual physics and science perhaps might be implausible by today’s knowledge, but who cares? Sometimes one wants some “space magic.”
She is not a high-profile author so her books can be hard to find (I ordered a physical copy of the latest, Winterglass). It is frustrating to see mediocre fantasy authors getting a lot of publicity and popularity (two who are such at Reddit are Brandon Sanderson and Michael J. Sullivan – woe betide anyone who dares to criticize their stories). I made the mistake of ordering the first two physical copies in Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive series, The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, about 2 years ago, and still have not got past Chapter 15 (he writes prolifically, and the three published novels in the projected 10-book series will all be massive tomes). They have gorgeous illustrations (U.S. covers by one of my favorite artists, Michael Whelan) and maps, and the worldbuilding is detailed and well-thought-out, but the writing style is itself utilitarian at best. Similarly with Sullivan – he writes generic traditonal fantasy and I have not managed to get past one or two chapters as they are just “meh.”
I have just read Peter Watts’ latest novella, The Freeze-Frame Revolution. It is typical sci-fi in that it has interesting ideas and technology – in this case a black-hole-powered starship whose crew hibernates for thousands of years in between constructing wormhold stargates as it travels around the galaxy. But his tone is one of cynical nihilism and his characters use a lot of collaquisms and swear a lot, which for me at least gets wearying. His most well-known novel is Blindsight (available on his website), featuring genetically-engineered vampires meeting a very alien intelligence in the outer reaches of the Solar System, which I am trying to read, but it is in the same bleak style.
There is also The Expanse series. I have only managed to finish the seventh novel, Persepolis Rising. Another case of some interesting ideas (a human starship built with alien technology) but the execution (as in the prose) is lacking. The authors seem to be trying to be deep and meaningful with rather obvious statements, but these come across as obvious and trite. I tried to start the first novel, but could not engage in it – I find the characters unlikeable; they all have the same snarky cynical outlook that seems common in modern sci-fi and fantasy. The TV series has garnered a fanatical following.
Sunday 10/6: Blindsight; favorite cultures
Rethinking Peter Watts’ Blindsight (what I have read so far), mentioned in my last (5/6) entry, there are some descriptions that are quite evocative, almost poetic in their own way, but in a bleakly nihilistic sense. A few samples from the first pages:
She’d taken us a good fifteen AUs towards our destination before something scared her off course. Then she’d skidded north like a startled cat and started climbing: a wild high three-gee burn off the ecliptic, thirteen hundred tonnes of momentum bucking against Newton’s First. She’d emptied her Penn tanks, bled dry her substrate mass, squandered a hundred forty days’ of fuel in hours. Then a long cold coast through the abyss, years of stingy accounting, the thrust of every antiproton weighed against the drag of sieving it from the void. Teleportation isn’t magic: the Icarus stream couldn’t send us the actual antimatter it made, only the quantum specs. Theseus had to filterfeed the raw material from space, one ion at a time. For long dark years she’d made do on pure inertia, hoarding every swallowed atom. Then a flip; ionizing lasers strafing the space ahead; a ramscoop thrown wide in a hard brake. The weight of a trillion trillion protons slowed her down and refilled her gut and flattened us all over again. Theseus had burned relentless until almost the moment of our resurrection. […]
Where was I when the lights came down?
I was emerging from the gates of Heaven, mourning a father who was–to his own mind, at least–still alive.
They clenched around the world like a fist, each black as the inside of an event horizon until those last bright moments when they all burned together. They screamed as they died. Every radio up to geostat groaned in unison, every infrared telescope went briefly snowblind. Ashes stained the sky for weeks afterwards; mesospheric clouds, high above the jet stream, turned to glowing rust with every sunrise. The objects, apparently, consisted largely of iron. Nobody ever knew what to make of that.
I coast through the abyss on the colder side of Neptune’s orbit. Most of the time I exist only as an absence, to any observer on the visible spectrum: a moving, asymmetrical silhouette blocking the stars. But occasionally, during my slow endless spin, I glint with dim hints of reflected starlight. If you catch me in those moments you might infer something of my true nature: a segmented creature with foil skin, bristling with joints and dishes and spindly antennae. Here and there a whisper of accumulated frost clings to a joint or seam, some frozen wisp of gas encountered in Jupiter space perhaps. Elsewhere I carry the microscopic corpses of Earthly bacteria who thrived with carefree abandon on the skins of space stations or the benign lunar surface–but who had gone to crystal at only half my present distance from the sun. Now, a breath away from Absolute Zero, they might shatter at a photon’s touch.
