Trains, friends and Isabel
On Friday the announcement that we're leaving was made at the team building day at work. It's not how I would have chosen to reveal it, but what's done is done. I guess it was perhaps a good thing, as people couldn't bombard us with questions immediately afterwards as we launched straight into the pre-planned series of talks.
I had a good time, and I'm glad I got a chance to go and spend the time with everyone before diving back into the fray of Things to Do Before I Go. One of the first things we did was an icebreaker dividing up into groups based on whether we were the eldest, youngest, middle child or only child in our family. It was interesting to see who ended up in which group and it made for interesting contemplations when the later sales talk was dragging on a bit. ;) We did a brief personality assessment of ourselves before breaking up into groups again and I quickly realised that the cut-down Myer-Briggs analysis still boiled down to Hippocrates classification of the four humors and their corresponding temperaments - choleric (yellow bile), sanguine (blood), phlegmatic (phlegm) and melancholy (black bile.)
I started my life as a sanguine foisted with the melancholy facade my parents wanted me to have (never a good combo) and I've gradually slid towards phlegmatic as time goes on because of my need to keep the peace and thus gain people's approval. There are other reasons, but that's the biggest one. Anyway...
The Corporate Challenge we did in the afternoon was fun. It was a scavenger hunt/Amazing Race type-thing. kasinik and the other type A/choleric personalities in his team practically sprinted across Adelaide for 3 hours straight, ploughing through the missions and making use of loopholes and the like in order to win, which to their credit, they did. My team was the easygoing car-borne phlegmatic tortoises in comparison. I just don't understand how we came so far behind the team that spent half their time in city pubs downing beers. :)
unfoldedreality came to Adelaide for a visit, so on Friday night I left the team dinner early to pick him up at the airport. I missed having the chocolate truffle torte thanks to the hotel losing several staff and thus serving food so late as a result. D'oh! :(
On Saturday, breakfast at Whipped Cafe, then to work on Yet Another Building Move, so Glenn was left to entertain Mark in my absence. We went home when it was all done so Mark could prepare for the engagement party he had to attend, which was the reason for his visit. Out came the three-piece suit, which I had not seen previously. ;) The affair was at a house in a beautifully green quarter a short distance outside the city. In Aldgate IIRC, partway between the Mount Lofty and Hahndorf. Then homewards to continuing reading an excerpt of Celebrated Crimes by Alexandre Dumas père on the couch before drifting off.
Sunday led to brunch at Kafe Dôm, a delightful place that serves Georgian, Armenian and Russian food. Then to the beach for a ride on the Port Adelaide tourist train along the water, followed by an ice cream, a quick trip to Delfin Island and then off the airport.
It was at Semaphore when we were on the train waiting for it to leave that I made my most interesting observation. A man with two young kids fresh from face-painting boarded the carriage in front of us while a woman took photos. They were later revealed to be the grandparents, not the parents, and when the 3 or 4 year-old boy immediately screwed up his tiger-painted visage on being forced to board and proceeded to wail and scream constantly, I was curious as to how the grandparents would react.
The girl who looked about 6 years old (the carriages were basically just solid steel frames with safety gates but no windows) remarked with annoyance that he "always does this." The grandmother made a few brief attempts to placate the boy, and then went back to taking family snaps. The grandfather spent much time trying to calm the boy, the white-haired volunteer train driver playfully suggested to the boy that he was keeping the seagulls awake with his noise. A few other family members came over to try and stop the caterwauling as we all waited, but to no avail. Finally the driver returned just prior to departure and, obviously being very experienced with children, gently but firmly insisted to the kid that enough was enough.
The volume decreased a bit, but then when the train started in earnest, the kid screamed the whole way to the other end. Beautiful beach views, shame about the soundtrack. :) When we got to the other end, I watched the girl continue to entertain herself as her grandad focussed his attention on her brother, who on disembarking at the other end finally became quiet. Glenn and Mark went off to watch the engine being reversed and attached to the other end. Grandad and grandson went for a stroll with the former indicating points of interest to the quiet, wide-eyed latter, while the granddaughter continued to amuse herself on the train.
I asked her her name. "Isabel," she said with a touch of pride at receiving the attention. I commented that he'd made a lot of noise, and asked if he was her brother, though he clearly was. "He's just a BOY..." she said with all the disdainful dismissiveness a six-year-old girl can muster about a member of the opposite sex. :) She told me his name was Will.
