All-purple outfit today! #WearItPurple is a day to celebrate LGBTQIA+ diversity, and “To foster supportive, safe and accepting environments for rainbow young people.” See more at the Wear It Purple website.
The 2018 theme is Empower Together. Wear it proud, people!
I’m happy; I can now say that I’ve finished the project. Just a few little things to tie off before my holiday next week beckons.
Take care of yourselves this weekend!
Around me, the signs of spring gently creep in. The trees that I call “early-budders” – often fruit trees whose leaves start as budding flowers in August. When I lived in my hometown, there were a few of these in the back garden, and my spring-and-sunshine heart would eagerly await their coming after the long dreary weather of winter.
In Melbourne, the First Australians consider this time of year to be “pre-Spring” (see my calendar post). I love this time of year and its heralding of new growth and sunshine after dark dreary days – it’s no wonder I’ve posted about it a few times before.
There are other signs of spring beyond the early-budders near my current home. The wattle trees are in full bloom, all yellows and golds with green leaves. The wattle took pride of place in a local event that happens annually a few suburbs over from me – the Wattle Festival occurred on Sunday. It was fun, with steam trains, live music, market stalls, plenty of food, and glorious sunshine. Here’s a picture of some wattle close to home!
That’s not to say we aren’t still getting cold days. The temperature in my area wobbled below zero, then above, then to zero, then above again between 06:00 and 08:00 this morning. At 09:00, it was still only 4*C!
Another sign of spring are the lengthening days. We’re very close to being able to say that daylight lasts beyond 18:00 – and you can tell. It feels brighter of an evening, and of a morning too, where the sun rises before 07:00. It’s lovely! I’m going to enjoy travelling to and from placement in a couple of weeks because of that, despite the early hour I’ll have to wake up.
As you might have gathered from my absence last week, it was a busy week. I am so close to finishing the project. Huzzah! Once that’s finished, I have a few little side quests that I will do between now and the start of my final subject. As usual, the year speeds along. I will enjoy the chance to slow down next week, when I’m off on a holiday for a few days (more on that in another post!).
Tbh, the project work was useful in other ways last week, as it meant I was too busy to be wrapped up in watching the farce that took place in Canberra. They can swap PMs all they like, the fruit is still rotten at the core. Same policies, similar slogans, different salesman. Boo. As for our new PM, well – a “moderate” conservative wanker is still a conservative wanker, and a hypocrite to boot (worships the Prosperity Gospel, bleurgh). I wish that we could just have a Federal election already, to toss them out! (Dare we hope that the by-election Turnbull indicated will happen in his seat in the near future will speed that up?)
There’s better news in state politics. The RentFair bill has passed the lower house (yay!). This morning there was an announcement that the Victorian government will create a suburban Metro rail link. I’ve been saying there should be one for five years! (There used to be one, that Sr John Monash built, but lack of patronage closed it in the 50s.) It’s a massive long-term project, not a quick fix – starting in 2022, completed by 2050! Wow. Read more here. It’s a great idea – but the timing of the announcement is no coincidence, with a state election just under three months away. (Might be a good time to check if you need to update your details, Victorians.)
Let’s see, what else have I been up to?
On Thursday, I went to an event at uni. It was very swish! Yummy food, a few drinks, dancing… I love a good night out.
On Sunday, after the festival, my partner and I went to the cinema and watched MEG. It was a good movie, scary with some silliness to lighten things up as needed. It had a good cast, with competent women who took no bull from the men, and heroes with personal quests and failings, as well as a Rich White Dude as the human antagonist. They made the megalodon of the title appropriately scary, as well – not overblown, as I feared they would.
Oh yeah, and on Saturday I went to an AFL match for the first time in ages. That was a bit more tense than I’d expected, but as I was with people going for both teams, it was still fun. Quite the game, too!
What have you been up to?
Btw, as I mentioned in an earlier post, on August 1, Facebook stopped allowing automatic syncing and sharing of posts. I’m sharing this one on my personal profile, as I’m not sure if I want to get a public page. If you’ve come from Facebook, please sign up via email or WordPress in order to keep in the loop!
After nearly four years, this is my 500th post.
Things are busy, so the post is mainly a re-blog of something I wrote elsewhere. Check it out. Melbourne Aquarium and MCG Trip.
I had a really nice time at the event and took loads of photos. Now off I go to my last theory class for MSP – meaning it’s my last theory class in my degree.
See you!
In the past few weeks, I’ve learnt how to make lasagne two ways – one with mince and one with lentils and mushrooms.
Beef Mince Lasagna
I used a recipe I found here for this dish.
Ingredients:
Tools:
Method:
Lentil and Mushroom Lasagna
I got the recipe for this lasagna from Jack Monroe’s Ultimate Lasagne.
Ingredients:
Tools:
Method:
These reforms were announced last year. Now, after months of consultation, whatever that means in this instance, they are finally ready to be introduced to Parliament.
Here’s hoping there are no delays – the Government’s lack of majority in the Upper House, and the tight timeframe (this is the fourth-last Parliamentary sitting week for the year) – notwithstanding.
