G-n-L Ganesh and Lauren

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Identity

Sunday, 28 June 2009

Identity is an interesting concept... How we define ourselves so often creates or sustains our behaviours and habits... good or bad... I've included the video above partially because this blog is supposed to be about 2 people, not 1! And partially because I think it illustrates the concept of identity extremely well - (apologies for the appalling footage from my mobile phone)... From my perspective GMan has an external identity that could be described as funky, funny and active with a hint of daredevil. So I was playing directly to this identity when I gave him a stunt driving lesson - which he loved and obviously did very well at if you can see the video! I see a different identity at home, but I guess everyone has a way they'd like to be viewed as well as a more realistic view of who they really are... I guess just the strength of desire for that external identity is what drives people to 'be all that they can be'!

Labels: identity, stunt driving

Back in action...

Sunday, 21 June 2009

Wow... it's been a long time... Between projects, work and visitors there hasn't been much time to sit down and write, but I'm finally updating, mainly just to get back into practice and to be more disciplined!

The photos are of the ramp at our place - we (well mostly Ganesh, I was more involved in the design phase) built it for Grandma as she's been hesitant to climb our stairs. It was a big success and she's been over twice since it's gone up! We've also made a start on some gates for the front (harder than it looks to keep a pole straight in cement!)... and the plum tree chair is just such a novelty I had to include it! You can see people trees as well at http://www.pooktre.com.

It's been an interesting weekend filled with stress about the eclipse specifics given the visa issues which I can't elaborate on until I return! Grandma's 80th birthday at the Windsor... A lovely bike ride to the CERES farmers market with a friend which included the best egg rolls eva! (Toasted turkish bread, freshly laid fried eggs topped with feta and parsley, fried onion, green tomato chutney and lots of freshly picked spinach)... Lots of visitors.... and a trip to the farm to clean out the shed which means I now have a whole trailer load of trash waiting to be turned into treasure!

Happy Greening :-)

Labels: garden, home improvements

Half Year Update...

Saturday, 13 June 2009

Approaching the half way point of my new years resolutions I thought it was time for a quick check up to see how I was going!

Get Healthy: Not much progress with weight loss, though I seem to have stopped gaining... Time to kick start a new diet a think and stop chickening out of the 30km ride to work (it's actually all the hills and main roads that are really putting me off - it's like riding over the himalayas)! I've decided to start the one hundred push ups program and cut out all chocolate, sugar, bread and pasta from my diet... Today I managed a pathetic 5 push ups...
Carbon Footprint: There has been some great progress with energy savings despite the fact the solar panels have yet to arrive. Our consumption is less that what we would be producing which is a rewarding feeling! The vegies, the chickens, the water tanks, the led lighting and the general consciousness about the issues has really helped!
Style: Ok, I still have no sense of style, but I at least have a small collection of pics of what I like! Probably won't get on top of this one until I lose weight... not much point looking at clothes I'm hoping won't fit! I have started home making all my health and beauty supplies - though I must say the honey-lemon hair shiner turned out to be a very sticky ant magnet and took me ages to wash out!
Creative Recycling: Ahh!! I'm way behind here... AJAX issues combined with scrambling to find website dev work to make up the difference between half time work and half time unpaid Green Card as let this fall by the way side... I have tried to hire 2 different people to help here without success, perhaps 3rd time lucky?
Voluntary work: I've ramped up my EWB volunteering this year and am helping out with the upcoming conference which has been good... Having waited 6 months to get into the SES training session in footscray (when we lived in North Melbourne) I've now been told I have to join a branch closer to the new place so back on the waiting list unfortunately...
Learning: Well I've certainly kept up with my reading... at the moment I'm reading a book called Prismatic, written by someone I met up at ANSTO - it's so intriguing and inspiring to read books by people you actually know! This book is a bit darker than the books I usually read so it's quite a change. I was bitterly disappointed that my bollywood dancing classes were all cancelled. I'm now tossing up whether to find a different form of dance or take up taekwando!
43 Things: It's all on for the eclipse! Woo hoo!!
Friends: I suppose you could say I've reached out a bit more and rekindled past friendships which is a good start...
Adventures: Ok, I'm falling behind here - sorting out issues with China, work, leave and money as well as people to look after the chickens! BUT I have some great mini adventures lined up - including (if I'm brave enough to go through with it) sky diving!

