b r a v e c r e a t u r e s

I am not sure what I expected from this weekend in Madrid. I was planning to see some sights, get some sun, go to a few parties and enjoying hanging out with my friends. All of that happened of course, although in the end I only went to the Saturday night party, Infinita.

The rest of the weekend I spent hanging out with two new mates I met here. Two days full of laughter and conversation. They have gone now and I need to start packing - and its weird how empty my apartment feels.

When people click, its amazing how quickly they become part of your world. One lives in London, the other here in Madrid - but I have no idea when I will see them again. But I will.

As Miss Crawford says - Endings are beginnings, Beautiful Things.

It seems almost no time since I wrote anything. LIfe has been rollercoastering from one adventure to another. I have been travelling a lot and each place has been a joy - Mykonons, Madrid, Paris, Bordeaux, not to mention London itself.

Beautiful, wonderful, amazing, vibrant London. I love it here.

Finally I have moved into a great flat in Marble Arch with two truely wonderful Aussie boys. My room faces east more or less and in the mornings at the moment Iam waking up to this incredible Mary Poppins skyline of chimny stacks siloetted against indigo and peach sky. I will try and remember to keep my camera by the beed and snap a shot of it in the morning soon.

People keep going on about how dreary the winters are and how cold and aweful its going to be, but for now I am loving it. In themorning I walk to the tube station along Marylebone Rd to Baker St. In the evening I get off at High Holborn, train in Covent Garden and catch the tube home from Tottenham Court Rd.

My life is a Monopoly Board.

This weekend I am off to Amsterdam with a friend and I am looking forward to it. Not perhaps the best time to visit the city, but apparently there is still much to do an see, so I am very excited.

Hello and welcome to the Mental Health Hotline.
If you obsessive-compulsive, press one repeatedly.
If you are co-dependant, ask someone to press two for you.
If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5 and 6.
If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want - stay on the line and we'll trace your call.
If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mothership.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are depressive it doesn't matter which number you press as no-one will answer you.
If you are dyslexic, press 69696969.
If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the hash key and wait for the beep.
After the beep, please wait for the beep.
If you have a short-term memory loss, please try your call again later, and if you have low self-esteem, hang up as all our operators are too busy to talk to you

This is a new thing I am going to try for a few weeks to see if I like it - namely my favourite web cam views and other vistas (not the operating system).

Currently I am very interested in the UK, not at least because I am planning a holiday there in June/July.

In 2001 I lived in London for a few months and absolutely loved it, so I am really looking forward to heading back. 

And you never know what opportunities Cool Britannia might hold for a likely lad. 

I thought it would be worth while to reflect a little on the past year. I set myself a few goals for 2006 so lets have a look at how I did.

First and foremost

> Be happier

Definitely!

After the appallingly unhappy years of 2004 & 2005, '06 has been MUCH better. I have been caring a whole lot less what other people think, been concerning myself with my own stuff and living within my own limits. I had put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect, get everything right and not fail at anything I do, and that's just not possible I am afraid. I think the biggest thing I am learning is to forgive myself my weaknesses and worry about the things that I can effect and control rather than all the things outside my control.

With a new job has come some opportunities to affirm my capabilities to myself. The last job I had in the US was pretty draining in the end, and with all the other things that were going on behind my back - lies, betrayal, infidelity - my confidence was pretty shaken. This new role has allowed me to regain some of my strength, while the year of so off has taught me to not value myself for my work alone.

> Learn Spanish

Not quite.

Having met quite a number of Francophone's at the start of 2006 I went for French instead.

J'ai étudié French pour six mois avec L'Alliance de Francaise et je jouis l'expérience. My french classes are all of Saturday morning, about 4 hours each week. Its pretty draining, but I like the mental challenge. Apparently I have a good accent and my construction is good, but I need to work a little more on my vocab. I suspect I will try studying a different way this year as I appear to be spending a lot of time shuttling to Sydney on the weekends, which is difficult if my Saturday mornings are taken up.

I am enjoying it a lot though so I don't plan to give it up. I would really like to spend some time in France soon, as I suspect that would really help. I am thinking I might need to relocate for a while to Europe so I can get some immersion.
 
> Physical Adventures

I work out a lot, and mostly I enjoy the exercise, but I feel that gym work is a bit limited and unreal so this year I wanted to do some more physical things. While I didn't get into a really regular routine with anything, I managed a few adventures.
In January of this year I went diving on the Great Barrier Reef with a mate from France, and had a fantastic time. I learnt to dive after visiting the Maldives with Stephen in 1996. I got my certificate after that and went diving a couple of times, but dating an (unadventurous) asthmatic put a bit of a crimp in that so I hadn't been diving for years.

Its a really beautiful and peaceful experience.

Even my overactive cognition slows to a putter when I am underwater and my head is full of only the sounds of my own breathing.

I also went rock climbing a few times, which TOUGH but great. Its made harder for me given that I am nearly 115kgs and that's a lot of weight to dangle from your fingertips. I think there are also some technical skills that I need to learn because I was pretty crap at it, but I think I might go on an adventure weekend this year and see if I can pick a few things up.