These reforms mean a number of good things for renters – new protections for people escaping family violence, new protections about pet ownership, new rights about minor modifications, and other reforms. See the announcement here if you want more details. See here and here for news media about it.
Yay!
An interesting link can be found here: Beginner’s Guide to Self-Compassion.
I liked it and have saved it to remind myself when necessary. I also saw the following, shared by a friend on Facebook yesterday:
Image description: drawing of Pooh and Piglet of Hundred Acre Wood. They are sitting on a log, with green grass nearby and blue sky behind them.
“Piglet?” said Pooh.
“Yes Pooh?” said Piglet.
“Do you ever have days when everything feels… Not Very Okay At All? And sometimes you don’t even know why you feel Not Very Okay At All, you just know that you do.”
Piglet nodded his head sagely. “Oh yes,” said Piglet. “I definitely have those days.”
“Really?” said Pooh in surprise. “I would never have thought that. You always seem so happy and like you have got everything in life all sorted out.”
“Ah,” said Piglet. “Well here’s the thing. There are two things that you need to know, Pooh. The first thing is that even those pigs, and bears, and people, who seem to have got everything in life all sorted out… they probably haven’t. Actually, everyone has days when they feel Not Very Okay At All. Some people are just better at hiding it than others.
“And the second thing you need to know… is that it’s okay to feel Not Very Okay At All. It can be quite normal, in fact. And all you need to do, on those days when you feel Not Very Okay At All, is come and find me, and tell me. Don’t ever feel like you have to hide the fact you’re feeling Not Very Okay At All. Always come and tell me. Because I will always be there.”
********************************
A good reminder of friendship.
Hope you’re having a good week, full of friendship and supportive people even if you have to be busy and/or do hard things.
First, some (qualified) good news: Abdi, whom I told you about last Friday, has been helped over the weekend. On Friday, his leg was finally x-rayed and he was flown to Port Moresby to have his leg looked at properly on Saturday. Reports indicate that he has snapped his patella tendons; at PIH in Port Moresby, they removed 100mL of fluid from around his knee and have given him appropriate painkillers. He’ll need surgery and he also needs an interpreter, as right now without one he’s having trouble understanding what the doctors are saying. So it’s not over yet, but I hope his situation continues to improve. Also I really hope that another refugee mentioned in last Friday’s Guardian article gets help before he loses his sight(!!). I wish things were better. Five years of detention is too long.
Now, onto the life update.
The next couple of weeks are busy. As of the 20th of this month, I’ll have finished my second-last subject of this uni degree and with it my project placement. But there are a number of milestones I have to meet first.
What have I been up to? Well, yesterday I helped out at my uni’s open day, which was interesting. A long day but a good one.
I have read a number of books lately. My strategy is to read on public transport and before bed, and I use my local library. It has online shelves including one called, “For Later”. This becomes my TBR list. I then combine this with the “place on hold” option to get my reading material, because I can read through a book in a matter of days or even hours if I find it interesting enough. Of course, uni and life mean that sometimes it takes me weeks to get through a book as well. So placing several at once on hold, collecting them and making my way through them over time is a good thing.
So far in the past month or so, I have enjoyed Redshirts (John Scalzi), Eat Up! (Ruby Tandoh), Zac and Mia (AJ Betts) and Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves (Rachel Malik).
Redshirts is space satire sci-fi, poking fun at several different tropes, especially a particular Star Trek one about the (minor) character deaths always happening to the ones with red shirts. It makes a good point, in a whimsical way, about being the creator of your own destiny.
Eat Up! is a non-fiction book about food, food culture and food satisfaction. It’s a great read. Food for the soul and very reassuring. I’d like to buy it someday, tbh.
Zac and Mia is about two teenagers who are quite unlike each other, except that both are (as the story starts) in hospital due to cancer. They form a bond that deepens throughout the book. It’s a book that I find hard to define, but it was a really good read. See more here.
Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is an interesting story. It’s a fictional tale of two women in the mid-20th-century that was inspired by a family tale of the author’s. It’s about forging your own path, making your own home and finding your own way. It’s also about how those things can come with consequences, especially if the past catches up with you.
I’m currently reading Second hand: a novel (Michael Zadoorian), which isn’t as engaging as I’d hoped.
Over the next couple of weeks, one of two things will happen: either almost all the posts you see here will be scheduled, or there’ll be very few posts at all. 😉 See you on the other side…
I shared the following on my personal Facebook page on Tuesday.
“An urgent message from #Manus (Please share widely):
Please, if you are reading this, tell the Australian Government that we need urgent medical care for our Brother Abdi.
Abdi, a Somalian man, was playing soccer on the ELRTC soccer field at 6:00pm on Friday, 27/7/18, when he collided with another man. Nothing has been done to help fix Abdi’s broken knee because there are not proper medical facilities to treat us. He can’t sleep, can’t sit well, and no staff care about him.
Because the accident was late & the hospital has no doctor at night and because the PIH clinic is closed then too, he could not have any treatment on Friday night.
