The issue of gun control in the US is certainly a hotly contended one. America is completely unique from the rest of the world when it comes to their right to bear arms, because that right is constitutionally protected, and the American people steadfastly defend that right, even when it flies in the face of what is safe, logical and reasonable.
Although many Americans heatedly debate their constitutional right to bear arms, it turns out that they are actually bearing a shit tonne more arms than anywhere else in the world. In fact when it comes to owning firearms, no-one even comes close to the US when it comes to guns per capita, and the statistics are really quite alarming. 
Recently shared data from the Small Arms Survey listed the top ten countries with the most guns per head of the population. Below is the list from that survey with the number of firearms per 100 residents listed beside each country.
1. USA - 112.6
2. Serbia - 75.6
3. Yemen 54.8
4. Switzerland - 45.7
5. Cyprus - 36.4
6. Saudi Arabia - 35
7. Iraq - 34.2
8. Uruguay - 31.8
9. Sweden - 31.6
10. Norway - 31.3
The US is not only the leader on that list by a very long margin, but they also have more than one gun per person in their country! The only country that even comes close to the US is Serbia, but its firearm habit is part of a hangover from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 90's and subsequent wars, and although I am condoning the fact that almost 76 people out of every 100 Serbians has a gun, at least there have been reasons to substantiate why there are so many guns in their country. 
Americans vehemently stand by their right to own firearms and defend themselves, however with the continuous onslaught of mass shootings claiming the lives of young and innocent victims, isn't it a moral and social obligation that the US reform their guns laws and enforce stricter purchasing and ownership laws?
In democratic countries where the incidence of gun ownership is much tighter, we also see a massive reduction in gun related deaths, it's hardly rocket science! Currently, Australia only has 1.4 homicides by firearm per one million people and America has 29.7, the highest in the world. Also, when you consider that Americans only make up 4.4% of the entire world population but own almost half of the guns around the world, well....it doesn't take a genius to see that there is a problem there does it?
Since 2012 there have been more than 1,600 people killed in the US in mass shooting incidents, and if you average out the number of shootings that occurred in 2015 alone (355) with the number of days in a year, it equates to there being more than one mass shooting per day in the US alone. That probably makes the it one of the most unsafe countries in the world doesn't it?
Come on America, wake and smell the coffee....countries with less guns and tighter gun laws have less gun related deaths, it's that simple. It is time to amend your constitution and drag your gun laws and restrictions kicking and screaming into the next millennium. Your steadfast commitment to bear arms is making your country unsafe, unappealing and unapproachable and unless you are going into a War of the Worlds alien attack type scenario any time soon, more than one gun per capita is just outrageously excessive and completely unnecessary. It's not too late to throw down your guns America and make a movement towards something more peaceful, united and humanitarian; there's never been a better time than right now.

Sometimes we want to watch simple movies that follow a pretty linear storyline and allow us to zone out or forget about our troubles. And then other times we want to watch something challenging, deep and meaningful; something a bit grittier that we can really sink our teeth into. Sometimes I really hunger for a movie that will challenge my thinking, push me out of my comfort zone or educate me in some way. If I come away from a film with a fresh perspective or some kind of new learning about a certain topic then I feel particularly pleased with my viewing choice. 
I have heard people refer to these influential and affecting movies as 'movies that matter' but it is pretty irrelevant what title you want to give them, it is what you take away from these movies that make them genuinely important and relevant. These movies can occur in any genre, and they are the types of movies that stick with you long after the credits have stopped rolling. They are not always 5 Chilli Peppers (Hall of Fame) material because they are not always easy to watch or easy to recommend to other people to watch because in short, they are not just another movie, they are 'an experience.' And there are some exceptionally good ones out there that I believe that everyone should see at least once in their lifetime. 
Here is a list of 20 movie experiences (in no particular order) that had a profound effect on me when I saw them for the first time, and although they may not all be 5 Chilli Peppers, they are most definitely important, relevant, thought provoking and absolutely worth seeing.

1. Mother! - Challenging/ Art House/ Gritty (4.5 Chilli Peppers)
2. The White Helmets - Documentary (4 Chilli Peppers)
3. Born into Brothels - Documentary (4 Chilli Peppers) 
4. Samson and Delilah - Challenging/Drama (4 Chilli Peppers)
5. Requiem for a Dream - Gritty/ Drama (4 Chilli Peppers)
6. The Thin Red Line - War (4.5 Chilli Peppers)
7. Into the Abyss - Documentary (4 Chilli Peppers)
8. Bowling for Columbine - Documentary (4.5 Chilli Peppers) 
9. An Inconvenient Truth Pt 1 and Pt 2 - Documentary (3.5 Chilli Peppers)
10. Apocalypse Now - War (4.5 Chilli Peppers)
11. Dead Man Walking - Gritty/Crime/ Drama (4.5 Chilli Peppers)
12. The Elephant Man - Challenging/ Drama (4.5 Chilli Peppers) 
13. Melancholia - Art House (5 Chilli Peppers)
14. The Great Beauty - Foreign/ Drama (5 Chilli Peppers) 
15. A Ghost Story - Art House ( 4.5 Chilli Peppers) 
16. 20,000 Days on Earth - Art House/ Documentary (3.5 Chilli Peppers) 
17. Downfall - Foreign/ War (4 Chilli Peppers)
18. Baraka and Samsara - Documentaries (4.5 Chilli Peppers)
19. The Last Temptation of Christ - Art House (3.5 Chilli Peppers) 
20. Schindler's List - War (4.5 Chilli Peppers) 

By no means are these easy viewing choices, remember that I did say that I like to be challenged by some of my movie choices, and these are all definitely challenging on some level. However, if you haven't already made the time to see these films then I would highly recommend that you do.
Full reviews of all of the above mentioned movies can be found on their respective genre lists on Spicywatch.com (under the genre drop down tab) should you require any further information.  
And I wish you well with your 'challenging' aka 'movies that matter' viewing adventures.  

You think that you know people....but you never really do. We allow ourselves to believe that we know our family, our spouses and our friends pretty well because we like to think that we do, but the reality of that is actually quite different. When you spend a lot of a time with a person you like to think that you get a sense of who they are, what they believe in and what they stand for, but essentially we are all just compartmentalising people and putting them into pigeon holes that we feel comfortable with, and that does not necessarily portray who they really are at all. 
According to Nicholas Epley, author of "Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel and Want," you probably don't know anyone nearly as well as you think you do. And you may also have a poor idea of how they'd assess you. Essentially, we fundamentally view ourselves from a very different perspective than other people do because we have a ton of information about ourselves. Based on that, we understand ourselves far better than others, and we also make our assessment on others based on that inner understanding of ourselves; which is where the problem lies. We automatically assume that other people are wired like we are, which is of course so very far from the truth; just because you are looking at the same thing, doesn't mean that you are seeing the same thing, and that leads to a lot of misinterpretation and heartache. 
Trust me when I say that I have been seriously deceived by people in the past that I wrongly believed that I knew really well. I have been utterly flabbergasted by the things that people who I truly loved and cared about, people that I thought were part of my tribe, have been cruel enough to do and say without a second thought. People that I trusted and defended and fought to protect, people that I thought felt the same way about me, but it was all just an illusion of love, they never really cared for me at all, in fact they hated me and the worst part of all was that I didn't even know how much they hated me. I completely misread these people and made a wrong assessment about who they were and how they felt about me. 
I cannot tell you how damaged that misinterpretation has left me as a person. You don't ever get over a hurt that deep, not ever. And I have been forever changed by my past experiences in ways that I wish that I hadn't, because I really miss feeling like I can trust people and open up to them, but I will never be able to completely trust like that ever again now. When you love people with all of the love that you have to give and they hurt you so viciously, there is really no coming back from that. All that is left in their place now is a raging sense of injustice and a shattering awareness that you can never really know anyone, no matter how much you want to think that you do. Assuming that people are feeling the things that you want them to feel is the most foolhardy thing in the world to do and I never want to go through that in this lifetime again. 
Once bitten, twice shy they say, and I am now tremendously shy, perhaps to the point of paranoid, but I have certainly learned that there is a huge difference between knowing someone and thinking that you know someone, and I will not make that mistake or get too comfortable with anyone like that, ever again.

