Hay Plain

In February, on a road trip, I travelled through the Hay Plain in New South Wales. Does this look familiar to anyone back home? Just a little bit?

And hello to the massive flood of RLP-loving visitors! I must say I'm a little embarassed to know that my love letter is circulating around the staff... but since this is the internet, thankfully none of you can see me blushing. Thanks for stopping by.

The Great JP Hunt of 2009: Episode 1

Today I went JP hunting.

My passport has to be renewed, and of course I haven't known any lawyers/doctors/dentists/judges/etc in Australia for more than two years, so instead of a guarantor I need a Justice of the Peace to sign a declaration that I am in fact me.

Apparently JPs can be found in libraries, post offices, pharmacies, banks, police stations, and local council offices. So off I went, thinking I would find one with no problem... but not so! It was a wild goose chase reminiscent of a difficult quest in a video game.

I went to the post office. They said the library had a JP. I went to the library; they didn't, but they suggested I try the Maroubra branch, or the local police station. On the way to the police station I forgot the directions, so I stopped to ask in a bank. No JP there. I found the police station, but they didn't have one either (in fact there was a sign taped to the counter saying no, they didn't have a JP...) but the police officer on duty suggested I ask a chemist, or go to the Maroubra police station. I tried a chemist, and there they told me to try the council chambers... but it was almost five, so off I went to Maroubra. The library told me no, nobody was there today, and that I would have to call ahead. I got directions to the police station. But the police said they do certify documents, but couldn't sign for my identity... I should walk down the road to the Pagewood Hotel, and then go across the street to... a FUNERAL HOME?! Off I went. I arrived at 5:06, 6 minutes after the funeral home closed.

I gave up for the day. Apparently I'm about as good at JP hunting as I am at video games.

Retraction

Two posts ago (I keep referring back to the library; I miss it so much I can't stop mentioning it on my blog), I said that Regina, like Kochi and Canberra, had a population of about 300, 000 people. It has been drawn to my attention that this is very wrong indeed! The population of Regina is actually 179,246 (as of 2006), and I have been lying about it to people all over Japan and Australia for a year! Kochi and Canberra, on the other hand, are roughly the same, at about 340, 000 people each. (I kindof thought Kochi seemed bigger than Regina... just a little bit...)

In other words, since the RPL serves about half the number of people in the other cities I compared it to, it is in fact about twice as awesome as previously implied.

DFW

Hey, my love letter to the RPL was the 100th entry on this blog! I had intended to make a big deal about it, but I forgot. And now I want YOU to forget, too, because for a change I have something more important to say.

While shamelessly reading the entirety of the blog of a volunteer teacher at the Asian University for Women (where I hope to be volunteering myself next year), I stumbled across David Foster Wallace's commencement speech to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College.

Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.
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If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
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This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.
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The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

I can't possibly quote all of the good parts--go read the whole thing.

David Foster Wallace was a wise man and his death is a terrible loss.

Alas, alack!

I have lived in four cities: Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; Kochi, Kochi Prefecture, Japan; Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. All of them are provincial/prefectural/state capitals. About 300,000 people live in each of the first three, and many million in the last. I like them all, but there is one thing about Regina that I have missed ever since I left in 2004, and will miss as long as I live. Yes, I know my true love.

It's the Regina Public Library (oh-so-fondly let us call it the RPL). I miss it with a passion. I miss the woman in the Bothwell branch who asks me every time I go there whether my father has bought me a car yet (she remembers me from the ten-book stacks I borrowed as a child), I miss the weird things that appear in the Dunlop Art Gallery in the Central branch. I miss the garbled digitized voice on my parents' answering machine, informing the household that the book on hold for "Arlyza" has arrived. (If they didn't already know my schedule, my parents could probably plan for my arrival on visits home by waiting to hear that message.) I miss it because it's the best library I have ever encountered. I miss the reference section. I miss the massive collection of unabridged audio books, on CD and cassette tape. I miss the multiple copies, spread out nicely one at each branch, of popular books. I miss the graphic novel collection, from which I have borrowed every volume of Sandman. I miss the classics, especially all of the Ibsen and the multiple translations of Goethe's Faust. I miss the thoughtful thematic displays, changed monthly, from which I have selected many an excellent novel. I miss being able to say "I think I feel like re-reading a Madeline L'Engle series today" and finding that the RPL, bless its little heart, has the whole series at the same branch.

Yes, most of all I miss always being able to find the book I want to read. I'm not saying they have everything--that's impossible, and indeed there are a couple of specific novels I recall not finding there. But they're very few. It was never a question of "I wonder if the library has that" but rather "I wonder if that's at my branch right now, and if not how long will it take it to get there?" The Victoria library doesn't sort its paperbacks, and its collection of books is probably less than half the size of the RPL's. The Kochi library, being in Japan and therefore containing mostly books in Japanese, I really can't comment properly on. Sydney is worst. The library I am entitled to use here is a puny little three-branch suburb affair, which instead of having all of the books I want to read has none of them. The state library is reference-only, and to borrow from a bigger library elsewhere in the city I must pay fees.

I'm homesick for my library. I pine for it. My heart will not mend until I can once again breeze through its automatic doors, open generous hours including evenings and weekends. Can anyone loan me some L'Engle?

Many Worlds Theory

In an alternate universe, I left Australia this morning. I flew to Singapore, and this evening I'm staying there in the Alston hotel. But in this universe, I'm hanging out at 11 Houston Road just as I was last night...

Yes, that's right--I've extended my travels again. My boss at the clinic offered to buy me an airplane ticket back to Canada if I would stay for a few extra months, and after massive hesitations, I decided to go for it. My original flight, today, has been abandoned (it could have been rescheduled only to April 10, not long enough to bother, because it expired after a year). It was so cheap that even though I've only used two thirds of it, Vancouver-Tokyo-Sydney, I still think that it was a pretty good deal! Unfortunately, it does mean I'm missing out on the three-day stopover I'd planned in Singapore. But I'll have three more months to explore Sydney and Australia, so I think it's a fair trade-off. Singapore will wait for another time. I'll be back in Canada on June 14, and I swear I'm for serious this time.

This is the third plane ticket I've abandoned on this trip, in fact. I had to cancel a flight to Taiwan because I didn't have a re-entry permit on my Japanese work visa, way back in April (hard to believe it was almost a year ago!), and then in May I foolishly got the date wrong and missed a flight to Korea. This time I have a replacement ticket at no cost (to me), so it feels a whole lot better. But next time I plan my travel, I'll be more careful with visas, more cautious with dates, and plan for much more flexibility!

Mardi Gras

Fat Tuesday is a little bit differen in Sydney. In fact, that's "Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras" to you! But whatever you're going to call it, I participated yesterday and had a really great time. I had so much fun, I'm STILL leaving a trail of cheerful golden sparkles.



Along with two friends who are visiting Australia from Japan, I joined the Amnesty International LGBT Human Rights float. Our sobering t-shirts reminded us that homosexuality is persecuted around the world (queer people are imprisoned in 77 countries and face the death penalty in 7!) and in gratitude for the freedom we are lucky enough to have in countries like Australia and Canada, we celebrated enthusiastically all the way from Hyde Park to Moore Park. (Google Maps says that's 2.7 kilometres, and we danced all the way, baby.) The flag you see in the photo above says LOVE FREEDOM. Sorry about the blur--I was moving AND it was moving!

A great time was had by all. After the parade, we shared excellent Thai food, and then I wandered off into the night to party until the morning bus service got started!

Uluru Base Walk

Taken on the walk around the rock. I really love the colour.