Her face was painted in a curious meeting of Elizabeth-Taylor-as-Cleopatra meets curly pink lines of kid-safe glitter. I talked to her for a bit, showed her how the carriage gate opened and closed, (which she proudly demonstrated to her granddad a bit later) then gave her 10 cents I'd found on the ground.
The episode reminded me a bit of my own family situation. My sister was the demanding, loud and opinionated younger child and I was the complete opposite in the early days. Many was the time a schoolteacher wrote verbatim "Sophie is a quiet, conscientious student..." on my report card.
I was reminded of an telling incident that occurred when I was ten. My parents were both the youngest in their families and had very high expectations of how an elder child should behave, more than most because of their ethnic backgrounds. One of the few advantages of this attitude was that they believed that certain privileges should go to the eldest on account of their seniority.
When I was ten and Julia was eight, my parents bought the house in Morley that they still reside in today. As eldest, I was given the choice of the two bedrooms available to us. I had naturally chosen the larger one, but my sister started to protest, so I quickly acquiesced and let her have it. I remember my mum tacitly nodding her approval at my move to keep the peace but she said nothing regarding the outburst, and that was it, I was given the smaller bedroom.
My choice would later serve me in good stead though, for Julia would sometimes lock me out of the house in anger after clashing with me on those long school holidays on our own. (Our parents both worked.) As the property was on a slope, I would have been unable to reach the window if I'd had the larger bedroom. My room was lower to the ground, so I quickly learnt to leave my window open a crack during the holidays so I could remove the fly-screen and climb back in when needed, which was often. :)
Anyway, the point is, my encounter with Isabel and Will the shrill reminded me that it's not just the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, but the "squeaky kid" also. I hope people can remember to pay occasional attention to the quiet kids, not just the ones that usually demand their attention.
I decided to stop avoiding conflict and to voice my desires more often, other peoples feeling be damned! The peace-keepers of the world need to make more noise. It won't be easy to change years of habit, but we'll see...
Quote of the moment:
"You meet these people who are confident all the time. They annoy me. And I wonder if it's because I'm envious or if it's because they're shallow." -- Guy Pearce
I had a good time, and I'm glad I got a chance to go and spend the time with everyone before diving back into the fray of Things to Do Before I Go. One of the first things we did was an icebreaker dividing up into groups based on whether we were the eldest, youngest, middle child or only child in our family. It was interesting to see who ended up in which group and it made for interesting contemplations when the later sales talk was dragging on a bit. ;) We did a brief personality assessment of ourselves before breaking up into groups again and I quickly realised that the cut-down Myer-Briggs analysis still boiled down to Hippocrates classification of the four humors and their corresponding temperaments - choleric (yellow bile), sanguine (blood), phlegmatic (phlegm) and melancholy (black bile.)
I started my life as a sanguine foisted with the melancholy facade my parents wanted me to have (never a good combo) and I've gradually slid towards phlegmatic as time goes on because of my need to keep the peace and thus gain people's approval. There are other reasons, but that's the biggest one. Anyway...
The Corporate Challenge we did in the afternoon was fun. It was a scavenger hunt/Amazing Race type-thing. kasinik and the other type A/choleric personalities in his team practically sprinted across Adelaide for 3 hours straight, ploughing through the missions and making use of loopholes and the like in order to win, which to their credit, they did. My team was the easygoing car-borne phlegmatic tortoises in comparison. I just don't understand how we came so far behind the team that spent half their time in city pubs downing beers. :)
unfoldedreality came to Adelaide for a visit, so on Friday night I left the team dinner early to pick him up at the airport. I missed having the chocolate truffle torte thanks to the hotel losing several staff and thus serving food so late as a result. D'oh! :(
On Saturday, breakfast at Whipped Cafe, then to work on Yet Another Building Move, so Glenn was left to entertain Mark in my absence. We went home when it was all done so Mark could prepare for the engagement party he had to attend, which was the reason for his visit. Out came the three-piece suit, which I had not seen previously. ;) The affair was at a house in a beautifully green quarter a short distance outside the city. In Aldgate IIRC, partway between the Mount Lofty and Hahndorf. Then homewards to continuing reading an excerpt of Celebrated Crimes by Alexandre Dumas père on the couch before drifting off.
