Like Wil Wheaton said...

There are a million blog posts in my head, at any one time. There are geek ones. There are life ones. There are things I know will be written and never published. There are things that should be written but they will forever ride the neurons, never to become anything other than bubbles on the surf.

On Thursday, I was thinking about how much I enjoy my current job and wondering what makes it different to the places I have been in over the last few years.

Having worked with the best of my generation, on projects that challenged us; bored us; and always taught us something, it is interesting to find a place I like to be in the midst of a big country town.

Then I read Wil Wheaton's post about winning the actor lottery and that summed it up for me too.

If you can get up each morning and look forward to work because your colleagues challenge and teach you while making you laugh until the tears seep from your eyes then that is a good job. When you know that everything you achieve in a day is helping your client do their job better or soon will be then that is a good job. When there is no stupid office politics because people just want to get their jobs done and do them well, alongside you then that is a good job.

It has been a long time since that has been fully satisfied.

Life is fun. Your attitude helps but being around positive and intelligent people helps too.

The huge difference between now and before is that my attitude is different. I don't sweat the little things. I like life. I like people. It takes a lot to stop me from smiling.

The other big variable is people. I finally work with really great people. They are secure, decent, kind, driven, pragmatic, experienced and professional.

If you want to come and work for us then do let me know. I guess I ask only one thing and it's another thing Wil Wheaton says... "Don't be a dick."

You don't have to live with them

I'm a bit of a social butterfly. I have friends, acquaintences, people I air-kiss and other people whose faces are familiar so I smile as I go by.

In the last couple of years, time to myself has become a wonderful recharging break from the noise, excitement and stimulation of people.

When once I was 100% extroverted, some balance has been found. This is a good thing. I will always be a puppy dog who likes meeting new people but being alone and mindful is leveling the scales.

Now for point of this rant.

When you work with a bunch of people, you see them for around 40 hours a week. That is a large amount of your waking hours. I am not going to suggest befriending them all and spending time hanging out with them on weekends but at least be civil.

Too often, geeks can be so antisocial. They avoid work gatherings or sitting around the lunch table. If they do join then they sit silently and stare off in to space or talk at your about their latest technical discovery.

If any social emails go around, they immediately ask to be removed from the list. They aren't too subtle or friendly about it either.

I don't understand this. Some social lubrication makes work a nicer place to be. It seems sometimes as if the whole idea of people is distasteful.

Nothing changes for me. I still love getting up and going to work each day. It must suck to be so negative and uncomfortable around people.

Come on geeks, we don't have to live together. We just have to work together.

My Offer

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings.” - Mahatma Gandhi

Your style is you

People talk about style as though it is something that you can go out and buy. An acquirable commodity that will appear if you follow a recipe in a fashion magazine. An emulation of the hottest star.

Style is none of those things.

Style is the ability to find a look that compliments your character and expresses who you are.

It is a personal thing. A me thing. A comfortable thing.

When you feel at ease in your clothes and don't trip on your shoes, you are there. Just be yourself and dress in what makes you feel good. That is your style.

Your style is you.

Scrum to Scum

It was quite satisfying to finally see that the rest of our population is disgusted with football players in this country. The Sydney Morning Herald published a story about the surveyed attitude of Australians to players from all football codes.

It seems soccer players are seen as the best role models. The most popular answer to which code had better role models was "none of them", which would have been my response.

I can no longer accept the behaviour of these morons and their clubs. They seem to be allowed to get away with the dumbest and sometimes illegal actions, as long as they feel great remorse following it.

That is simply not how decent people behave. We think ahead and consider the consequences to our actions and stop ourselves if it seems plain stupid.

It is not that hard. Do not urinate on shop fronts. Do not gang rape women. Do not let 17 year old fan girls take naked photos of you. Do not act like apes.

There are domesticated animals that behave better than these thugs. We need to clean up these sports and start (at least) toilet training these guys.

Even if they are leaving home at 16 and going to work for these clubs, someone has to take responsibility for teaching them how to become adults. Don't cash up a bunch of kids and tell them that they are gods and then expect much from them.

Australian society isn't impressed. Fix this, Mr Football.

Social Media Jerks

The absolute worst thing about any new medium is the mid-emergence jerks who dictate how to use it.

They are the losers who came to the party when most everyone is already tipsy and then started telling you how to play the drinking games.

I am absolutely over being told how to use, not abuse and to act loose in this new "social media".

They speak of "twittering" and claim to have "blogged it to Facebook". They count their followers and friends as some kind of quantification of their coolness.

It's sad to watch. They are quite pathetic and desperate to belong but also stand on the outer and legislate the behaviour of the sub-culture, based purely on observation.

Stop telling people how to act. Stop defining us like you're some kind of botanist in an undiscovered jungle.

You bore me. You can't sell me anything because you're a joke.

Go away.

Once this sub-culture went mainstream... there went the neighborhood.

Linguistic Suicide

Trust Degraded

One of my New Year's Resolution was to be more open to different kinds of people in the world. To not judge and reject people because they failed to meet a set criteria for those I would associate with.

For the last three months, that attitude has seen an array of characters waltz in and out of my life. It has to be said that I have never made a more stupid of harmful resolution in my entire life.

It was a mistake.

I have been used, abused, fooled, embarrassed, humiliated, hurt and brutally re-educated by the lowest forms of life, crawling this pretty enough planet.

Men have told me all I want to hear and then turned on me. Women have gained my trust, only to betray it so easily.

Wow! What a seedy world there is underneathe that one that I inhabit. There be dragons.

Resolutions are a good idea because they give you a new set of rules by which to try new things and reform your life. They don't always work. It's not often they fail so miserably for me but I guess that happens.

My trust has been degraded but I am learning more about myself and the environment around me. Is this a bad thing? Yes and no. It menas I will be less trusting but that is a good thing. Am I learning? Yes and no. Some of the things I am learning suck though and I wish I didn't have to suffer so much to gain the knowledge. Has this changed me for the better? Yes and no. I see that there is so much bad in the world but the contrast has made me appreciate the good.

For the record, this resolution has stopped dead. There will be no more accepting idiots for who they are and thinking they are deep-down good types. Nope, first impressions. Trust my instincts. Be less bleeding heart and more realistic.

Awea Damana

My mother on the right, with her eldest sister

Spending the weekend with my mother and her eldest sister has been more than wonderful. It shall take me some time to find the exact words for how special it is. Do you know those moments where you sit back and think "This is special. I'm going to remember this moment forever"? It was a whole series of those.