Aside from Samurai-era Japan, my other favorite historical cultures are those of ancient China, and also Mesoamerica (the Maya and Aztecs) and the Inca of ancient Peru edit: and the ancient Spartans!. I like the aesthetics and various social aspects of their cultures (the more bloody aspects, such as the human sacrifices, don’t bother me too much – the society in which I live has merely virtualized violence for the most part). It is hard to find any fiction or movies about the latter two (Aztecs, Maya and Inca), though – the only well-known movie featuring aspects of these is Mel Gibson’s brutally visceral Apocalypto, which was more of a historical fantasy. In my 16/2/2007 entry I did mention a documentary I saw about an earlier Peruvian culture, the Moche, who provided initial inspiration for my Star Warrior culture (and I still draw aspects from my favorite Central and South American cultures).
Friday 15/6: From one extreme to the other; cool video
I have been following Elle Tayla (also known as Elle Lietzow) on her Instagram and YouTube accounts for a couple of years. She had an eating disorder and lost three of her fingers due to necrosis after a stay in hospital and reaction to blood pressure medication. She has put on weight – a lot of weight, as her Instagram September 2017 photo below shows – and in my opinion she has gone from starving to binging. Despite all the flattering (and delusional) comments from concern trolls, she has gone a bit too far with the weight gain.
This awesome-looking short video teaser, “Preatoria,” was produced by Oats Studios. I love the iridescent armor the protagonist is wearing.
Sunday 17/6: Changing attitudes
A miserable, wet, cold day – horrible winter weather.
In my 4/10/2017 entry, I noted that I was becoming more tolerant of children as I get older. I feel the same way about religion (at least, about Christianity; I have no liking or trust for Islam). I am not atheist, but more agnostic and open-minded. In fact I find the atheist doctrine bleak and intolerant, and devoid of any joy, hope or wonder. I see nothing wrong with believing both in science (the “how”) and religion/spirituality (the “why”). I want there to be some sort of afterlife in which I can see my deceased relatives again (my maternal grandmother in particular) – if that is self-delusional thinking, so be it. Whatever one finds comfort in.
For example, I am reading some of my old posts that are hostile to the Russian Orthodox Church back in 2006 or so, and feel rather embarassed now about my rudeness (including that towards the Tsars). (Some examples: 8/5/2009; 28/12/2007; 24/9/2007; 29/9/2006; 28/7/2005 entries.) I can appreciate the gorgeous iconography and interiors of the buildings, and the meaning of the religion to Russia over the centuries, and the awful destruction of history and tradition that the Communist Revolution inflicted (as similar happened in China with its revolution). So if I have offended anyone back then, I apologize now! From 2022, not any longer! I am once again hostile towards religious institutions and their awful retrograde conservative outlook.
The Reddit site users are generally atheist (though there are religious subreddits); the hostility towards religion there is intense at times.
Tuesday 26/6: Corporate indoctrination
“Schooling future customers,” The Age 25/6. I found the topic of this article disturbing and morally reprehensible: using holiday playgroup programs for children as an insidious way for businesses to indoctrinate them into consumer “brand loyalty.” It seems there is nothing advertisers and businesses will not do to gain customers. I hate seeing children manipulated like this; it is bad enough with adults. Another symptom of a capitalist society out of control, whose primary purpose is to buy and sell, and persuade people to buy a lot of useless stuff in order to make profits. An ultimately empty and morally bankrupt society, and the mental health issues an increasing number of people have are one symptom of this: their lives are empty and lack any true meaning.
The following article (reproduced here as it is behind a paywall) also infuriated me for a similar reason:
More teens should ‘go out and learn the value of a buck’, says Barefoot Investor Scott Pape
Herald-Sun, June 24, 2018
Teenage students should get a part-time job – preferably sweating over a griller on minimum wage – as soon as they are old enough to legally start work, according to investment guru Scott Pape.
Pape, the best-selling author better known as The Barefoot Investor, is adamant teens should start paid employment as soon as possible to help them become financially savvy adults.
“My view is at age 15 a teenager should be forced by their parents to get a part-time job,” he said.
Pape said some parents might baulk at ferrying kids to and from work but it should be treated the same as driving them to sports and social events.
“At least if you take them to a job they have to do their hair, look presentable, do what they’re told, turn up on time, follow rules – and they get paid so that means they’re not asking you for money,” he said.
“You get to teach them about bank accounts, superannuation and they get to learn about cash. Really, the way I look at it, I reckon parents should be paying McDonald’s for this because this is like an education in real world 101.
“No matter what school they’re at, you are not getting a great education if your teenager isn’t flipping burgers somewhere for the minimum wage.”
Pape believes too many teenagers today have a sense of entitlement and there is a risk of raising “precious little snowflakes” if kids are not made to work and appreciate the value of a buck. Barefoot Investor Scott Pape.