Hollywood blockbuster movies have a way of making everything look glamorous, accessible and generally fun, even when they are actually promoting activities that are morally corrupt and/or highly illegal. There are literally countless films that glorify criminals for being absolute scumbags and we generally all buy into it, watching these movies and thinking how great life would be if we had the chance to be successful jewelry or car thieves, because it always looks so cool and even quite fun on the big screen. Think Baby Driver, Logan Lucky, Casino, American Ultra, Blow or Ocean's 8, I mean being bad never looked so good, right?
Movie producers are so damn good at glamorizing all kinds of seedy shit that they can just about fool anyone into thinking that anything (regardless of how genuinely unappealing it really is) is fun, fresh, interesting or even desirable. 
One movie in particular that people seem to really love (women especially) in spite of its clearly seedy message and utterly implausible outcomes (and I gotta say it really grinds my gears) is Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts. I absolutely despise that movie, it's my least favourite movie of all time by a long mile and I cannot tell you how many times some poor misguided woman has told me about how much they love that movie and how many times they have rewatched it because it is so romantic and blah...blah...blah... And then they always look so shocked when I give them my synopsis of the movie.
I like to point out that Julia Roberts basically plays a desperate whore in the movie Pretty Woman who took up prostitution because (apparently) she was shitty at everything else. She literally walks the streets with her crack whore best friend peddling sex for money to strange men. Richard Gere (her love interest) is obviously a dodgy as all fuck businessman that regularly picks up whores off the street, which is how he meets Roberts after he 'just happens' to be in the red light district and decides to give her a go. Gere decides to keep Roberts around to use for sex as he sees fit over the course of the next week (which he pays for in advance) after she gives him a clearly pretty good blowjob. Over the course of that week of paid sexworker employment, Roberts suffers from some unexplainable stockholm syndrome bullshit and decides that she loves Gere, which (apparently) has nothing do with his ridiculous stream of unending money that he likes to throw around. Her blowjobs are clearly insanely good, so Gere decides to keep Roberts on permanently, in a full time (without pay) sexworker capacity, and boom - it's happily ever after! And that is meant to be romantic? WTF? Worst movie EVER people, please stop watching this steaming shitpile and calling it good and/or romantic, it's toxic Hollywood bullshit! 
In fact, a lot of crime, war, action and yes, even romance movies actually do glamourize some pretty low brow stuff like organised crime, prostitution, theft, arms dealing, drug dealing, infidelity, harassment and misogyny and we often don't even bat an eye when we are watching it, in fact we like it, it looks dangerously cool. And I totally admit, I do like watching some pretty seedy shit, but you do have to draw the line somewhere.
So, if I ever, and I mean ever, start calling movies about prostitutes with stockholm syndrome deeply romantic, please do promptly slap me upside the head and tell me to shut the fuck up! 

OCEAN'S 8
Release Date: 2018
Rating: M
Running Time: 111 mins
A spin-off of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's trilogy and proof that women can do heist comedies just as well as the men can. Ocean's 8  is directed by Gary Ross and written by Ross and Olivia Milch and offers viewers an easy 'feel good' ride with an entertaining all star cast.
Debbie Ocean, younger sister of the late Danny Ocean, gets paroled and plans a once in a lifetime heist that involves stealing a $150 million dollar Cartier necklace. To pull it all off, Debbie will require the assistance of a team of eight female criminals. 
​The cast in this is just dynamite and the onscreen chemistry of the lead actresses is what really carries this film. Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Awkwafina and Helena Bonham Carter join forces perfectly as the eight criminal masterminds, and although the storyline fails to brings anything new to the table, I still thought that Ocean's 8 was a more than watchable 'chick flick' experience. 
FINAL SAY: You would've loved it. 
3 Chilli Peppers ​

Finally I am coming out of the fog of sickness and starting to feel a lot more like my old self again. My energy levels are rising, my positivity has returned and I am loving having enough energy to enjoy daily yoga and meditation practises all over again. With just over two weeks until the winter school holiday break this rise from the ashes has come at just the right moment and by the time the break kicks in I expect to be completely rejuvenated and primed for a terrific holiday.
Everything seems twenty times harder when you're not feeling very well and I had really forgotten just how bloody inconvenient illness is. Even the simplest of tasks can appear to be pretty insurmountable when your rocking around feeling like a crap sandwich; I seriously have a newfound respect for people that suffer from ongoing health complications, it is just so bloody awful being sick! 
It is pretty easy to take your health and wellbeing for granted, which I was clearly doing because I was completely bowled over by how ridiculously weak and exhausted I became over such a short amount of time. I went from having the constitution of a clydesdale horse to being as weak as a kitten over a few short weeks and it wasn't the most pleasant experience that I have ever had, I can tell you that.
I can't even recall another time in my life when I slept as much as I did in the last three weeks. I reckon I was giving grannies a run for their money with the amount of snoozing I was putting in. Never before have I spent every night after dinner on the couch, falling asleep with my head on Craig's lap by 8pm and having to get him to 'put me to bed' like I was an infant! What a sad-o! And then, to add insult to injury, I wasn't even able to get up in the morning at the other end because I still felt like I was tired. It was so crapola! I didn't do anything interesting or fun for days and days; just work, eat and sleep (and whine - I did a fair amount of that). What a sad existence it was! 
Well I am sure glad to be leaving all of that behind in the rear view mirror; and if that was a glimpse into what old age is going to be like, then I am NOT looking forward to it one bit! I think that it is important to build up your health and general wellbeing while you're still young enough to do it, because the prospect of sleeping away my latter years and mostly feeling lousy and weak does not appeal to me at all. If anything, this sickness has made me super determined to get my health into really good order, because I really don't want another serve of whatever it was that I have just had, or anything like it, ever again! 

The Queen's birthday long weekend has offered us all (especially old sicky me) an opportunity to batten down the hatches and focus on some rest, relaxation and that third and most important 'R' of all - realignment. After over a week of dragging myself out of bed and going to work feeling like a slapped together crap sandwich because of continually waking up in the middle of the night with either a feverish sweat or in a fit of coughing, I have finally reached the illustrious embrace of a long weekend.  
All week I have had this overwhelming feeling that the world and all of its trappings were way too big and awful for me, and that everything that I came up against was incredibly insurmountable. Of course this is just a side effect of being unwell and not getting enough rest, but that doesn't make it any less pleasant. So, I was literally holding out all week for this long weekend, propelling myself along in the knowledge that if just got through the week then I would be able to take a three day hiatus from all responsibility and the need to wander any further than the couch and the bed.
So I soldiered on as the Codral cold and flu tablets told me to do and then promptly fell into a heap on the couch on Friday night and have spent an extraordinary amount of time there ever since. And I don't even feel robbed of my long weekend because not only do I need to spend three days on the couch I also want to spend three days on the couch. I literally do not want to do anything, even making a coffee and a toasted sandwich seems like an unnecessary use of my time. The only thing that I want to do this weekend is rest, relax and realign, which for me involves many movies, some ipad, a few naps, a little yoga, a bit of journaling, a spot of reading and a lot of cuddles from my cat. Everything else is ...meh...not necessary, it can wait. 
For the first time ever in my life, I actually said no to catching up with friends this weekend, which I never do. Generally a long weekend means lots of quality catch up time with friends for me. A coffee here, a trip to the cinema there, a dinner date; I am usually happily booked up to the wazoo when the breaks happen, but this time I had to listen to my body which was screaming at me for some couch time and decline some really lovely invitations from dear friends. I have to say, it wasn't easy to say no and choose me first, it's not something that I am used to doing, but it was absolutely necessary. Sometimes saying no isn't selfish, it really is necessary and perhaps that is the biggest lesson that this whole illness has taught me. 
At times, choosing yourself is the only way to thrive in this world. Our bodies are actually sending us signals all of the time but we are often too busy to receive them, either that or we just ignore them anyway. We generally tend to give our thoughts and nagging sense of responsibility a lot more consideration than our real feelings (physical or mental) and I think that much to my own detriment, I am often quite guilty of doing that.
Mindful practises are exceptionally handy for tuning yourself back into you when things get pear shaped, but let's be honest, no-one is being very mindful when they are sick and usually everything just goes to the window (including your zen) when you're unwell. And that is why this weekend has been so important for me, it's a chance to get everything back in order all over again and reboot my flagging system. I am hoping that by Tuesday morning at 8.25am when I pull back into the carpark at work that I will feel ready to face the world once again, somewhat rejuvenated and much more healthy than I left last week, fingers crossed!
Oh, and on side note, in my pursuit of light-hearted couch dwelling entertainment this weekend, I did come across a little hidden gem. If you get the chance to hit he couch yourself anytime soon, I recommend that you check it out. 

