Die 2009! Die ... !
... For I will not miss you.
I write this in one of the few times I consider special. A new year, a new decade, has opened over Australia and New Zealand and inches it's way forward with every second across the rest of the world. For just a little while everyone in the world thinks the next 24 hours are more deserving of hope and truth and redemption than every other day of the year that's past or of the year that's to come.
It's entirely arbitrary, of course. The date might as well be the seventh of April or the eighteenth of June, or the twenty-third of October ... and yet it unites almost the entire world. It may very well be a global placebo but at this time more than any other the attention of the human race is set towards the future and towards hope. If there is any single demonstration of the power and significance of the placebo effect, then I think we find it in New Year's Eve.
Not that I think that's a bad thing, as will be seen.
I have, more or less, not enjoyed this year. The two reasons for that are very clear.
The first, and more acceptable, is that I'm living in Shepparton. This need not be a terrible thing, if you don't love a bigger city, and if you aren't a man looking for other men in a town largely based on dairy farming. I came here primarily for my family but that need has passed, I might stay here for work, but there's no-one here paying well or doing strong, brave things. There are a raft of other reasons but at this point there's nothing to say Shepparton is a compelling option.
The second, and more self-inflicted, is that my workplace sucks ass. I made a bad choice to go to my current school. I was pressed out, politically, of a role where I felt satisfied and whole and in the agony (I'm not kidding ... crying in my office) of rejection I grasped at the longest, nearest straw presented me. It happened that that straw represented a Catholic school, one of the largest in Victoria. I didn't give a damn where I was going, I just wanted to be elsewhere from where I left.
Turns out that was a terrible, terrible mistake.
I want to be clear, a lot of the people at my school are fantastic. The are compassionate, caring, funny, lively people. Even the highest administration are very nice if you deal with them as people and not as employers. As an organization, however, the school has a 'rod of self-righteousness + 37' jammed into places that don't bear mentioning. I know this because, by chance, I am very close with the daughter of the VicRoads supervisor on a project of the school's. As a result I have, in time and time, had access to his email box ... when I was called on for assistance. Likewise I have been invited on many occasions, for diagnostic reasons, to examine mailboxes within the school.
I have discovered, thereby, that we are inexcusably arrogant. That anyone who does not break the rules for us in every way 'does not understand what we're about'. Price breaks beyond education (and tax free, and Rudd government bonus) pricing aren't sufficient. Public works concessions from a fully lighted crossing, to an off-road bridge, to signage, aren't sufficient. Frankly the only reason you can't see the rod up our ass is that only God can reach deep enough to get it out.
(Those public works? Not done, even though the site is fully operational. Our newsletter includes a nominal advisory not to make a right-hand turn across traffic on a highway. Go community responsibility!)
This is not at all the only example of blind, fundamentalist arrogance that the school has been involved in it's just the only one I've happened to have the chance to see from both sides. It make me miserable. As much as the school declares that they're a loving, inclusive community they can't change that I've repeatedly been declared abominable by their church, and more than once by their own staff. By and by I would be doing better if they really took their words to heart, or if they though as much of other people's convictions as they did their own. it's the hypocrisy that's eating its way into me as much as anything else. Mine working for them, and theirs just being them.
As savagely suckfull as work has made my time, the year hasn't been a complete loss. At it's beginning I made two resolutions, and this is where the whole business with hope and placebos comes in. One of my resolutions was to loose weight. This promise and I are old friends, I've made for the last twelve or fifteen years, like clockwork. This year I actually did something about it. 18 kgs, by actual number, is somewhat short of the 20 I gave myself as a goal, but I'm still quite proud. Partly that's because 18 is a great number, more than 15% or my total mass, but it's moreso that I finally achieved something after so long simply saying so. Those of you who have seen me and been with me know that I've always been ... large. Most of you don't know that I've struggled with that fact, and despised it,as long as I've known anyone reading this. To have said I'll chance, and to have done so to to this extent, is something I've struggled in vain for in every year any of you has known me. To have done it is ... magnificent. If I loose as much weight in the coming year as I have this one I will be underweight. That's unthinkable. (and not going to happen, but it sets things in perspective.)
The other resolution was to further my studies, and I now stand on the very brink of attaining my Master's degree. I have a fairly bumpy January ahead of me, but come the second of Feb all will be said and done. I will either be a Master, or not. (Whether I will be a Master of Evil remains undetermined.)
Looking into the year ahead I only have one resolution. Once my results come in, whether they be successful or not, I am leaving Shepparton and returning to Melbourne. I will find a place again in the city I love, amongst people I care for ... whom I hope will forgive me for the silence I've given them of late. There are other people too, and what happens between them and I is out of my hands. I hope they will settle in Melbourne, and be in my life in some way, but that will only be if they wish it.
Hope has been called 'the most terrible illusion', but that's fine with me. Anything that draws all people together this way, genuinely combined in one thought, is an illusion worth seeing.
I had two hopes for myself last year, and I have two this year. One is that I will carry on loosing weight, as I've always wished. The other is that I will return to the city I love, and find a place among those I have been thinking of. There's also one hope for another, but that can't be told. It's tradition.
What hope I have for the new year, I give to everyone who reads this. If there was ever a time for wishes this is it. Make one for yourself, and trust that I also wish it for you.
