Entries tagged with religion

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Travel of the less exotic kind

I'm still waking up early and having a hard time getting back to sleep. I hope I've got it sorted now because being back on Australian time would be a plus. The cold is leaving me too, but it's not gone yet.

I left work mid afternoon yesterday to fly to Dubbo. It's not quite as cosmopolitan as most of the places I've been recently, but it's where I am now. I did pushups in front of the Old Dubbo Gaol and in front of the Village Bakery Cafe, the first bakery ever to win the Great Australian Meat Pie competition twice. My cheese and bacon pie for breakfast was very satisfying.

Today I gave a presentation on my demographic work which everyone loved and the whole thing went very well. I think I may send it to my American contact so he knows the kind of work I do.

I ran into a former Deputy Prime Minister in Sydney Airport yesterday. I knew him from when I first came down to Canberra and he asked what I was doing now, we chatted about how Julia Gillard and her party are really struggling, and he also asked where I was worshipping now in Canberra.

This guy was know for be quite openly religious and I had discussed the prospect of the priesthood with him. He is a lot more conservative and a lot more happy clappy than I am. I never told him about the rugby team I play on or about being in the Mardi Gras parade because I feel it would be an odd conversation.

And I realised that through Lent I scarcely set foot in a church. That's a record for me. But I think I am needing some space away at the moment.

In the airport I also spoke to a high ranking officer in the NSW Fire Brigade. He's been at it for 28 years and loves it, and says apparently there are firefighter exchanges to overseas countries which would be nice. I'll be doing more looking into things next week.

Off to Sydney now! Tomorrow I may be modelling for a Convicts poster. We will see how it goes.

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More odd sporting accolades

I've been up in Sydney a lot recently. I like Sydney and I like staying at the Collaroy Castle, but it does mean a lot of time spent in the car. Next weekend it will be good to have a whole weekend without having to make any long trips.

A lot of the recent Sydney visits have also involved family, which means much less space and independence for me. My parents are now back in Canada, and tomorrow my cousin and her husband and three kids arrive from Sweden to visit for a while. My uncle will join them later.

Last weekend, however, I had the place to myself to walk around naked in. Hooray! Saturday was a quiet day that involved eating the leftovers that mum left for me, and visiting the beach where there were some very sizable waves that tossed me around plenty. Little else was done and that was fine by me.

On Sunday I had my first Convict event of the year. Fair Day was good again. We won the tug of war by beating the hockey team, the dykes on bikes, and the swim team to become Mardi Gras tug of war champions for the third year running. It's much easier when I am the smallest guy of the six at 90kg. Our team was entirely made up of forwards. Tommy, Aki, Steve, Gump, Jumbo, and myself all know what a scrum looks like from the inside. I am a bit sore in the legs today. The 12 hour race is still affecting me I suspect.

I also did a shift on the dunk tank which was a relief on such a hot day. All this and I only got a bit of sunburn.

Afterewards Minou had me over for dinner and to give the dogs a workout.

Parliament sits for the next two weeks which might make work easier/interesting.

Also, I have booked leave and tickets to go back to North America in April. Much of it will involve going back to place I was at recently, but it will also mean going to Ottawa for the first time in a long time and getting acquainted with Canadian politics again. I think this might be coming just in time. It turns out I'm using about three weeks of the nearly eleven I have saved up.

I'm not sure what to do about Lent this year. Last year I gave up alcohol, sweets, meat, and caffeine. This year, however, I will be travelling for the second half of Lent. If I'm in a bar in Montreal I may wish to sample the local beers so that means I may not be able to seriously give up the grog. In fact, living a simpler life seems inherently incompatible with being on holiday, even when you generally have simple tastes as I do. International travel seems inherently showy. I'd like to give up something, but I can't seem to think of anything. (Lent is part of the lead up to one of the most important part of the religious year for me and generally I enjoy it and the sacrifices that go along with it, but I don't seem to feel excited about it this year.) Perhaps I could take something on.

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Does this mean I'm one of those Catholic Jews?

I got an e-mail from my dad today. He was in Toronto for work and wound up in the first neighbourhood I lived in. He informed me that the church I was baptised in is now a synagogue. Now the Har Tikvah Congregation which bought and converted the old church in 1983 is apparently on the reform side of Judaism, but I still think you would need a pretty liberal interpretation of who is and who is not a Jew to count me as one of the chosen people like some of my work colleagues speculated.

The thing is, for as long as I can recall I have been a Judeophile. Maybe this explains it. I was also born in a Catholic hospital (the family isn't Catholic, but that's where the doctor worked.) So perhaps being born in an institution sponsored by one religion and having my entry into the church in a building that is now devoted to the practice of another explains why I have always been fascinated by other religions.

W has been in the office this week and there has been a sense that there is a lot of intrigue over who will form the next government. I still suspect that Labor will find a way to hold on. Today they signed a formal compact with the Greens but they haven't brought any of the independents over, and there is speculation that this will make them look more able to run a stable government, while others say it will alienate the conservative instincts of some of the other independents. I find it hard to believe that enough of the independents will combine to vote out the government, but it is possible. Some of my colleagues seem to think we wil be moving to "the blue carpet" soon.

YW: 50 shoulder press, 50 bicep curls, 50 incline press, 50 tricep extensions, 50 chest contractions, 50 pullups.

TW: 50 leg openers, 10 corner rows, 10 corner presses with each arm - 5 rounds, row 400m and 20 clean and press - 5 rounds, 100 leg presses... and a nice high feeling. Some of the trainers are now doing Crossfit with clients, and I recognised the workout one of them was putting a guy through as being very Crossfit oriented. She recognised my rowing/pressing combinations as being the same.

Also the crick seems to be completely gone.