Friday, September 9, 2011

Remember me?

Look who’s back, back again. Benny’s back, tell a friend.

Yes that is correct folks I am back.

Like a bear returning from a long hibernation I am still a big groggy, disorientated and a little hungry. My absence from the blogspace has been unfortunate, inexcusable and for that I beg your eternal forgiveness.

I have been busy. That is not offered as an excuse or a plea, more an observation.

In the past 6 months I have:

1. Met an amazing woman who constantly challenges and supports me, someone who I can trust, who always has my best interests at heart and never fails to make me smile.
2. I have relocated (yes, again!) to the sunny city-who-aims-to-be Brisbane.
3. I have undertaken the research and writing of a Masters thesis.
4. Balanced three part-time jobs.
5. Welcomed a niece into the world and been informed that another niece/nephew is waiting in the wings.

It has been a hectic whirlwind period but also thoroughly enjoyable – there are not many people who can start their day with a walk along the water, a freshly brewed coffee, breakfast with a loved one and then undertake their day with no pressures, deadlines or people nagging – just a view to the city, a fridge full of food and a pile of paper.

Change is a strange beast. I was only saying to Stace last night that anyone would forgive us for being a little stressed out – we have both undertaken some pretty extreme life changes over the past 6 months. For many people extreme change is trying a new laundry liquid, having a coffee at 10.15am instead of 10am or cutting their hair into a bob.

I don’t do change in small measures my friends. Oh no, when I make changes, I MAKE CHANGES.

So I am just getting my feet back on the ground. The thesis has been like a round the world yacht race – the beginning I was sailing though the pacific islands, life was rosy, sunny, relaxed. Now I have reached Cape Horn and the swell is rising, tossing my yacht from side to side and I am clinging to the rail, white-knuckled, hoping for a clearance in the weather. But once I round the Horn I will be in smooth waters again.

This is not a mountain I am climbing; it is a hill.

I have only about 7 weeks of my thesis writing to go, before I dump it on my supervisors desk and jet off to the cold reaches of Europe. 7 weeks is not a lot of time and instead of fearing it like a man awaiting the green mile I am trying to stop, breathe and savour the experience – before long I will be suiting up, grabbing my coffee to go and joining the corporate throng once more. Change is inevitable and once again I will step into change’s breach and see where it takes me.

But for now I am reading and typing away, trying to make the most of this time and not thinking about what lies ahead. A former boss used to tell me to ‘take bite sized chunks’ and that is what I will do.

It is great to be back in the blogsphere. I shall not leave it so long to write next time.

Friday, February 4, 2011

I'll be meetin' Millie in March

I am sitting in a small cramped space, waiting patiently, a myriad of thoughts circling my head. As I stare ahead into the mesh I ponder what lies ahead and whether I am fully prepared. I am not a religious man yet I feel driven to confess. So here we go, the moment has arrived.


I am to be an uncle and, to be frank, I am not sure I am going to be very good at it.


There, I said it. It is out in the open. Phew, I feel better.


Recently, I had the pleasure of spending a few days with a very close mate and his baby boy, a bundle of arms, legs and an elongated torso (he is a beautiful bub) and I got a window into what my sister and her husband were heading for, and also I got an all access pass to what it is like to be an Uncle.


This is an important role – it is more than just twice a year phone calls, overpriced gifts and the promise of hosting your niece/nephew in the future when they wish to escape their parents, home town, friends, life or whatever else affects them – especially during those teenage years when the world is against us and we are against the world.


This role, in my extremely ill-informed and nervous opinion, is one of support and trying to be a role model. The significant geographic distance from my niece-to-be will prevent me from providing physical support or being a visual role model but with humans essentially wired into technology these days I do not imagine that constant communication will prove to be difficult.


There was a period in my early 20’s when I was a wonderful role model of what not to do with your life – A period which a number of people, least of all my mother, will remember with little fondness or humour. However, people change and the 2011 model is ready to be put to work and it is a challenge I am relishing to be perfectly honest.


