Polemics

Last night I saw the movie Earthlings, an explicitly explicit look into the way humans have treated animals in recent history. Billed as The Passion of the Christ for animal rights, it contained a sample of the more brutal acts that people have perpetrated against animals, and also the realities of some of the animal industries that operate for our 'benefit'.

Coincidentally it started with the same metaphor (with a slightly different twist) that I use when I explain the philosophical reason for my vegetarian, which was that just like Nazi Germany, the human species considers itself of higher value and 'others' to be worth sacrificing or to be exploited or eliminated in the pursuit of 'progress'. Included was a quote from Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer similar to the below:
'The man didn't give a second's thought to the fact that the pig was made of the same stuff as he and that it had to pay with suffering and death so that he could taste its flesh. I've thought more than once that when it comes to animals, every man is a Nazi. '
Apparently my thought (which was actually inspired from the novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn) was hardly novel.

The film itself was well-structured investigating each of the main ways that humans use animals from the seemingly innocuous use as pets to the obvious exploitation of agriculture to zoos. Several of the aspects were new to me such as the industry of animals bred to be pets and the true extent of the problems caused by irresponsible owners. The objections to zoos and farm shows were also enlightening me to the degree that my views have indeed changed. And it almost has inspired me to get a dog or cat from the SPCA.

But as often happens in polemics (think about anything by Michael Moore for example) people of zeal tend to have less value on truth or accuracy. All the acts seen in Earthlings were real and it is undeniable that the capacity of humans for cruelty beggars belief, even to fellow human beings - but are they representative of what happens in general? Is the horror I witnessed actually valid evidence that should sway a non-vegan to become one?

Some aspects were undeniable: battery hens and pigs are verifiably true the world over. But many of the other areas seemed less factual. Showing the worst case situation is not being representative of the whole situation. The effect of this on me as a viewer is that the producers are more interested in making people shocked than being objective.

The biggest lesson I think a person objectively looking at the film would get is that they should be aware of where they get their products from - which I think is a great lesson. Cheap leather ironically comes from India where animals are taken from poor people and driven to an area where cows can be slaughtered. India (the 3rd biggest producer) was the only leather producer covered by the film. A reasonable 'humane' person would naturally look for a source of 'ethical' leather.

What of free-range eggs or organic meats? If animals are killed humanely, is that acceptable?
This is where naturally people would make their own decisions, but the film itself leaves a blank despite its purpose earlier on.

The film occasionally suffered a divergence of focus; it often emphasised the willful suffering that animals go through (demanding the use of anaesthetic in use or humane killing) and then often deeming that any treatment of animals as inhumane in itself. This is regrettable - but understandable. Thus is the nature of all polemic movies. The desire to provide shock and awe compromises accuracy and mixes the message.

That all being said, I appreciate the passion that inspired the film and the comprehensive approach it took. I hope that the movie itself isn't just preaching to the choir. A key lesson I'd hope all consumers learn is that consumption is complicity in the actions of the companies that produce. Paraphrasing McCartney, much of the world would be vegetarian if they could see inside an abbatoir. In my ideal world, only those capable of taking the choice to kill an animal should be able to eat from those animals.

English

It is always interesting to find the arbitrariness or the finickiness of the English language. Here are the classics for the last week:

"I did the gardening at outhouse (it must be big!)... My wife did the cooking inhouse (she doesn't contract out!)"

"I had to put my ass online (how important is the word 'the')"

Dooper

Now that the aftermath of the Trailwalker has settled, it is about time to take stock of the things. The past three weeks have seen me be sidetracked heavily by lots of little issues and events. Right now I still am a bit foggy-minded about going ahead.

My current commitments and goals for the next period will be to run sessions at AIESEC's NZ Weekend Away, plan and execute a Strange Day, reignite my physical training, get my tax and donations sorted and get a solid period of work in.

Workwise, the recent weeks have again been a rollercoaster. The financial year has finished its fifth week but my hours worked weekly have fluctuated from 6 hours (admittedly when I was ill) to a new record this week where I shot past 20 hours for the second time. The bout of statutory holidays was rather annoying and a knock to the income. My goal was to have an average of 18 hours a week but as a result of sickness and stats I'm cruising at a lowly 13.7 hours. Fortunately I've entered a boom zone. Next week will likely top this one and I'm likely to sustain 20 hour weeks for the next 6 weeks. This will be good. A certain client is likely to pay me finally too for the second time, which means I'll actually get to have the money I earned there! How novel!

My garden is taking a breather in between the summer crops winding down and the winter crops yet to emerge. The delight of the week has been chokos - and the shattering of an urban legend that said they had to be paired up (male and female) to develop fruit. This was discovered when mum noticed two hanging in the orange tree that the choko was attempting to smother. We ate one and left the other so that it might be the seed choko for another plant. I thought we were lucky - a bee from a neighbour kindly finding a male plant to do the pollination and didn't expect any more. Boy was I wrong. It is raining chokos right now! Hallelujah. We might have a pumpkin finally growing on our pumpkin plant.

With the house cooling, the mind goes to a rational strategy to survive this winter. A home without insulation, heating, extractor fan (in either kitchen or bathroom) is something of a logistical challenge to live in. There have yet to be hard decisions made as to whether to invest in insulation (we don't use a heater whose heat the insulation would retain) or a dehumidifier (which would chew up the power). I remember the good old days before I lived here. When I visited the house and marvelled at the mildew patterns on the ceiling. I think a few practical habits would reduce the problems and maybe a technological solution too.

Fitness-wise, I'm still planning. Now that my ankles survived the 100km walk, I might try them out on running on a field. I don't think I should try any road running till I have fully strengthened them and any spectre of shinsplints have disappeared. I'm going to continue my achilles tendon exercises and strength exercises on the swiss ball. Other than that, I'll have to consider things one item at a time. Swimming still seems too inconvenient.

A whole lot of peripheral issues don't really need to be thought about - I'd better get back to lesson plans.

Taking life

Last night, a small life was extinguished in our kitchen. The raids by mice into our home over the last few weeks were getting beyond a nuisance and turning into a hygiene concern. I was more than a little apprehensive about taking measures that would lead the little fellas to a sudden death but in the end went for a draconian strategy. I take full responsibility.

After a week of failure in the trapping department due a trap that was too big, a newer smaller trap was bought and set yesterday afternoon. Interestingly, last night one mouse (in the stove) was being particularly audacious, coming out of a hole in the stove and onto the elements even with Xin and I there. About an hour later I saw him scampering amongst our fruit bowl. Before going to sleep I had visions of a dead mouse and by morning time there was indeed a small corpse.

I gave him his last rites. The next step will be to clean out all of our containers, drawers and cupboards, fill the holes and prevent any further incursions (and the further loss of life on the mouse front).

Walking the Trail

Last weekend three friends (James, Nick and Myles) and I assailed the Oxfam Trailwalker 36 hour 100km challenge.

The training this year was a step-up on last year. I was healthier before the training and the training was more intensive with regular weekend walks and two weekend overnight walks.

The weather was predicted to be messy and unpleasant - but it never really eventuated. What we got was ideal walking weather, predominantly overcast, a cool breeze and occasional light rain. The only uncomfortable times were when we stopped at the checkpoints during the night and felt cool.

Unfortunately, 3 days before the event I came down with a heavy cold. This didn't impact the walk much except for ruining my sleep before the event. The fact that it didn't interfere with the event is curious. I was coughing before the event and, even now, after the event but not during the event. I was rarely out of breath.

We assembled at 7:45am at the start line with all the other competitors... er... participants and prior to the start horn unleashed our hourly chant for the first time: I'm ALIVE, I'm WELL and I FEEL GREAT! which silenced everyone for a moment. It was cathartic and energising to do it on the track and also hopefully an inspiration for those nearby.

Leg 1 (14.7 km): Unlike last year we had a fixed strategy: we aimed to do the circuit at a more leisurely pace. This was illustrated well by the fact that after the start, we were the last team. The bunch was huge but we lagged quietly behind. That in itself was a huge relief. I remember last year being in that pack - the speed and enthusiasm there at the start had not helped us 50 kms down the track. The leg, though featuring a river walk and craters of the moon was rather unexceptional. I could walk it in sneakers as it was flat. We cruised into the first checkpoint comfortably and perhaps second or third to last.

Leg 2 (12.9 km): The first challenging leg took us into the hills and was my favourite. I had changed into my tramping boots to adapt to the riskier terrain. Last year I chose to wear only sneakers so to reduce the impact on my ankles – the result ironically being sore ankles. The track ascended gently through a quarry and then higher onto a ridgeline - the highest point on the track. The wind was refreshing and we slowly gained and passed some of the other teams. By checkpoint 2, we were moving freely and enjoying it.

Leg 3 (10.5 km): This leg I started to feel the beginnings of muscle fatigue. My ankles were increasingly sensitive and my lower calf had locked solid. Often, when walking small pains and strains develop and then often could be 'walked out' and I hoped that these two were such. We kept at our gentle strolling speed and navigated (once wrongly) through the agricultural land. This leg was marked by our first encounters with incomplete teams – teams where a member or two had pulled out. We cruised into checkpoint 3 in the late afternoon. I requested that we spend a little longer at the checkpoint so to give my various sore spots a chance to have some treatment.