Lord may the people that I love forgive me for my crappy, moody, snappy, intolerant, angry and miserably sick temperament this week. I am utterly exhausted and spent in every single way and I am also still so damn sick, sick, sick! I cannot even recall the last time that I felt this shithouse, because I am pretty sure that I would have wiped it completely from my memory. I mean who would want to remember a time when they felt this dreadful? This lurgy that I have contracted has the staying power of an unwanted houseguest and it is one nasty bitch! 
And I tell you that the hits, well they just keep on coming this week! From work to home there hasn't been a lot of rainbows to enjoy lately, just a constant deluge of drama and mishap. However, to be fair, I do have the constitution and coping skills of a three year old at the moment, so I am certainly not at my strongest, my most sound or my most logical at present, so things may not be as bad as I am imagining them to be.
Let's see, I haven't had a good night's sleep in four days, I've been pushed well outside of my comfort zone at work, it feels like I have a brick planted firmly on my chest, I have a constant cough that will not respond to anything that I've thrown at it, I've offended the people that I care about because I am a cantankerous sick bitch, I sound like Bonnie Tyler after a ten day bender and just to add a cherry to this already very festering pie, it's my time of the month as well. Yep, I am not exaggerating or imagining this, things are definitely leaning towards fucking horrible. 
You really know how sweet you had it when shit like this happens. Right now I would kill for a decent night's sleep and for the pain in my chest to relent. I would like to speak without feeling like an 80 year old smoker and most of all I would really like an easy day, but alas....we can't always get what we want. So for now, my family has to put up with me being a total psycho, my body has to put up with feeling like it has been run over by a semitrailer and I need to keep looking towards the horizon because I just know that brighter days are coming. 

I have succumbed to the dreaded lurgy that is floating around at the moment and it is just horrid! Started off on Friday night with a lovely bout of nausea followed by explosive vomiting, then came the headaches, then came the body aches and now I have the phlegmy, coughy, grossy and mostly miserable tail end of it to content with. The thing that I most pissed off about is that it has dominated my weekend, two entirely wasted days of sickness. I've spent 90% of the weekend in bed sleeping and for someone like me that likes to milk as much out of my day, this has been a real test.
The most that I have done this weekend was a 4 hour game of Risk with Craig and Seth which was actually exhausting, so that should put things into perspective for you. For anyone that doesn't know what Risk is, it's a strategy board game where the most physical aspect is rolling three dice at one time, and that exhausted me! I am so pitiful that I had to quit the game, I couldn't even finish it, how sad is that?
Last year I prided myself in not even getting a sniffle for the entire year, in fact I haven't had a really significant head cold or a flu for over two years now, and I never take the free immunisation that I am offered at school every year. However, this year, ever since dentist death had a go at my teeth and annihilated me, I have fallen prey to every little germ that has come my way. Which basically means that that horrific incident with my teeth has completely destroyed all of my immunity and I now have a crappy constitution and I am not happy about that at all! 
After working in schools for over a decade I have built up a pretty good level of immunity, I rarely get sick and if I do it is never for very long. I have always been able to dodge most of the sickness bullets when they have been flying around and the only time that I have really gotten unwell in the past five years was because of my IBS, which I have also managed really well over the last twelve months.
Needless to say, because I am not used to being to being sick. I have never really been a very good sick person. I always forget just how lousey it feels to be sick and then when it happens to me I am always deeply shocked by how crappy and low I am. Being sick sucks so much, it is just the pits. I really don't like my body when it doesn't function very well, it stands in the way of my plans! 
Well there is nothing for it, I must relent and allow my failing system a chance to reboot, but I cannot deny that I am extremely unhappy about it and even more annoyed with that terrible dentist for mucking up my generally 'racehorse strong' constitution, and to think that it is only the beginning of Winter! At this rate who knows what I will be like in a month from now? Fingers crossed that I am getting the worst of it over and done with early! 

Every year around the end of Autumn and the beginning of Winter I suffer from a bit of mild depression. Not a throw myself from the nearest building kind of depression, more of a self doubting, self loathing and melancholic period that always seems to appear at the same time of the year. The darker, wetter and colder days seem to also bring with them an air of despair and uncertainty that leaves me feeling out of tune with everything and everyone. I can feel my resilience and tolerance faltering and my usually optimistic demeanor becomes somewhat surley and pessimistic. During these moments I have to fight the urge to run and hide under a blanket somewhere, far away from the world and all of it's noisy responsibilities and complications. 
It's a strange and unnamable feeling that makes me want to retreat, and stranger still is the fact that I am never really sure of what I am actually retreating from. Generally I am a bit over-emotional, super sensitive, easily angered and melodramatic at these times of the year, it's kind of like PMS on steroids and its not a lot of fun for me or the people around me. And what really gets to me about it all, is why? Why do I have these periods in my life and why are they so cyclic? 
Perhaps it is because of the crappy weather, maybe it's because of the stockpile of bills that come at this time of the year that need to be paid, maybe it's because I am just a little run down from being unwell and overwhelmed by the demands of my everyday routine, and then maybe it is actually just a combination of all of those things. Whatever the reason, I do know one thing for sure, it always and I mean always occurs around this time of the year.
Last year around this time I had a particularly difficult time with depression and I felt it more completely than I had in previous years. I had a total dark night of the soul and was actually really concerned about some of the thoughts that I was entertaining. I went to a really dark place and it lasted for way too long. I also had a massive and incredibly painful falling out with my siblings at this time last year, and they have all since become estranged to me, and maybe the hurt of that feels particularly raw at this time of the year and adds to my melancholy. However, I would be lying if I said that it was any one particular thing that made me feel the early winter blues so intensely. 
However, it is not all doom and gloom! By recognising this pattern of self doubt and inner turmoil, I have become a lot better at managing it. Through meditation and yoga practises I have learnt to curb my personal negativity and anxiety because I can now recognize what is happening a lot earlier on. I also know with great certainty that these melancholic moments are transient and fleeting and that I do not have to engage with them when they occur. I no longer need to feed and clothe my personal demons everytime that I get anxious or worried, I can just recognise them and then let them go quietly back into the night. I also recognise that everyone has times in their lives that are rife with anxiety and uncertainty and that I am not alone in my struggles and that it is all a normal part of any growth cycle to fall over every now and then. 
I can now bravely acknowledge that I do get blues from time to time, but it doesn't define who I am and that I don't have to let it take hold of me. Like a quiet passenger on the bus of life I can simply notice these feelings as I pass them by, waving farewell to them before they even get a chance to take hold of me. And that is big part of what surviving your own depression and dark thoughts is like really. You know that these times and thoughts are going to come around every now and again, but like negative people that are hard to have around, you just have to choose to not engage them.
Sometimes that requires a lot of strength, a lot more than you think that you can muster up, but essentially you can. You really can, in spite of whatever your head may be telling you, and just as winter arrives every year, so too does summer and the most powerful thing to remember to help you to get yourself out of a funk like this is that nothing ever lasts forever. It's all transient and it's all fleeting, and you don't have to stay in the moment any longer then you choose to, you can let go at any time, at any moment, just let it pass you by. 