Last night, we sat around my sister's giant dinner table and listened to our mothers (in my culture, your aunts are also your mother and the term for them is mother) tell stories, while we ate the best apricot chicken ever. I can remember this to be how things have always been in our family. Stories are told. There are new ones, random ones and lots of old ones that are retold until they are burnt in to your brain. Sometimes, you correct the story teller and say "that's not what happened" although you were never there.

My mother is the second born of seven sisters. She has no brothers.

In a society run by men and for men, a brood of daughters is considered quite a handicap. My maternal grandparents never accepted that. The result was them bringing up 7 of the strongest and most impressive women that Papua New Guinea has ever seen.

From a village on the coast, over the other side of the Owen Stanley Ranges from Port Moresby to the best universities in the world came 7 sisters who achieved the highest at all levels of their chosen fields.

There are many stories that are tangential to my main one and they will be told in good time, possibly by me or by those who walked the walk. My story is that of my maternal grandmother or Awea (pronounced Av-ia) in the Korafe language from that part of Papua New Guinea.

Today we hear of single mothers who are struggling to get by. They rush home from their second job and passed the supermarket to get something to throw together for dinner.

My awea had seven children to care for after my grandfather passed away. She had her own garden and would gather food for the daily meal on her own. She fixed things around the house that a man would normally do and right before sunset, she would rush out and throw in a line to catch fish to go with the garden staples. Some nights she caught two little fish and other times she got a few more. That was all the meat that the family had with their dinner.

Yesterday evening, I listened to my mother tell the story of how she herself went down to fish to help her mum out. The third sister in my mum's family was a much better fisherman than my Mum ever was but this one day, it was my mother's go to provide for the family.

Mum threw in her line and pulled out a fish that was about 20cm long. It was a decent sized fish for one person and in the end fed all eight of them a small piece each.

Listening to my mother tell this story made me sad in that happy kind of way. She beamed with pride as she spoke of her chance to contribute and how much it meant to her family. This little girl with so many siblings and so little of anything else, had provided for the people she loved.

It is as if that one fish marks a very important moment for my mother, who now will not let a single person she knows go to bed hungry. She gives and gives without end. I often wonder when she will stop and give to herself but I guess after hearing that story again, I actually understood why now. That contribution felt so good that it changed her. It has lasted a lifetime. It makes her feel better to give and know that even if it is very little that people around her are not alone.

You can always have half of what I have. That's what my mother taught me. At least then, we both have something.

My mother is wonderful. Her mother was wonderful.

My grandmother, my awea was named Damana. In Korafe that means "star". I am honoured to have her name.

David Brooks: The Social Animal

Breaking the girl

In Australia, there is a big push to not push the less fortunate. I was brought up a staunch Labor supporter. Unions are the saviours of the working class and give the rights we now demand at all levels of employment and society.

This is a lucky country. A country where you can do so much or do so little, if you choose.

Immigrants arrive with a great work ethic and a different attitude to education and social responsibility. Where I grew up until the age of 7, education was a privilege and not a right. It was and still is a third world country. Health services are almost non-existent. People go to hospital to die, not to get better. I never drank tap water with fluoride in it until I moved to Darwin and this is telling in my smile. Every year of school is decided not just on a passing mark from the previous year but also on whether your parents can afford a good portion of their yearly wage to pay your school fees. Some families get to the point where they choose the smartest or most likely to succeed child to send on through school.

This is a different world to Australia where teachers are treated with contempt and blamed for discipline problems and the embarrassing literacy rate for a first world country. We even live in a time when it's politically incorrect to discuss which world (first of third) that someone lives in.

There is so much political correctness that a teacher is not allowed to fail a student, even if they fail. The end of semester reports are all worded in a positive light with not a tinge of truth, in case that would hurt.

Parents punch teachers. Students throw chairs at them. Teachers can't even pat a child on the head anymore. They will actually instruct a child to pat themselves on the back for doing well.

I know a male teacher in the ACT who decided that he was sick of being called to deal with axe wielding parents who were disputing custody issues on the school grounds, simply because he was one of two male employees on campus. He is now a fireman because that is a safer and less stressful job. Yes, fighting fires is safer.

Parents pop these children out and are rewarded a big screen TV in family benefits and then ongoing Blu-Ray costs. Children learn nothing at home and are sent to school and instruct the teachers to start teaching them stuff because their parents aren't impressed that they can't read or add or even construct a sentence.

Julia Gillard used to be the federal Education Minister, in the Rudd government. She clearly stated that the biggest priority in schools is the CHILDREN AND PARENTS.

She did not even once support the role of the educator. She pushed a nationwide curriculum on to teachers and took away their release time to make sure they could satisfy all the statistics gathering for the MySchools website. With all this extra work, they were given less time to do it, more meetings to attend and more work to do from home.

If I have to listen to one ore fool say that teachers get 12 weeks of leave and work six hours a day then I will bitch slap them silly.

I know a lot of teachers. They work more than 6 hour days. The do marking, planning; moderation; reporting to every man and his dog; statistics gathering; psychological support to children, parents and other staff; constant learning and reading; study to better their qualifications; and much much more.

These are highly trained professionals with degrees and other qualifications. Like all professionals, they work a lot in their own time to ensure they keep up with their profession and the changing world they work in.

They are educators, nurses, psychologists, prison officers, data entry clerks, surrogate parents, child carers and play a lot of other roles.

For this amazing amount of work, they receive a maximum of $80K (simply as a teacher) a year and little respect from the community and politicians.

Julia Gillard has made this worse. She is a disgrace and should know better as an ex-Education minister. I'm sure parents and kids and battlers are very happy with her but I'm not.

Parents should be teaching their children when they aren't at school. I knew how to read, write and do maths by the time I started pre-school. So did my siblings and my friends, whose parents were educated and valued education. We were immigrants too and education was a privilege. Teachers were well-respected members of society whose sacrifice and lifelong commitment to learning was valued, in those poor nobody third world countries.

People have to take responsibility for a nation of barely literate people who breed without concern for consequences.

I believe in social responsibility. I believe that all people should be educated for free, given health care for free and that poverty should be eradicated like the disease it is. I'm not saying stop helping. I'm saying, give a little credit where it is due. Stop being so horrible to teachers.

If I was a teacher, I'd scream that I don't get paid enough danger money for this job and walk out and do something safe like fighting fires.

The Great Wall of Ignorance

There is a good friend of our family in Darwin. We have known her for many years. She's beautiful, articulate, intelligent, qualified and cultured. She's been to more countries than most Darwinians know exist. I love hanging out with her. We have walked very different paths but share a similar view of the world - we like our lives and ourselves.

At breakfast today, we shared some stories...