Gliding is not exactly a physical adventure, but it was a blast none the less. I had developed over the long dark tea time of the soul that was '04/'05 a bit of an aversion to heights and flying. I found I had gotten really anxious about it, so I figured the best way to deal with that developing fear was to face it.

Gliding is an amazing sensation, peaceful and not at all scary - which surprised me a bit. I didn't go in for any acrobatics, unlike my adventure partner, but next time I will. And i am sure there will be a next time.

I am working my way up to parachuting, but one step at a time I think.

> Finish my Masters

Oops. Didn't get this one done. But you cant do everything. I have until the middle of next year so I still have some time up my sleeve, but I need to get a wriggle on.

> See more of Australia

After travelling in America, I decided that I need to make sure I had seen more of my own home country before I stepped outside again.
This year I managed Cairns, Port Douglas, the Daintree, the Reef, Batemans Bay, Jarvis Bay, Canberra , Byron Bay, Lismore and the Yarra Valley. I want to do some more short trips this year coming and I REALLY want to get to Uluru. I have not seen the desert interior of my country and I want to. I would love to cross the Nullabore on the  Indian Pacific train, or go to Darwin on the Ghan. We will see how those plans come along.

All up I think I did pretty well for 2006, so now its time to start thinking about what's on for 2007. I will make a more definitive list by my birthday in mid January, but for now here are some opening thoughts.

> Plan less, be more in the moment
> Become more financially stable
> Save the deposit for a apartment for my mother and purchase said property
> Complete my Masters thesis
> Disconnect myself completely from my ex (there is still some peripheral entanglement, but I am chipping away at it)
> Travel overseas again
> More physical adventures
 - Abseil
 - Parachute
 - Rafting
 - Snowboarding

As a final note on 2006 I think I will remember it as the year that I learned my heart hadn't grown cold and hard. It seems as badly hurt as I was by my ex, my capacity to be open and trusting was only set aside, not forsaken. While I have been proving this to myself, there is someone who as been a catalyst. I don't know where things are going with him, but I do know that  I am enjoying it and I have missed him a lot while we have been off on our separate, long pre-planned, Christmas getaways.

The media landscape in Australia has just changed, and to be honest I am not quite sure what it means yet. My gut is that its not going to be good for diversity of voices or the local industry.

One thing I am fairly certain about is that power will be concentrated - the media barons are going to be spending the next year or so carving up the available pot of outlets into ever decreasing bundles of "impartiality".

I know its probably cynical of me, and not at all in keeping with my recent resurgence of pollyannaism, but I really feel like Helen Coonan is a bit of a melon head†. Or she is sleeping with the ghost of Kerry Packer. Or something. I am not entirely sure how anyone could have looked at the changes she has rammed through and thought it was going to result in anything other than a merger frenzy.

So its something else the next generation is going to have to struggle with, but at least we have Canada to compare ourselves to. It appears that given the same pressures, population size and problems, Canada has come up with the EXACT OPPOSITE solution. So we are going to get to see who is right - although not in a time frame that will mean that La Coonan will have to face the (DRM protected) music if she is wrong.

Meanwhile all of this kuffuffle reminds me of an appearance that Jon Stewart, host of the wonderful "Daily Show", made on Crossfire. An appearance that apparently resulted in Crossfire being taken off the air.

Maybe there is hope of reclaiming the media landscape.

Enjoy. 

† No offence to Helen. Her head really doesnt look at all like a Melon.

FRACK ME

Finally I have gotten the mail to doodad working. Its been firing messages off into godknows where for ages. And now it seems to be workiNG.

I was looking at it partially because I am working to get Bill In Exile migrated off Blogger and into his own domain using Wordpress. I know he will want this functionality so I should try and get it working.

I am also trialling a new image authorisation for my comments system. If there are problems with it do email me so I know. the images are a little small, but the audio reader is great.

For an old show pony, its funny that I dont go to see much in the way of Theatre at the moment. But on Saturday night I got an opportunity to remedy that a little. A chance encounter at Sleaze with an old mate, Steph, and I was off to see the world premiere of "Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the stage musical".

Let me clarify something right now, I didnt dress up, but it did occur to me.

I will cut to the chase, the show is clever and funny, its well worth going to see. It very much follows the film, while still managing to inject its own spectacle and humour so even though I know the film back to front I still find myself very absorbed in the show.

The performances are great, all of he leads do a good job, treading a fine line between simply recreating the screen performances and breathing new life into the characters. In some ways I actually felt warmer about Bernadette on stage than on screen.

One of the stand out successes for the show is unsurprsingly the costomes. Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardneer have been reunited and their respective strengths shine though, both incredibly creative and excellently executed. All of the production numbers come alive a sparkle in ways that even the film didnt manage.

All up its a tremendous show. If your travels take you to Sydney, stop off at the tack-o-rama Star City Casino and get back in touch with your FemNine side with a night with our old friend, Priscilla.