Leg 4 (19.4 km): The sun went down and the torches went on as the longest leg begun. This was the killer for me last year as a road segment had aggravated my ankles so much that I could only manage another leg. This time I was healthier and they also had done me the service of altering the course by going over farmland rather than along a road. That being said both my ankles and the lower calf problem were still there and I made a comment to the effect that I felt like I was in a familiar situation to last year where if my pains were to get any worse I'd have to take each checkpoint as they came. In the middle of this leg, Nick offered to massage the area which helped considerably. It was then that the diagnosis was obvious - it was just lactic acid. I had to stop for another reason later on: the ankle strap felt like it was cutting into me. I had walked with the ankle strap since the second leg to give extra support on the less even ground. Walking without it left my ankle more vulnerable but it would have to be done until the next checkpoint where I 'taped' the points that were getting rubbed and then put the strap back on.

Leg 5 (7 km): The shortest of the legs and a good thing too after the monster leg previously. It was primarily a pine forest walk, the only quirk being the non-ending. You see the checkpoint 50 metres away but have to turn left and descend a circular path, leading to a tunnel and then follow an ascending path that eventually leads you to the checkpoint - some 5 minutes of extra walking! My ailments had mostly lessened although my calf and achilles tendon were of some concern. This checkpoint is the best equipped - complete with warm food, cookie time cookies and a physiotherapist. The physio told me that the back of my tramping boots was rubbing my achilles tendon - a common problem apparently.

Leg 6 (7.2 km): Another short leg - and the least inspiring. It was just farmland and then an industrial area. But for the time of night (between 3 am and 5 am) it didn't matter. It was a lull in the conversations too as we all turned inwards. We got to the next checkpoint for another rest. I went through my maintenance routine but following that found my arches (the instep) was quite tender. This was a different kind of problem related to my flatfootedness. The orthotic insoles I wear press into the foot onto muscle and bone and it seemed after 71.7 kilometres, the right foot's arch was quite aggravated. In hindsight, one of my mistakes was not to change back into my trainers for leg 5 and 6. Both of the short legs had flattish ground and could easily have been done without tramping boots. This would have reduced the hammering on the arch as well as the rubbing on the achilles. I asked James what the next leg was like last year and he said it had been mostly roads so I switched to my trainers at this point. This was my second mistake as I should have checked the map. They had changed the route and it was going into the hills. We left prior to sunrise.

Leg 7 (14.8 km): This was the second longest leg and second to last. We ascended farming land. It was nice to go uphill again but I was regretting changing my shoes. James reported real discomfort for the first time, in both of his lower legs. We slowed down, which was fine with me, as now both of my arches had become painful. The only relief was going uphill as I could put my weight on my toes and due to the angle, stretch my whole foot, relieving the pain. There is a downside to going uphill though. We came out on a road and then went downhill where I asked for another break (or two). We came out onto farming land and had a shock announcement that James was to retire from the event. It seemed a prudent decision as to walk further would be to risk further injury and he is to participate in a marathon soon. We rested, he received a massage from Nick and then we went to the nearest road where James was picked up. We went onwards and for me the last 3 kilometres were a relief. My right arch cooled down and I could move freely. We cruised into the checkpoint at 11:23am.

Leg 8 (13.5 km): We had decided to have breakfast at this checkpoint. I was busy doing necessary maintenance, but when I sat down to have breakfast I felt a little nauseous. During breakfast a guy, Graham, came over and asked whether he could join our team for the last leg, which we agreed to. We suggested a departure time, which I disagreed to. This was my final mistake. I needed more time to rest. My stomach was not ready for food and I probably should have just asked for an extra 10 to 20 minutes to lie on my back with my feet on a chair (I had done this at every other stop). I hadn't given my feet a chance to relax and be stretched, but it was the last leg and it was rather straightforward, I thought, and at the end of the last leg I was moving quite easily. Anyway, I was wrong. Within 20 minutes of leaving the checkpoint, I had to slow down a little bit as both of my arches were getting too much for me. Intriguingly there was no pain in my ankles, just agony in the arches. I tried to drink my ginger tea, but felt more nauseous after that. So after trying that I didn't drink or eat anything. I decided to just focus on one-foot-in-front-of-the-other and ask for breaks when required. That was the only strategy. When you're in pain like that you also have two options, either focus 100% on walking and shut the rest of the world out, or to distract yourself with conversation. I relied primarily on the former. And it took me to the finish area. We donned our costumes and I changed my shoes for slippers. Finally being without the insoles, I decided on the spur of the moment to start a jog with the team (I hope you didn't mind Myles). It felt like we were running fast but I'm sure it just a dawdle. And we past through the finish line. Hugs all round. Got my medal. Got a goodies bag. Cheered the ZenWalker2 team as they came through the finish line. And then after a moments hesitation, checked myself into an ambulance.

And this is the aftermath

I lay down on a stretch as blankets were put under my feet. That was good. I may have made a groaning sound of relief and a few of those embarrassing uncontrolled tears ran down my cheeks. Unsure of the groan, the nurse quickly checked my blood pressure but was happy to find I hadn't expired and that my blood pressure was actually quite normal. She diagnosed me as physically 'hammered'. I limped back to the team and went back to Andrew's home.

I found I could eat and drink once more and found my first sleep in 34 hours. Right now I am mostly fine. My achilles is still a little big. I have impressive blisters on my little toes but other than residual stiffness and a dislike of stairs, I'm great.

I learnt a lot about my body and walking strategy while on the track. And oddly, I might consider taking part again next year with an idea to do it more comfortably as well as continue support for the charity and keep fitness up.

Acknowledgements

Thank you mostly to my three walking companions, James, Myles and Nick. Thanks again to Myles for the photos above. A big thank-you to the support team of Andrew, Olivia, Angel, Alex and Mimi. Especially to Andrew who lent use of his home and car. Thank you sponsors for your generosity - it did motivate me on the track. Thank you Xin for your tolerance of my weekly training and finally thank you Oxfam for the wonderful event and the work that you do.

You should be dancing, yeah!

Until early 2004, I was quite an enthusiastic dancer. Not just any sort of dancing, mind you, my sort and only my sort, which is usually rapid, random body movements. It alone sustained my fitness in University when my high school running came to a screaming halt. In March 2004 at an AIESEC event I was kicking around a soccer ball and rolled my ankle - something that occasionally used to happen in my running days - but this time the feeling was completely different. My first of the two ankle sprains killed off my dancing, stunted any hope of physical exercise and has blighted my walking.

Last night I tagged along with Xin to an art opening. The art was ok but we spent over an hour there and the time was only brightened when the diminutive Bic Runga snuck into the opening. She kept to herself and her friend.

But what Xin had lured me with to get me to come to the opening was the dance-party that was to follow. It did eventually follow and once we were on the dance-floor everyone was standing around with the music blearing. In such an environment it is hard not to be moving slightly to the music. And well I couldn't resist so I started to dance with Xin. Occasional others danced for a short time but for well over an hour, it was pretty much only us two. It was rather depressing. Fortunately with the increasing inebriation, more people joined in and the packed room was eventually bouncing around to the beat.

It felt good. But by the time the party reached full pitch I was rather tired from about 2 hours of dancing and went home. It is nice to be back on the horse.

Saintly Notable Quotable

"A gentleman will walk but never run." - St. Ing

Drained

Some moments I think to myself, gee this could be a rather poor decision, and even with this comprehension of the possible adverse effects of a particular choice, I do, more often than not, do the exact thing that my brain has comprehensively told me that it was unwise to do.

These last two weeks I've been running at an unprecedentedly high number of hours of work and had been feeling rather drained. Nevertheless, I decided that Friday night was the best opportunity I had to donate blood. This even though the planned final Trailwalker training weekend was to follow immediately. They tested my iron. Not good. A reading of 135, a lot below my recent average of 155, only 5 points above the minimum iron theshold, and only 2 points higher than my low-point of 133 (after which I had a mild bout of anaemia).

To donate blood or not to donate blood? Of course not, but did I listen. Anyway, the Trailwalker Training Weekend was tough. The first day was a magnificent march from Milford to my home. Magnificent in that it was 46km long and done in 11 hours 20 minutes. Surprisingly, I had no obvious tiredness, just soreness. Today we did an additional 20km while shopping and striding up two volcanic cones.

Now it's over and now I feel so damn sleepy. Perhaps it is the lack of blood and iron thing... or perhaps I've just had a very long two weeks and one arduous weekend.

Gasp!

I would have blogged earlier about how busy I feel - but I haven't had the time. Nor now, as it would so happen.

In the big pond again

My feet sustained another battering in the Waitak's on Sunday plowing through over 20 kilometres of track in seven hours. The most astonishing thing about the whole day was that we finished the walk that we planned. Halfway through, we looked at the map and conceded it would be unlikely that we'd finish it on time but went for broke anyway. We even went into a run at one section. Despite the weariness of our legs in the last hour we pulled into the carpark right on the hour.