I was talking to some acquaintances and mentioned the day Nelson Mandela was freed and the day he retired. One of the women sitting with us said "Oh, he's not retired." I was surprised and said that I thought he was just a statesmen these days. She agreed and said "Oh, he is a statesman. He's the president of the United States." In shock, I said nothing.

Another day after returning from a holiday to China, a friendly colleague asked how the trip was. "I climbed the Great Wall" was the response. She looked confused and then said "Oh, I thought they knocked that down".

To say some people live in a bubble is to imply that cocoon can be burst and reality let in. I sure hope that is the case one day.

Michael says

Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me
chew me, sue me
Everybody do me
Kick me, kike me
Don't you black or white me

-- Michael Jackson

A good sleep

The best thing about a good sleep is that it puts everything in to perspective.

If those losers want to give me a hiding because I refuse to go out with their leader, then there isn't much I can do right now.

There is no point in locking the doors and waiting for a threat that may never come.

Instead, I'm going to continue with life and being happy. Those in this world who hate their lives and resent me for having it better, are of little to no significance.

They are bullies and this is no longer high school. Let them bring it. I shall face them head on and hold my head high.

My life is privileged and happy. There is no apologizing for the hard work I've done and the path I have chosen, to be here today.

Patrick Swayze said it best: "No one puts Baby in the corner."

Must I be dead?

Today has been lovely relaxed Saturday. My Mum and I hung out together and did our own thing. Siena the kitty and I, had a nice afternoon nap in the aircon while the humidity of Darwin belts those poor souls outside around. After a quick trip to the shop, I scored peaches and an affordable sparkling white with the soul intent of making Bellinis. They are currently my favourite drink, since I can sip on them and not really be drinking much. Sweet and fruity - perfect for the hot tropics.

I decided to make some meatballs for dinner, when the sun set at just after 7pm-ish. While packing the dishwasher and cleaning the kitchen, I came across a white envelope with my name on it. My name had been spelt "Demana" and my address was scribbled on it in big round writing. I opened it, thinking it was something a friend had dropped off in my mailbox. There wasn't a stamp.

In it was a plain white card containing a threat.

















I did what I was advised and called the police. I reported it and was advised to go in and talk to someone on Monday. It is quite terrifying but my mother is super strong and never gets shaken by anything.

The first police call-centre person that I spoke to was quite helpful. The second guy said to me that there was little that could be done and the police can't get involved unless I'm actually hurt. He said "threats happen all the time". I actually did ask him if I must be physically hurt before anyone cares. He said that is when the police can do something.

This is not the world I live in. I'm not used to threats and people knowing where I live. It's scary. To be told that nothing I'm feeling is valid until something terrible happens to me, makes me feel even worse.

I probably did the wrong thing but I called my ex and asked if him and his girlfriends could please stop harassing me. I wanted to try to reason with him before bringing in the cops. He laughed at me and said that he can't stop people from threatening me. He's not the police. This isn't his problem.

Knowing where I stand is good. I'm not going to retaliate. I'm going to keep collecting evidence and go to the police. I will not be waiting until someone physically harms me or kills me before getting help.

The police can expect a visit from me.

Today I don't feel like doing anything

I don't feel much like Mana today

Totally me, as a lolcat...

If only you could hear what I hear

Maybe I have a trusting face.

Maybe I am so high disclosure that people feel they know me and can trust me.

Maybe people feel for me and want to tell me that they know how it feels.


In the last few days, I have heard so many stories about people being bullied. They were children or adults. They were friends or they were partners. They were afraid and they got strong.

Thank you for your stories. It takes a lot of voice these memories when the people who did these things made us feel worthless. It takes strength to keep going and throw away those horrible times and forget the words that hurt so much for so long.

Keep being good people. Don't let bed people make you less than what you are.

Freer or Fear

I'm in a strange predicament.

After cutting off the axis of idiocy, who abused me the other night, I feel afraid.

Afraid that they will do something more. Something more frightening.

As for what, I don't quite know. Maybe turn up at my front door or send someone on their behalf. Maybe run in to me in the city and hurt me.

Hopefully, they are content with their emotional torture from the other night and will leave me be.

At present, I lock the door of the house when I'm both inside or away from home. I lock the car door as soon as I'm in it.

My heart beats a little faster when I see an old white Camry. I'm jumpy. Usually, I'm pretty blasé about everything. Not now.

I hope this feeling passes soon. The stress is very taxing.

WTH

Intolerable Cruelty

There is a guy that I broke up with. Let's from this point forth refer to him as Mr X. He and I have shared friends. We have stayed friends and hung out over the last few weeks.

Last night, he invited me out with our mutual friends. Told me where we were meeting and when. I was happy to go since I'd been working hard for the money, all week and wanted to get some time with my besties.

I got ready and grabbed a cab in to the city. Arrived exactly on time, as promised. No one was there yet so I grabbed a Bellini and a comfy couch, to pass the time. The party arrived one hour and 15 minutes after I got there. In that time, I'd slowly sipped my drink and read the text messages promising they were on their way "right now".

When my friends walked in, I only recognised two of them. Mr X and another woman who he hangs out with a lot. She's a bit of a groupy of his and has been a little aggressive towards me in the past. With them was another rough looking woman with tattoos. I did noticed all her tattoos were spelt correctly if that counts for much.

To say I was shocked is an understatement. I played it cool and tried to work out how I was meant to react to the situation. I grabbed a drink and agreed to sit and chat with them. After all, I'd just taken a $40 taxi ride to be there and was in a happy mood, despite the confusion clouding my head.

They then proceeded to tell me that he was a player and that I had been played. That he never wanted to see me anyway and I hadn't dumped him since he never liked me. It felt very high school. The three of them admitted to "being together" and I didn't bother to ask them to elaborate. They are a rough bunch while sober and they were doing shots by now. I was holding on to my second Bellini and still wondering how I should react. It was a bit like facing a lion who is mauling a friend. You want to save your friend but you don't want to get mauled. Unfortunately, this analogy sux since I was the friend being mauled and the friend watching. [Work with me here, guys]

After they started laughing at me and calling me naive and gullible, I drank the rest of my drink and excused myself. I got straight in to a taxi and headed home.

I was still in shock when the text messages started flooding my phone. They were ridiculing me and attacking me like a bunch of snapping hyenas. He had shared my number with them so they could hurl abuse at me in a howling unison.

As I emerged from the mental haze, I realised I was upset. I felt foolish and afraid and isolated and sad. That made me angry. I retaliated and said some mean stuff then realised that they are the type of people to walk up and glass me, to express displeasure at my excessive use of the word "bogan".