When you work in a niche market, sell an exclusive product or deliver something that no-one else is really offering you become at risk of being too damn exclusive for your own good. In fact you can become a difficult, egotistical douchebag quite quickly if you are not being somewhat self aware and taking into account the needs and feelings of your clientele or target audience.
We have all seen it happen to professionals, especially entertainers. You find yourself enamoured by some new flavour of the month, you buy their album or go to see their latest film and you allow yourself to think that they are really cool because of their singing, acting or dancing. But then, you see them on television being interviewed or on some talk show like Graeme Norton and you think to yourself - what a fucking dickhead!
It totally taints the way that you saw them and you realise that all of that fame has totally gone to their heads and that they have succumbed to the "getting too exclusive" virus, and yep, now you actually really don't like them at all anymore. And it's not just because they're dickheads, it's also because they fooled you into thinking that they were someone else and you almost feel betrayed by that and you most definitely feel let down. 
Well, from my experience, you don't need to be rich or famous to be getting too exclusive for your own good. In fact I have found that if people or even organisations feel like they have the monopoly over something then they tend to take on air of exclusivity very bloody quickly indeed and it can leave people feeling alienated and on the outer rim. And I am speaking from some very recent personal experiences that I have encountered where I have felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall to get anywhere because I wasn't in the 'know' enough to be given the respect that I deserved. 
I'm not going to really get into it because these organisations are reputable and do have some terrific people working for them and I don't want to tar everyone with the same dirty brush here, but if you or your business, or your organisation starts to get so exclusive that you are alienating people and making them feel like shit, then you are getting way too exclusive for your own good.
There is a terrific quote by Malcolm S. Forbes that says: You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. 
Pretty good words to live by I reckon and certainly not a part of the mindset of the all too exclusive people of this world that's for sure!

Toothache really is in a realm all by itself. This week I had a pretty tough week, so tough that I let my entire routine go out of the window because I had to. I was in excruciating pain for days and even though the worst of it is over, I am still basically like a cantankerous bear with a splinter in it's paw. I didn't eat, didn't sleep longer than a two hour stretch, didn't do yoga or meditation, didn't practise any of my usual lessons or even (God forbid) complete a blog. What I did do, between my work hours was moan, groan and lay about on the couch drugged out of my mind watching bullshit TV and hating my life.
How did I get this way? Well let me tell you a little story about heartache and the loss of God....just kidding...it wasn't actually that bad. Let me tell you about the time that a dentist butchered me though....
On Saturday of last week I went to the dentist for my routine six month clean and scale. I didn't have any concerns about my teeth and I was in really good health. I was however seeing a dentist that I wouldn't usually see, which would turn out to be one of my worst errors in judgement ever. My usual dentist has a life of luxury and only works 4 days a week from 9am to 3pm, which renders him pretty much useless to the working class society, so I thought I would do the right thing and not take time off for a routine clean and scale that I would just go to another dentist at the same practise, after all it was for a 20 min check-up not a root canal.
Anyway, this new dentist, let's call him Dr Slaughter, had me in the chair for an hour. He x-rayed, poked about and gave me a very thorough deep clean, which at the time I thought, okay great, obviously I needed all that. And even though I didn't enjoy it, I figured that I must have needed the extra invasive cleaning and told myself that I was getting value for money. 
The first day after the cleaning I was fine, and the second I was mildly uncomfortable, but I have had periodontal work so a little oral discomfort is not foreign to me. By Tuesday, shit was getting real and I had started to take Panadol and Nurofen on two hourly rotations. Let me point out that I NEVER take cope dope, not ever, it has to be serious for me to even go there.
Anyway Tuesday night, no dinner and a little sleep - too much pain. Wednesday I had to travel to Melbourne for a work PD, almost 3 hours each way, that was a long day with a lot of pain, drugged myself with over-the-counter remedies to an illegal level and soldiered on. Picked at a couple of things, didn't sleep again and woke up to thumping, pounding, shooting pains and nausea on Thursday. After being so tired and so empty and so exhausted for so many days I finally crumbled. Tears and tears, I gave in and made an appointment to see the dentist, my usual dentist. 
After some inspection and another lot of x-rays, he confirmed that my teeth were excellent, but some of my gums were so inflamed that they were higher that my teeth in my mouth. Well, that explained the pain alright. Toothache, or in this case, deep gum pain is a special hell all of its own. I have not felt so worn down, unwell, exhausted or overwhelmed by pain since I was in labour over thirteen years ago. It was BAD, so bad. I even had another good cry at the dentist's office and he felt so sorry for me that he called me at home (after hours) the next day to check on me. 
So my teeth were fine, it was a gum problem. I had to be referred to a periodontal expert to have a look as well, but even he was confused because the x-rays looked good. After examining my swollen and agonisingly tender mouth he concurred with what my dentist had said and also believed that some type of bacteria had entered my mouth during or just after the cleaning process when my gums were open, and that Dr Slaughter had caused trauma to my gum area by being too invasive. Basically I had a secondary infection of a fierce kind, one that required strong antibiotics and even stronger pain killers, which my dentist happily prescribed to me. 
Being keen to get some pain relief I went in hard on the drugs, which did give me a most welcomed nights sleep, but did also cause me to violently chunder into the garden on Friday morning after I took too many of them and then tried to drink a coffee. Live and learn. I am a bit of a prescription drug lightweight, and when you never have them, they work really well. So this weekend I have basically been lying about half out of my skull on pain relief and doing as little as possible. The antibiotics are working beautifully and everyday I get a significant reduction in pain and discomfort, so hallelujah to that! 
The lesson in all of this is? Don't ever go to a strange dentist, just organise the time off and see your usual one. Well, that's my take away from all of that anyway. Make an appointment at the slightest hint of 'after' pain before you start to contemplate self-surgery like I was and most importantly don't let one butcher put you off of going to the dentist forever, which is going to be my biggest hurdle now. Honestly, the thought of a dental check up right just sends shivers of dread straight down my spine! 
Thank God for Marvel, who was delivering another delightful instalment of super this weekend, honestly the distraction couldn't have arrived at a better time, and what a mighty fine distraction is was!

Whilst perusing Pinterest yesterday an advertisement popped up for Neuralink's new 'Smart Drug' which is basically a mind enhancement medication, which is now on the market and being promoted by Elon Musk who is offering free trials. These revolutionary tablets apparently improve a person's mental performance, problem solving abilities, concentration, efficiency and memory by (aka. up to) 97%, which sounds way too good to be true doesn't it? 
However, people that have trialled the drug are claiming that all of the above is true and more, in fact the people that took them said that they felt more focused and calm than they could have ever imagined that they would ever be, but to be honest I do wonder how much of a mess they were to begin with. Regular users are quoted as saying outrageously sensationalised statements like "it makes me into a Godlike sponge" whatever the fuck that means, or "I have never felt so engaged and capable before" which does sound positive, but again probably way too good to be true. 
There is absolutely no doubt that the idea of optimising yourself is appealing on many levels, but on a more realistic level, I also have a million questions to ask about these wonder tablets. Firstly, and foremostly, what the hell is in these tablets? Who or what have they tested them on? What are the long term effects of taking these kinds of enhancers? Are they addictive? And what happens if you just stop taking them?
I have watched way too many science fiction movies where people in the future quite innocently start to take human enhancing drugs only to wake up with something god awful growing out of them or one day just realising that they have totally lost their minds and the idea of eating their pet cat seems completely plausible. Yes, everyone wants to gets smarter, better, faster, stronger but no sane person wants to be a human guinea pig. 
However, I would be lying if I said that I wasn't curious and maybe even a little keen to try them for myself, but then on the other hand I do feel sad that we all feel so compelled to be continually pushing and stretching our personal limits as humans. I mean this is really just another prime example of us not being enough isn't it? Is this hunger to be more and perform better actually driving us further away from our own true natures as human beings? What will the world look like if we are all operating at a genius level anyway? And what happens to the people that choose not to get on board, or cannot afford to get onboard because the tablets will clearly come with a hefty price tag? Will being 'super smart' only be for the rich or elite? And how is that going to be fair?
Nope, there are too many unanswered questions for me at this point and there are way too many variables that I have serious concerns about before I am willing to get on board with this 'smart drug' of the future. I am all for enhancing the quality of life that I live and I am most definitely all about being alert and active, but I am not sure that being 97% more focused is really what I need in my life right now. If I was 97% more alert than I am already, then I think that my head would explode. If anything, I think that I need to get about 50% less focused!
However, regardless of how you feel about the progression that is being made in the field of human enhancements, they are occurring and it is absolutely inevitable that they are going to become a part of all of our futures, whether we choose to engage in it or not, and I do wonder a lot about what that future will look like for us all. 