This short period has also confirmed to me the fact that I cannot devote my intellect to more than one task at a time. I slipped back into a philosophical mode to analyse certain matters and lo and behold, my chinese study falls of the wagon. I'll collect it on Wednesday in the morning. Fortunately the philosophical exertions came to a logical end and all I need to say is a Zhuang-zi quote and smile:

"Princes! Paupers! Indeed! You and Confucius are both dreaming. When I call you a dreamer, I'm also a dreamer. As for what I've said, it could be called a flight of fancy."

Regrettably with all the fluster has come an unsettled mind. The last two days have been partially wasted on various distractions and I haven't been preparing well for this, a very, very busy week.

A change in the weather

I drove home listening to the children's programme on Chinese radio, trailing a car that despite his best intentions to get ahead by driving over a zebra crossing with people on it, speeding, tailgating and generally aggressively driving, had failed to get any further ahead. The children's programme featured a segment The Mysterious World where they talk about the wonders of the natural world. I reversed into the garage in sunshine. I waited in the car listening about koalas. They apparently don't drink water. Soon as it finished the torrential rain was unleashed and so was I as I scurried up the 10m of stairs. Such a small distance yet such a drenching.

At work, my hours are swirling about too. Classes are appearing out of nowhere - other classes being cancelled.

My confidence in my fitness is now the highest it's been since September 2005. The true durability of my ankles is still something I can only take on faith - but it has survived several pounding walks. Last Sunday I lugged a 10kg backpack over the 20 kms of hills and have no signs of damage. A month remains until Trailwalker...

China Dreams

For the first time in seven years, I have Chinese in my dreams again. The last two nights have both featured Chinese, both written and spoken. It is quite an interesting experience.

Professional lapse

Yesterday marked the first time that I, through negligence, had to cancel a lesson. This blade cuts rather deep for me as I had pride in being organised, being on time and doing my best to solve the problems that my clients sometimes impose upon me. But this time it was all my doing.

Yesterday, at 2:10pm, while I was at my bus-stop, my cellphone rang. I was too slow in answering and missed the call. The number was a client number - a moment's anxiety sent me straight to my diary: I was meant to be teaching a lesson from 2pm. My blood ran cold.

It was a mental shortcut that did it. My lessons on Monday and Tuesday this year had been finishing at 6pm, and all the lessons I have been setting up have been consecutive i.e. if I had 3 lessons, I would be teaching from 3pm-6pm. However, recently my 5pm-6pm student asked to have lessons at 2pm for a couple of weeks, which I agreed to. My diary had this recorded. I sent out the confirmed schedule saying so too. Yesterday, I was to have three lesssons, so to figure out when I needed to be in, I simply calculated back from 6pm 3 hours as per usual: I would start classes at 3pm; I need to get the 2:15pm bus etc.

Needless to say but I'm very disappointed in this lapse.

A new adventure in Chinese

Argh. It is always a thought I express, accompanied by a lot of hitting of the head, after getting off the phone to a radio station. I have called talkback before and it's quite a thrill but this was the first time I had done it in Chinese.

Everytime I have called talkback it was weirdly surreal - you're wired with adrenalin, have a bit of a tremor going, you can no longer speak smoothly, forgetting your meaning, tripping over words (even in English): It is all rather frustrating. This time language naturally made it more difficult.

My biggest difficulty was actually trying to get the phone number before I called. It would be announced suddenly and rapidly, leaving me with bits and pieces. Then calling was interesting because you are just listening to a dial tone, hoping that you aren't just ringing the wrong number (there is no operator or background sound of the DJs). So you just wait and then suddenly they greet you and put you on the spot to start speaking (usually when you are thinking about the work day ahead).

Anyway, my call was to berate the poor quality of the Chinese New Year event at Ellerslie Racecourse. I was more timid than tigerlike. Ah well. They politely said they would take my advice to heart.

Charging into February

Sometimes time figures itself out well. The first three working weeks were quiet work-wise and I had time to put my Chinese on the front foot. I've been really proud of the state that I've polished it up. However, it has given me a lot of food for thought in terms of how far I have to go to get it up to the level I want.

Now in the past short week I have really hit my stride with an 18-hour working week (out of a potential pool of 22 hours, which would only happen on an extraordinary week - although last week I could have hit it last week if it weren't for Waitangi day).

And although I had a poor start to the year for my Trailwalker training, after a good walk today I feel like I will be ready in two months for the event. So everything is fine.

Man my proofreading sucks big-time

Swingback

Language learning is something that I've become quite skilled at. I can call upon huge resources and install regimented training and systems to absorb vocabulary, practice skills for every aspect of a language. This, of course, is even more true for the foreign language that most familiar to me - Chinese.

Two years ago, I resolved to pass the Intermediate Chinese Proficiency test and started an intensive period of self-study. I surpassed my expectations but fell less than 1% short of the highest grade. Since then I've been rather lax and my acuity became rather blunt.

So with new energies I have thrown myself back into language study and am even more regimented than those two years ago. These past two weeks my blurry listening skills have been sharpened to very close to the level they were at the time of the test and I'm recovering copious amounts of past learnt vocabulary and warming them back up. One thing that is always surprising whenever you start to relearn language is that you learn vocabulary that you know that you've never learnt before - and then think how you ever got by without it. In the 9 years that I have been learning and using Chinese, I finally learnt the word for tinfoil.

Whether it was from this sudden change in routines, however, by the previous weekend I was suddenly having trouble sleeping. Every morning I was feeling like repeatedly microwaved crud. This was compounded with a virus of some sort that blighted my work days and wrecked my weekend. Fortunately, the virus symptoms seemed to lessen when I was being sociable (I've always been like that), so I could comfortably celebrate the wedding of Myles and Sufong on the Saturday. Congratulations!

Work-wise, it has been a slow beginning but I have already gained students and once everyone is back working (some are abroad, others are yet to start the training formally for the year), I'll have a busier average work week than last year. And with the zeal I've pursued Chinese, every day has been full-on and satisfyingly tiring.

A new year

After a whirlwind trip down to Wellington, up to New Plymouth and then back home in the space of four days, I'm back at home one day short of my first day of work for the year.

It has put me in the mood for goal-setting:

Goal 1. Get a diary and keep to it.

Amazingly 2006 was the first year that I have managed to use a diary right till the end of the year. This is probably more to do with having so many professional engagements than any other year. Regrettably I haven't got myself a diary yet, and have about 10 different engagements swirling around in my mind - and there is an immediate need to pin them down and get myself into an organised routine.

Goal 2. Get my charitable activities in order.

The plan is to continue my Stroke work, sort out my donation commitments, donate blood at least three times and start either refugee language teaching or migrant support volunteer work. I will give about 100 hours of time and $1000 (including the money paid for Trailwalker).

Goal 3. Get fit, lose weight.

Boy, does that sound like a cliche - but very applicable for me right now. My fitness has dropped away since Trailwalker last year and I haven't done much to retain my endurance and strength. In terms of weight, I now know I've gained 4 kg in the last year, none of which is muscle or additional neurons. I've yet to plan out exactly what my routine will be but with Trailwalker looming, walking is bound to be a big part of it. Cross-training will need to be a part of it. My main goal will be at least to get back to where I was prior to last year in terms of weight and be as fit as I was prior to my second ankle sprain. Finishing Trailwalker will be an intermediate step in the process, not a time to stop extensive physical activity and training.

Goal 4. Re-regiment my language learning.

Last year was the year of learning from non-fiction books. Now I believe I should return to my language studies which have languished somewhat in the last year. Chinese will be the large part of this, but I'd like to add basic Spanish, German and French to that. I'd like to shore up my Japanese, Korean, Latin and Maori.

Goal 5. Consolidate my business.

I'll work to raise a third client and establish a weekly average of 18 hours working hours. I've already identified the industry that I will approach first.

Goal 6. Continue the garden throughout the year.

I'd like to continue the rotation of crops on the small piece of land I'm cultivating. I would like to have a good knowledge of all the crops that I grow and some of the problems that can happen.

Goal 7. Organise things on the homefront.

My books and things are still scattered between my mum's home and my current abode. I will seek to sell off excess books, find appropriate storage for my old stuff and properly move things from my mother's as well as find a place here for the things I need.

A year in review

One good thing about blogs is the luxury of being able to clearly look back on the previous year. This has been a good year after a lull between 2004 and 2005.

It started with me considering my business which I had always said was an 'unsustainable' undertaking. I had come off a failed application for my dream job as a translator, and the complete failure the previous year to get a teaching job.

I was determined to let it be my year of health - yet this is one year to forget healthwise. My back has troubled me the whole year and my ankles are still not 100% and assorted maladies harried me throughout.

In January I murmured that I should get back into chess - this took me until December to do.

In February, I lost my wisdom teeth. March passed without a single blog!

April was defined by the challenge of the Oxfam Trailwalker and my failure to get to the end.

May I started considering jumping professions to Speech Language Therapy, which required some extramural study as well as practical experience with people affected by strokes. Now the extramural study didn't happen but I've happily accommodated doing some volunteer work with a stroke sufferer into my weekly schedule.

May also held the leads that resulted in my second client, and the lifeline for me. It also was the month that I leaped back into crosswords as my intellectual challenge of choice.