PIH clinic in the Lorengau camp is closed on the weekend. So, on Saturday, he went to Lorengau Hospital. He waited in the waiting area for 4 hours and nobody could give him any treatment. Abdi then asked for painkillers and they gave him an injection and they told him to come back on Monday for an X-ray. They said nothing can be done until Monday and that he should go back to camp.He came back to East Lorengau camp. He was in bad pain all night Saturday, all day Sunday and now still in terrible pain and cannot sleep.
Nothing happened to help him on Sunday.On Monday (30/7/18) PIH said he must have an X-ray at the hospital and come back and see PIH doctor. PIH they told him, “We can’t help you until we get X-ray. Your problem is serious, but we can’t help u without X-ray”
Abdi did go again to the hospital to ask for an X-ray but the hospital told him the X-ray machine is broken. There is nobody on Manus to fix the machine. He went back to camp, and his leg is in very terrible pain and this travelling is making it much worse. Abdi was really suffering by the time he arrived at the PIH clinic in the camp.
The doctor at PIH told him that there is nothing he can do for Abdi unless he has an X-ray. He told the doctor, “I will stay here until you solve the problem.” The doctor told the Security Guard to force Abdi to leave and to lock the door and to not let Abdi in. After guard used forceful words, Abdi went outside and the guard locked him out.
Abdi cannot get any treatment from PIH until he has an X-ray. He cannot have an X-ray because X-ray machine is broken. There is nobody to fix the X-ray machine on Manus. We think maybe X-ray machine has been broken for a very long time. The only treatment he has been given is 20 Panadol tablets and 10 Naproxen tablets and bandage for leg. These are not helping him. See the photos to see how badly his knee is broken*.
To conclude the case for Abdi there is no sleep, no rest, no walking, no shower, hard to go toilet. He must also cook his own food because there are no food services in East Lorengau Refugee Processing Centre (ELRTC). Everything here is self-service.
Abdi needs urgent medical care.This is very serious and urgent. We think it will take a very long time before PIH or ABF or Lorengau Hospital will help him, Maybe they will not ever help him.
Please help our friend Abdi who is in very terrible pain. Please do what you can to get him treatment. We are worried he will lose the use of his leg and never be able to walk again.@ManusAlert.”
* = I’ve included one photo below from that post, you can see more here if you wish.
The situation hasn’t changed. I re-shared a post on my personal Facebook last night:
“No medical person has come to try to help Abdi. His knee is broken and now he suffered for six days with no treatment. Still no sleep, too much pain. We are very worried for him that he might lose his leg or maybe die. Please, people reading this, try to get some help for our brother Abdi who broke his knee last Friday. PIH doctors refuse to treat him because XRay machine is broken. He needs to be on medevac flight to hospital today. Please please please help him before it is too late.
@ManusAlert“
See this Guardian article about the medical situation on Manus here: Manus medical neglect scandalous, doctors say
The entire Manus and Nauru situation pisses me off. I’ve written quite a lot about my feelings about it and how I think there’s a better way.
Currently, I’m pissed off about this specific situation in a number of different ways. I can’t help but remember when I dislocated my kneecap two and a half years ago. I was able to get very effective, fast treatment, with appropriate pain medication and health support, and was back to my usual activities very soon after the accident. Heck, my blog post about it was even titled, Ouch! We’re lucky to have a good health system…..“, for crying out loud!
Abdi has been in pain with a suspected broken femur for a week without treatment! How long is it going to continue?? I have serious concerns about his welfare. He needs assistance now!
In the past five years that the refugees and asylum seekers have been on Manus and Nauru, there have been several deaths due to negligence and outright brutality by the Australian government.
A government that is deliberately causing harm to people that it should be helping. Their actions are despicable.
Photo of Abdi’s leg:
So, my project meeting went well yesterday, yay! Now for the next milestone.
First though, I switch hats and for a few hours, I play the role of Choir President. My last Mid-Year Orientation Clubs Fest is here. Go LaTUCS! We have a mini performance, too. Just to show people what we’re doing.
https://www.facebook.com/LaTUCS/
😀
Also, I read an article yesterday that made me go, “ooh, wow, okay.” So I’m sharing it with you all. The Book That Redefined My Outlook On Feminism
Quoted from the article:
“It was then I had my epiphany. I realised that feminism is actually a fight by one half of the population to be taken seriously by the other half.”
Anyone else just have that reaction?
Not quite sure it’s that simple, in terms of “two halves” and so on, but it made me think!
I’m chest-deep in project stuff atm – I have a presentation to give this arvo. So this week you’ll see little from me!
On that note: if you’re viewing this via Facebook, please consider subscribing via email. I’ve been informed that Facebook will soon stop automatically sharing my posts soon because I’ve connected this blog to my personal profile, not a page. I’m not sure what I’ll do about that. In the meantime, if you want to keep in the loop with me, subscribe, please. 🙂
A couple of links to throw your way:
Eden Riley’s latest post: she’s awesome. Check it out.
And this: get on board.
myzania 