I believe we are raising a generation of entitled kids and the only way you can beat entitlement out of kids is hard work and kindness, or gratitude. I focus on both, but hard work comes first,” he said.
“Even if your kid gets to be the dux of school if they don’t know the value of a buck, or how to work hard or take direction from a boss, I don’t think they’ve got the right education.”
Pape said it was not necessary for kids to work a lot, even one or two shifts a week would set them up for success, without interfering with studies.
“It’s not about the money, it’s about learning the value of a buck,” he said.
Pape, who is now working on a new book aimed at parents, said children should start working before the VCE years, as there were fewer study demands, and actively work through their teen years.
He suggests allowing children to make some of their own choices about how they spend or save their money while having conversations about needs versus wants and savings plans with end goals.
“They will make mistakes and that’s good. You want them to make mistakes when they are 15, not 35. It’s a really wonderful way for young people, still in the safe confines of the family home, to get a dose of the real world.”
HOW TO RAISE A FINANCIALLY-SAVVY TEEN
- Kids should get a part-time job as soon as they’re legally old enough
- Let teenagers make choices about how they spend or save their own money
- Talk about high interest bank accounts, the power of compound interest, superannuation and savings goals so children can make informed choices
- One or two shifts a week is enough to teach the power of money
How about letting children and teenagers enjoy their life while they can without forcing them into the wage-slave mentality – and forcing them into some shitty exploitative “McJob” at that? I have come to loathe the phrase “work hard” as it is used by right-wing conservative types to look morally superior – usually when denigrating so-called “dole-bludgers.”
Another article from 2014, “The desperate hustle as a way of life.” On the loss of job security with the rise of the Sharing Economy (unregulated casual labor).
But this life of hustle – the idea that everything you do, every day, needs to turn a profit or you starve – is familiar to anyone who lives or grew up in an inner city.
It is a horrible and stressful way to survive in this society.
July
Sunday 1/7: The latest welfare-bashing articles
The obnoxious tabloid Herald-Sun has published yet another in its lengthening list of welfare recipient-scapegoating articles in today’s edition (there was an editorial also, but it is not up on the online website yet) (previous mention: 1/4 entry).
Or pay a Basic Income so that people don’t have to go begging and scraping and competing for shitty degrading jobs to survive? (See article in 26/6 entry – “Teenage students should get a part-time job – preferably sweating over a griller on minimum wage – as soon as they are old enough to legally start work, according to investment guru Scott Pape.” To hell with that opinion!)
Monday 9/7: SSL enabled
I notice that my host has enabled Secure Sockets certificates for web addresses, so my website can now be accessed via https://suzymchale.com.
Monday 30/7: Tired; worldbuilding update
Another month almost gone! Just one more month of winter left. The cold has been miserable for me this year again.
Little of interest to report. My feet seem to have healed from the plantar fasciitis (fingers crossed!), so I have eased back into walking again. I seem to have had one injury after another this year, so it has not been good for me.
I was feeling so exhausted and sore yesterday that I could barely move. Today I am a bit better. I seem to have occasional “bursts” of somewhat manic energy and a better mood (like now), followed by an awful lethargy.
I have made little progress on my creative worldbuilding, though I have managed to finish one digital rendition of a new starship design. I am at a low ebb with that, compared to a few years ago. I am also vaciliating between a version with more “magic” (faster-than-light) technology, and a more realistic version where my aliens live in a habitable system not too far away (in galactic terms!) My current chosen star is Zeta Tucanae, 28 light years away – at current speeds it would take nearly 2 centuries to get there. I might use the ISV Venture Star starship in the Avatar movie for reference, though, which travels up to 70% of light speed. This would shorten the journey to only 40 years as viewed from Earth, and nearly 20 years onboard the ship, due to the time dilation factor (online calculator).
August
Sunday 5/8: The Freeze-Frame Revolution
I am feeling exhausted and in pain again, so the following review (as such!) is a bit haphazard; I will write some now and perhaps some in a later entry.
I mentioned sci-fi author Peter Watts in my 5/6 and 10/6 entries. I am actually liking his writing now; it is intelligent if sometimes difficult. I have read (well, listened to) his most well-known novel Blindsight and now to its sequel, Echopraxia (I will have to read them properly again).