Early June also saw Xin's mum move out of home and back to China. I filled the vacancy and haven't looked back. Moving out of home had been something I had been saying I would be doing for so long, especially since late 2004 when I was going to move out as soon as I got my first primary teaching job. Neither ever eventuated and I was in limbo. Moving into Xin's home has been wonderful - it is such a release of the annoying burden of living apart.

This year has been the year of the book for me. Being something of a tortoise with book in hand, and occasionally going through periods of holding anti-literature attititudes, it is rather surprising to consider how much I've read. At the start of the year I ran through Guns, Germs and Steel. In mid-year, I read The Myths that Make us and The Simpsons and Philosophy. The Sutra of Weilang and The Science of Realisation followed in August. Lately I've chewed through the massive Ideas book and followed it up with A Brief History of Almost Everything. I'm already onto two other books yet to be completed.

July saw a crisis of ability when I started to doubt my competence at pretty much anything. My faculties worsening - disasters left and right. While that crisis eased - the factors remain the same. The filmfest also came to town and was enjoyed. And so were my first lessons at my second client.

August saw me returning to natural cycles: waking up early, making food, growing sprouts, planting trees and cultivating a garden. August also saw our car window smashed.

September saw a busy hosting period when it seemed like we were inviting everyone into our home.

October saw only two blogs - one in the aftermath of my birthday party and another in 'gloomy' prognostication of a work-tsunami. The work really was charging forth in October and reached a pitch in November when I was rather exhausted.

December saw my first serious over-the-board chess games in seven years and the beginnings of a new Trailwalker campaign.

Overall, it has been an important and successful year.

Trailwalker campaign 2007 underway!

After the experience of Trailwalker 2006, I have decided to participate again in the event April next year. This is a 100km walk - one that I failed to finish at my first attempt. But my body is stronger and I feel like I can finish it this year.

James is back for a second round of punishment. Chris Quill and Myles Arkell are in for their first attempts. We trained for the first time last weekend and we have a name:

The MDRs! (Most Direct Routes)

It is all for a good cause, raising money for OXFAM to help the impoverished around the world. If you are feeling generous, please visit our fundraising site:

Sponsor us here

Tournament

For the first time in seven years, I participated in a chess tournament and overall it was a pleasant experience. It was a five round rapid tournament - rapid in chess terms though with 25 minutes for each player for the whole game plus five seconds for every move you make. It makes for a rather intense game as there is just enough time to consider plans and attacks but not deeply enough for anyone to be 100% that they are doing the right move.

The first shock of the tournament for me was that the directors of play elected to use my 1999 standard chess rating as a basis for draw. Without explaining the system, that means that I started on the top board (out of around 25 boards). This helps in a way as it is intimidating. But it was quite annoying too as my first game showed.

The first game was against a young player, definitely still at primary school. The first round is a usually a massacre as the highest rated players are given the lowest rated players. This is to ensure that the final rounds are full of tough tussles and no-one is too exhausted by early round clashes. However, I struggled to defeat this young boy; in fact it was the last game to be completed. This is quite embarrassing because people were surrounding the board watching as I struggled to find a decent plan. Eventually I used a school-boy tactic to defeat him.

The second was my first over-the-board game against a family of chess players, the Maroroa family. It was the youngest - a boy still in Intermediate. He played quickly, scarcely using more than 10 seconds per move. And they were all reasonable moves that caused me problems. However, I used a straightforward yet overwhelmingly strong plan which he could not deal with in his haste. After I finally seized the advantage, he finally took several minutes to take stock of the carnage - then ripped out the poorest move possible to eliminate any doubt.

That was good for the confidence as it was a well executed win (as compared to the first game).

The third game was against a veteran of chess, finally someone older than me. We played a solid game in which I accumulated small advantages that in the end won me the game. At the end, he had only 5 seconds on the clock before he couldn't defend any longer and let the time slip away.

There was a five way tie for the lead - three older players and one junior and me. So four of the bunch fought it out with one person left over to maul someone on a lower score. I played one of the senior players who had recently won two consecutive tournaments. He faltered early in the game and I missed an obviously winning move. He hit back and my advantage dissipated leaving him in with a good chance. He missed one clear win (I saw it immediately after one of my moves) and then it was a tight endgame which could have been won by either of us. In the end, it was a draw. Coincidentally, the other game with leaders was a draw t00.

So going into the last round there was one person on 4, and a bunch of four on 3.5 points. I was to play the junior, another Maroroa, the older sister. I had destroyed her online earlier in the year - but she had improved since then - as a rule Juniors do, the inexorably improve till they're about 20. We played a solid start but I went astray in the middlegame exposing myself to a crippling onslaught. Defending against that tied one hand behind my back and halted my attack. She then swung to the other side of the board and eventually found a method to exchange pieces to a won endgame. I had lost.

Overall, I learnt a lot especially from the loss and the draw. I still have to decide whether I'll persist with chess. I may join the nearby club if I have a weeknight free in the new year.

Crescendo

The climax of my working year has passed, and I'll be drifting to the year end in considerably more comfort than I have been recently. The past week has been a little bit of an exhausted blur. For the third time, my expectation of exceeding 20 classroom hours in a week have been thwarted, but only just. I taught for 19.5 hours, losing 2.5 hours to cancellations, and another half-hour to a change of day. To be honest, I was thankful for those losses on the Friday, where a scheduled 7 hours shrank to 4.5 hours. I was rather ragged at the end of those 4.5 hours.

But that is work, and with it out of the way for the time being, it is about time that I focus on the month and a third till the new year. My goals are:

• to rekindle my walking in preparation for Trailwalker next year
• to finish Ideas, which I have finished but for the last 130 pages and read A Brief History of Nearly Everything
• to sharpen up my chess so that I'm at least moderately dangerous
• to tidy up the garden around Xin's house
• to manage my money well
• to get back into a healthy life routine, like I was before

Fortunately, harvest time is approaching steadily for the vege garden. Lettuce has already been harvested and some small heads of broccoli have also been taken. The peas and beans are flowering beautifully and just need a hard-working kiwi bee to pollinate them.

And after our house regains its sense of order and place, I want to get back into have guests over.

Kaput!

Excuse my german. Today was the culmination of the last month. And I'm shattered. The presentation went off passably. There was the funny moment when the screen automatically went up half way through the presentation. It was put together largely within the last week and a half. This last 24 hours have been rather exhausting. But it's a Monday, and Mondays are the first day of the week. I'd better have a good night sleep.

Well, the week wasn't quite what I expected. The intense Monday and Tuesday left me shattered on Wednesday morning but I was saved by an unusual number of cancellations. My Friday, in particular, dropped from 6 hours to 2 hours. Although it is disappointing in that I was completely prepared for all those classes and I lose some potential income, it does give me more leeway time-wise in the coming week as I already have a class plan for all of the cancelled classes. This week is looking to be a quieter week in terms of lessons but will be the time when I'll be applying myself assiduously to the side-project.

Other auspicious developments are in my garden. There are little heads on my broccoli (I'm salivating at the prospect) as well as caterpillars on the broccoli leaves, which I left to the mercy of the neighbourhood's avian gangsters. The peas are growing onwards and upwards and one of the once small tomato plants is starting to look rather like a strapping adolescent.

After several months of nothing my volunteer work for the Volunteer Stroke Scheme finally got underway three weeks ago. Unfortunately, a lot of what I learnt has already been blown away by the gusts of work and other bits of life. I finished the course when I was still living at Mum's house!

One of the fascinating things about the stroke victims is the words that there are recurring words and phrases that come out meaninglessly. My person says'good, good, good', 'and all of a sudden' and 'buh-buh-buh-buh-buh' whenever he is trying to put a sentence. The latter was interesting because I heard one of my students at FPH says the same thing when he was searching for a chinese word for something (he is learning Chinese). It seems that some phrases just get frozen in your mouth. What words and phrases would be the words you are left with?

The sheer frustration of someone with a stroke is probably the thing that strikes one the most: How hard it can become to express yourself when something like that happens.

Immersion

A work-tsunami has been pending for the last few months. Seismic activity in both of my contracted companies has been simmering for quite some time; at times promising but barely cause a ripple. Next week, however, may be when all hell breaks loose. It will be the 20-hour week that I have been talking up. Not only that, but a side project will pillage my weekend.

It is a great moment - a high tide mark - but it is also promising to be a harrowing one. See you all at the other end of it.

Vicissitudes

Several weeks ago, I was exhausted after my busiest week with 17 scheduled hours. This week my hours plunged to... 6 1/2 hours. That's a loss of more than half of my income, with four students going abroad and several cancellations, and the continuing unstable circumstances at the my second client. Next week will be quiet too, but the subsequent week should be back up to 17 hours or more. It is very much a case of feast and famine.

In the meantime, I've had a chance to dig into Ideas, the book my sister gave me for my birthday gift. It, along with anything from Jared Diamond and Steven Pinker, is a book that makes you feel truly knowledgeable after every page you read. It nicely lays out the development of ideas from time, to the Bible, to the early development of psychology etc.

Fleet of Foot

After a period of some recovery, my ankle irritation returned several weeks ago. This caused me to reconsider my assumptions about the cause. I had long thought that the shock of spraining my ankle, then by overcompensating while walking strained and weakened the internal sides of my feet. I decided to go back to the podiatrist, and it was wise. My insoles had been compressed and the soles of my shoes were munted. It was likely that the damage to both had caused constant stress to my ankles as I walked.