How many times do you get to see the unadulterated joy of parents cradling their newborn; a tangible, living, and breathing testament to their love….oh and lots of pregnancy eating, sore backs, sleepless nights, morning sickness, waiting and late night trips to the 24 hour supermarket or servo.


It promises to be an intense, emotional, taxing but invigorating year for my sister and her husband as they come to grips with their new addition and how their lives will be forever changed for the better. It is a year that I am relishing the opportunity to share with them and try to pick up some tips along the way so when I am placed in their position (hey, stop laughing, it could happen!!) I will be better prepared than I am now.


So here’s to young Millie, the little Tasmanian. I’m looking forward to meeting you, cuddling you, feeling your vomit run down my neck and smelling your nappies.


You are everything that is pure in this world and I will be humbled to be your Uncy Ben!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Life is full of companions

I have been blessed to have a number of companions throughout my life; friends (both real and imagined, when I was young), family, girlfriends, work colleagues, sports team members, school mates and people I have met on my travels who have shared a brief but enlightening companionship. There has been no shortage of solid, dependable, supportive and loving companions in my life and for that I am eternally grateful.

We always had pets – cats, budgie, and goldfish – so there was always a fluffy, feathered or scaly companion around. Mum still has cats so when I visit her I get to have my cat ‘quality time’.

An old flatmate of mind used to enjoy drinking sessions with a 'companion'. These were usually an inanimate object. I remember one enjoyable drinking session in a dodgy but welcoming Enmore pub where it was just the two of us and a BBQ gas bottle. By the end of the evening that gas bottle had an opinion on everything and a number of the punters in the pub were convinced that my friend and I were stark raving mad.

Inanimate objects have also provided me with companionship; he-man action figures, transformers, hot wheels toy cars, bikes, computer consoles (Atari, commodore 64, PC and now Mac), skateboards, cricket bats, cars, mobile phone and wallet. All of these items have provided me with solace in times of boredom, need, despair and sadness.

There are then the environmental companions, the ones you have very little control over, companions who can adversely affect you like nothing else can. The kind of companion you’d shield your face from or cross the street to avoid a meeting if they human. I have lived across the world in many different climates and thus have had the pleasure, or displeasure, of encountering a number of these companions.

In the small town I grew up in cold was a constant companion. The wind chill factor of a winter’s early morning was one companion you could well and truly do without. On the occasions I met this fellow I was left breathless, numbed and in the possession of two semi-frozen eyeballs. Not pleasant, not at all. This companion was persistent. Should you spend your nights indoors, snuggled up in a toasty warm slumber, the minute you went out to your car he welcomed you again. There is no greater joy on a below zero morning than to extract a credit card with numbed lifeless fingers and proceed to painstakingly scrape a thin layer of ice from the windscreen. That is fun my friends, good old-fashioned joy.

Toronto in high summer provided a different, but equally gracious, companion. The ‘Muggy-heat’ companion was always ready for action, constantly welcoming and hard to distract. That we lived on the top floor of an 8 storey tin box with a flat roof, no cross breeze, no curtains and no air-conditioning assisted this companion to maximise his presence. Many a day and night was spent prone on the couch, bathed in sweat, dehydrated beyond repair wondering when this companion would just #@$% off. When a good friend brought over an air-conditioner and our companion was banished I could have married her on the spot.

This summer (a word I use loosely) I have been introduced to a Queensland native companion. This guy loves the rain and this summer his boots must be worn thin from the rain dancing he has been performing. The flood crisis we are experiencing is testament to the ferocity and unnerving regularity of the rain. This rain, coupled with high humidity, provides the perfect environment for my new companion. Mould. Yep. Yuck.

