2013.
Twenty thirteen.
I could spend some time reflecting on the year that is in it's dying moments, but I won't. Too much has happened. And it's New Years Eve tomorrow. And New Years is all about new starts, new beginnings, looking into the future, not behind us into the past.
I've been umming and ahhing about my 2014 New Years resolutions. As you know, resolutions mean a lot to me. I worry bout making them attainable, but want them to reflect who I want to become and achievements I want to accomplish.
So. New Year's Resolutions for 2014:
1. Visit Uluru using an Aboriginal tour company
2. Be officially employed in Australian TV/media (i.e. get paid!)
3. Write something creative that isn't a blog. This doesn't have to be a full novel, but could be a poem, short story or a film script.
4. Choose next tattoo design (and maybe get it done...)
5. Improve my health by exercising and healthy eating so that by the year's conclusion I am able to:
- Run 5k
- Do 30 push ups
- Do 100 sit ups
- Touch the floor in Yoga poses (specifically Triangle)
6. Read the following list of books:
- Better than Fiction (collection of short stories, already started on iPhone)
- Heart of Darkness (on iPhone)
- Villette (on iPhone)
- On the Origin of the Species (on iPhone)
- Around the World in Eighty Days (on iPhone)
- White Men'll Never Do It (already started, paperback)
- Bewitched & Bedevilled (on iPhone)
7. Start learning French? (Rosetta Stone e-learning for 12 months costs $273. Still deciding on this one...)
8. Climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge
9. Skydive.
Last two, and number 4 is easy....
What are your New Years resolutions?
Oh, and Happy New Year!!
Showing posts with label foreign languages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreign languages. Show all posts
Monday, 30 December 2013
Monday, 23 September 2013
You call it "nothing", a word to cover ignorance.
Ignorance would be bliss if it were ignorance we could be blame.
I am not very worldly. I have travelled, but never really immersed myself in another country's culture. Excluding Trek last November, I have never spent longer than 2 weeks in one country at a time. I've been to France a lot, but I barely speak the language and generally go with the prejudice that they hate vegetarians.
I don't speak any foreign language to an acceptable standard of fluency. And until recently I had never realised how little I sought out in knowledge about foreign countries, their cultures, and their history.
A couple of weeks ago I met Brian Avery, a US activist who spends a lot of time campaigning around the Israel/Palestine conflict. (His blog is here)
Before I met him, I quickly Wikipedia'd the conflict as it is one of those things I knew existed, but not why or for how long. I accepted it as part of our world, I had never questioned it before. I knew the names of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and I've heard of Hamas as the baddies and that was it. The sum of my knowledge about what I now understand to be a complex war dating back 70 years.
I'm not going to pretend that an hour with Brian made me an expert. In fact, it made me even more confused.
I want to blame my own ignorance for not challenging my own thoughts on this. But it's a laziness to not discover more. It is a laziness that media outlets depend upon- that we will swallow their wisdom of the day on any given topic.
It's also a (terrible) way of trying to protect myself: I get so upset over the bad things in the world, I get so wound up about the killing and the hate (see this blog about my inability to cope with it). So if I seek out more knowledge of the awful things, surely I am just going to make myself more upset? There's nothing I can do about other countries problems, is there?
My ignorance would tell me there isn't. But knowledge is edging its way in. Knowledge that as an individual I can make a difference. If I understand more, then that already changes things a bit.
Australia is not a third world country (as my GP pointed out when I asked if I could get a years supply of the contraceptive pill). But that doesn't mean people don't need help. I will need to work in order to live. But I can surely find time to volunteer. It's my year, I can do what I want with it.
I have the opportunity to live in a country and get to know the people, the culture, the good and the bad. I'm not brave enough to go somewhere like Rwanda where my sister is, not yet. But I think this is a step in the right direction. A step away from ignorance.
*A big thank you to Danny Eve, whose random Doctor Who quoting on Twitter gave me the title for this blog!
I am not very worldly. I have travelled, but never really immersed myself in another country's culture. Excluding Trek last November, I have never spent longer than 2 weeks in one country at a time. I've been to France a lot, but I barely speak the language and generally go with the prejudice that they hate vegetarians.
I don't speak any foreign language to an acceptable standard of fluency. And until recently I had never realised how little I sought out in knowledge about foreign countries, their cultures, and their history.
A couple of weeks ago I met Brian Avery, a US activist who spends a lot of time campaigning around the Israel/Palestine conflict. (His blog is here)
Before I met him, I quickly Wikipedia'd the conflict as it is one of those things I knew existed, but not why or for how long. I accepted it as part of our world, I had never questioned it before. I knew the names of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and I've heard of Hamas as the baddies and that was it. The sum of my knowledge about what I now understand to be a complex war dating back 70 years.
I'm not going to pretend that an hour with Brian made me an expert. In fact, it made me even more confused.
I want to blame my own ignorance for not challenging my own thoughts on this. But it's a laziness to not discover more. It is a laziness that media outlets depend upon- that we will swallow their wisdom of the day on any given topic.
It's also a (terrible) way of trying to protect myself: I get so upset over the bad things in the world, I get so wound up about the killing and the hate (see this blog about my inability to cope with it). So if I seek out more knowledge of the awful things, surely I am just going to make myself more upset? There's nothing I can do about other countries problems, is there?
My ignorance would tell me there isn't. But knowledge is edging its way in. Knowledge that as an individual I can make a difference. If I understand more, then that already changes things a bit.
Australia is not a third world country (as my GP pointed out when I asked if I could get a years supply of the contraceptive pill). But that doesn't mean people don't need help. I will need to work in order to live. But I can surely find time to volunteer. It's my year, I can do what I want with it.
I have the opportunity to live in a country and get to know the people, the culture, the good and the bad. I'm not brave enough to go somewhere like Rwanda where my sister is, not yet. But I think this is a step in the right direction. A step away from ignorance.
*A big thank you to Danny Eve, whose random Doctor Who quoting on Twitter gave me the title for this blog!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)