It is always around Earth Day that our attention is drawn to our impact on the environment and our carbon footprint. No-one wants to be responsible for fucking the planet up for future generations, but on some level many of us actually are. After taking a quiz about my carbon footprint on the Earth Day website this morning I was horrified to learn that if everyone lived the same way the I do than we would need 4 Earths to deal with the impact that I am making! Woah, heavy! And I always thought that I was trying harder than the average bear when it comes to being ecological! Clearly, I am not doing nearly enough and the whole thing made me feel absolutely dreadful and completely guilt ridden, but I think that we all probably need a really good kick up the arse when it comes to our personal levels of environmental awareness, because being environmentally sound clearly takes a lot more effort and attention than most of us actually giving it. 
It is very easy to forget about our impact on the environment, and most of the time we don't even consider it at all. We allow ourselves to believe that someone who is far more passionate about environmental issues than we are is already out there fighting the good fight for us. This rather ridiculous belief allows us to become extremely flippant and lazy when it comes to being personally responsible for the environment, and for the most part dreadfully irresponsible. 
It is only in the last few years that I have really started to become more aware of my global footprint. I have made a concerted effort to try and be more eco-friendly and globally conscious. For example, we have installed solar panels on our home, we grow our own produce, we do errands and shop whilst we are in town to save on fuel consumption, we don't use plastic bags, we compost all of our green waste and we are avid recyclers. However, although we have made some positive changes, we are still not doing enough and with 4 Earths hanging over our heads, we need to do a hell of a lot more! 
In fact, Australia has one of the worst global footprints per capita than most of the world. We may have incredible beaches and an awesome lifestyle, but that all feels pretty shithouse when you realise that we are actually fucking up the globe by being dreadful unecological and environmentally unaware. The average global footprint per person in Australia is actually 4.8 Earths, which is something that we really need to do something about, and I do believe that awareness is key when it comes to change. 
The good news is that there are simple ways that each of us can reduce our global impact immediately, and they don't need to be huge changes, just small consistent ones. Here are some simple ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint and start to make a difference:

• Ride, walk, take public transport or carpool whenever you can.
• Don't speed when you drive! Speeding and unneccessary acceleration increase your mileage by up to 33% which wastes fuel and money. 
• Drive an eco-friendly car.
• If you must fly, always fly economy, it works like carpooling by sharing the emissions.
• Insulate your home and windows and only buy appliances with high ENERGY STAR ratings. 
• Turn off lights and appliances that are not being used, and only use LED or compact fluorescent globes. 
• Keep your heating temperature set to 21 degrees celsius or below and grab a blanket if you're still cold. 
• Install solar panels on your house.
• Eat locally sourced organic produce or better still grow your own!
• Eat less meat and if possible eat none. 
• Install water saving devices on showers, toilets and appliances like washing machines and dishwashers. 
• Never use plastic bags and become an avid recycler. 
• Start composting.
• Use grey water on gardens and only planet climate appropriate vegetation on your property.

Small changes are a great way to start, and doing things a little a lot of the time is the best way to make significant changes for the better. We really do need to be more personally responsible about doing more for our environment. Look around you, it's a wonderful place this world of ours. So precious and beautiful and obviously completely fragile, and each of us is having our own impact on that, an impact that we all need to be personally responsible for. Make one small change right now and help to reduce your global impact today because none of us can afford to pretend that what we do doesn't make a difference. 

I am not afraid of the dark. I know of some adults that still find the dark quite terrifying and being severely afraid of the dark is a very real phobia called Nyctophobia. Some researchers, beginning with Sigmund Freud, consider a fear of the dark to be a manifestation of separation anxiety, but to be honest, with most people that I know of, it appears to stem from watching a horror movie or seeing some other scary as all shit 'unknown' thing in the dark that seems to tweak people's fear of the night. 
Unfortunately, at night time it is quite hard to see, so it can allow people's imaginations to run amok. There really is no greater fear than that of the unknown, and when you can't see things properly the unknown can easily transform into a myriad of horrific possibilities. Suddenly a sheet on the clothesline is a ghost, an animal scurrying about is a robber, a tree rubbing against a house is a witch, or a ghoul or a serial killer. Quite often when people say that they are afraid of the dark they are really just afraid of what they cannot see - the unknown, and the possibilities of what it could be masking. 
Night time is exactly like the day time in my mind, in fact for me personally, I generally think that the night has a lot more to offer in many instances. In the evening the noise pollution lessens, the stars come out and generally everyone is a lot more chilled out than they are in the day time. When it gets dark all the naughty children are quiet and sleeping, everything looks prettier in candlelight and no-one judges you for watching a movie marathon. Another night time plus is the moon, which is constantly changing and far more interesting and observable than the sun, which looks pretty much the same every single day and is impossible to look at because it burns your eyes out of their sockets if you try; now what's to like about that?
​I think that when you live out of town, you kind of have to make your peace with the darkness. When we are facing the dark side of the moon out here in Enfield, it is black and I mean complete and total darkness. You can struggle to see your own hand in front of your face on nights like that, and I have spent many dark evenings on the porch listening to the sounds of the night. Even someone like me who isn't even afraid of the dark can appreciate how easily one's mind can run away with itself if you let it when it is really dark.
There a lot of nocturnal animals scooting around in the dark out here and I have spotted foxes, owls, bats, feral cats and even echidnas foraging about in the cool, calm, quiet of the night. It was only this evening that I had a bunch of kangaroos give me a start when I was taking the recycling out and didn't see them until I almost stood on one of them. But there is nothing scary about a few animals going about their business so none of those nocturnal activities has made me love the night any less. 
Nope, I am not scared of the dark. There are far more scary things in this world than the dark that's for sure, and a lot of those things are very comfortable in the daytime. If anything that I consider to be 'scary' was going to try and get me I would rather that it came for me at night time anyway because it so much easier to hide at night, and I actually feel safer with better hiding options.
There are way too many cool things about the night to not love it completely, but if you do suffer from Nyctophobia, then I deeply sympathise, and I also suggest a total avoidance of horror movies and a really good night light. 