I turned my phone down. Once I stopped reacting, they stopped attacking. I got home, said hi to my Mum and headed straight to bed. I lay awake in silence - still shocked - from when I got home at 10:30pm to 2:30am, when the phone started ringing. It was Mr X. I didn't answer. Then the voicemail messages started coming. I listened to them. They called me pathetic and a loser. I was upset. I didn't understand. It felt like being bombarded with small pellets. Each did no real damage but in total, the bruises were forming. I turned the phone off.

This morning, I changed my number. This time, I'll guard that number. Next time, there will be no next time.

Interesting thing is that I stopped being upset once the phone was off. I couldn't sleep. In fact, I didn't sleep all night. Tried but no go. Got maybe 15 minutes this morning. It's been more than a day since I slept properly.

I know this feeling. This lack of all feeling. That numbness that comes when my brain turns off the feelings. When the sleep won't come, no matter how long I wait. I'm aware of what is happening to me. It's a slip back in to that depression. Luckily, I'm in a good place and know how to deal with this. Let it run its course. Let the moments pass in a safe place - at home and at work. Let the emptiness fill again with normal feelings. Let people I know and trust know that I need someone to look out for me at the moment. Let the rain come down.

It seems I'm dealing extraordinarily well with the situation. In the past, this would have devastated me. People I've spoken to this morning have said they might not cope so well. Me... I'm doing ok. It's a bump in the road. It's a blip on a radar. It's a learning experience from hell. It's all going to be ok.

Depression does not own me anymore. In fact, no one does. Not Mr X and his harem of banshee bogan skanks. Not the cloud that once engulfed me and made the air so hard to breathe. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Nuts.

Yes, it was cruel what they did. The world has some really nasty people in it. I am naive and a little too trusting at times. I'm learning though.

It's all about Gummi Bears

I've changed my phone number again. Yes, that is twice in a month. Before that, I had the same mobile number for almost 7 years.

Optus was actually a great help with this service. They were understanding and helpful. They didn't charge me the $55 fee that I was expecting, even though they told me that the next time would cost me. I guess they are reasonable when they discovered the number was leaked without my consent.

Why the change to my one unique identifier? Why the rush to the gates of anonymity? Some may even be wondering why they haven't received the latest incarnation of my ten digit name.

The reason is that I'm guarding this one with my life. Most folks email or DM me so I texted my number to the last few people who I have texted. If you do feel the need to call or text me then do send me an online message and I'll hook you up.

Hopefully, life will settle down and I'll stop bouncing here and there and everywhere.

Fall Again by Glen Lewis

Yeah, the you tube version of the video sux but I've loved this song ever since I heard it in the movie Maid in Manhattan. It's just mellow and sweet.

Universe v You

There is a form of negative thinking that used to dominate my thought patterns. It is now so easy to identify that I find it impossible to follow it down the road to negativity.

The negative thinking consists of one single premiss - that the universe is a force that is countering or trying to negate your happiness.

The typical thought starts with words like "whenever something good happens, the universe kicks my arse" or "I'm never allowed to be happy" or "something always goes wrong".

I used to honestly believe that with every positive moment in my life, there came an equal but opposite negative and painful moment. As if I sat on the scales of Libra in the stars and rocked back and forward at the will of some unstoppable force.

If you think like this... stop. This is not what is meant by karma. There is no invisible flattening wave that waits for your good cheer and then pounces.
Now, if something bad happens, I look at what may have lead to it. It's usually things I can see in hindsight or the actions of others that are beyond my control.

This world view takes away that feeling of helplessness.

Shit is going to happen but so will good stuff. Like most seemingly random events that are the result of a million prior choices, they aren't necessarily related to each other.

No one and nothing is out to take your happiness from you. I promise.

Discovering the world

At 34, the world is like a blur that is coming in to focus. Some days it is as if I stood up too fast and reality spins a little and then gauges itself.

All my life, I have walked a flat Earth. People told me that the planet was round and I even saw pictures of it from space. Still, I walked a flat earth. I knew in theory it was not as flat as it seemed to me but knowing something in theory is not always truly knowing it.

Today seems to be one of those days when the Earth feels round or at least roundish. Everything is a little more real.

As of now, I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Maybe it just is what it is... round.

Am I boring?

My friend Megan always tells me that when someone says something unkind to you that hurts you, you should always ask yourself why they are saying it. She says this in a sophisticated Scottish accent and always sounds wise.

Truth is that the truth itself can be delivered in a way that does not destroy a person's self image. I have heard people say "there is no positive criticism" but I do not agree with that. There is always something you can learn from criticism. Even if all you learn is that the person giving it is not a nice person.

On Boxing Day last year, I ran in to an old school... acquaintance. Can't say this person was a friend but we got to talking and became friends. There has been two decades between when we initially met and when we met again as adults. In that time, we have traversed very different paths. There is no chance that our lives would ever cross, except for pure chance. When you least expect or even need it, Chance will kick you in the bum.

From the day I can recall recalling anything, I was taught not to judge people. That people are all created equally and that even if you do not agree or understand a point of view, the person expressing it has a right to have it.

As in all theory, there is the painful reality that takes that theory and body slams it to the ground and then jumps in its minivan and backs over it repeatedly.

The mistake I made in my understanding of what I was told was that I thought this meant that everybody was like me. That I should expect from others, the same consideration and decency that I display in my day-to-day life.

Oh deary, what a shock it has been to find that the world is not full of well-meaning Damanas!

The two months since that Boxing Day my newest friend exposed me to what I can only describe as the Underbelly of Darwin life. There are people who spend most of their measly income on drugs and drink. Muscle men who inject illegal steroids through needles with gauges that I've only seen in cartoons. Women who beat other women. Men who were obviously bullied at school and go out almost every night in the hopes of drawing blood or putting someone in hospital. People doing drugs like speed at work. Strippers, enforcers, teenage single mothers to fathers who could be their fathers. Incestuous groups of friends who are confusing the gene pool. Domestic abuse. Oh, so many other disturbing things.

I have been told over and over by such people that I'm a boring person with an office job. I have no edge. I have no street smarts and that makes me dumb. If computers were turned off, I'd die and they would survive because they run this world. That there is nothing smart about spending time finishing school or studying at university. That life is about hardship and looking after number one. Oh, so many other disturbing things.

In the last few weeks, I have stepped away from this world that I am glimpsing through mostly fist covered eyes. I've seen the basic survival of these people. Their inability to want any more than what they have and to be at an uneasy peace with that. The constant raging torrent of anger and hate that thrashes through them. The way they constantly judge everyone they see around them, as if trying to find some reason they are better... some reason why their lives are ok.