I felt compelled to buy a hard copy of his latest novella, The Freeze-Frame Revolution this week. This involves a starship (a converted asteroid called the Eriophora) that travels around the Milky Way galaxy, creating wormholes behind it for its original human creators to use. The human crew on board are kept mostly in stasis (there are 30,000 or so of them), some only being wakened by the resident Artificial Intelligence (nicknamed “Chimp”) when needed to help with the Gate construction (it is a “dumb” AI so is not omnipotent). Some of the crew were the originals who launched with the mission 65 million years since the launch date; some are raised in vats and wakened. There has been no communications from the originators of the mission, and it now seems to be self-perpetuating, to the great dismay of those onboard. Those who are awakened every few thousand or million years are becoming psychologically unstable and some want to rebel against the AI, which they are finding untrustworthy. The story does not have a clear-cut conclusion; it is part of a series, three others of which are available on the author’s site (in reading order: Hotshot, The Freeze-Frame Revolution, The Island, Giants – these are in the “Sunflowers” universe). The time span covered is astonishing, beyond human comprehension, as is the near-magic wormhole technology. The novel has the sort of mind-expanding concepts that I want when reading science fiction.
He did a recent “Ask Me Anything” at Reddit.
Oddly, the creating wormhole gates concept put me in mind of C. J. Cherryh’s Morgaine cycle, though in these the main character travels through a Gate network to destroy each one as they threaten universal causality.
In this interview, Peter Watts mentions one reason for writing about the Gate creators:
The Freeze-Frame Revolution is not your first novel. Are there any writers or specific novels that had an influence on The Freeze-Frame Revolution but not on your previous stories?
Not on The Freeze-Frame Revolution exclusively, but the whole Sunflowers Cycle is at least partly a reaction to all those authors who got around the lightspeed barrier by invoking a magical system of stargates left behind by The Progenitors or The Forerunners or The Ancients – whatever name we’re using this week to describe the conveniently-extinct species who left their superhighways behind for us to play with. Nobody seems to worry about the poor bastards who had to go out there and build the gates to begin with.
That is a theme that always bothered me too – it is a trope that conveniently skips all the hard technical details of how such gates might be built!
Thursday 9/8: In pain yet again
Yet another leg injury, this time around my left hip and groin (abductor?). I was carrying a few heavy loads of items for donation to local charity shops last week (I can’t drive and don’t have a car, so have to walk or bicycle), and think that is the cause of this; a delayed soreness. Once again I can barely walk, so I am hobbling around in great pain. Very frustrating.
Wednesday 15/8: Torn muscle
Yesterday I went to my local GP about the ongoing groin pain and she referred me for an ultrasound scan of the area in a nearby clinic, which I had done today. Verdict is a partly-torn adductor muscle, which only some rest and time can heal. I was worried that it was a hernia. Still a frustrating and disabling injury though – just walking anywhere is painful. I think I will have to try out using a walking stick! So I will not be carrying heavy loads like that again – as I have found out the hard way.
Pink blossom has been appearing on street plum trees for the last 3 weeks – a happy sign that Spring is approaching.
I have been watching The Expanse series (series 1 so far); I am quite enjoying it, so will give the novels another chance. A Reddit post from a few weeks ago noted that the reasonable attempt at realism had spoiled other sci-fi for them; I would tend to agree! Though there still is a “magic” alien element in the form of the protomolecule and the wormhole gates that lead to other extrasolar planets.
Wednesday 22/8: Walking stick; wanderer
My new “best friend” is a walking stick! It does help take some of the weight off my leg. It is a nice metallic blue one. I am still in pain, so activity is limited.
Some years ago Australian Story featured a documentary on Grant “John” Cadoret, a then-young man who had chosen a life on the road as a swagman rather than a conventional life; he was restless and unhappy in the latter. He had not contacted his parents in all that time to their distress. The video is no longer available, unfortunately, but there are some transcripts: The Highway Man (2004), a 2009 follow-up, and another. He is not in good health (had lost a few teeth) but seemed content with his ascetic wandering life, though it is a difficult way to live.
Thursday 23/8: School sports stupidity
The latest stupid proposal by the Victorian Government Liberal Opposition leader (the obnoxious twat known as Matthew Guy) is for participating in competitive sport to be made compulsory in public schools. This seems a sure way to make school life more of a misery for those children who dislike such activities (like I was, they may not be popular with their peers and be the last picked for a team). Competitive sports are not necessarily “character-building,” but they are fetishized to a ridiculous degree in Australia (given our anti-intellectual culture – the arguably more important and enriching arts tend to be neglected, sadly).
Coalition will make competitive sport compulsory in government schools
August 20, 2018 10:23am
Matthew Johnston
EXCLUSIVE: Competitive sport would become compulsory in Victorian state schools under a radical Coalition initiative. Mandatory inter-school sports competitions will be rolled out if the Opposition wins November’s election.
The program, to make children more active and resilient, would be piloted in year 7 across three regions in 2020.
Competitive sport would become compulsory in Victorian state schools under a radical Coalition initiative. Picture: File.
Pupils from dozens of schools would compete in sports such as football, soccer, netball, swimming, cricket, athletics, tennis, cycling and basketball.