One thing that I have learnt, albeit rather painfully, to accept over the years is that money comes and money goes, and that there is absolutely no point in getting stressed out when everything expensive seems to happen all at once. Sure watching all of you hard earned savings slip through your fingers isn't the most enjoyable thing to endure, but it happens and that is what savings are for - for a rainy day. 
These things have happened before and they will most definitely happen again as well, and no amount of worry has ever made any money problems magically subside. Worrying about money is about as fruitful as trying to dig a hole in the ground with the power of your mind, in other words it is a mentally exhausting and utterly useless kind of worry.
However, regardless of how zen you may feel about money issues or how easily you relinquish the control of your cash flow,  every now and then we all still get caught up in a little financial hardship that makes us feel shitty, a tad destitute and just flatout broke. 
This week has been one of those weeks for me. I have experienced a serious drain on my financial resources, and it has made it really difficult for me to feel happy and excited about being on holidays because I am flat broke. I actually think that I was just blindsided by the events of today and now I have to make my peace with it.
It all started when I took my car in to have a simple and routine wheel balance and alignment done, and then it turned out that I needed four new tyres as well. Right, well there goes another $600 dollars, not to mention the termite inspector that came out yesterday and cost me $220, and I also had to find the money to lock in our New Zealand holiday this week which meant juggling and draining accounts to no end. Oh and my rego was in the letter box when I got home as well, and I got a text from the dentist to book in for a routine clean and scale and another one from my GP to go and have my lady bits inspected, and there's a passport renewal sitting on my desk and....and.....and. You know how it goes, when it rains it pours and there is nothing that you can do about it. 
However, on the bright and exceptionally zen side of it all, I now have a safe and smooth car to drive around in, I have an incredibly fun holiday to New Zealand planned with my family to look forward to, I don't have termites, my teeth are going to get a good clean and having my lady bits checked will offer some peace of mind. So, yeah I am broke, but for good reason and purpose. I am not wasting money or resources, and now because I am so broke then I have no choice but to stay at home for the rest of the break and watch movies and read books all day long...oh dear...poor me!
This sudden lack of funds could actually turn out to be a big blessing in disguise, and an excuse for me to batter down the hatches and not leave Enfield for days on end, hmmm....I can really make this work for me, I sense some B grade horror movie marathons coming my way!

Getting a little bit worn out now, just like everyone else, but still trucking on. I cannot afford to get too tired but I haven't exactly been leaving a lot of space in my life for rest at the moment. I haven't even been at home very much lately and I think that Craig is starting to feel like a widower; but there is not much that can be done about it. There really doesn't look like much respite on the horizon or anytime soon to be honest, so I'm just making my peace with busy and getting on with it all. Busy is just a side of effect of the season and when the dust all settles there will plenty of time for feet up and cocktails on the deck, so just keep calm and carry on I say. 
​I have pulled out all of my old Christmas movies and I am making my way through some of my favourites as the days to Christmas begin to countdown. I love an excuse to hit the couch for a couple of hours at this time of year, and a seasonal favourite can be just what the doctor ordered. 
I wish that I had a top ten of Christmas movie favourites to recommend, but I don't think that 10 really excellent Christmas movies actually exist, I could only think of nine that warranted three or more chili peppers:

1. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Kid Friendly)
2. A Christmas Carol (Kid Friendly)
3. It's a Wonderful Life (Fantasy)
4. Love Actually (Romance)
5. Gremlins (Fantasy)
6. The Grinch (Kid Friendly)
7. Go (Comedy)
8. The Night Before (Comedy)
9. Tangerine (Gritty)

To be fair Gremlins, Tangerine and Go are set during Christmas but aren't exactly Christmas tales, but they are totally great and worthy of a seasonal viewing; all nine of the above can be found on my genre lists if you need to see the full reviews and I have listed their genres next to them. Elf almost made the list and is a solid 2.5 Chili Peppers for me, and the rest of the Christmas movies that I have seen are, well.....meh. Generally Christmas movies are toxic, contrived crap-fests with poor and un-original storylines which is terribly annoying because people still want quality viewing at Christmas, or it that just me?
Anyway, there are lots of great vacation movies that are equally good to watch over the silly season, and one that always gets me laughing is Mr Bean's Holiday. I say ditch a shitty Christmas movies in favour of this one, what a ripper Summer holiday tale that is!

Now we are starting to hot up! The calendar is rapidly filling up and there is barely a free afternoon, let alone a free day between now and Christmas. This is the time of year when you truly get see what people are really made of. Some people take this busyness in their stride, grab hold of it with both hands and make it their bitch, and on the flip side of that coin you have the people that just straight up turn into whiny arse bitches that make everything a lot harder than it needs to be. 
Every year it happens and every year I say it, IT IS CHRISTMAS people, not the fucking apocalypse. Get a smile on your dial and get on board because this level of awesome only happens once every year, and it can be so much fun if you just let it! It is (as the song clearly states) the most wonderful time of the year and it is also an opportunity to think about others that are less fortunate than yourself, a time to count your blessings and a time to be mindful of others. It is a time of giving, sharing and demonstrating love. It is most certainly not the time to carry on like a twat and start trouble where there is none. Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men? Ring any bells?
I for one am loving the season and I am determined to not let anyone's crapola spoil this terrific time for me. Sure I am looking super busy over the weeks leading up to Christmas, but most of it is delightfully good busy. Lots of dinner dates and get togethers and celebrations, and there is nothing wrong with being busy like that at all. And as far as work goes, well I am loving that too. I am spending my final days at school with my beautiful co-workers and the Grade 5/6 kids, many of whom will be permanently leaving the school like me, in a couple of short weeks time.
I am most definitely not going to spend what little time I have left with these people being sour and surly because as I said, it is NOT the end of the world, it is the exact opposite of that. Right now it is in fact time to deploy your most awesome and generous self, it is time to get your Christmas happy switched on to full alert and it is time to embrace the moment, and that is exactly what I intend to do!

I like to purchase products that will last. I really hate it when things run out, breakdown or stop performing when I haven't had them for very long. I can't say that I like it much better when I have had them for a long time and they breakdown either, if I am being really honest. Why am I mentioning this? Well because today I got home from work, went to grab a cold glass of water and realised that my fridge was warm. No-one ever wants to come home to a warm fridge, especially not on a 35 degree day; but shit like this happens, and my refrigerator is about 15 years old...so.... crap on a stick, my fridge is broken!
Needless to say, I was not happy and it made me very snappy and impatient with everyone in the house because it was an unforeseen annoyance, and everybody knows that they are the worst kinds of annoyances. On top of that, this was a rather inconvenient unforeseen annoyance as well, and I did not get to enjoy a cool glass of water to calm me down, I instead got a tepid glass of water and an hour on the phone trying desperately to get someone to come to Enfield to investigate my inconvenient annoyance. Well by 4.30pm in the afternoon the best I could muster up was a visit from a guy that said he 'might know what to do' (that doesn't really fill one with a lot of hope now does it?) and he could probs squeeze me in some time tomorrow, but he was not exactly sure when. Hmmmm......
​Well, tomorrow is the worst day ever to be vague about times because I am working out at my new job and I cannot afford to not be there for that, so I have had to call in favours and juggle things around; and I tell ya, I am literally having a 'make it work' moment over here people! Anyway, I think that I have strategized the shit out of the situation and now I just have to hope that the service/repair man comes good and does indeed squeeze me in and can indeed fix my refrigerator blues. 
These things sure are sent to test us, that's for sure! They always happen just before a big event (like Christmas) when you're funds are all tied up and they always require many maneuvers to remedy. Nevermind, be zen about it, find the calm and keep moving forward. This type of thing will happen and it won't be the last time that something like this does happen, so losing one's cool over it is not really worth it.
So now I am off to throw out a heap of gross, festering and smelly food that is puddling at the base of my fridge that I haven't been willing to face yet. Lucky, lucky me, what a lovely thing to do on a stinking hot afternoon....reckon the Coke in the fridge could still be salvaged, may need to pour myself a stiff one for this job, a lukewarm stiff one, but a stiff one nonetheless!