At first, I was shocked... then sad... and then meh.

If this is the real world, then I like my boring, safe, predictable world where no one wants to "smash me" and I'm not constantly freaking out about seeing police cars. My boring vanilla world where people have common courtesy and are civil to each other, not because they are forced to but because they are mostly happy with life and don't see the need to be angry.

Why am I writing this? Maybe because I am not that street smart. I never knew this world existed. Truth is, I don't much care for it. I'm happy for it to be an underbelly. I personally prefer a slow cooked pork belly served with apples poached in champagne.

Monday's coming!

They removed gullible from the dictionary

I over-analyse stuff. I know, it's a shocking revelation but I thought you all should know :o)

On Friday just gone, I was confronted with a lot of anger and abuse. It was odd to interact with someone with so much rage inside their soul. It seems to be what propels some people through life and another one of those things that I will have to accept but never truly understand.

As with most conundrums, I sat and contemplated what makes a person swing in to irate rage. What happened to them to allow the festering anger and ultimate explosion? What broke them so much that hurting themselves and everyone around them is an option?

To me it comes down to something I was told by this person. That I am gullible.

Now, that's not that far from the truth. I do have a tendency to expect only the best in people and then allow them to prove me wrong, if they must. This has resulted in a happy life filled with amazing individuals who I think I have helped be who they are in some small way by accepting them for who they are. The downside is that when someone a lot more cunning and deceitful than I walks in to the room, I go up and pat the cute little sheep ignoring it's big wolf-like fangs.

With age comes wrinkles and with wrinkles come wisdom. Although my approach is the same and the bad dudes do don their woolly exteriors and stalk me, I now know when to see this is happening and get myself out of that situation before anything bad happens.

There are some things about ourselves that we can not change but we can learn to counter their negative effects, if they occur.

I was luckier than a lot of people. I grew up in a world where I was taught to believe that anything is possible. That if I applied myself and followed my dreams, that they would materialise. This has not been disproven yet. A world where failure was a bump in the road and always a learning experience. Situation gave context but never definition to life.

Imagine the opposite. Imagine growing up in the world where you learn that your lot in life is allocated at birth and that nothing is yours unless it is granted by someone else. Imagine seeing yourself as who you are and not who you could be. Imagine failure confirming your worst impressions of yourself. That is a sad world.

When I see someone who is angry and stuck in a rut. I don't pity them or ridicule them. Instead, I try to understand how it must be to walk a day in their shoes. Their angry, tight, unchanging shoes.

Journeys

The J part of the ENTJ that Myers Briggs indicates is my thinking preference, says that I am a person who is more about the destination than the journey.

Maybe I should sit down and re-test myself and see if this still applies. These days, I think life is more about the journey than the destination. The point of termination simply gives me a focus.

Being pretty good with my depression now means that I need a new self-project. For me, that means improving something in my life. Getting it to a standard that I find acceptable.

With depression, I took treatment very seriously. I did all the things that I was advised to do. Instead of simply letting it run it's course, I forced it through to a quick end. Held it down with my knee in it's back and it's hand in a wrist lock, until it submitted to my happiness.

So, what does a Mana do when all the doing is done? She finds a new self-project. Another way to improve her life and her contribution to the world around her.

For me, that new journey is getting physically healthy. It's not about being thin or a supermodel but more about having that energy I once had. Having that zest for life. Having that easy breath.

Expect to see a few posts about my progress. This is day one of many. "Enjoy this trip... and it is a trip."

Old

I live in this amazing old terrace house, in the beautiful suburb of Surry Hills. The walls are made from blocks of sandstone that are 30cm thick. Some days, I find a fine dust has fallen on the floor or kitchen bench from the walls slowly wearing away. It is oddly satisfying to watch a building age slowly, in a similar way to a person. As if time works on us all, even the indestructible walls of a 100+ year old building.

There is one bedroom upstairs. A lounge room full of modern suede couches in every shade of grey imaginable, with a matching toned rug. There is the middle room between the lounge and the kitchen. I guess it is meant to be a dining room but I never dine so it's a study now.

When this place was first built, the entirety would have run from the front door to where the second room ends. The kitchen and bathroom are new extensions. Someone recently suggested that this place and the house next door were one wide house. I'm not convinced.

There was this book called The Harp in the South by one of my favourite authors (who only passed away a month ago), Ruth Park. It's about girls growing up in the poor Sydney neighbourhood of Surry Hills. Entire families of up to 6 people lived in places like the one I am in now. They had outdoor bathrooms and managed to shelter in this tiny little place. It says something about how much room we expect to have now when people see my place and think it's tiny. How much space do we need? I feel I have enough. Just the right amount, actually.

It's the middle of summer in Sydney and this place is perfect. The downstairs anyway. It's cool in summer and warm in winter. All thanks to the thermal mass of the sandstone. They sure knew how to build things then.

I like this old place. It feels like recycling a home. That is nice.

This is Beautiful

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

Thanks, Candace.

The Truth Hurts but It Will Set You Free

There was a time when I could blame depression and all sorts of other things for the fact that I am over-weight. A BMI of 30 is not good for anyone.

I can talk about personality and inner beauty but once you are over 30 years old, you need to keep healthy.

Yes, I had a recent break-up with a guy who told me the truth about how fat I am. It hurt and I can't say I like him much for it but like all things in life, I take it as a lesson that I should learn from.

Suzi Edwards once said that you get to an age where you choose your bum or your face. I want to choose both.

Being healthy in my mind, makes me want to be healthy in all other ways.

So, today I am 75kg. I'm aiming for 70kg, at first.

Encourage me. Love me. Tell me it is possible. Don't let me forget that life is too important to waste on a large pack of fries with gravy.


PS I can lose weight but he will still be an asshole.

And Another Year Begins

One thing I dislike more than the spam on the Internet, is people who write blog posts apologising for not posting anything in the last few weeks/months/years. If you are out living life and don't have time for the blog then I say come back when you are good and ready and share what you have to share. Blogs are like diaries to me: You write in them when you need to put the thoughts in your head in to words... making them form in to real ideas... freeing them from bouncing about your skull.

My friend Linda says it best - "Never complain. Never explain."

Every year starts with intentions and resolutions. Mine is always to be taller and this seems to justify my shoe habit. As for the rest of the stuff, I say keep doing what I'm doing if all is well and try to learn stuff along the way. That works for me.

Never complain. Never explain.

I arrived back in Sydney yesterday. It was an interesting day. Today has been very good. Decisions made and good plans laid. Life moves on in a positive direction and I keep learning stuff (sometimes in the hardest way possible).