Sunday led to brunch at Kafe Dôm, a delightful place that serves Georgian, Armenian and Russian food. Then to the beach for a ride on the Port Adelaide tourist train along the water, followed by an ice cream, a quick trip to Delfin Island and then off the airport.
It was at Semaphore when we were on the train waiting for it to leave that I made my most interesting observation. A man with two young kids fresh from face-painting boarded the carriage in front of us while a woman took photos. They were later revealed to be the grandparents, not the parents, and when the 3 or 4 year-old boy immediately screwed up his tiger-painted visage on being forced to board and proceeded to wail and scream constantly, I was curious as to how the grandparents would react.
The girl who looked about 6 years old (the carriages were basically just solid steel frames with safety gates but no windows) remarked with annoyance that he "always does this." The grandmother made a few brief attempts to placate the boy, and then went back to taking family snaps. The grandfather spent much time trying to calm the boy, the white-haired volunteer train driver playfully suggested to the boy that he was keeping the seagulls awake with his noise. A few other family members came over to try and stop the caterwauling as we all waited, but to no avail. Finally the driver returned just prior to departure and, obviously being very experienced with children, gently but firmly insisted to the kid that enough was enough.
The volume decreased a bit, but then when the train started in earnest, the kid screamed the whole way to the other end. Beautiful beach views, shame about the soundtrack. :) When we got to the other end, I watched the girl continue to entertain herself as her grandad focussed his attention on her brother, who on disembarking at the other end finally became quiet. Glenn and Mark went off to watch the engine being reversed and attached to the other end. Grandad and grandson went for a stroll with the former indicating points of interest to the quiet, wide-eyed latter, while the granddaughter continued to amuse herself on the train.
I asked her her name. "Isabel," she said with a touch of pride at receiving the attention. I commented that he'd made a lot of noise, and asked if he was her brother, though he clearly was. "He's just a BOY..." she said with all the disdainful dismissiveness a six-year-old girl can muster about a member of the opposite sex. :) She told me his name was Will.
Her face was painted in a curious meeting of Elizabeth-Taylor-as-Cleopatra meets curly pink lines of kid-safe glitter. I talked to her for a bit, showed her how the carriage gate opened and closed, (which she proudly demonstrated to her granddad a bit later) then gave her 10 cents I'd found on the ground.
The episode reminded me a bit of my own family situation. My sister was the demanding, loud and opinionated younger child and I was the complete opposite in the early days. Many was the time a schoolteacher wrote verbatim "Sophie is a quiet, conscientious student..." on my report card.
I was reminded of an telling incident that occurred when I was ten. My parents were both the youngest in their families and had very high expectations of how an elder child should behave, more than most because of their ethnic backgrounds. One of the few advantages of this attitude was that they believed that certain privileges should go to the eldest on account of their seniority.
When I was ten and Julia was eight, my parents bought the house in Morley that they still reside in today. As eldest, I was given the choice of the two bedrooms available to us. I had naturally chosen the larger one, but my sister started to protest, so I quickly acquiesced and let her have it. I remember my mum tacitly nodding her approval at my move to keep the peace but she said nothing regarding the outburst, and that was it, I was given the smaller bedroom.
My choice would later serve me in good stead though, for Julia would sometimes lock me out of the house in anger after clashing with me on those long school holidays on our own. (Our parents both worked.) As the property was on a slope, I would have been unable to reach the window if I'd had the larger bedroom. My room was lower to the ground, so I quickly learnt to leave my window open a crack during the holidays so I could remove the fly-screen and climb back in when needed, which was often. :)
Anyway, the point is, my encounter with Isabel and Will the shrill reminded me that it's not just the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, but the "squeaky kid" also. I hope people can remember to pay occasional attention to the quiet kids, not just the ones that usually demand their attention.
I decided to stop avoiding conflict and to voice my desires more often, other peoples feeling be damned! The peace-keepers of the world need to make more noise. It won't be easy to change years of habit, but we'll see...
Quote of the moment:
"You meet these people who are confident all the time. They annoy me. And I wonder if it's because I'm envious or if it's because they're shallow." -- Guy Pearce