I write this in one of the few times I consider special. A new year, a new decade, has opened over Australia and New Zealand and inches it's way forward with every second across the rest of the world. For just a little while everyone in the world thinks the next 24 hours are more deserving of hope and truth and redemption than every other day of the year that's past or of the year that's to come.
It's entirely arbitrary, of course. The date might as well be the seventh of April or the eighteenth of June, or the twenty-third of October ... and yet it unites almost the entire world. It may very well be a global placebo but at this time more than any other the attention of the human race is set towards the future and towards hope. If there is any single demonstration of the power and significance of the placebo effect, then I think we find it in New Year's Eve.
Not that I think that's a bad thing, as will be seen.
I have, more or less, not enjoyed this year. The two reasons for that are very clear.
The first, and more acceptable, is that I'm living in Shepparton. This need not be a terrible thing, if you don't love a bigger city, and if you aren't a man looking for other men in a town largely based on dairy farming. I came here primarily for my family but that need has passed, I might stay here for work, but there's no-one here paying well or doing strong, brave things. There are a raft of other reasons but at this point there's nothing to say Shepparton is a compelling option.
The second, and more self-inflicted, is that my workplace sucks ass. I made a bad choice to go to my current school. I was pressed out, politically, of a role where I felt satisfied and whole and in the agony (I'm not kidding ... crying in my office) of rejection I grasped at the longest, nearest straw presented me. It happened that that straw represented a Catholic school, one of the largest in Victoria. I didn't give a damn where I was going, I just wanted to be elsewhere from where I left.
Turns out that was a terrible, terrible mistake.
I want to be clear, a lot of the people at my school are fantastic. The are compassionate, caring, funny, lively people. Even the highest administration are very nice if you deal with them as people and not as employers. As an organization, however, the school has a 'rod of self-righteousness + 37' jammed into places that don't bear mentioning. I know this because, by chance, I am very close with the daughter of the VicRoads supervisor on a project of the school's. As a result I have, in time and time, had access to his email box ... when I was called on for assistance. Likewise I have been invited on many occasions, for diagnostic reasons, to examine mailboxes within the school.
I have discovered, thereby, that we are inexcusably arrogant. That anyone who does not break the rules for us in every way 'does not understand what we're about'. Price breaks beyond education (and tax free, and Rudd government bonus) pricing aren't sufficient. Public works concessions from a fully lighted crossing, to an off-road bridge, to signage, aren't sufficient. Frankly the only reason you can't see the rod up our ass is that only God can reach deep enough to get it out.
(Those public works? Not done, even though the site is fully operational. Our newsletter includes a nominal advisory not to make a right-hand turn across traffic on a highway. Go community responsibility!)
This is not at all the only example of blind, fundamentalist arrogance that the school has been involved in it's just the only one I've happened to have the chance to see from both sides. It make me miserable. As much as the school declares that they're a loving, inclusive community they can't change that I've repeatedly been declared abominable by their church, and more than once by their own staff. By and by I would be doing better if they really took their words to heart, or if they though as much of other people's convictions as they did their own. it's the hypocrisy that's eating its way into me as much as anything else. Mine working for them, and theirs just being them.
As savagely suckfull as work has made my time, the year hasn't been a complete loss. At it's beginning I made two resolutions, and this is where the whole business with hope and placebos comes in. One of my resolutions was to loose weight. This promise and I are old friends, I've made for the last twelve or fifteen years, like clockwork. This year I actually did something about it. 18 kgs, by actual number, is somewhat short of the 20 I gave myself as a goal, but I'm still quite proud. Partly that's because 18 is a great number, more than 15% or my total mass, but it's moreso that I finally achieved something after so long simply saying so. Those of you who have seen me and been with me know that I've always been ... large. Most of you don't know that I've struggled with that fact, and despised it,as long as I've known anyone reading this. To have said I'll chance, and to have done so to to this extent, is something I've struggled in vain for in every year any of you has known me. To have done it is ... magnificent. If I loose as much weight in the coming year as I have this one I will be underweight. That's unthinkable. (and not going to happen, but it sets things in perspective.)
The other resolution was to further my studies, and I now stand on the very brink of attaining my Master's degree. I have a fairly bumpy January ahead of me, but come the second of Feb all will be said and done. I will either be a Master, or not. (Whether I will be a Master of Evil remains undetermined.)
Looking into the year ahead I only have one resolution. Once my results come in, whether they be successful or not, I am leaving Shepparton and returning to Melbourne. I will find a place again in the city I love, amongst people I care for ... whom I hope will forgive me for the silence I've given them of late. There are other people too, and what happens between them and I is out of my hands. I hope they will settle in Melbourne, and be in my life in some way, but that will only be if they wish it.
Hope has been called 'the most terrible illusion', but that's fine with me. Anything that draws all people together this way, genuinely combined in one thought, is an illusion worth seeing.
I had two hopes for myself last year, and I have two this year. One is that I will carry on loosing weight, as I've always wished. The other is that I will return to the city I love, and find a place among those I have been thinking of. There's also one hope for another, but that can't be told. It's tradition.
What hope I have for the new year, I give to everyone who reads this. If there was ever a time for wishes this is it. Make one for yourself, and trust that I also wish it for you.