It's time to get back in to Sydney and the mania that I so adore. Seeing friends. Getting slizzard. Eating great food. Kissing all the wrong men. Being happy.

Keep up and take no prisoners.

Accept It

People are always telling me that I will find someone who is right for me. Someone who will respect me and not be intimidated by my brains, success of flirty personality. They say he will treat me right and not lay a hand on me in anger. They say a lot of things.

My bestie Allison said that people say that because they think that is what I want to hear. The truth is that I don't want to hear that. Seriously.

For the first time in over a decade, I am truly happy. Each day, I get out of bed and look forward to an amazing life filled with meaning and love. That to me does not mean "a man" to complete me. In fact, I feel complete.

Every time someone tells me that I will find that person, I actually feel a little cr@ppy. I don't feel incomplete. There is so much love in my life. My loving family and my amazingly wonderful friends make me feel complete in that way. I have no doubt that people love me and that I am lovable beyond belief.

The thing is that I feel complete. There is nothing missing from my life. Nothing lacking. Nothing lost. If I found a great friend who I wanted to spend my whole life with then I would but I certainly don't need that.

Please don't tell me what I need to hear. Just accept that I'm happy and be happy for me. Please.

I love you all and appreciate your help. Love me for who I am.

Invisible Idiot

There is a computing joke about a guy giving a demonstration of a language translation application that can translate anything to and from different languages. He chooses to translate the phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" from English to Chinese and back again. The result is "Invisible Idiot". The computer took "Out of sight" to mean "Invisible" and "Out of mind" to mean "Idiot". Together, the original meaning is lost but we are left with a literal and logical translation.

This is how I now refer to my ex. He is out of sight and out of mind and that means that my trigger for my depression is no longer present in my life. Happiness abounds and there are no regrets. Life moves forward and upward, with me smiling and blowing kisses the whole time.

A few days ago, he decided I should be the first person to know that he was moving to Chicago with Thoughtworks. Two years after leaving, he thought I would be thrilled for him? Celebrate his success? Honestly, I'm glad when anyone does well at their job. Good for him. I still don't think I am the person to tell about it.

A friend pointed out to me that men will often leave their life long partners and go out in the world and re-sow their wild oats. They'll find friends to party with, women to kiss and a freedom like they forgot they could ever have. Then a few years down the track, the party slows down a little and those people who supported you in your breakup go back to giving you some of their time but not all of it all the time, as they did when you needed them. The women they had short term relationships with or a few months of whatever, start to bore them and they move on. The job they spend hours on starts to be a job again and dedicating non-stop time to it isn't as liberating as it once felt.

Then one day, he gets the biggest news of his career. He is stoked. He wants to share it. The first person he calls is that person that he used to share all his moments with. The woman who would squeal at the end of the phone and do a little dance, in shared excitement. The person who would demand they go out and celebrate or bring home a bottle of French champagne and talk of nothing else but the thrill of the achievement.

But too bad. She is no longer that person. She has friends, family and her own person to share life with now. She doesn't miss him. She doesn't feel any real thrill at hearing his achievement. She is actually a little surprised when she sees the caller ID on her phone.

Where was I again? Oh yeah, hypothesising.

You can not walk out of someone's life in such a destructive way and believe that two years later she will be waiting for your call and be thrilled to hear your news.

Remember how you said I had to move on. Right back atchya, my old love.

You're an invisible idiot.

A Crash Course in Australian History

We Aussies are very proud of our cosmopolitan population. There is the tens of thousands of years of gentle occupation and respect of the land by the Australian Aborigines. Then Captain Cook found a good dumping ground for the British criminals condemned for starving and stealing stale bread. The settlers who conquered the land by trying to be English farmers and settling on breeding and farming what ever animals didn't die. There were the gold rushes in the 1850s that brought the Chinese immigrants and their vast knowledge of farming practices and hard work to improve what the settlers had started. The gold rushers rebelled and gave us the Eureka Stockade and made the southern cross an emblem of our independence.

Then we decided to dam (or damn some would say) one of our most beautiful and powerful rivers to make electricity. That brought the Italian and other southern European immigrants to build the Snowy River Dam.

In between, we loved our criminals. There was Ned Kelly who was our Irish Robin Hood but the poor people he gave the money to were his family so they hanged him. This led to the habit of the Victorian Police shooting people first and asking questions later. The NSW police weren't angels either. There is a great story about the Victorian and NSW Police meeting at the border of the two states to do a joint operation. The Victorian Sergeant in charge said "We won't shoot anyone if you guys don't steal anything. Deal?"

We can't help it though. A lot of people don't like our national anthem: Advance Australia Fair. It doesn't really represent anyone who actually live here. It's more the kind of anthem that would be written by a music geek in high school who had never listened to Triple J and thought the Carpenters were so happenin'. Instead, most locals will claim that the true song of the nation is Waltzing Matilda. It's a story about a starving guy in the country who steals a sheep to kill and eat. He steals it from a rich settler which were called squatters at the time. The squatter called the cops in. They were most likely Victorian because they found him and shot at him. He refused to let them catch him alive and he jumped in to a small lake that we call a billabong. Now he haunts the billabong and every school kid and sporting fan in this country sings that first when they think of a national song.

The World Wars came and went. They took a lot of our young men. Many as canon fodder for Churchill, who didn't return the favour when Darwin was bombed to smithereens in 1942. That was the one time that a foreign country attacked Australian soil. It was our Pearl Harbour. That's when the Americans who Australians so love to hate came and helped us after Churchill said he could not spare our boys or his at that moment. When I'm whinging about American world domination, I always stop and remind myself what they did for Australia, Papua New Guinea and the whole of the South Pacific when the rest of the world was too busy protecting Europe to care about the antipodes. There is really no excuse for Sarah Palin or Tom Cruise though.

Australia had The White Australia Policy that lasted from the founding of our country in 1901 until 1973. That was 3 years before I was born to a white father and a black mother.

That is when it became cosmopolitan. With immigration from all over the planet, this finally became a place with a little more flavour. No more "meat and three veg" meals. The country blossomed in the 1980s and became known as the lucky country.

It still wasn't very lucky for the Aborigines who had to live with centuries of racial segregation, extermination and the heartbreaking and quite unjustifiable Stolen Generation. I went to school with kids whose parents were victims of the stolen generation. Half castes were always the first to be rescued and brought up as whites in the world that hated the mixed coloured skin.