Don't you hate it when people borrow things and then never give them back? 
I can't even begin to tell you how many books, movies, CDs and items of clothing I have lent to people over the years and how many of those items were never, ever, seen again. Don't get me wrong, I love to share in the joy of my findings and have no problems with lending things out, but when I never see a lent item ever again, well I'd be lying if I said that I didn't get a little annoyed. 
I also really hate asking people for a borrowed item to be returned, it's so bloody awkward. That shit is way out of my comfort zone and it is not something that I like to ever have to do, but on a number of occasions I have had to ask for an item back because I have legitimately needed it for some reason and god, actually asking for it back - it is so horrid, I really hate doing it. I always feel like such a total asshole asking for a borrowed item back, even though it is technically mine, it just feels bad to ask for it, like I am taking it before they are done with it, which totally defeats the point of lending it out it in the first place. 
I have been known to lose the odd book that has been lent to me, I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't, but I am usually very reliable with my borrowing because I know how much it sucks to have things that you love just disappear from your life. In truth I know that hoarding items and having attachments to things (especially inanimate things) is not healthy, but I must be honest and say that when I purchase an item and I love it, be it a book, movie or crappy cotton scarf, then I don't want to lose it forever; besides in many cases it also means that I need to replace it because I loved it so much; that too has happened to me many times before.
The most heartbreaking thing that I borrowed and lost forever was a pair of earrings that I loved, I still don't know what I was thinking lending them in the first place to be honest. They weren't expensive earrings, but they were not replaceable because they were vintage, so alas I lost them forever. I also lent a jacket out once that I really loved wearing and never saw it again either, that one hurt too; but if you borrow then you run the risk of losing things forever. So I suppose the ultimate message that I am trying to send out here is pretty simple really, never lend out anything that you can't stand to lose. Now if I could just follow my own advice I would probably save myself alot future heartaches. 

Lately I have just been 'getting on' with things.
When I say 'getting on' I mean just getting things done without any fuss or carry on as much as I possibly can. I am not focusing on problems or inadequacies, and I am overlooking as much as I can in the name of 'getting on'. Now I know that may not sound like such a big deal, I mean I am hardly going to find myself being martyred for just 'getting on' with things am I? But I have recently become keenly aware of what I am saying and doing and I am resisting any urge to be petty, whiny or pathetic. This has all come about after I recently read an article about how pettiness has become a modern epidemic and a huge problem worldwide.
Pettiness! An epidemic! Yes, apparently it is true; and psychiatrists and psychologists all over the world are overrun with people that are either suffering from pettiness or that have fallen victim to the pettiness of others.
Apparently, people are blowing shit out of proportion more than they ever have before in history, and it has made people unable to self manage their emotions or deal with their problems without projecting them onto others. Basically, making mountains out of molehills and taking the mundane to epic proportions all in the name of one's own agenda has become so commonplace that people are turning on each other and are showing lowered levels of loyalty and tolerance to each other than ever before. How very, very sad indeed. 
And the worst part is that some people are actually seeing this petty behaviour as hilarious or amusing, people actually believe that it is funny to be rude, cold and even calculating about the way in which they express themselves or their discontent. And when confronted about the way that they have made their victims feel, these people show little to no remorse  for their behaviour either, they actually feel justified in their pettiness. These issues are being raised in therapy sessions more and more around the world and the cruelties of people and their petty, selfish, behaviours are apparently on the increase. 
It is (in some really troubled people's minds) seen as funny to give short, rude and curt responses to others and to even start arguments where there weren't any before. Pointing out people's shortcomings or problems is now the main of the day, and people are willing to stop at nothing to destroy other people, no matter how immature or petty it may be. What-the-fuck? What is wrong with the world? When did revenge become the 'go to' plan? What are we doing to each other? 
Anyway, I am most certainly not willing to join the ranks of the petty haters, and I am making a concerted effort to 'get on' with my own business, not meddle with the affairs of others and not look for problems where there are none. There are real problems out there in the world, finding more of them is really not helping us at all is it?
Do yourself a favour, drop the pettiness, be bigger, be better, be happy and be kind; it's actually harder to do than people think; but it feels so good to just let shit go. 

A lot of the kids at work have been a bit off this week. Is there a full moon that I don't know about? I am a firm believer in full moon madness, I do think that our bodies are greatly affected, just as the tides are, by the cycles of moon. I mean it makes perfect sense, our bodies are made up of 60% water, so it wouldn't really be a stretch to think that our bodies are affected by lunar activity would it? 
I know that all scientific evidence states that the moon actually has zero influence on human moods and behaviours, but sometimes I like to say 'fuck you science' and go with my gut, and when it comes to the beautiful and mysterious moon, I most certainly do not subscribe to science.
Ancient civilisations actually believed that the cycles of the moon were linked to a woman's menstrual cycle, after all it gets full every 28 days. That is why pagans worshipped the moon as the mother goddess symbol, and it is considered among pagan folk to be a sign of great fortune and fertility to have your cycles running in sync with the moon cycles. 
Police have long complained that the full moon is always a far more active time for criminals, however, in all fairness that could be because it is just a lot easier to see at night during a full moon. However, when you consider that a lot of the crimes recorded around the full moon are of a violent nature, visibility does seem to be an unlikely reason for the rise in crime. It's like the moon just makes some people go a bit bonkers; hence the word lunatic, meaning maddened by the lunar cycles. 
And aside from the old full moon werewolf tales, it is actually quite true that more people come to hospital suffering from animal bites around the full moon than at any other time. In fact dog bits are twice as frequent at that time of the month. Explain that science! I bet you can't!
All that I know for sure is that my own personal tide is also mighty high at the moment as well. I have a managed to catch a really annoying head cold, it is actually that time of the month and I don't seem to be able to get a lot of downtime this week because a shit tonne of things seem to be going on. Basically, it is just one of those weeks, one of those full on weeks when you could really use a second you to get everything done easily.
Luckily, I got to the movies on Sunday afternoon to see something of quality that has seen me bopping out in my car to it's soundtrack and losing my woes and myself in music for at least a few minutes every day. 

When things get crazy and hectic, as they so often do in life, it's so important to search a little harder and dig a little deeper; and for want of a better way to describe it - find the shine in your life.
Sometimes the shine can be extremely hard to find, on certain days, it can be downright elusive; on some days it can feel like there is no real shine left in the world to find at all. On those less than average days when everything and everyone appears to present another obstacle or opposition, you can end up feeling completely depleted and deflated by the world and it's constant pressures. Those are the days that require double what it takes and they are most definitely the days when we especially need to nurture ourselves and find a little gold or a tiny pearl amidst the muck and the mire. 
Don't lose hope, there are some pretty easy ways to restore your faith in humanity and re-find the shine, so relax dear readers, I got you covered! Studies have shown that just thinking about the happy times in our lives can boost the serotonin levels in our brain. Serotonin is the essential component in the prefrontal cortex of the brain and it regulates your  emotions and your self-reflection abilities. Basically, the more serotonin that you can get into your brain, the better that you will feel, and since serotonin also has the power to override old panic patterns it's great for generating a calm mind and disposition.
So, thinking happy thoughts is actually really beneficial to your health, and it will most certainly help to lift you out of your funk on a less than terrific day. As Maria sang in The Sound of Music - "when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favourite things, and then I don't feel so bad."  And it turns out that she was quite right about that because just thinking about things that make you happy will lift your spirits and make you see that the world really isn't so bad. 
Here are some other quick fix remedies that I like to use for particularly funky days or whenever the need arises (I hope that they may serve to also help you find your gold or tiny pearl next time you need one). 

• Have a laugh - watch a comedy, share a funny story over the dinner table or phone a friend that has a good sense of humour.
• Pamper yourself -  have a home foot spa, paint your nails, force someone to give you a back rub, dye your hair, have a face mask....you get the picture. 
• Surround yourself with beauty - get to the local gardens, bush areas or to an art gallery, or if hotties are more your style then hit the town.
• Get out of your own way - plan an excursion or an overnight stay to break the cycle, just get out of the house and stop mulling things over!
• Get active - walk it off, run it off or dance it off (Shake it off!)
• Perform a random act of kindness - doing nice things for other people has been scientifically proven to again, boost the serotonin levels in your noggin' - so go and be kind and spread some love around.
• Re-read or re-watch  something you love - must be an oldie but a goodie.
• Soak it out - full on deep bath, tonnes of bubbles, wine in hand and stereo blasting something awesome in the background!
• Watch some harrowing movie or documentary about people that have truly shithouse lives and then smack yourself upside the head for not realising how great your life actually is - works for me!