I was looking through my cupboard and thought ‘what an odd smell’. It was not offensive, just odd. Upon further inspection I found my new mate ‘Mould’ hanging out on my bags, shoes, jacket and a few other items. I was unimpressed by his arrival and come this weekend he will be thrown out on his ear.

What this goes to show is that no one is ever truly alone. Even those living in a cave, shipwrecked on a remote island, or lost in the desert will still have a companion.

In this modern day can we not find somewhere, anywhere, where we can truly be alone?

It seems not.

We just need to make the most of it and be selective about the companions we keep and the ones we bid a swift goodbye.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Both sides of the education coin

Education is the cornerstone of our society – if we all rested on our laurels and never attempted to improve our knowledge and skills the world we have come to know and love would hit a permanent snag. The ability to explore new avenues, share our thoughts and experiences with like-minded individuals, to challenge our beliefs and enrich our lives are some of the reasons that people continue to welcome education’s embrace throughout their lives.

Education comes in many forms – the structured form such as academic study through tertiary education providers or office based training, practical trade related education, through to conversations had over a cup of coffee or a good meal – the key is that through this education we are improving our knowledge, challenging our beliefs and are then able to pass this knowledge onto others, continuing the education process.

I have recently returned to tertiary study and it was a challenging undertaking full of adjustment, doubt, worry and wide-eyed optimism. After one semester I am a transformed pupil; gone is the doubt and worry, replaced by a heightened inquisitiveness, a thirst for knowledge and a need to explore.

I have also just completed my first foray into the labyrinth of tertiary tutoring – a world of questions, responsibility, instruction and challenges – and overall it was a rewarding and enriching experience. I’ll be upfront and say that a lot of the time I was barely keeping my head above water, and drowning was, at times, an acceptable option but it was an experience that has moulded my personality and provided me with skills and knowledge I can transfer to other areas of my life. Surprisingly it was not like Dead Poets Society, my life was not threatened like Michelle Phiffer’s was – it was very much like a University class presentation for 5 hours every week. Like a talk show host, professional sportsperson, public speaker or husband returning from a night on the beers I had to get my gameface on, take a deep breath and enter the arena.

To capture, sustain and entertain an audience consistently is very difficult and I drew on my repertoire of poor jokes, poor impersonations and party noises to compliment the educative experience, often to a mixed or non-existent response. 12-15 years difference in age does not sound a lot, but in the classroom it can really make a difference when communicating. A number of my 120 students have not known a world without mobile phones, internet and computers – when I first studied at University we barely had email addresses, the internet was a black screen with white font and the only phone I had was a landline. Teaching in 2010 is an electronic smorgasbord, where navigation and adoption is noticeably easier for the students than the teachers. The generational difference makes it a challenging environment.

Shaping minds is an enormous responsibility and luckily I was well supported by a content expert – my role was to reinforce and provide real-life examples – to mould the information into easily accessible chunks. The lightbulb moments, those times when you sense a concept taking hold and being absorbed, made the job rewarding.

The semester went well and by the end I was confident that I had represented myself adequately, the students were mostly pleased with the outcomes of the tutoring and I could walk out of the University grounds with my head held high. My student feedback arrived today and I must admit I was a little hesitant about opening the envelope – half expecting the puff of anthrax powder or the telltale click of a trigger mechanism. All I found though was a pile of response papers.

The results were in. How did I fare?

Pretty well, actually. There were a few negative comments; one especially low blow about the one thing I could improve was ‘my jokes’ – I mean, where do these people get off? It did show that personality, confidence and humour can get you a long way – that people can take on a unique challenge and do well; or, at least, create the impression of doing well.

I have experienced both sides of the education fence in recent times and both have been rewarding and enriching experiences. To extricate yourself from the workforce, relocate your life and enter an unfamiliar territory is not easy but it can be done. If you are not happy, if you crave a challenge, if you need to improve your life or prospects or if you just want a change then go ahead and do it. You’ll never regret taking a chance, only not taking a chance.

Do it, and let me know how it goes.