Winter, Spring, Summer or...

It's mid-late November here in Melbourne (doh....like it's not the same around the world!). What's different from other parts of the world is that it is late Spring, almost Summer. I'm inside looking out at a wet day, which is wonderful because we don't get many of them these days, even in the depths of Winter. But it is also now hailing!! It is 8 degrees at 10.30am. I love being inside looking out at a day like this. The only thing missing is my man to snuggle with.

Ageing Gracefully!

I had a very weird experience today. I went to a café over the road from the offices of my placement. As I was paying for my coffee, the woman serving me told me I looked familiar. She asked me where I grew up. I responded with ‘Out east’, meaning not around here. She then asked ‘Doncaster?’ ‘This is scary’, I said. ’Is your name Campbell?’ ‘This is very scary!’ ‘Did you go to Waldau Primary?’ It transpired that we were in the same grade a few years at Primary School. I confessed to not being able to remember her and commented on her memory. I then jested that I obviously hadn’t changed much in over 30 (!!) years. She said my eyes were the same. She evidently was only referring to my eyeballs and not the crows feet around them!

Hidden illness

I am currently doing a placement for my nursing. It is a community mental health placement. It is with a service that assists clients who require fairly intensive involvement. It has been sobering to realise what some people in the community are coping with. Next time you’re in the supermarket queue or waiting at the bus stop and somebody is acting ‘differently’, consider that that person may be coping with a debilitating illness.

The Circle of Life

A couple of significant occurrences last weekend involving the generation either side of me.

Son had his first shave. He just had a bit of fluff and probably won’t have to shave again for quite a while, but it was his first shave and therefore significant.

We went to see my parents on the weekend. There were many dead-heads on Mum’s roses. It wasn’t that long ago when she would have been out there every day dead-heading them. There were so many that I felt a need to take the secateurs to them. Perhaps by getting rid of them, I could convince myself that Mum is still managing as she used to. I also think this will be the first year that she won’t be making Christmas puddings and cakes.

So as one generation heads to adulthood, the other is heading towards frailty and dependence. I, in the middle, am observing the circle of life.

Happy Anniversary

It’s been a busy week this week as I've done a couple of extra shifts at the Nursing Home. I have taken some time out however to remember an anniversary. Ten years ago, around this time, I came out as a gay man.

It started off with coming out to myself. This occurred during the watching of the movie ‘In & Out’ whilst sitting next to my then wife. Sounds weird, I know, but a story with some complexity which I might tell you about one day.

Very soon after that, a number of days from memory, I told the minister of the church I was attending at the time. He was very supportive and someone I will never forget and will always be grateful to.

Within another short period of time, perhaps a couple of weeks, I told my wife. This happened sooner than I had expected, again for complex reasons, which you may learn about in time if I feel I need to go into the detail. I use this experience as the benchmark for the hardest thing I have ever done. People have described me as brave for doing this, but the truth is I had got to the point where I felt I had no choice.

Then followed other family and friends. From hearing others’ stories of coming out, I had a very positive experience.

Ten years on, I can look back and know that I did the right thing. Being honest about and accepting my sexuality has allowed me to be more honest about other parts of my life as well.

I feel very fortunate. I have a son of whom I am proud and with whom I feel I have a positive relationship, I am still good friends with my ex-wife and I now find myself in a relationship that challenges and excites me. Even though this relationship is over 12 months strong, I still feel like a love struck teenager at times. I was telling a friend this and she said, ‘well that’s why you changed your life isn’t it’, meaning that was why I came out. I certainly didn’t think this at the time and if asked, wouldn’t have put it that way, but I know what she means. Part of the coming out was to be able to live in a manner that would enable me to experience life in as full a manner as possible along with all the feelings that go along with that.

I feel I’m getting too deep and tongue tied, so I’m going to finish now by wishing myself a Happy Anniversary.

I'm tired and emotional at the moment....

It's due to a melange of reasons that is making it hard for me to have clarity.

I sat an exam yesterday for the unit that was the most badly administered and appallingly taught I have experienced thus far. The exam reflected this. I will pass, but it won't be my best result. On top of this I couldn't re-enrol on line due to an error in the system. When I pointed this out to the powers that be, it was acknowledged that the system was wrong, but that rather than amending the system, I , along with the others this was going to affect, needed to complete an amendment to enrollment form that I had to collect from the office.

I also didn't want to be at the exam on Wednesday as I would rather have been at a funeral. A friend died suddenly last Friday. He was the husband of a good friend at work. She was working on Friday and got a call from the police informing her of her husband's death. She was out on the road at the time, so a colleague and I went to collect her and drive her home. It was a great shock. The funeral was the same afternoon as my exam and changing it would have required moving a mountain. I was able to drop in to the 'after party' however.

I continue to find my colleagues at the Nursing Home very difficult to work with.

I am finding it a slog to complete the last weeks of the project at my other job. I have realised that project work isn't really my 'thing'. It's good to learn that of myself, but I am finding it a struggle to complete that which I have started. A mixture of laziness and lack of commitment methinks!

That workplace is also tensioned filled at present with various office politics at play. At times like this I find myself being the one unloaded to by various people. My stars this week told me I was good at that!

I'm contemplating a sickie tomorrow. Haven't done that for many years.

Amongst this melange have been some positive items of note.

Son has tennis of Friday night's. Last Friday I met him at the courts and was running a bit late due to D's death. We were hosting so there were things to be done. As I was sweeping the courts he came up to me and asked how work was. This in itself is not unusual, but in that context, where we were both focussed on something else, it was good to know that he has sensitivity to his environment and those within it.

I was feeling particularly flat last night when I got home. I then got a surprise visit from my man. It was a good night. He and son get on really well - even if it is at my expense at times! I like that - the getting on, not the my expense bit!, although I don't really mind that!

Sometimes I wish I wasn't such a feelings guy, that I could process more clearly by thought, but that's who I am and it does have some positives.

Racism

Someone I know sent me this in an email. I like it because it gives specific examples which helps to ground a subject like this.

From Australia I can't verify some of the specifics, but I can imagine they are accurate.




How Racism Works
What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman to whom he said 'I do'?
What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama were a member of the Keating-5?
What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.


You are The Boss... which team would you hire?
With America facing historic debt, two wars, stumbling health care, a weakened dollar, all-time high prison population, mortgage crises, bank failures, trillion dollar Federal bailouts of private corporations, etc.
Educational Background:
Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)
vs.
McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899
Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Now, which team are you going to hire ?


THIS IS YOUR NATION ON WHITE PRIVILEGE

By Tim Wise [A national anti-racism trainer]

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "f***n' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their f***n' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot s**t" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all kill themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological
principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, - which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.