Now, I have my upgraded insoles and am on the verge of investing in another pair of sturdy shoes to wander around in.

Disruption

My working relationship with my second client has not been developing well due to a seemingly incompetent manager at the other end. To date, I have missed four days of work due to apparent incompetence and this person has inconvenienced many due to her lack of consideration.

The missed days were all a case of the manager not scheduling that which had to be scheduled. For better or worse, she is the only person who can schedule the lessons at the company for me. If she should neglect to do them, I have no work and the students lose any regularity of lessons. On one day she cancelled the lessons with me on the pretext that none of the students were available, but she didn't notify the students that the lessons were available. Obviously she hadn't talked to all the students as one called me in the afternoon asking me why I wasn't there for his lesson...

I received quite an amusing e-mail from her on Monday, when upon receiving an invoice from me, she asked about several details. She said that one particular lesson I charged for was not on her records and asked me to provide the reason why it was taught. I sent to her the e-mail she had originally sent me, outlining the schedule for that week (stating clearly the lesson). She read my comment on the invoice: “Lessons unscheduled”, referring to the days where no lessons were scheduled, as “Unscheduled lessons” and asked to whom I was giving unscheduled lessons. Not that these lessons were charged... I explained that I would refrain from ambiguous language in the future (her reading of Lessons Unscheduled is vaguely possible to a rational person, so I should either put more words to put the matter beyond all doubt in future).

On Tuesday, that manager called me this morning wanting to change an afternoon lesson time, which, though slightly annoying, I agreed to. However, upon arriving at the company I found that my 12 o'clock appointment believed his time to be on Thursday (which may be an innocent misreading by him). He was at an external company but could come in for the meeting later in the afternoon. The receptionist tried to reschedule with awkward results. She had not been informed of the lesson change that was agreed to in the morning, nor had there been a room allocated for that lesson change. Due to a lack of communication from that manager she had to do multiple calls just to set the story straight and then organise an alternative plan. She then talked to me with a somewhat embarrassed expression saying that she should have been told about these changes, while trying to remain professional. She proposed a very practical rescheduling which worked well with me.

However, when I met with the student for his needs analysis, he told me he was leaving next week for a three month trip. Right... now why was I giving him a needs analysis now?

The whole situation, though potentially aggravating, no longer causes more than a sigh from me. She has improved her communication, e-mailing me today about the schedule - although it was a schedule of nothing, saying all rooms were booked out (in the whole AXA building)! Well, at least it was cancelled on an actual reason, rather than laziness. I'll e-mail all the students to make sure this clear to the students.

This week was meant to be my heaviest week of work - but cancellations reduced it somewhat.

Cruising Altitude

It has been a rather frenetic last seven days. We have hosted 3 people for dinner (out of 5 possible nights of dinners at home), one over for a cuppa, gone on a road trip and had our first person stay the night over. I really like the idea of the open door to friends who come and go.

In A Vigil to a Nation (which I'm reading piece by piece), the author incessantly chatters in tangents about all and sundry while describing his journey's through the landscape of WW2 China. One point that did strike a chord with me was how he said that in the US the 'open door' that people used to have for random guests, had become the 'open porch'. This was back in the mid-1940s, so it is interesting to see the change began then. When I was young, even though we were living in the country, we only ever had people over with a lot of forewarning, preparation and with a self-evident reason.

So let this be an open invitation to anyone reading this to drop by sometime. Just give a text or call and I'll open the door.

Small Print: Naturally should we be occupied with other pressing matters, your visit may be politely declined, or reduced to a cuppa or walk around the block.

Sunshine

Last week, my sickness waned, strengthened then waned again. After my two sick days, my short working week (back to 3 days) was frenetic including a Friday which would be a record (effectively 6.5 hours of teaching in a 7.5 hour period). My weekend was a rollercoaster with highlights of having friends over for dinner and putting my first set of lentil plants into my mother's garden where I hope they'll take root and do what they may (I hope they produce lentils but anything would be nice to watch). The aftermath was that I was back to health and ready for a new week.

However, work-wise, Monday and Tuesday have been disastrous, with my company responsible failing to set up the lesson schedule for me this week, and then her getting sick for the first two days of the week, thus cutting off contact and leaving me without any work except to ring people left, right and centre to piece together the situation. But that is work-work, finding more time on my hands, suddenly re-planting the kawakawa, coprosma and minature horopito in the front lawn. Upon hearing that a high was over the country to stay for a few days I washed almost every washable item for my bed and clothing and it is now hanging gloriously from the line. Since my elderly neighbours putting lawn clippings in our rubbish bin (long story), I created a compost area with discarded branches (a true compost bin, as the branches will compost in the end too). I pickled mushrooms, worked out the problem with my mum's computer and had another friend over for dinner. So I have managed to convert my workless time into concrete outcomes.

Having people over for dinner is rather easy when you have a place of your own. "Xin, shall we have Paul over?" "Okayyyy". And it was done. Resource consent is not difficult at all.

Succumb

My back is finally almost right.
My ankles are coming into stability.
My weight has come down.
I have been sleeping well again...

And after all those victories, I have been knocked over by a nasty cold, which I think is my first of the year. It is my first sick-day this year. Sick days immediately hit my income which is always a consideration. Irritating for me is that this week at my new company I was to do evaluations for two new students which immediately increases my hourage there. But these things are all unavoidable and the best option is always to allow rest to overcome the lurgy.

Process and Ritual

I have been reading a lot of books lately. I have read large portions of The Science of Realization (one of the Hare Krishna books that they try to get you to buy on Queen St), ripped through the Sutra of Weilang and now have started Vigil of a Nation of a much lauded Chinese author Lin Yutang.

The Hare Krishna book was very interesting for about the first half. The author (the dour looking master you may see in pictures related to Hare Krishna stuff) outlines the system of Hare Krishna thought well and argues in a sophisticated manner. I appreciate the simplicity of the system, it is much more logical than Christianity's convoluted logic (with all due respect to Jesus). His zeal to prove Kare Krishna thoughts leaves a lot of dogma explained to my satisfaction. Interestingly, a few correspondents argued with him quite successfully on some points and these letters are included in the work. I'm interested in getting a Bhagavad Gita written in natural English.

My interest in that was wiped away by re-infatuation with Zen. As mentioned, prior to finding the Sutra of Weilang, I already had it encroaching on my mind. Now, I am interested in getting all I can on buddhism. It is perhaps the sudden relevance to some mundane thoughts that bring it so strongly to mind. Let me take you back to 1999 March/April at Wellington when I was on the Organising Committee for NZ Motivational Seminar. It was the beginning of a burst of philosophical thought in me that took me to Taoism. I was there in the kitchen cleaning na incessantly building pile of dishes and finding the simple process of cleaning to be a great pleasure. I felt so pure just doing this routine over and over again. The realisation that there was no such thing as boredom or meaninglessness was probably one of the most profound that I have had and still influences me strongly.

Life, especially keeping a home, is process. Everything is process. And thus everything is Zen. We hosted some friends for dinner last night. Making chapatis was great. Cooking was pleasure. Organising the house was a wonder. I was having far too much fun before the guests had arrived.

I remember my amusement when I first saw the Japanese tea ceremony, one step after the other, after the other. I despised the arbitrariness of each step. Watching it though, in Drawing Restraint 9, was beautiful. I realised it was a process.

A Zen / Dao metaphor like this: You are in a boat in a lake, suddenly you notice a boat being sailed directly toward you. You yell at the person, but it keeps coming closer. You curse the sailor and have a case of boat rage when it eventually hits your boat. Now consider what you would do if the other boat was empty i.e. it was just drifting with the wind. There would be no anger. You wouldn't curse or wish pain upon anyone. You'd just do your best to avoid it. And if it did hit, you would focus on what is important – saving yourself and recovering your boat.

It is an allusion to being dispassionate when someone does you ill. The point being, if you do meet misfortune because of someone else, you should just treat it as fate, that the other boat is empty and do what you can to improve the situation, rather than being angered by the action. Zen is big on detachment.

Last Thursday there was a wonderful moment to test this out. Some individual(s) decided to go down Marsden Avenue smashing passenger windows, opening them up and searching them for valuables. Zu, our reliable car, was caught in the devastation and gained the car equivalent of a black eye. I hadn't realised it till a neighbour knocked on my door while I was making dinner. To be honest, on hearing the news and seeing the resulting mess, my blood pressure hardly rose. I was quite detached and peaceful.

However, time does prove us all wrong. After telling Xin about it and her telling me she was too preoccupied to come home immediately to help deal with it, my peace was shattered. It is hard to empty the boat when it is someone you love. Obviously I still have some cultivation of my mind still to go until I am peaceful when my expectations are dashed by a person close to me.

I've always been a calm person – I thought I had to learn to show anger more or people won't take a grievance seriously. Once, when Vanessa unilaterally controlled the fate of a certain photograph, I wanted to show anger because considering it was a mere photograph, it was hard to make such a small issue an issue something worth protesting about. So I went through all sorts of rather artificial actions to express my disappointment and frustration. It was hard work getting angry, and it was for no result greater than harming a friendship.

