Pelicans are cool

I saw this fella grooming himself on a pylon on Rottnest Island the other day, during an early morning walk. He let me get very close to take these shots, and didn't in the slightest object. I could have reached out and touched him, I was so close. But I didn't because, being so close, I realised what big birds pelicans actually are!

Update

OK, turns out I was just overthinking things. I'm back at training, and it's great! Yay!

Happy new year...

So, New Year's resolution for 2011 - to prioritise printing and physically albumising photographs over just making a Facebook album and letting my digital images just sit on my hard drive. Nerdy, huh? But very me.

I go back to work tomorrow. Not dreading it, so that's a good thing. What I am dreading though is returning to roller derby. Having had these 3 weeks off has been really nice. I've kind of soured on derby lately, and wonder if I really want to go back to it. Most of it comes down to the nasty world of personality politics. I don't mind the skating, but I feel quite disillusioned about the way people are relating to each other these days.

A new Executive Committee was voted in last October, and there has been the sense of a very definite regime change. Which is unfortunate, because I quite identified with the old regime, and am not sure I see myself reflected in the New World Order. Plus the last training session of last year ended with me in tears, which is something that has NEVER happened before, and it really left a bad taste in my mouth. But, I've just shelled out $60 for my annual membership to Skate Australia, so I guess I'll be going along once training resumes next Sunday and seeing how it all goes.

I wish I could just embrace it and love it the way so many other people seem to - but I'm so bloody wary and cautious, and as soon as I get the slightest whiff of emotional discomfort I just want to run away. Yet something else I blame on being an only child (lack of experience in dealing with contemporaries) - or maybe I should blame my star sign (Cancerians are famous for retreating into their crab shells when things get uncomfortable!). Anyway, I'll definitely go back, and have my debut bout, and hopefully get drafted to a team - then we'll see how things go!

Happy new year, everyone!

Derby Journey

Last night I watched Canberra's representative team the Vice City Rollers take on and thrash the Sydney City Assassins. It was an epic bout for many reasons; a record-setter for derby attendance in Canberra, with over 3000 tickets sold - and the bout being held at the AIS Arena (Australian Institute of Sport)! But it was epic most of all because this is the first time Canberra have won against Sydney. The girls played so beautifully as a team, and though Sydney's defense was still A-grade, our packwork ensured that the VCR jammers got through the pack again and again. It was a very inspirational game!

And quite frankly I need all the inspiration I can get right now - today will be our first scrimmage session with the big kids.

From the time we started as Fresh Meat on March 16 this year we have always been the newbies, and though we all train together on Tuesday nights we usually split into star levels for any contact drills. We've certainly never had full-blown scrimmage with these girls, but as newly-minted Orange Stars the time has finally come - and I for one am a wee bit terrified!

It's funny to think that this time last year I was pumped about learning to skate but feeling a bit ambivalent about the contact aspect of roller derby. I'd already ordered my Reidell R3s, but when they arrived I really was hard-pressed to stand up in them! Now I am about to play with and against girls who have been skating longer and harder than me - many of them on our rep team. What a journey!

It looks like our Carnival of Carnage (debut bout) will be in late February next year, and then our intake will be drafted into the League's 4 teams. I am still terrified of breaking bones. And this is not as unlikely as it sounds - in the last 2 months we've had two broken collarbones, a broken wrist, a broken nose and a broken leg (in that order!). There have also been some broken ribs in the mix. So when I tell you that I am a bit scared of lining up with the big kids you can maybe see why!

But part of the derby thing is feeling that fear and, if not overcoming it, at least dealing with it. So this afternoon I'll line up with and against some of our hardest hitters - Aunty Aggro, The Cleaver and the Dalai Slam'er. But I'll also be playing alongside derby legends like Dr Hell, Bambi von Smash'er and DeNature, so that's gotta be worthwhile! All these women have the potential to break my bones, I'm just hoping they'll choose not to!

Counting my blessings

It's that time of the year; thoughts turn to family and friends and we count our blessings, all while our material society reaches its consumer zenith in the form of CHRISTMAS SHOPPING.

This time last year my workmates pulled together and made a Xmas hamper so that C and I would have some treats over the holidays. We weren't destitute by any means, but things were tight (especially by Canberra standards!), with Clinton studying full-time and the two of us living off my APS 3 salary. But we did alright - our rent was always paid and so were the bills. We had everything we needed, all we had to forego were the little luxuries. God knows, there were (still are) plenty of people less fortunate than us.

This time of year always gets me thinking how lucky I am. I think in a way I am fortunate to be aware of how truly blessed I am. It helps put shit into perspective. Imagine thinking constantly of all you didn't have, all that you wanted. Plenty of people have no choice; but I'm pretty sure plenty more just can't see that the crap they want, the misfortune they imagine, is nothing more than a societal burr demanding we worship whitegoods, fancy cars, and an assortment of other nonsense.

I got a letter from the mother of my new sponsor child (the former one, Rene, turned 18 and so left the program) the other day, expressing so much gratitude for the fact that I was sponsoring her little boy. It really brought home to me that the small amount I contribute, which is really not much money in the scheme of things, was worth so much to her and her family. One thing I was proud of C and I for achieving over the past 18 months of being an on-again, off-again single income household was that we both kept up our sponsor child payments.

Anyway, C has now landed a permanent APS 4 as a graduate at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which is bloody brilliant. I'm feeling absolutely flush - today I ordered a case of Tasmanian wine, and after work went to an exhibition/sale of handmade resin jewellery and bought what seems like kilos of the stuff! It's kind of fun to be so indulgent for a change. But I will not forget how lucky I am.

I have all I want, and all that I need. A home, a man who loves me, family, friends, satisfying work. I might not have as much stuff or money as a lot of people, but I'm certainly better off than most. It's always nice to take some time out to think about that, to savour the abundance of life, because things can always change in a heartbeat, and you never know. Better to realise how lucky you are while you have it, rather than when - if - it is all stripped from you by the vagaries of fortune.

It's better to think of all you have, rather than what you don't. Many blessings to you all this Christmas.

I feel bad now!

Today I went back to Flemington to interview the racecaller, Greg Miles. He was so lovely to interview, really relaxed and easy going, made the experience of interviewing him a real pleasure. Plus the VRC reps were uber-helpful. Made me feel kind of bad for everything I said in the previous post!

So you know, I just wanted to put it out there that my problem is with the racing industry as a whole, not the VRC in particular! :-D

The Melbourne Cup

"...on this most Australian of days." The Governor General presents the tophy to winning owners at the 2010 Melbourne Cup

I went to the Melbourne Cup last week. It was for work. I had to apply for us all to get media accreditation from the Victoria Racing Club, so it was kind of a big deal (or a pain in the arse, depending on who I'm talking to!).

As she was presenting the trophy to the winner, our Governor General Quentin Bryce referred to the Melbourne Cup as "this most Australian of days." I think it's really interesting how a horse race has become so aligned with notions of Australian-ness, to the point where our own GG buys into the mythology.

But the thing about the Melbourne Cup is that it has been this way almost since it's inception. If we've been listening to the hype (or even if you've been totaly immersed in the subject because you're researching it for work purposes!) you can't fail to have missed the fact that the Cup has been going for 150 years, as of the most recent running.

In 1880, when the population of Melbourne was less than 300,000 people, some 100,000 showed up at Flemington to watch the Melbourne Cup. In 1895, when Mark Twain was visiting Australia, he witnessed the lead-up to the Cup in Melbourne (though he was on a boat travelling to NZ by the time the race was actually run), and he was led to declare that Melbourne was "the mitred Metropolitan of the horse-racing cult", that Flemington Racecourse was "the Mecca of Australasia", and the Melbourne Cup itself was "the Australasian national day." [For references, see Following the Equator, Mark Twain 1896]. So Quentin Bryce was merely one more in a long line of people who view Cup Day as a sort of Australian Holy Day.

The early days of horseracing in Australia were about improving the breed of horses in the new colony, and a race was merely a way of proving superior bloodstock, rather than an end in itself. But nowadays it's a full-blown industry, with all the attendant problems which that brings. People are in it for the money, horses are seen as nothing more than investments, and those that don't succeed are quickly cast aside.

Every year some 17,000 thoroughbred foals are born in Australia - this figure does not take into account the number of horses imported into Australia to race - and every year some 18,000 ex-racehorses are sent to the knackery. Think about that figure for just a minute - 18,000 unwanted, cast aside racehorses slaughtered, every single year.

I could also go into the treatment of racehorses, the high incidence of pulmonary bleeding (that is fancy talk for bleeding from their lungs), which has been shown to affect a staggering 95% of horses following a race [for reference check, see Birks EK, Shuler KM, Soma LR, Martin BB, Marconato L, Del Piero F., Teleis DC, Schar D., Hessinger AE, Uboh CE, “EIPH: postrace endoscopic evaluation of Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds,” Department of Clnical Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Equine Veterinary Journal Supplement, September 2002, but I got it from http://www.horseracingkills.org/6_3.htm], and other, equally awful aspects of horse-racing.

My main objection to this sport is that we CELEBRATE it. You know, greyhound racing has a pretty seedy reputation, and most people know about the issues of greyhounds needing to be rehomed, but nobody is jumping up and down to cheer on the greyhounds the way we do the Melbourne Cup every year. I just think more people should know the truth about the industry, so they can make an informed choice about whether they want to support the 'race that stops the nation', rather than just getting caught up in the annual hype about the race, and the myth that it's a glamorous sport.

And as for it somehow being our national day, well, I call bullshit on that too. Maybe once, in the 'good old days', it was a proud and noble tradition, but with the advent of professional trainers, marketing, and sponsorship it has moved into the realm of an industry, one based on the exploitation of animals. I have spent the last year and a half researching it, and this is the sad conclusion I've come to.

I'd better look out though, people are probably going to start calling me un-Australian now.