The aim would be to then expand the program statewide, and to other year levels.
Schools are currently expected to provide 100 minutes a week of physical education or sport, but formal competition is not necessary.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy will unveil his plan to build “healthy teamwork, independence, resilience and discipline” on Monday.
“At the moment, too many of our children are spending too much time playing virtual sport and not enough time playing real sport,” he said.
The pilot program would run in a Melbourne metropolitan district, a regional city district and a rural district.
Students would be excused only for injuries or illness.
Students would have to choose a new sport each term.
Early in the term they would be coached in the rules and basic skills of that sport.
Intra-school competitions would follow, then round-robin matches between neighbouring school teams.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy will unveil his plan to build “healthy teamwork, independence, resilience and discipline” on Monday.
Rural campuses would have a greater focus on intra-school competitions, given the distances between them; a carnival would be held for all schools in the area at the end of term.
Opposition education spokesman Tim Smith said: “Learning how to win and lose and abiding by the rules of the game are such important lessons that sport teaches young people. There are also countless studies that sport and activity is not only great for overall health, it’s also good for mental wellbeing and academic performance.
“A happy and healthy generation of young Victorians is so important for the future.”
Olympic gold medal rower David Crawshay said organised competitions taught students to work together and handle disappointment.
“These days a lot of kids don’t know how to handle that sort of adversity and the fact you are not always going to win. You can learn a lot more from losing than from winning sometimes,” he said.
Adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said the expanding waistlines of children was “unsustainable” and the program would help tackle epidemic obesity.
The pilot project would inform the government on how it could be improved and the likely costs. Recommendations would then be made on how to expand it.
The program is part of a broader curriculum review focusing on literacy and numeracy; science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM); history; and sport and physical activity.
Couple of letters from The Age:
Cater for the ‘non-sporty'
Why does Matthew Guy’s plan to encourage children to be more active have to involve competitive sport? This will cause anxiety for those who are not naturally “sporty”. Why not promote bike riding, weight training, bush walking, dancing or other physical activities that do not have to involve competition?
– Caitlin Stone, Brunswick East
Pain of being 'non-sporty'
In theory, compulsory competitive sports at school may look good. Asa child and young adult, Iwassubjected to that idea. However, I had no sporting ability and ended up being bullied. I was always the last to be picked for teams and, at times, was punished as it was considered that I was deliberately failing and letting down the school. I now have a considerable dislike of sports.
– Laurens Meyer, Richmond
And from the Herald-Sun, 22/8:
Be careful, sport
While it is a fact that too many kids are far too sedentary for the good of their health, the proposition for compulsory sports in schools needs careful consideration (“Whole new ball game,” HS, Aug 20).
When I was at school, my leanings were academic. I was hopeless at sports and so I was demeaned in front of the other kids.
Eventually, I found ways to avoid sport by being able to employ my skills in music and, later, as a library and science monitor.
In my late teens and early 20s, I discovered sports, including tennis, squash, swimming and jogging. Admittedly, some were with little skill, but I was fit and enjoyed sports at my level as they were my discovery, my choice – I was no longer forced to play.
Victoria is sport-mad. That doesn’t mean this applies to every Victorian child. Yes, certainly encourage physical and outdoor activities, but to be forced into something a kid might abhor is potentially psychologically dangerous.
– Bryan Leech, Upwey
Edit, 28/8/2018: Another article: “Making kids do ‘traditional’ sport is a big mistake,” The Age, 26/8/2018.
Tuesday 28/8: Slowly healing (again)
My left leg’s partly-torn adductor is feeling a little better – still sore, but not agonizingly painful like it was last week. I still, of course, have to be careful not to re-tear it. I can move around better; I still take the walking stick with me but don’t need it so strongly.
September
Friday 28/9: Woes down below
I am still alive! But more health woes, so I have not felt like posting here at all. This time it is … bowel problems! I had a bout of constipation from last Thursday 20/9, which I have not experienced like that before (I am usually regular, at least once a day), to the point where I went to the emergency department at Sandringham Hospital on Sunday 23/9 to see what they could find! By that time I was in much discomfort and panicking that I had some sort of blockage. They took a blood sample and did an x-ray, but nothing abnormal showed up. I was given both laxatives and an enema, and they cleared me out after a bit of a wait. Messy and embarrassing, but a relief! (The nurses are saints.) I was there around 6 hours; Mum came with me (bless her). I then went to my local GP where I got another blood sample, an ultrasound scan (I was full of gas, which was remarked upon a few times!) and she suggested I get a colonoscopy, but I will cancel the last; I doubt that anything specific will be found. My diet is healthy (lots of fruit and vegetables, no processed foods, meats, sweets) and I do all the suggested remedies (exercise, etc.) so that was an aberration. I am now functioning more-or-less normally again, though I still get bloated and uncomfortable after eating, so it will take my body a while to settle.