Is expressing anger in any situation productive to a relationship or friendship? It is hard to imagine. If one can be dispassionate and accepting, but honest to express their qualms or disagreements it would seem to be a better course, if they can help it.

For me, today has been great. I have done my dream of "A thousand miracles before sunrise" (waking early and getting into doing so many little tasks). My rubbish collection was a little late but all other tasks were done. I resolved most of the smashed window problem (just need to call someone on Monday to fit it). I hosted some friends for morning tea and the hummus I made after that is a beautiful colour and doesn't taste half-bad. I have prepared my first ever batch of naan bread (another indian bread) which needs to sit for a couple of hours before being cooked in a hot oven. Can't wait!

Erosion

This year there has been a surprising number of landslips and mudslides reported in the media. Most of these are caused by agricultural techniques to raise livestock. Land is deforested to create grazing land and roots of trees that usually support the land are removed hence the higher risk of gradual erosion and sudden slides. This produces externalities to many parts of the community. I can remember from my youth many rivers being brown, and that is the way it is for many towns. As the silt accumulates, as the river floor rises, the river can no longer be held by its banks, which have to be built higher and higher.

So who is responsible? The farmers who often inherited the treeless legacy, or consumers who tend to overlook the responsibilities associated with consumption? What is a responsible course?

Reflections on my way to work on the bus

At a bus-stop shelter, you'll often see marker pen graffiti on the glass. I started scratching it with my nails, with limited and messy success. I picked up a wet leaf, and surprisingly it came off with ease.

You can't tell a book by its cover it's mostly true. But as a ship bears flags of its purpose and provenance so do people tend to be revealed by appearance. However never take an aphorism to be true just because it is an aphorism. Just as you wouldn't rely solely on appearance as definitive evidence of a person's nature. Truisms are weeds to the logical mind.

Across from me is a man who boarded the bus at the same stop as I did. He had been singing audibly at the bus-stop, and in the lack of company in his vicinity, has been talking effusively in a quiet voice several rows ahead of me, to himself. His readable cover might be that of a person with dementia, or perhaps just a little eccentric. Both conclusions come from my mind only - nothing compels them to be true. He leaves the bus with his business satchel slung over his shoulder, just as I might. I sing as I walk to the carpooling point too.

Man, the photo for the TV1 drinking age survey advertisement has two of the fakest smiles you'll ever see. As I write this, several row behind me, the girls in the back-row start discussing the drinking age. Psychic networking?

The background song in my mind as I write is Thom Yorke's "The Clock". I had heard it for the first time on the radio (Radio Live, the only commercial station I have found any interest in of late, 100.6FM - although I've never listened to the main hosts) - it sounded like an incessant whining drone - a song I was surprised to be hearing on the radio. Now I have the CD and suddenly its unique beat has created its own imagined music video in my mind. I can picture Thom beating a bongo drum (not unlike Andy Kauffman in Man on the Moon) even though its an electronic song with a dead serious face as he wails against the Clooooooock~ It's a beautiful song.

The bus almost pulled into a white sedan trying to squeeze by at speed before the bus came out. I wouldn't have notice if it weren't for the same girls behind swearing in shock in a loud voice. I'm too busy writing in amongst the mental drumming.

A man is patting his thighs waiting at a crossing. Is it Ka Mate? He dashes across opportunistically, before the signal.

Tim Allen is the Shaggy Dog, In Cinemas April

(Inuit) Exeunt

Cleaning and Zen

Cleaning and tidying are interesting activities. There can be actions which are cleaning explicitly and deliberately. Like when you plug in the vacuum cleaner and motor it around the house. There can be incidental cleaning, like cleaning the bath while you are taking a shower. There is habitual orderliness, which is the prevention of the need of cleaning. If you don't dirty things, they naturally don't need cleaning. Somehow, for me this recalls two Zen Buddhist poems.

In a temple where the Fifth Patriarch of Zen taught there were two promising student, Shenxiu, who was something of an academic and Huineng, a 'barbarian' from the South of China. Shenxiu was admired by others and was widely expected to become the Sixth Patriarch. The Patriarch himself decided that there should be a competition to write a poem that describes Buddha-nature. Shenxiu wrote:

The body is a Bodhi tree,
the mind a standing mirror bright.
At all times polish it diligently,
and let no dust alight.

Huineng wrote in reply:

Bodhi is no tree,
nor is the mind a standing mirror bright.
Since all is originally empty,
where does the dust alight?

The latter 'won' and the Patriarch gave the ceremonial robe to Huineng. The poem itself is a favourite of mine, hanging on one of the walls in my home (as is Huineng one of my favourite characters of Buddhist history).

However if we are talking about the real world of cleaning, the theorising doesn't work. You cannot make your home clean by realising that cleanliness is an empty abstraction. I agree if Shenxiu when it comes to cleaning. My house is a bodhi tree, and the windows mirrors bright, we should constantly keep it clean and let not dust alight... lest we gain grimy corners.

Interestingly, after I started writing this (I saved it on Monday), I found the Sutra of Weilang at Jason's bookstore (only after browsing did I realise that Weilang was an old romanisation of Huineng's name (probably in Cantonese, which is apt because Huineng was Cantonese). Nice synchronicity and enough to persuade me to buy it.

Simple Joys

I had never eaten a chapati prior to my own making of one, nor had I eaten Essene bread before I made it myself. Learning something foreign and then mastering it is one undeniable pleasure and moreso when it is culinary and success can be gauged by your own sense enjoyment.

Chapatis come from the Indian flatbread family. My first attempt at this family were stuffed parathas, which Xin said was not cooked enough (but could not be cooked more). Disappointed, I decided to try puris (deep fried bread). That was very popular and tasted quite good. I learnt a few lessons from that. Especially the best ways to knead and how to roll them better. I tried a chapatti which, though biscuit-like, were well cooked and tasty and I managed to roll them up with newly-made hummus for Xinna in a small crisis. I immediately went for a tricky recipe and put blended spinach in the dough making a beautiful green. The taste did not match the beauty.

Each time, I was not completely satisfied with the result, but last night again I tried plain ones and suddenly it went perfectly. The expanded as they should – looking just like restaurant ones. It was a simple joy to make them.

Essene bread is an interestingly simple recipe. It has only one ingredient: blended wheat sprouts. I had a go at this several weeks ago and although the taste was interesting, I could not say that I liked it. I resolved to repeat the recipe with my own extra ingredients: ground almonds, cinnamon and honeysuckle honey. Again, it was much better. Alice and Mark (especially the latter) took to it keenly this morning. I am not yet satisfied I have a recipe to keep on advancing it, using the wheat sprouts as a base and change the ingredients and cooking time.

Interestingly, I have never made traditional leavened bread – something I will remedy at some stage.

Life changes, changes everything. Life makes the rules...

I've tried to be rather progressive with my routines lately. My mornings on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are now effectively set in concrete. I wake at 5:30am, make breakfast, water sprouts, transport potplants to window-sills, make Xinna a Daniel sandwich, brew a ton of tea and head out the door at 6:30am. I charge up Mt Eden rd at a brisk pace, entering Big King reserve within 5 minutes to be immersed in the minature, but pleasant, Dawn Chorus - sipping hot green tea and ginkgo from my flask. I plough up the mountain and back down again, greeting the likewise earlybird dog-owners who do their walking in the twilight before sunrise. I get to the pick-up point just on the turn of 7am and wait for my ride, doing a few stretches.

I like routines. If I had to turn bow down to any master, it would be to the clock (and if I had to bow down to a mistress, it would be Xinna). In the evenings likewise, I am drilled into a routine. Getting dinner underway and ready, while managing cleaning, updating lesson plans, sprout management, watching the news and downing tea by the time Xin comes back. Then to bed by 9:30pm (that's the target, which I often fail).

I have brand-new projects. I have officially started my morning rubbish collection on Saturday mornings. I have already made a new neighbourly friend, Lao Guo, a 70 years+ Chinese man who lives down the street. He accompanied me on my walk. After that, I return to make a sandwich (or two) while porridge is cooking. I do Taichi after that at One Tree Hill.

My sprouting activities have moved to the a more sophisticated food gardening, transferring successful broccoli and lentil sprouts to egg carton cups and a little soil. I know have 24 broccoli seedlings and 12 lentil plants growing, hopefully into whole plants.

I had a moment of realisation during the week. After Fiona left from picking up hummus and Xin came home for dinner, I suddenly realised this abode was in fact now my home, and was rather homely. I have gain comfort and rhythm - the necessary criteria for a homely feeling for me.

The Middle East

I've never believed in Karma in a metaphysical sense but there is a lot to be said about Karma in geopolitics and life in general. The whole of human history is karma, its build up and realisation - and this is shown clearly in the Middle East. Looking at it historically, it is rather cringe-worthy, firstly the Biblical lead up, the Crusades of the Dark Ages, Zionism of the last century and the present day result. Karma is being inflicted on the civilians of the involved states, and karma is being built up again through the actions of both sides.

In the metaphysical world of karma, you reap what you sow, and this is what we'd hope would be true in the real actions of the world. To this of course we must ask, why do both sides unremittingly sow malevolence?

