| Sunday, June 26, 2005
I succumbed.. |
 The most interesting thing is now that they've called me a genius and compared me to Plato, they go on to offer me a 15 page report on how brilliant I am for the small one-off price of US$14.95. How stupid do they think I am? |
| Christopher Waugh
responded:
Oh, and: Isn't it "maths"? Saturday, July 02, 2005 |
| rugbynation |
| Now I am proud to be a New Zealander. I just don't have much of an affinity with the culture surrounding our so-called National Game, Rugby. Ah, hell, actually I can't stand it. I get so bored with the narrow definition of masculinity that the whole machine imposes on its sedentary legions. I have had enough "brushes" (of the kind that leave bruises) with rugby lads in full intoxicated force in my time to have a strong aversion to all of it. So, this active disinterest, which is compounded by the fact that I don't own a TV aerial and thus don't watch the thing, meant that I didn't know that last Friday was the day before one of the "Big Games". Thus, when, on Thursday, one of the many people higher than me in the hierarchy at school dropped into my class to tell me to wear black the next day, it never occurred to me that it had anything to do with the dreaded game. The school in which I work is rich with practical jokers and their product, so I assumed we were in for another of these. I began to consider which of my black clothes I would wear and had almost made a decision (the black suit with black Dr Martens steelcaps and a black roll-neck jersey) when I encountered one of my immigrant colleagues who was feeling rather left out because she hadn't been told of the black day. It transpired that this particular practical joke was to be played on all the non-new zealand-born members of our illustrious staff group. I was incensed! I have experienced being the minority who is singled out too many times to want to subscribe to such 'game'-playing myself.. but it was worse than that. I had come very close to being duped into wearing the colours of what I could easily perceive to be my number one oppressor! Needless to say my pink "Monster Children" T-Shirt was bundled into the washing machine and drier and I arrived at school wearing the colours of my own team. I wonder how this same rugby-following member of staff is going to dress on our up-coming "fairies and princesses" mufti day. I think I'll wear black. |
| Christopher Waugh
responded:
Post script: |
| Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Reminiscence |
| Tomorrow is Thursday. On a Thursday night every week at 5:30pm for many years I used to teach my favourite all-time-ever aerobics class. BODYATTACK. That class was so much a part of me that it must have, at some point, become cellular. Because even now, more than six months from my last class ever, at 5:30pm every Thursday I feel a nagging discomfort, a sense of foreboding... and I have to think, as you do with this kind of generalised anxiety, "What's wrong, what have I forgotten?". Then I remember, I don't teach aerobics any more. In fact I don't even live in Christchurch. I think one of the hazards of living alone is that this kind of reminiscence can take hold and turn to a deeper reverie. I've got to say it though. I miss teaching aerobics at Les Mills Christchurch. I doubt there will ever again be anything in my life that will match the utter exhilaration I felt every time I, and about 100 others, let out that primal scream that goes with the peak cardio tracks. I still can't listen to the "Real Thing". As with any extreme experience, you don't remember the tough stuff.. although most people will have seen me asleep at the wheel of my car in total exhaution outside the gym because there's only so much work that one little person can take. I would sometimes wake at night in a cold sweat in overwhelming frustration with the powers that added the limiters to the amplifiers' bass. But even reminding myself of all that. Like a smoker who has given up but can still recall the delicious buzz of their former addiction and wonders if life is not just that little bit less, textured, without it, I miss that thrill of being at the centre of something wonderful. |
| updoc
responded:
Forgive me for bleakening your positive reminiscences. I thought I'd slip in a little poem here for my late father whose ashes were scattered at the forestry school where he taught. May he rest in peace. |
| Wednesday, June 08, 2005
The passing of an epoch. |
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| Saturday, June 04, 2005
Carillon |
| There's a 19 note carillon (bell-tower) in Napier that is controlled by a computer scientist in Christchurch - and he's loaded it up to play New Zealand music. They ring every day in Napier's Clive Square. How cool is that? |
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You can also read my old journal that I wrote in 2001 when I threw everything up in the air and did a road trip of New Zealand to help me make some decisions. |
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