I also developed an irritating soreness in my lower left abdomen and back from that Thursday, which I still have. I am sure that is related to the bowel issues. I was reading through this forum post on the Irritable Bowel Syndrome forum, and quite a few others have had the same odd problem! I do believe I have IBS, and this latest ordeal was a new manifestation of it. Remember I had surgery for a rectal prolapse back in December 2008 and May 2009 (the second one as the first attempt was unsuccessful), both at Sandringham Hospital also, so my bowel issues have been ongoing.
(I might add that thanks to Australia’s public health system and my Health Care Card, none of this has cost me anything – for which I am deeply grateful! I could simply not have been able to afford medical care otherwise, as would be the case did I live in the USA. As much as I otherwise like that country, access to its quality health care is sadly lacking for the poor.)
October
Thursday 4/10: Not well
I am still not recovered from my latest health drama (28/9 entry). I saw my GP on Tuesday 2/10. She wanted an extended session as she is very concerned for my physical and mental health. The tests I had (blood, ultrasound) were mostly normal, though I have a low white blood cell count and elevated lipase level. I have somehow lost 3 kilograms since my last weight check in August (now measured at 40.3 kg and 158.5 cm height). I am to see her again next Tuesday. She wanted very strongly to contact a mental health team from Monash Hospital. I deferred but have the feeling I am being “herded” towards things I don’t want to do. She was concerned that I seemed mentally “flat” and that I was obviously unwell. I don’t want to make any decisions and the only help I want is to continue as I am and otherwise be left alone. I suppose I am undertaking a form of passive suicide (I have no courage to actively attempt it) in that my body will eventually fail (physcially I resemble a concentration camp survivor). I have no future to look forward to, no career, no skills, no money, am reliant upon my aging parents, and so on. The outside world is too daunting for me and I have given up.
Frustratingly, I have done almost nothing creative this year, though an urge is still there. The images and words are still in my head, but I cannot sit down to get them out. My worldbuilding project is effectively in hibernation, though I still have interest in it. I do immerse myself a bit in the worlds of others. I still manage to read books and watch some movies.
Comfort. I need comfort. One of my favorite authors now is Peter Watts (5/8 entry); I savor his stories and characters. His science fiction is not easy but is oddly comforting, perhaps because his characters are flawed and messed-up psychologically.
I like movies and stories about a small group of people in an isolated situation – perhaps in a spaceship, or in the wilderness. I watched the notorious Bone Tomahawk last week, and did enjoy it (if that is the right expression!). Yes I did watch the notorious slicing-in-half scene. Sometimes it can be oddly comforting to read or watch fiction where the characters are much worse off than oneself. Another recent movie watched was Hell or High Water, which I surprisingly enjoyed. I do like American Westerns, more set in the present day. I recall watching old ones on Saturday afternoon TV when young (1970s), some at my maternal grandmother’s home. I know of Cormac McCarthy and might try his fiction (15/2/2008 entry – my views have changed since that entry and I am more partial now to “literary”-style writing).
Friday 12/10: A little bit better; Soyuz launch mishap
I am feeling a little better than last time I wrote, but still not back to normal. I saw my GP on Tuesday, but nothing productive ensued as I do not want to commit to anything.
The weather is slowly warming up; there have been some days in the low 20s (°C) and clear skies and sunshine, like today. It is glorious. I have been so cold for so long.
Something went drastically wrong with the latest launch of an International Space Station crew. The Soyuz-FG rocket malfunctioned during the first few minutes of flight, triggering the launch escape system that separated the Soyuz spaceship from the rocket and into a ballistic re-entry back onto the steppes of Kazakhstan. Thankfully the crew of two survived, though they had to endure higher than normal g-forces and were undoubtedly bruised, sore and shaken. Some news reports are at NASASpaceflight.com, NASA, a Reddit post at r/space, a Wikipedia page. This did prove that the launch escape system works, but is a major embarrassment for Russia (again! The last was the Progress MS-04 mission failure in December 2016) and suggests that there is something very dysfunctional with their spaceflight program.
Monday 29/10: Noodling along; enjoying Peter Watts stories; a doomed environment
I am … okay, I guess? No further injuries (so far). The weather is still warming up; into the low 30s later this week! The awful freezing mornings have abated.
My current favorite author is Peter Watts; I have read Blindsight and Echopraxia, enjoyed them both and have now started on his first novels (set in the deep ocean), Starfish and its sequels (Maelstrom and Behemoth – all available for reading on his website. His dysfunctional characters appeal to me – my favorite, oddly, is Jukka Sarasti, the “vampire” from Blindsight.