How do we solve the Middle East conflict? You can't. It can only be untied by the expense of lives and time while letting the bad karma be 'realised' and only then can peace stand a chance.

My last review

And from the absurdity that excessive creativity can have on the classic boy-meets-girl movie, to the absurdity of pure excessive creativity. Drawing Restraint 9 is the first movie by Matthew Barney that I have seen, although he has a series of acclaimed movies: the Cremaster cycle (viewed already by Xin). I knew what to expect in style, which meant there was no shock of its extreme arty movie style.

I liken watching truly arty movies as like listening to a symphony. It used to be that people could listen to classical music and enjoy the flow, build-up and climax of pure sound, the building of a motif to its ultimate realisation etc. etc. Then came pop music which its thematic creation which drowns out such appreciation. The same could be said with dance and ballet. Likewise with movies, the simple observation of crafted symbolism, recurrent motifs, trained performance, simple beauty could be missed in this movie to the unaccepting eye drilled in the patterns of commercialised movies. But if you let such a movie come to you, hold it within your minds eye, let it brew, wait for association and meaning to form slowly and form it is a refreshing experience. You feel cleaner by the end of it.

Of course, I loved the film, after all, it has the coolest tea-set on the face of the globe. It was sensual and cryptic. The sound of this movie is overpowering. Matthew Barney's wife and co-star is the irrepressible Bjork (although her acting her is definitely one of restraint to the natural) so naturally this is to be expected when an artist is given such a responsibility. The music is an even more extreme demonstration of the pure music shown in her recent album Medulla. Lyrics are a scarce commodity in all the music and to those wanting to hear that voice it could be a disappointment. But for the movie, the abrasion, repetition and flow of the whole soundtrack are undeniably apt. I had seen reviews of the soundtrack on Amazon.com and the screams of protest from Bjork fans at the minimalism of it all – and the lack of Bjork's crooning. But that is to forget that it is a soundtrack. I had been rather sleep-deprived for two straight nights, and at times did shut my eyes. Xin aided in my reawakening. But this is the kind of movie you can appreciate well with your eyes shut.

Movie Reviews

With a film festival, there will always come reflection on films, their qualities, the thoughts they inspire, as well, as well as reconsidering the reasons we choose particular movies, or watch movies at all.

Thus, here are my reviews and reflections on the three movies I have watched in the 2005 Auckland Film Festival.

Sympathy for Lady Vengence

This is the third in the Revenge trilogy, three independent movies based on retribution. After watching the previous two (Old Boy and Cut) I was awaiting another dose of plot trickery, kinetic action and general sadism. Regrettably, having such high expectations can lead to disappointment and regrettably this was the case here.

A woman is released after her 13 year prison sentence for the crime of kidnapping and murdering a young boy. The film sets out exactly how it was that her though innocent, was convicted and how she set about in her plans for vengence on the true perpetrator of the crime. Needless to say, a lot happens in between, it is rather tiring to decipher the relevance of it all.

Park Chanwook, the director, built on the bag of tricks used in the previous movies thatching together a complex cohesion of segments into this film. The time line, even more than ever, is shattered and we are given fragments from various times, while the main segment proceeds.

Amelie-esque whimsy is often used frequently with daydreams, fantasies, and general trickery used within the general flow. At times, this is a pleasant break, at other times it is disorienting, not knowing what is really true. Did it happen? We might never know.

The ending was the weakest point, lengthy and removing the significance from the preceding journey. She discovers vengence is not hers to deliver, and this is drawn out further and further. And then in an ambiguous segment (is it true or is it fantasy), the film ends.

The Science of Sleep

Stephane is a wildly creative person, a dreamer, if you will. But dreams, and their separation from reality can make life difficult, especially for a fool in love, and even more so for the object of his affection. This film is one of the most amazingly creative movies I have seen. Almost half of it is conducted in the confines of Stephane's imaginative brain revealing his desires and doubts. He is plagued mercilessly by his suspicions that Stephanie, whom he was besotted, really loves him and is not attracted to another.

Strangely, a lot of my criticisms for the last movie are strong points of this movie, showing it is delivery rather than the tools itself. The jumps from fact to fantasy could have been confusing, but we grasp the frustrations of Stephane even more strongly - this was clearly intended. The trickery too is the nature of the film.

I'm quite familiar with work of the director, Michael Gondry. He has done several movies notably The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and memorable for me is the Bjork music videos he has done (Bachelorette, Human Behaviour, Army of Me). Some scenes even directly recall them to mind. He has even done an acclaimed music video for the NZ band Stereogram.

In many ways, the dreams sequences are realisations of a wickedly kinetic music video. The soundtrack often kicks in during the dreams too complementing the weirdness of the dreams. The effects are eyepopping. Huge hands, cardboard cars, an antique toy horse charging around a field. The dialogues are littered with wordplay and language fun (done in three different languages, but mostly English). Almost the whole cast are oddballs, with the exception of Stephane's mother and housekeeper.

Overall, it was a ball. Highly recommended by me. A review of Drawing Restraint 9 will follow my viewing of it on Monday.

Peachy

A quick blog from an otherwise frenetic life. I chose, almost at the flip of a coin, to do some relief work for my last language school. This reduces my time for everything else of course. In amongst the buzz, I've officially become a contractor to my latest client. Things will begin soon and surprisingly, they already have 7-8 students lined up "without much trying" and only from one section of the business (albeit the largest section). I went for a forest walk on Sunday and went for a jaunt in the CBD and my ankles felt fine. My back seems to be holding up well with my regular back stretches (even if the beautiful music it makes causes James to cringe).

So perhaps I'm emerging from the mire of my unwellness. My personal economy will hit a small boom (for the first time in I don't know when). And I can't think of anything else depressing right now... Except for the petrol price - that's bad.

The Unity of all Things

One of my tightly held philosophical belief is the unity of all things i.e. that all things, despite our tendency to differentiate things, are essentially part of the same thing (just different forms).

One interesting thing about listening to Radio NZ on Saturday afternoons is that they play a plethora of different music, from hip-hop to country, to house music to metal etc. Usually music tends to get a little tribal - especially if you are younger. It is perhaps when you become musically wise when you realise that music cannot be chopped up. It does have different forms but it remains an intact art. It is a unity. It is then you can listen to almost anything.

Life as an errand

It took me one hour to leave F & P Healthcare today, which was essentially four different errands. Afterward I charged home on another, go waylaid by another, then decided to wash the dishes at my Dad's home before going home (in passing doing another errand).

Now we're cooking with gas

In Xin's house, we have instituted rather austere restrictions on power and water use. There is no need to be profligate with resource use - efficient routines and habits are the key.

I'm also housesitting my father's house while he and his family are away on travel. He has no qualms about power use. It took me two weeks to notice he had the bathroom towel rail on. And another week (now) to think to run down to his bathroom to turn that one off. The shower here doesn't sprinkle, it saturates, and does so faster than the shower can drain the bottom. He has a wastemaster for scraps (we have a worm farm and a compost heap). His uses gas to heat the whole house (fortunately I don't need to use that).

It is a constant contrast.

A First?

Edwin asked one day what was something that could really be considered strange that I had done or something that I had done that no-one else had ever done before or something like that (feel free to say the exact question, Edwin). Some people are wont to call themselves strange, y'know, without any decent reason (apart from the idea that you vary from the norm, well who doesn't).

Anyway, although I may or may not have answered satisfactorily that day, perhaps another thing to add to the hypothetical list is a telephone-call where Xin and I simultaneously brushed our teeth for the first few minutes of the call tonight.

But naturally one doesn't know if other people engage in such adventurous combinations of ordinary tasks as we do. And at the same time, there is no strange in reality without comparison, and it was thus I answered that day, in the main.

New Adventures in HiFi

When you go from dial-up to broadband, it is like the first time you enter a chocolate shop. You gain access to secret places, drop the semblance of temperance and it's like I was blind but now I see.

Sheer delight.

Profundity

One of the delightful Zen phrases goes like this: "Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water." It gets to the root of all the endless abstraction, eliminating the mental dross we accumulate in our efforts to grasp the Absolute. After all, usually if the Zen disciple asked irrelevant questions to the master, more often than not he gets thwacked with a rod.

The modern equivalent would be Wash Dishes Vacuum Floor of course, and that is one of the things that comes to mind. General regular spring cleaning is wonderful at clearing the mind. Find a stain, eliminate it. Find a task, do it to completion to the best of your ability.

After doing this for most of Tuesday, I walked up the road and was quite disgusted by the rubbish. I'm reminded by a promise made to myself to go for a regular rubbish picking up stroll - it just needs to be regimented into my schedule - then it would be done. It is interesting to contemplate the origin of all the rubbish. A proportion of it is recyclable rubbish that had been correctly placed in the recycle bin only to fall out when the collecting men did their running grab. The hours after collection are often when the street looks worst. Rubbish, once loose, is no one's responsibility. Similarly bad weather on a rubbish day can have a similar effect. Empty plastic bottles are naturally wont to be blown from the bins, let alone paper from overfilled bins. Other bits are people's general laziness. In the playground, littering was often a sign of coolness, as it was in opposition to the goody-two-shoes labouring to the bin to discard. But when older, you wonder what is the general perception of litterers.