I've been looking back over the last twenty-something years of my life. Winter is a time that leaves a lot of room for extra contemplation and reflection, and even a little revelation in this case. Keeping a daily journal really helps you to identify some of the paths that you tread back over as time goes by and it also helps you to identify the patterns of behaviour in others that you may have been missing as well.
I have kept some form of a diary or journal for pretty much all of my life. I record things daily, almost anything really; goings on, conversations, trips, thoughts, ideas, trials and tribulations; my journals are very personal and also very extensive. On average, I would spend around 15-20 minutes every day writing in my journal, so as you would imagine, the content builds up quickly. I have volumes of the stuff, some of it from way, way back; and just the other day I had a flick back through some of the archives.
I was quite surprised, and perhaps even a little amused, to see that many of the feelings that I am having now, are almost identical to the ones that I was having around 20 odd years ago. And equally as interesting, is the insanely predictable patterns of behaviours that some people in my life have demonstrated over the years, I swear that you could you just about set your calendar to it, it's that consistent. 
I came to realise after reading those old scribblings of mine, that I have come full circle with a couple of the long term relationships that I had really invested in. It's like I left the platform for a new destination some twenty odd years ago with these people and then I re-arrived back at exactly the same place that I had began the journey from, all those years ago. Truth was, that I was never actually getting anywhere in those relationships, no matter what I did or how much I tried. Even though I thought I was progressing, I was never actually progressing at all, I was just looping back around, and I am honestly really pissed at myself for allowing myself to be hoodwinked all over again. 
How I missed all of the obvious signs that I was getting nowhere is so stupid, because hindsight is 20/20 and looking back at my journal notes, well, the signposts were most certainly there. I suppose that I just didn't want to see the painful truth, after all, no-one wants to believe that what they mistook for love was actually completely fake and disingenuous because that truth is just way too painful to stomach. So, I didn't see it, I was a fool, and I allowed myself to depart on a train that took me back to the start. Right back to the beginning where I was filled with a lack of faith and trust, but was willing to try again. How stupid and naive I was!
Over the years, some things in your life will change, some things will shift a little and then some things will stay exactly the same way that they have always been, and all you have to do is accept it. So I willingly accept it this time, these relationships are never going to change. No amount of time or investment will ever make them right, they are doomed to loop around to the start every single time. I was wasting my time, it was all a pointless exercise, and I can't believe that I ever let myself trust them again in the first place. 
So now I am finally free of it, free of the train of lies, judgements, false feelings and fake love. Free to board a new train, a better one with better people that won't make me feel like I don't matter, won't tell me I'm a bad person, won't betray my trust and won't waste my time for another twenty years looping around in circles desperately hoping to be accepted. They say that you should never chase anyone for love, affection or attention, because if it isn't given freely than it isn't worth having; and I have well and truly tired of the chase, I have learnt a lot from this experience and I will never ever chase again. 

This long weekend couldn't have come at a more opportune moment because this term has just about squeezed out all of my 'nice and kind' resources right out of me. I have breached that point when I am feeling exceptionally frayed around the edges and moved into the realms of mayhem and madness. And it's not just me either, it's everyone. Everyone that I speak to is feeling fed up at the moment; and it appears that even the most hearty and reliable individuals and relationships are being put to the test this year.
Everyone that I speak to at work is completely over the daily grind, and a few things have been said to me in passing over the last few weeks that have left me feeling a bit battle sore. Even the kids are beyond ridiculous at the moment, some of them douching it up to epic proportions and to top it all off, the weather is getting colder by the day as we make our descend to the darkest night of the year, the mid-winter solstice. 
To say that I have been having a bit of a 'dark night of the soul' episode lately would be an understatement. I have most definitely not been on my A game, on any front in my life that I can think of, and it has left me feeling as flat as a busted tyre. At every turn I feel like I am facing adversity and despair, so yeah, I was really glad to relish in three days of self indulgence for the Queen's Birthday long weekend.
God Bless the Queen I say, because if this long break hadn't happened when it did I may have gone and booked myself into the nearest mental asylum for a good hard cuddle in a very tight jacket. Yeah, I was really getting that desperate for some quality respite and blurry eyed oblivion. It is amazing how quickly the little things can really build up to create a type of all consuming monster. I read a quote the other day that summed it up perfectly for me - 
Time is a funny thing, nothing seemed to change, but suddenly, everything was different.
I have no idea who said it, but that's how things quite often feel for me. It's like suddenly I have entered a new phase of myself, but I have no idea how I got there, or what I did that got me there, but boom - I'm there!  That probably makes no sense whatsoever, but I am out of my mind, so there is that.
​Anyway, clearly this long weekend is a god send right now and hopefully I will be able to recharge my stupidly broken and flat battery enough to see me through until the end of this semester. 

It is during these difficult times of unrest in the world, that people start seeking out someone to blame for the atrocities, they do it without really thinking and they do it  in an attempt to alleviate their concerns. With the string of recent terrorist attacks in the western world, we have all suddenly been forced to pay attention to a problem that we had yet again, allowed to be pushed to the back of our minds.
Even though extremist and terrorist movements are ongoingly killing hundreds of civilians across the globe, we don't hear about it on a daily basis. The media isn't publicizing the ongoing horrors of the middle east, and that has given us the luxury to not consider all of deaths in places like Syria or Afghanistan from the ongoing battles. However, it is ongoing, whether we think about it or not.
​To put it into perspective, so far this year there have been 544 terrorist attacks across the globe, resulting in 3704 fatalities. Because we don't really hear about these daily bombings and deaths, we don't really think about them either; it's out of sight and out of mind for us and we are generally pretty comfortable with that scenario because, let's be honest,  it is easier to just not know. That is until the threat starts to move a little closer to home, that's when we pay attention. When people from our own country are dying, then suddenly our heads are turned and our concerns of a possible threat becomes very real and very personal and our thoughts start to ponder our own safety, and for many the question is raised - who should be held responsible for these acts of terror?
​It has become increasing difficult to ignore the threat of insurgencies like Al Qaeda and Isis and their extremist terrorism tactics, but we cannot allow their behaviours to dictate our common sense and our decency. We must not only remain vigilant to stamping out these oppressive regimes, but we must also remain sensitive to the pressures that these types of tactics place on muslim communities in general; and the difficulties that arise for muslims on a day to day basis as a direct result of these extremist attacks. 
Just the other day I was being taken by taxi to collect a rental car, my driver was a muslim gentleman from Pakistan. He had opted to wear a beanie instead of his turban on that morning because it was the day following the Ariana Grande concert attack in Manchester. He said that he, his friends and his family were all concerned about the backlash that they may be facing in light of recent events. He said that the pressure and prejudices are always very intense for them after these types of things happen, and now that the public are aware that most of these western attacks are being undertaken by western muslim extremists, then that pressure on them is even higher again. 
It is most certainly a time to present a united front against these terrorist groups, but our fight must not be misguided or misdirected, we cannot let our fear become our undoing, we cannot let hate in, and on that front I do worry. I worry because fear makes people irrational and desperate for someone to blame, but we must remember that this recent rise in westernised terrorist attacks is not  just a western problem, it is a global problem, it always has been, and we must find a way through it on a global level.
Now more than ever, it is the time to open our doors to the oppressed and the beaten down people of this world and to say that we will together fight this tyranny. It is the time to share in compassion and empathy, to build bridges not walls, to share our resources and to not let the hate of these terrorist minorities spread any further than it already has. It is time to hold true to our humanity, stay strong in our dignities and determinedly reinforce our common ground. That is the only way that we can truly defeat the extremists that we are all facing in the world today - without the fear that they so desperately want to strike upon us, but by standing tall- side by side -together - as one.