On 8 October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report that “said global emissions of greenhouse gas pollution must reach zero by about 2050 in order to stop global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.” Any chance of that happening? Probably not, given that governments, business and the economy are locked into the consumerist system of buying and selling ever more stuff. Peter Watts had an angry blog entry on the topic:
It’s been a couple of weeks now since the IPCC report came out. You know what it says. If the whole damn species pulls together in a concerted effort “without historical precedent” – if we start right now, and never let up on the throttle – we just might be able to swing the needle back from Catastrophe to mere Disaster. If we cut carbon emissions by half over the next decade, eliminate them entirely by 2050; if the species cuts its meat and dairy consumption by 90%; if we invent new unicorn technologies for sucking carbon back out of the atmosphere (or scale up extant prototype tech by a factor of two million in two years) – if we commit to these and other equally Herculean tasks, then we might just barely be able to keep global temperature from rising more than 1.5°C. We’ll only lose 70-90% of the word’s remaining coral reefs (which are already down by about 50%, let’s not forget). Only 350 million more urban dwellers will be exposed to severe drought and “deadly heat” events. Only 130-140 million will be inundated. Global fire frequency will only increase by 38%. Fish stocks in low latitudes will be irreparably hammered, but it might be possible to save the higher-latitude populations. We’ll only lose a third of the permafrost. You get the idea.
We have twelve years to show results.
If we don’t pull all these things off – if, for example, we only succeed in meeting the flaccid 2°C aspirations of the Paris Accords – then we lose all the coral. We lose the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Greenland Ice Shelf (not that it isn’t already circling the bowl, of course). Twice as many people suffer “aggravated water scarcity” than at 1.5°C; 170% more of the population deals with fluvial flooding. The increase in global wildfire frequency passes 60% and keeps going. Marine fisheries crash pole to pole. The number of species that loses at least half their traditional habitat is 2-3 times higher than would have been the case at 1.5°C. It goes on.
So even if I get my life going again (unlikely at this stage, if ever), society and the environment are doomed anyway. Humans as a species are unlikely to become extinct – we are quite adaptable – but there is a real chance society as we know it will collapse, or at least become a lot more unpleasant.
November
Friday 2/11: Wasteful public funding; Blair Witch movie; new glasses; Blindsight fan project
These two recent stories disgusted me for similar reasons – representing a misdirection of taxpayer funding:
“Star athletes sign open letter pleading for more money to rescue Australian sport from ‘mediocrity’,” ABC News, 24/10. I really could not care less about damn sport – they should find their own private funding via corporations, etc. There are far more important things to spend funding on, such as welfare, health, etc. Also the Arts – these are chronically underfunded and are arguable of far more importance to society than sport.
“Australian War Memorial’s $500m expansion to honour ‘Invictus generation’,” ABC News, 1/11. When it comes to military-related spending, public funding can magically be found, it seems. To spend half-a-billion dollars on fetishizing the dead is beyond comprehension. Most comments in a Reddit post are equally disgusted at the extravagance:
More evidence that the government wants to militarise Australian culture and history. To put the military at the top of the totem pole so nobody critiques the money spend on it or why it is used lest they be seen as “not supporting our troops”. No surprise that the Coalition will do this and all the similar things they can before the next election. It’s not like we have public school teachers that can’t afford basic supplies and are dipping into their own pockets. It’s not as if basic Medicare services and rebates have been quietly slashed under this government. It’s not as if the ABC has its funding cut to the point multiple investigative journalism programs were terminated. No, just need to spend half a billion to ensure the public place the military at the top of this country’s needs …
I watched the movie The Blair Witch Project, the original version which was screened on commercial TV for Halloween. I have seen it once before this year, but not when it originally was released in 1999. For such a minimalist movie, it is surprisingly and effectively scary, and I am not easily scared! What happens to the three young people featured is unclear, and the story is more effective that way – don’t try to explain everything, but leave some aspects of it a mystery.
I visited the optometrist at long last on Thursday 18/10 (last time I went was in 2014!). My eyesight is a little worse (-4.25 rather than -4). I did get some new glasses, with metallic green frames. Green is one of my favorite colors, along with blue, pink and purple. An interesting bit of trivia I just found out is that violet is an actual color – “the color at the end of the visible spectrum of light between blue and the invisible to humans ultraviolet” – while purple is “a composite color made by combining red and blue.”
A fan of Peter Watts’ novel Blindsight is doing a “collaborative project” that looks awesome! My favorite character is the “vampire” Jukka Sarasti, who is pictured there, though he looks more normal human than how the vampires are described in the novel.
In some awe-inspiring news, the European Science Observatory announced more confirmation that a black hole lurks at our Galaxy’s center!
Sunday 11/11: A year older; Blindsight fan art; Swankivy; dislike of social media
48 now. I received a new office chair (my previous one had been my seat since 2001!) and new glasses, with a metallic green frame.
I managed to complete a portrait (fan art!) in Inkscape of the vampire character from Blindsight, Jukka Sarasti, my favorite character. I am not sure of his hair or eye color (were not described), only that his skin is very pale. I am not entirely happy with it, but as I have been creatively dead for much of this year (and mentally and physically exhausted), it’s an achievement for me!
I am also now reading an earlier Peter Watts novel, Starfish, which I am also enjoying; set in the equally alien deep ocean rather than space, with equally damaged characters.
“Swankivy” (Julie Sondra Decker), a woman who has documented a lot of her life on the Internet for many years (last mentioned in my 26/8/2012 entry) is a fan of the American TV cartoon series Steven Universe, and has accumulated a huge collection of merchandise (much of it displayed in this single photo). There must be a few thousand dollars’ worth of items there by now!
I have come to really hate social media sites. They pester a visitor incessantly via obtrusive modals and popups to register or sign in, and are generally unpleasant to visit; I find I feel exhausted and overwhelmed after a while of scrolling through them. I also dislike the trend for book authors, artists and such to use social media as their main interaction with their fans, rather than an apparently “old-fashioned” traditional website. Social media sites exist purely to make money and to sell personal information to advertisers – their “free” usage comes at a privacy cost. I am signed up to some, but mainly to follow others there and reserve my name.
Sunday 25/11: Happy at election results; Occupation movie
The Victorian State election was held yesterday. Much to my relief, Labor (left-wing) was re-elected. I voted Labor first on both Upper and Lower Houses, followed by the Greens, and put Liberals (right-wing) last.
I watched an Australian-made movie called Occupation, about an alien invasion of Australia. It was reasonably entertaining and well-made, if not innovative, though its release here was very brief. It was a nice change to hear Australian accents in such a scenario, rather than the usual American ones!
December
Thursday 6/12: Heating up; an unwelcome health issue returns; Russia back in space
The hot weather has begun: around 35°C today, 25°C tonight and 38°C tomorrow.
In an unwelcome health development, it appears that the rectal prolapse I had surgeries for back in December 2008 and May 2009 is in the process of returning. So I have to try to see the surgeon I saw last time – as I will have to be a public patient again (can’t afford private health insurance), getting treatment will be a lengthy and wearisome process. (The surgeon did say there was a chance of recurrence.) I saw a GP last week, who sent a letter requesting an appointment. I have no idea when I will hear back from him. The recurrence is probably related to a weakened pelvic floor – I came across this medical paper that seemed relevant (though the patient is much younger). (Backup Archive.org link.) RP is not the sort of health issue that gets discussed much for obvious reasons, but I am over being embarrassed about rear end issues!
In some happy news, the latest crew was successfully launched on 3/12 to the International Space Station on a Soyuz spaceship and rocket (see my RuSpace Soyuz missions to the ISS page for details – Soyuz MS-11 carrying the ISS-57/58 crew).
In a very frustrating move, TsUP (Moscow Mission Control) removed virtually all the Soyuz and Progress missions data on its website earlier this year and the new version of the site is now a useless generic news feed (as I complained in a post at NASASpaceflight.com). Fortunately much of the site can still be accessed at Archive.org, but the move seems endemic of the increasing hostility and paranoia in Russian politics now.
“There are no Russians there …” by Dwayne Day at The Space Review website (Archive.org backup link) describes the moribund state of the current Russian space program. It is a disheartening read; China is clearly surpassing Russia in space now, and it would not be surprising if China put their citizens on the Moon or Mars in the next decade.
Friday 14/12: Rainapocalypse
Victoria was innundated by a month’s worth of rain yesterday, which wreaked the usual havoc. It is also rather humid, so this is tropical weather.
Monday 31/12: A difficult year
End of what turned out to be a difficult and painful year for me, injury-wise. Sandringham Hospital mailed an appointment time for my prolapse issue: Friday 15/2, just under 2 months away. So that will be another trial to endure through next year.
I did receive a much-wanted present for Christmas (one out of two wishes granted), which cheered me up a bit!
I am not doing anything for New Year’s Eve as usual, just go to bed and sleep. The weather is heating up – nearly 40°C predicted for this Friday.
I have not felt like writing very much, though I have a lot of thoughts going through my head, so I am frustratingly blocked. My Star Warrior worldbuilding project has been my main focus since the end of 2006 – 12 years! – though it has stalled again this year as my creative energy has atrophied.