There are homes with fences peppered by little scraps of rubbish - on Dominion Road some items of rubbish are many years old. When you see faded labels and the like, it would be interesting to know whether the residents of the homes nearby actually notice them, or whether it is just there to see.

A few days ago, I noticed a sopping wet thin strip of carpet left in front of a neighbouring house when on a march for a Sally Lunn bun. Last night, it had moved three metres down the road to be in front of our set of units. Perhaps the neighbour, knowing it was not his, had moved it onto us.

Rubbish is a wonderful study of society.

Nobody told me there'd be days like this

Some people know that I have fears about the deterioration in my memory and judgement. I'm generally a optimistic person, but my confidence in my general competence has never been that high since I was about 20. Only in a few spheres of life would I claim any self-efficacy or genuine self-assurance in doing things. Xin is often amazed at my ability to screw things up or break things. My day-to-day memory is appalling at times. Sometimes I fear my spoken language is also going to hell in a flaming handbag.

It is hard to know whether such paranoia is justified, whether it is just a self-fulfilling prophecy, dietary or perhaps even a medical issue. Could doctors look back on posts like this and claim that it was the first symptoms of early onset dementia, Alzheimer's (insert random brain affecting disorder).

I don't know but what I do know is that I have had some bad days, and this to a certain extent, is one of them. Today I destroyed a laptop - pushed it off a keyboard "drawer" off a computer desk onto the ground. Perhaps it is something that anyone could have done but I might have a higher probability than others. At another time today, I got into the car and realised I didn't have my cellphone. I ran back into the house and took forever to find it then almost left before discovering I had put down the keys in the middle of my search and had to retrace my footsteps to find them. The day before I was very close to locking my keys in my father's house (he is in the Phillipines) - only a moment reflection stopped me from doing it.

Of course, the most common occurrences are the near misses. Like the time I reversed the car near the bulk food shop almost hitting the car parked behind. Or the time I nearly ran down a bus driver outside the museum. I'm still a car accident waiting to happen. The world is fortunate that along with being wildly unreliable, I'm also rather lucky. Also I'm fortunate that I am a rather stable individual - I'd be desperately frustrated with myself otherwise.

Interface of the Reality

Belief systems are ways to understand, grasp, and interact with reality (regardless whether a formalised recognised one or the net beliefs of a person). One model of understanding of the workings of the body is that the body works via qi (ch'i), another model is centred on chakras, another one might even work with reference to the recognised anatomical features we all share. The different understandings might explain equally well or alternatively show great disparaties in deduced truth. Chakras and qi are unproven to even exist but at times can be useful in explaining phenomenon. One interesting point I heard that a qi blockage can cause poor circulation (cold hands), which western medicine treats as a natural disorder (something to be managed rather than solved). Apparently this is not true in Chinese medicine. I have poor circulation, hence my interest.

Economics and politics are the same in this way. The power of logic and authority might create an allegiance to one understanding of truth. I am rather straddled over the conservative/liberal divide because the explanations for both are both quite compelling and can explain different phenomena.

There is a taoist saying, "Once you've caught the fish, discard the net" which pretty much explains my thoughts on the topic. The fish (truth) always is paramount, the net (belief system / ideology) is the most dispensible. Yet as is often noticed people love their nets. The net offers consistency and stability. Thus it removes people a step from truth and reality.

Domesticus

Another interesting factor in moving out is the move towards complete self-sufficiency. At home, although I was a paying board, eating 95% my own purchased food, cooking that food, washed dishes, paid internet and phone etc. I often didn't do some of the housework such as washing tidying etc. Now that I have moved it gives me a direct ownership over doing things and also making some things 'my own'.

I have always enjoyed washing dishes; the process-based, meditative aspect of it is really pleasant. I have never been bored doing such tasks and now I have so many more routines such as taking care of the lettuce and tomatoes we have growing, collecting condensation, weeding, making various food (gourmet porridge, dosa, hummus, attempted chapattis, squeezed orange juice, spirulina, soaking beans for evening meals, sprouting alfalfa and fenugreek etc.), doing the washing, tidying, tending the worm farm and the list goes on. In other words, I'm thoroughly domesticated. I could be the ideal house-husband!

And then there are domestic projects abound for the future: Making tofu, Essene bread, bread bread, going into the ceiling, fixing the phone, finally tidying the house properly, selling off or donating all unnecessary spacetakers etc. etc.

Ah! Such freedom to do interesting things.

Three weeks in the making

It is rather a telling sign when I take three weeks to write a blog. I usually foolishly sacrifice valuable minutes of sleep in order to get a blog or a rant-esque e-mail out in one unbroken piece. These three weeks have been as busy as ever, and not coincidentally, are also my three weeks of having moved out from home.

My first three weeks at Xin's house have been as wonderfully challenging as I expected. There has been a very positive benefit in regimenting my life. Previously, I was very loose with my schedule but now I actively make use of all my time. I also am successfully going to sleep earlier on work nights (aside from one night's ushering for Glide Time). I watch far less television and waste less time on the computer. I finish my lesson plans faster as their is competition for the keyboard. Leading challenges are to make food that is not flavourless or excessively flavourful (by the Xin Standard). I don't seem to be able to hit the zone between those two extremes on a regular basis. All tastes delightful to me though.

My good news of gaining a second client has well and truly sunk in and I am patiently waiting for it to be properly formalised and underway. Ernst & Young will be a new challenge and a fertile ground for further work opportunities.

My back pain is back with avengence and its chronic nature is reminiscient of my troublesome ankles (which also has not been completely back to normal). I am quite optimistic about my prospects of beating my back and being stronger for the crisis. Having one's back 'cracked' $25, having on's girlfriend stomping on your back to achieve the same result - priceless. Learning how to crack your own back is a joy.

I also had lots of different motivations, experiences and ideas in this period too. I actually consumed a whole 110 page book on a work day, The Myths that Make Us. This is highly rare for a literary sloth like myself. The previous day I had sampled parts of The Simpsons and Philosophy. This book was mainly interesting for the excerpts, the philosophy part worked well when considering themes and failed when considering the characters. As was often pointed out, the characters are rather amorphous and cannot be analysed. That being said, the only philosophically fascinating essay I ran into was in a character study, albeit quoted from another book. It is so cool that I will publish it here too:

Scorned by a woman, Satan took council with his chief tempters in Pandemonium.
"What," he asked the assembled Principalities and Powers, "are we doing to hasten the dehumanization of man?"
One by one, they reported. Formidable Senior Vice-Presidents in charge of Envy, Pride and Avarice gave glowing accounts; the Chiefs of the Bureaus of Lust and Sloth read lengthy bills of particulars. Lawyers lectured on loopholes. Satan however was not pleased. Even the brilliant report from the Head of the War Department failed to satisfy him. He listened restively to the long treatise on nuclear proliferation; he fiddled with pencils during the section on the philosophy of guerilla warfare.

Finally, Satan's wrath overcame him. He swept his notes from the table and leapt to his feet. "Self-serving declarations!" he roared. "Am I doomed to sit forever listening to idiots try to hide incompetence behind verbiage? Has no-one anything new? Are we to spend the rest of eternity minding the store as we have for a thousand years?"
At that point, the youngest tempter rose.
"With your permission, my lord," he said, "I have a program." And as Satan sat down again, the demon launched into his proposal for an interdepartmental Bureau of Desubstantialization. He claimed that the dehumanization of man was going too slowly because their infernal strategy had failed to cut man off from one of the chief bulwarks of his humanity. In concentrating on offenses against God and neighbour, it had failed to corrupt his relationship to things. Things, the tempter declared, by their provision of unique delights and individual astonishments, constituted a continuous refreshment of the very capacities Hell was at pains to abolish. As long as man dealt with real substances, he would himself remain substantial. What was needed, therefore, was a program to deprive man of things.

Satan took evident interest. "But," he objected, "how shall we proceed? In an affluent modern society man has more 'things' than ever. Are you saying that in the midst of such abundance and possessed by such materialism he simply will not notice so obvious and so bizarre a plot?"
"Not quite, my lord," said the tempter. "I do not mean to take anything from him physically. Instead, we shall encourage him mentally to alienate himself from reality. I propose that we contrive a systematic substitution of abstraction, diagrams, and spiritualizations for actual things, actual beings. Man must be taught to see things as symbols - must be trained to use them for effect and never for themselves. Above all, the door to delight must remain firmly closed.
"It will not," he continued, "be as difficult as it seems. Men are so firmly convinced that they are materialists that they will believe anything before they suspect us of contriving their destruction by spiritualization. By wayof a little insurance, however, I have taken the liberty of arranging for an army of televangelists who will continue, as in the past, to thunder against them for being materialists. Humanity will be so busy feeling delightfully wicked that nobody will notice the day when we finally cut them loose from their reality altogether."
And at that, Satan smiled, sat back and folded his hands. "Excellent...," he said. "Let the work go forward."

And that is that. Cool, eh.

(taken from an essay in The Simpsons and Philosophy, page 193, 'Enjoying the so-called "Iced-cream"' written by Daniel Barwick, quoting The Supper of Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon)