1. Dreamed that someone called me about a name I mentioned on my blog. I vaguely recognize the name. I explain that I write a lot of posts and mention a lot of people. Then I tend to forget a lot of what I've written. I ask if they're a fan of this person, and they give a response that indicates it would probably be the opposite of a fanship thing.
I also had one of my recurring pet dreams. These used to be the typical Crap-I-forgot-to-feed-the-cats-and-now-they're-dead dreams. I read in some dream book that those are supposed to represent the feeling that you're neglecting some part of yourself—like a hobby or talent. Lately (the last year or so) the dreams are more positive. I feel like I've neglected something, and I assume a tragedy has happened; but everything turns out to be okay. In last night's dream: We have left the cats. An old woman is watching them. I start to worry that I forgot to tell her about Max, and she'll have only fed Mushu. I'm not very worried that Max will be dead—more worried he'll be very hungry. But when I go to check on him, he has plenty of food left.
I'm guessing this dream is some kind of reassurance thing. I worry...A LOT. I often feel like I'm not doing enough/being enough. I think MAYBE (hopefully) this dream is telling me I'm doing okay....things are okay.
2. Followed a Facebook link to this blog entry on Julia Gillard's speech in congress. Greg Jericho says, The problem I had with Howard and his relationship with the US was not his obvious kowtowing to Bush (oh OK, I had issues with that), but more the dopey sense that because he and Bush were “mates” somehow our alliance was stronger. What bullshit. The US-Australia alliance, aside from when Nixon and Whitlam were in charge, has been as close as you can get without indulging in under the sheets action. It will ever be thus.
I think that's a good point. I think we're supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy seeing the American and Australian leaders bonding with a football and debating the merits of Vegemite. Okay. I'll admit it. I found it charming. But does all the cuteness really help build a stronger alliance? And as Jericho points out, the alliance is already strong enough.
3. Read article about Greg Jericho. He's not an ordinary blogger. His Blogger profile says he works for the film area of the Arts Department...in government. I wanted to find out more about that, and I found the article. He started out as an anonymous blogger, because he was in politics writing about politics. Some of the stuff he said caught people's attention and eventually he was unmasked. That's pretty exciting.
4. After reading Andrew's blog post, I had some deep thoughts about lesbian sex. The truth is, despite my attraction to women, I'm a bit repulsed by the idea of lesbian sex. So, then I asked myself—does this mean I'm homophobic and anti-gay?
I don't think so. I'm not against OTHER people having lesbian sex. I totally support it. 100%.
I tried finding something I can compare it to. I thought of mayonnaise. I thought about how I would never want to eat it or touch it. But I'm not against other people eating it. Then I realized that's not true. I DO have some moral objections to people eating it. It contains eggs, and I think chickens are mistreated.
I think in most cases I have a live and let live attitude, but at the same time I quietly disapprove of certain behaviors....such as getting drunk and eating factory farm meat. I try not to judge and take the attitude, you're not perfect. I'm not perfect. We're all different, la la la.
Lesbian sex is different, though. I have NO moral objections against it. So I decided my analogy would be water chestnuts. I hate eating those. I can't stand the texture. But I have absolutely no moral objects against other people eating them.
5. Realized that although I like Angus and Julia Stone, I have to listen to their music in small doses. Their voices kind of grate on my nerves after awhile. But honestly, I feel the same about my own voice. So, it's fair.
6. Decided I should probably give more attention to Australia than I do to Harry Potter role-playing games, seeing that despite reading the book I still mess up on certain things. I'm not the only one, though. People are confused, and then the characters have to step OUT of character to explain things. It's frustrating...and funny.
7. Decided that I didn't feel like reading part 2 of the Kenneally article.
8. Read article about Muslim women trying to promote themselves; calm down the public fear. They're trying to reach out to Pauline Hanson because she's anti-Muslim. She refused to sell her house to Muslims. To me, that's one of the highest forms of prejudice. You must really hate a group if you don't want to make money from them.
I also had one of my recurring pet dreams. These used to be the typical Crap-I-forgot-to-feed-the-cats-and-now-they're-dead dreams. I read in some dream book that those are supposed to represent the feeling that you're neglecting some part of yourself—like a hobby or talent. Lately (the last year or so) the dreams are more positive. I feel like I've neglected something, and I assume a tragedy has happened; but everything turns out to be okay. In last night's dream: We have left the cats. An old woman is watching them. I start to worry that I forgot to tell her about Max, and she'll have only fed Mushu. I'm not very worried that Max will be dead—more worried he'll be very hungry. But when I go to check on him, he has plenty of food left.
I'm guessing this dream is some kind of reassurance thing. I worry...A LOT. I often feel like I'm not doing enough/being enough. I think MAYBE (hopefully) this dream is telling me I'm doing okay....things are okay.
2. Followed a Facebook link to this blog entry on Julia Gillard's speech in congress. Greg Jericho says, The problem I had with Howard and his relationship with the US was not his obvious kowtowing to Bush (oh OK, I had issues with that), but more the dopey sense that because he and Bush were “mates” somehow our alliance was stronger. What bullshit. The US-Australia alliance, aside from when Nixon and Whitlam were in charge, has been as close as you can get without indulging in under the sheets action. It will ever be thus.
I think that's a good point. I think we're supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy seeing the American and Australian leaders bonding with a football and debating the merits of Vegemite. Okay. I'll admit it. I found it charming. But does all the cuteness really help build a stronger alliance? And as Jericho points out, the alliance is already strong enough.
3. Read article about Greg Jericho. He's not an ordinary blogger. His Blogger profile says he works for the film area of the Arts Department...in government. I wanted to find out more about that, and I found the article. He started out as an anonymous blogger, because he was in politics writing about politics. Some of the stuff he said caught people's attention and eventually he was unmasked. That's pretty exciting.
4. After reading Andrew's blog post, I had some deep thoughts about lesbian sex. The truth is, despite my attraction to women, I'm a bit repulsed by the idea of lesbian sex. So, then I asked myself—does this mean I'm homophobic and anti-gay?
I don't think so. I'm not against OTHER people having lesbian sex. I totally support it. 100%.
I tried finding something I can compare it to. I thought of mayonnaise. I thought about how I would never want to eat it or touch it. But I'm not against other people eating it. Then I realized that's not true. I DO have some moral objections to people eating it. It contains eggs, and I think chickens are mistreated.
I think in most cases I have a live and let live attitude, but at the same time I quietly disapprove of certain behaviors....such as getting drunk and eating factory farm meat. I try not to judge and take the attitude, you're not perfect. I'm not perfect. We're all different, la la la.
Lesbian sex is different, though. I have NO moral objections against it. So I decided my analogy would be water chestnuts. I hate eating those. I can't stand the texture. But I have absolutely no moral objects against other people eating them.
5. Realized that although I like Angus and Julia Stone, I have to listen to their music in small doses. Their voices kind of grate on my nerves after awhile. But honestly, I feel the same about my own voice. So, it's fair.
6. Decided I should probably give more attention to Australia than I do to Harry Potter role-playing games, seeing that despite reading the book I still mess up on certain things. I'm not the only one, though. People are confused, and then the characters have to step OUT of character to explain things. It's frustrating...and funny.
7. Decided that I didn't feel like reading part 2 of the Kenneally article.
8. Read article about Muslim women trying to promote themselves; calm down the public fear. They're trying to reach out to Pauline Hanson because she's anti-Muslim. She refused to sell her house to Muslims. To me, that's one of the highest forms of prejudice. You must really hate a group if you don't want to make money from them.
How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?
The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts
9. Read article about bullying and uniforms. There's an idea that if kids wear uniforms, it will reduce bullying. Then kids won't tease each other about clothing. Okay. But then they'll just tease each other about other things. There's height, weight, sexuality, skin color, social class, intelligence, personality, hobbies, interests, quirks, handicaps, etc. I'm not against Aussie school uniforms. They're really adorable. I just don't see how it will prevent bullying. My idea would be to INSTEAD teach acceptance and tolerance. And I would encourage kids to stand up to bullies instead of being quiet bystanders or even worse, supporters of the bullies.