Yes, there are plenty of wonderful things to say about Australia and being a melting pot of different cultures is one of those wonders. I don't think we are all the way there yet. We aren't a place without racism and bigotry but I think we generally try to be good people. There is a lot of ignorance out there about a lot of things. My quick history of Australia might not mean anything to you but the more I read and learn, the more I understand the distrust and reasoning behind the inequalities. We have so far to travel but we are this cool collection of misfits who kinda make up the rules as we go along. I think that will work for us.

This is the song that I think should be the National Anthem...

Stuff and Nonsense

Disobey my own decisions
I deserve all your suspicions
First it's yes and then it's no
I dilly-dally down to you, oh
But I've got no secrets that I battle in my sleep
I won't make promises to you that I can't keep

And you know that I love you
Here and now, not forever
I can give you the present
I don't know about the future
That's all stuff and nonsense

I once lived for the future
Everyday was one day closer
Greener on the other side
Yes I believe before I met you
But I soon learned your love burned
Brighter than the stars in my eyes
Now I know how and when
I know where and why

And you know that I love you
Here and now not forever
I can give you the present
I don't know about the future
That's all stuff and nonsense

If we all understood..

... a gentler place.

Single Bright Female

2010 has been a bloody fantastic year for me. Yes, it's relative to the hell that was 2009 but I'll take what I can get. It was a very good year in so many ways. One of the ways I want to discuss is what it has been like to be single.

I won't lie. My first thought on starting all over again and being "alone" was not a happy green field filled with bunnies and butterflies. No sir, it was more a moment of terror that spanned a long few moments.

That was 2009. That's last decade, baby!

At the beginning of 2010, I decided on a new year's resolution that was only shared with a few select members of the Mana inner circle of awesomeness. That resolution was to spend one whole year on my own. I would not get in to relationships or look for love like a lost puppy.

This was implemented in several different ways including filling my time with the distractions of hobbies and habits that were chosen to switch my brain from Damana-in-a-couple mode to something else. What that was, I was quite willing to wait and see.

People told me the clock was ticking and some even called me passed it, at the ripe old age of 34. I ignored and kept on with my promise to myself that this year was the year that I would be my own person and find a way to be alone without being lonely.

My life then filled with time for good friends. It has been like being at university again - hanging out with my girlfriends, drinking a glass of wine and talking about life, the universe and everything. Those friendships were nurtured and have become a rock that I know I can lean on at any moment from now until... well, for ages anyway. They are what I call real friends. You know that saying... Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies. I have me some body movers although I'm sure Bernada and Kellie would not be happy if gunk got on their shoes.

There was time for family and observing the wonderful relationships between them and their significant others. Seeing how people can treat each other with respect, not hurt others and love through everything life throws at them. For better or worse; richer or poorer; and in sickness and health.

There were propositions for relationships - instantaneous; lasting; long since dead; casual; formal; odd; and often unwanted and unsolicited. These from possible princes; predators; punks; already taken partners; pretentious pricks; and an assortment of actually nice guys.

I said thank you but I'll pass this time.

Yes, I understand that they may never come around again. That love is important. That people are in different stages of their lives. That it seems nothing can make me happy.

The truth is that I found who I am this year. I don't know exactly what I want but I have a flaming good idea of what I don't want and some clues on the direction I am heading.

We each must be self-contained and able to identify the "me" in the throng of people or the intimacy of a relationship. My learning has brought me to understand who I am and who I would like to be. If being single is not my lot and a person walks in one day and rocks my world then I'll still have a strong sense of who Damana is. I won't lose her to the sum of a relationship, like I would have in the past.

Now that I can like me, other people can too.

Chain of Fools

Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin

Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

Five long years I thought you were my man
But I found out I'm just a link in your chain
You got me where you want me
I ain't nothing but your fool
You treated me mean oh you treated me cruel
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

Every chain has got a weak link
I might be weak child, but I'll give you strength
You told me to leave you alone
My father said come on home
My doctor said take it easy
Whole bunch of lovin is much too strong
I'm added to your chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain,
Chain, chain of fools

One of these mornings the chain is gonna break
But up until then, yeah, I'm gonna take all I can take
Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

Sownd Mind

Amazing Women: Megan

There are some amazing women out there and I'm not talking about celebs and unattainables. The most interesting and inspiring women I've found are ones that actually exist in the world around me. Having asked one of the strongest women I know to write a few words about how she became who she is, I'm happy to say that it is here for you to know too.

Megan and I met on twitter, via a shared love of shoes. We aren't shoe addicts but see ourselves as collectors. She is a lawyer by day and mum, shoe lover, wife, writer and trend setter every other moment.

Hopefully, you will gain as much from learning about where others find their strength as I have.

------


“What does my name mean?” I remember asking my mother frequently. “It’s Welsh” she would say “It means the Strong One because that is what you are – strong.”.

If someone tells you that you are strong, does that make you become strong? Strong willed, strong minded, strong opinioned – independent. Or is the name a talisman to protect that strength?

My grandmothers, both of them, were strong women. By some strange stroke of fate, both were named Helen. The name Helen originates from the Greek and means (apparently) ‘the bright one’. Both were possessed of incisive minds and biting wits.

My Scottish gran, wee Nellie, the youngest of 13 children, won a scholarship to St Margarets Convent. Her parents decided that going on to high school would just lead to problems. Aged 14 my gran was apprenticed to the J & P Coats Mills in Paisley. She always claimed that her parents had made the right decision but there was a simmering anger within her that evinced otherwise.


It was this anger, this ferocity that always impressed and terrified me about her. On one hand she was verbally though not physically affectionate. Every week she and I would hang out and I would polish and pootle about with her collections of brass miniatures and antique buttons and talk. Then we would walk. “Let’s click hen” she would say to me linking arms with me in a conspiratorial way when I tried to hold her hand. At some point my gran would meet someone, some elderly woman that she knew from the church. At that point she would relinquish my arm and stare the other woman straight in the eye. A conversation that appeared cordial would then ensue. After what seemed an eternity to me (probably 5 minutes), the conversation would draw to a close and the parties would disengage. “See you hen” my gran would smile and wave. “That one” she would then mutter to me “I would piss on that one if she was on fire, she’s a spark out of hell that one”.

The childhood me often wondered why Gran spoke to people she disliked so intensely. Later I realised, like a Mafioso she would keep her friends close and her enemies closer. Her single most important piece of advice to me was – “tell no one anything hen, you only empty your mouth to fill someone else’s”. To this day, I follow her advice. Anything that you tell me in confidence will stay in my confidence. Completely, absolutely and irrevocably.