Labels: new years resolutions

World Environment Day Celebrations

Sunday, 7 June 2009

Admittedly I'm a little bit late for a World Environment Day post, but I just managed to watch the movie, Home, on YouTube released specifically for World Environment Day and I'm particularly impressed. Apart from the stunning photography and glimpses of things I've only heard about - like the mining of the tar pits in Canada - the message is gentle but clear. There's 10 years tops to make serious changes before we face a very very different world.

Of course three quarters of the way through the movie I was feeling very depressed about the human race and the potential to make change, but the end does provide some hope for a greener future.

Definitely worth checking out: http://www.youtube.com/homeproject for a limited time only - final screening on June 14th!

Labels: environmentalism, home project, movie

God of the Earth...

Saturday, 6 June 2009

There are few times in life when you can be so stupefied by a story that you start to question the nature of things... While this story doesn't quite fit into that category for me, it did for all the villagers and Ganesh's brother, Ram, who experienced it first hand - and of course I'm starting to be swayed!

Ram recently went home to his place of birth - a small village in Nepal called Dadheldura for a special ceremony - sapthah. This is a seven day festival dedicated to worshipping the family God, Bhumiraj (yes! I wish I grew up with a family God too!)... The ceremony was a success and the family God acknowledged that all went well and promised to look after the family. At the same time Ram and another boy from the same village had their 'coming of age' ceremony - bharta bhanda - where a scared thread is placed around the chest and must be worn at all times. The other boy's father had said he would provide meat for everyone to celebrate the occasion, however the celebration rapidly expanded into a combination of 12 villages and he had to pull out...

The celebration was looking like it was going to be meatless, when out of the blue a deer leapt from the roof of Ram's family's place and committed suicide! There was enough meat for everyone in attendance.... Strangely enough the house is in the middle of the village surrounded by other houses, the village itself is surrounded by rocks and desert and there hasn't been a deer sighting in those parts in living memory!

I'm told that in order to give thanks to Bhumiraj, we say:
dain vaya pravu
rakshya arai mati

Thank-you for looking out for the village and the family!

Labels: culture, god, nepal, religion

How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb?

Wednesday, 3 June 2009

None. They have marketing portray the dead bulb as an added feature!

This evening we lived through our own light bulb joke... The fluoro tube in the bathroom finally spit the dummy and it was time to replace it with the led tube! My brother Andrew happened to be staying over, which turned out to be quite fortunate... Between the 3 of us... an engineer, an electrician/IT hardware guru and a town planner who has a job replacing light bulbs in coles service stations it took 45 mins to get the old light out and new one in... Possibly the worst design in the history of mankind! Just dismantling the unit in the first place took a good 10-15mins... So the answer to the age old question... It takes at least 3 people to change a light bulb!

That said the new LED tube uses half the electricity, is super bright and will supposedly last for twice as long... Hopefully light bulbs will be able to change themselves by then!

Labels: light bulb

Habits...

Tuesday, 2 June 2009

Changing ingrained habits is definitely a struggle... At the moment I'm struggling with 3 particularly bad habits that are causing me to not meet my resolution goals...

The first bad habit is sweets with tea... As a serious tea consumer of at least 5 cups a day, my habit of searching the house high and low for some chocolate or cookies or cake to eat with my tea is definitely not helping my weight loss goals... This week I've tried to substitute almonds for sweets so that I can slowly wean myself of the need for food with tea at all!
My second bad habit is also a food habit... I snack too much and don't eat proper meals... I'm much more likely to graze on tea and cookies throughout the day than sit down to 3 square meals... Obviously very bad for me! This one I'm trying to tackle with organisation. Packing proper breakfast and lunch the night before should help stop the grazing!
The third bad habit is turning on the heater... Our house is quite a cold house which was great in summer, but now that winter is upon us I find myself frequently freezing and eyeing off the gas heater. I do have a policy of never turning on the heater unless I'm wearing pants, a thick jumper and warm slippers but often this isn't enough. I'm thinking that a good way to combat this would be to jog around the block! But I'm yet to find the inspiration to venture out into the cold, wet, black of the night for a jog...

It's will be interesting to see how behavioural change programs are implemented as the environmental movement grows... Obviously an untapped pool of carbon reduction potential, these changes may actually be much more difficult than pulling out our wallets for a solar hot water system...

Labels: habits