10. Found an Aussie musician named Elliot Freeman on YouTube. I was looking for covers of Across the Universe. He sings the song with a girl named Tammy Arousi. It's a lovely song, and they do a nice job with it. I wish I had a friend who played the guitar.
That just reminded me of something. We have this kid guitar at the lake house. One day my brother-in-law was playing it, and I said I didn't know you could play the guitar! He didn't. It's just you can randomly strum on that thing, and it sounds pretty good.
11. Listened to Elliot Freeman do the Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I think it's.....okay. Oh. In the middle he switches to a Jason Mraz song. He combines the two. I think he does much better with Jason Mraz.
12. Listened to Elliot Freeman sing Bubbly. My dad played that in the car the other day. Before he put it on, he said he and my nieces love it. I had no idea what it was, but once it started playing, I recognized it.
That was a nice evening.
13. Realized that we'll be in Australia (hopefully) on Clean Up Australia Day. Maybe we'll participate. It would be fun to get a group together; well if we're in a city in which I know people. I'm not sure where we'll be that day.
I have three calendars with three different plans. In plan A and B, we're in Sydney. In Plan C we're in Melbourne. I'm sure there'll be a plan D,E,F and G by the time we start buying plane tickets.
14. Started to read about Hobart. I'm getting the idea that if we go there, we'll have to rent a car. I think it's more of a driving place than a public transportation place.
15. Read article about the pulp mill in Tasmania. I've been avoiding it, because I figured it would be complicated for my little brain. What I got from the article is that they're not going to cutting down native trees. They'll use trees only from plantations. That's nice. But there's still the pollution problem.
16. Learned that the Moomba Festival is this weekend, in Melbourne. I'm looking at today's activities. There's going to be a trapeze workshop. That might be fun. And scary
17. Learned from this page of the Hobart website, that Salamanca Place is the main touristy area. I know there's a Saturday market there.
The website says there's not big distances between places; and you can easily walk around. So, we'd probably need a car only to travel outside of Hobart. We could probably get by with renting a car for a day or two instead of the whole time.
18. Told Jack that I emailed the mayor yesterday about making Fort Worth more pedestrian friendly. Jack said he thought our mayor was a democrat. I asked if he knew the guy's name, and he did. I was pretty impressed. I'm going to go see if Jack's right about him being a democrat.
Lord Wiki says he is!
I talked to him about current events, gave him an impromptu oral quiz type thing, and fed him some information. I told him Gillard had visited Obama. Jack said he hopes Obama doesn't win next year. I said for me it depends on who's running. I'd rather have Obama than Sarah Palin. Jack says he just wants someone different. He doesn't want the same person for eight years. He had a kind of grin on his face, so he may have been joking. I said he kind of DID have a point. I told him about how Australia is more exciting because you can wake up one day with a new leader. I love how they can have a Prime Minister for a few days....or more than a decade.
19. Shared Tasmanian information with Jack. I told him that it's old name was Van Diemen's Land and that it wasn't discovered by Captain Cook. It was discovered by Abel Tasman. I told him they weren't British, but Dutch. Then I couldn't remember who the dutch were. I guessed Denmark, and that sounded wrong. OR maybe Jack told me it was wrong. Then we figured out it was the Netherlands. I went to check to make sure, though.
20. Explored Salamanca Place using Google Maps Street View.
21. Learned that Cadbury's Dairy Milk bar is a Fairtrade product in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Canada. That's pretty cool.
What's weird is that although Cadbury is now owned by an American company (Kraft); but in America, it's Hershey's that manufactures and distributes Cadbury products.
From what I can see, the American Cadbury egg has no real egg in it. The one made in the UK (also probably Australia, I assume) does have real egg.
22. Looked at the website for Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. I think my parents went here. They really loved it. I'm pretty sure this is the right place.
The night tour looks really interesting.
23. Looked at Google Maps. Bonorong is about 40 minutes from Hobart, and I think we could pass the Cadbury place on the way. It would be a fun little day trip type thing. I'm betting we could rent a car for just one day or maybe two days, so we could drive to Port Arthur.
24. Found out that there's a holiday park in Port Arthur. That might be interesting. I wonder if it would be fun to stay there instead of Hobart?