There was another ferocious grandmother Helen in my life, the chain smoking, languid, elegant one. The one who wore beautiful clothes and shoes, who was never seen without a shampoo and set or a manicure or a full face of make up.

“tell no one anything hen, you only empty your mouth to fill someone else’s”

Grandma Helen and I were never going to see eye to eye. Her concept of good grandchildren were children who sat quietly and ate instead of talking. “What wonderful appetites your children have!” she would exclaim to my mother. This was all very well until I became a teenager when she would remind me frequently not to eat too much. There was an odd tension in my grandma Helen’s eating habits. On the one hand she would drink Tab diet coke




and on the other hand, she could and would happily eat her way through a retail display tray of Cadburys® Crème Eggs at a single sitting. While chain smoking and drinking diet coke.



And yet despite her girth and the fact that her breasts rested on her knees without a bra, my grandma Helen carried herself, all 5 foot 2 inches of her, with elegance and grace and an innate sense of her femininity. “I may be fat” she would say “but I have amazing legs” and she did.
From her I learned that there is no situation for which a good outfit, a decent hairstyle and a healthy dose of self belief can’t prepare you.

"...there is no situation for which a good outfit, a decent hairstyle and a healthy dose of self belief can’t prepare you"

And then there is my mother. My mother who once was a talented ballerina, who decided that dancing was never going to be a way to live her life, who decided at a very young age that looks do not last and that the only thing that she could rely on to get her through life was her brain. My mother who has healing hands and the ability to avoid judging anyone. My mother who once said “Love expands us.”

From each of these women I have acquired a gift – my fierce protectiveness of my friends and family from Gran, my appreciation of nice clothes, scents and shoes from my grandmother and my belief in the overwhelming power of love from my mother.

Mental, like physical strength, something that we are either born with or something we can acquire by through persistence and hard work. When I look at my strong willed, independent, ferocious little daughter I realise that her battles won’t be so different from mine, from every other woman out there. And I hope, and I pray that it won’t take her 40 plus years to figure out how to fight those battles effectively. Like me.

You are the only exception

For B.

We're Catching Bullets in Our Teeth

Now that's a snake

Apparently, this was taken in North Queensland. This is why I am always nervous about living in the tropics. I am unsure of who took this photo so I can't give credit but really wanted to share it.

Who's the boss?

There used to be this TV show on in the 80s, starring a young Alyssa Milano. She was the daughter of a man who basically worked as a maid for a rich upper class American woman. I don't quite remember why it was called that but I think it had something to do with the confusing idea that a man was in a female job working for a boss who was a woman.

[Quick addition: I'm not saying anyone is the automatic boss or there is a boss at all. I'm talking about how times have changed from even the 80s.]

I recently heard someone complaining about the idea of the show and saying that the question and name of the show didn't make any sense. That the woman who paid the man maid was the boss because she paid his salary. That sounds obvious now, as we sit here in late 2010 wondering how late we can leave it to buy all our Christmas presents.

I nodded and said "hey yeah, she was the boss and why did they even ask that?" then remembered that there were very strict gender roles at play in the past. Even in the 80s with Madonna calling it a Material World and women walking around in shoulder pads didn't really mean that much was different in the world.

Sure the sixties changed things. Women burned their bras and took the contraceptive pill on the way to liberating themselves. The world did change. No disputing that.

The strange thing is that I keep thinking it changed in the sixties and that we are sitting pretty now because of that. That nothing happened in between. Of course, that is ridiculous.

I remember TV shows that were dominated by kickass women "like Joan Collins in Dynasty, Victoria Principal in Dallas" as @maverickwoman on Twitter reminds me. There were movies with amazing female characters who had strength and independence. They went after their dreams and those dreams were not always the 50's view of a white picket fence and a yard full of kids.

That is what I grew up with. Not the sixties view of things but the 80s view of the world. A world with great possibility. Women were as strong, greedy and flawed as men. We can't stand around and talk of equality and forget what that means. Equal in all ways means good and bad. I saw that. It impressed me. It empowered me.

Why am I talking about this? Someone said that the sixties changed it all for them. Of course it did. It was the rolling start to the snowball that became the avalanche of feminism. BUT for me it was the 80s and it's awesome women who inspired me.

I hope the young women growing up now have that too. In fact, I look around and know they will be stronger and more blasé about the way it eventuated. That is fantastic. It is awesome. It gives me hope and a lot of it.

:)

I said..

I like the idea of living every moment; experiencing all the joy and pain; and ending up smiling because you are glad you played.

Closure

Today was one of those perfect Sydney summer days. Up early and with all my chores done by midday, I spent a few hours chilling on the couch and taking in the peace around me.

Fingers crossed, I'll be starting a new job soon and the next chapter of life starts. It's time for it. I'm excited and happy. This is the way I want life to be.

Goodbye to some things and hello to new ones. Goodbye to old friends and hello to new ones.

Life is pretty awesome.

Confessions of a Recovering Drama Queen

The problem with having lived the last few years as a drama queen is that everyone's first assumption is that you've completely overreacted to any situation :o)

Having had a week or more of zen and sh!t, it surprises me when people ask if I'm ok and stress that I might be freaking out. I guess in time, consistency is the only thing that will change their views.

Truth is that the old Damana used to be a calm and unimpressed ocean of smirks. She is on her way back

Until then, I shall giggle a lot and drink lots of water.

Faith

People have dreams. Some people will realise them and do amazing things. Others will fear failure and not even try. The one thing that I do know about successful people is that they had faith in themselves, even when others lost faith in them.

When you know you are here to do something great then do not let anyone else tell you that you can not. There are many people who will give advice and warn you of the risks but they are your risks to take.

Be brave. Have faith in yourself.

You need not search for it

"There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path." — Siddhārtha Gautama

There is no more important thing a person can learn than that happiness is intrinsic. It is not the resulting effect of some other action or of a certain circumstance that you have wandered in to. It is not brought to you by others or kept there by following a set of rules laid forth for you.

Of course, there are things that can happen that will harsh your mellow. It's not as if people suffering disease or living in war torn countries can choose to be happy and the bad stuff goes away. I'm not a self-help guru with delusions of all the ills of the world being solved by a smile and some well-formed motivational sentences.

However, there is something to the idea of choosing to be happy when that choice is yours to make. Those of us living the privileged lives of the first world are most often able to make this choice for ourselves. Factors like mental illness, life pain and other baggage can bring you down but in the end the journey back to happiness starts as soon as you decide you are happy and that you shall accept no less.

I love the idea of a happy moment causing a smile and a smile causing a happy moment. They are interlinked and both are cause and reaction.

Be happy by making the decision to be happy :o) Trust me, it works.