It is difficult to say whether or not the holiday that Craig and I had booked for our 25th wedding anniversary in Vanuatu had arrived at the most inopportune time ever or the most opportune time ever, but it did happen and we did get on a plane just days after my father's funeral and escape all of the worry and strife of the real world to go to one of the most pristine stretches of beach in the Eastern Pacific to sip cocktails and bask in the sun for five incredible days. 
This was our first trip to Vanuatu and the first time that Craig and I have booked a holiday that was just about the two of us in almost 12 years, so you could say that we were more than due to have some quality 'one on one' time. And perhaps it really was the best time to get away. I was still numb from all of my grief and in dire need of some TLC and headspace, and this holiday did feel genuinely like a complete exhale and a total spiritual reboot in so many ways. 
We stayed at the Eratap Beach Resort which is a boutique style, eco-friendly and completely authentic beach resort that is focused on low numbers, no children and complete five star beachside luxury. From the moment that we arrived and our accommodating host placed a cocktail into my hand as we entered I felt my shoulders drop and my stress begin to just melt away. We had just arrived in paradise, a real paradise with crystal clear waters, gentle ocean breezes and an award winning chef in the kitchen who provided us with nightly seafood feasts that were some of the best dishes that I have ever eaten in my life. 
The food? Completely gourmet and absolutely delicious. The drinks? Different cocktail specials every night and an extensive list that I indulged completely. The beach? White sands, azure and turquoise sparkling waters and the most incredible snorkeling you could ever imagine with clown fish, angel fish and even a giant red octopus; it was so damn good that I couldn't believe it was actually real. The resort? Pristine, perfect and completely seducing with it's swaying palms, tropical grounds and uber friendly staff. We felt like kings from the moment that we arrived and were treated like superstars for the duration. 
We kayaked, snorkelled, swam, hiked, ate, drank and lounged about for five days. We took two journeys outside of the resort which were both provided free of charge by the resort, one to visit the local village of Eratap to see their homes, school and church, and one into Port Vila for a spot of souvenir shopping. The rest of the time we did our own thing, ate whenever we wanted to because the restaurant was open until 11pm every day, and pretty much felt like we were there on our own because there are only 12 villas on the premises, so their were really only around 20 guests on the grounds at any given time. Heaven, totally and utterly divine in every way, we loved it and we were so sad to leave when our stay finally came to it's inevitable conclusion. 
Anyway...one quick 4.5 hour flight back to Melbourne from Port Vila and a fairly short drive from Tullamarine and we were back in Enfield. Unfortunately, it was not the happy return that we had been expecting and we were quickly slammed back into reality when we realised that both of the kids weren't well. Zoe could barely speak and was sporting a raging head cold and a very sore throat, and Seth who seemed okay on Friday night when we got home very late, arose on Saturday morning saying that he felt unwell and by 7pm on Saturday night we had him at the hospital Emergency Room after he had a febrile seizure and passed out in our lounge room. 
He had been vomiting on Saturday and his temperature had gotten dangerously high, then his blood pressure plummeted and teamed with his dehydration from vomiting, he went down for the count (thank God Craig caught him) and they had to put him on drip at the hospital, administer anti-nausea tablets and run some blood tests just to make sure that he didn't have anything more sinister going on. It was pretty stressful, and it was really not good to be back in the emergency ward of a hospital again so soon. However, all is well and Seth was released from hospital at 11pm on Saturday night with the all clear and slept like a baby at home until 9.30am this morning. 
Today I have been able to play nursemaid to both of the kids, and although I wish that we had returned home to happier circumstances, I am also tremendously relieved that we were home to take care of them and the entire situation ourselves. It is wonderful to get away and I am glad that Craig and I got to share such a wonderful experience of complete tranquility in Vanuatu; but for now.... it's back to reality and back to work tomorrow, because nothing - not even paradise - can last forever. 

I haven't been on my website for what feels like an age, and I have good reason for that. I lost my father last week in what I can only describe as a whirlwind event of shock and surprise that left us all reeling and wondering what the hell had happened. I must say, that it is just like my father to go out like a clap of thunder, but considering the fact that he seemed to bounce back from every ailment that was thrown at him, we were all floored when he eventually succumbed and passed away. 
My dad was a man that never complained about his physical illnesses and never really revealed to us just how truly ill he really was, which meant that in the end he had a multitude of ailments (some secret and some not) that even his bullet proof fortitude could no longer manage. And being completely true to form, he waited until everyone was out of the room to take his leave and depart the world. This made the entire event feel so sudden and unexpected, but when you really read all of the early signs (which you always do after an event of this magnitude) we probably should have seen this coming and expected no less from our father. 
I really wanted dad to have a nice farewell and even though he hated any fuss or fanfare, we did put together a short and meaningful goodbye for him and I wrote and delivered his eulogy myself. Writing his eulogy was so cathartic for me, not only did I get to say farewell in my own terms and with my own words, I also got to have some beautiful and meaningful conversations with the other people that loved him dearly as they shared their special stories and memories of my father with me. The entire experience was really meaningful and it felt like such a perfect way to honour and farewell someone who had so much influence over my own life. 
I have decided to post the eulogy that I wrote as a tribute to my father, so that his story is immortalised and shared with the world, because he genuinely deserves nothing short of that. 

If dad was here today, I know that he would be overwhelmed with the amount of people that have gathered here for him. I also know that he would probably say something like "why are you bothering with all this bullshit for?" because that was dad's way.
However, in spite of dad not wanting any fuss or fanfare, I would like to talk a bit about him; about Don Hall - the larrikin, the hard working bloke, the complicated, private and yet always surprising man that I called my dad. 

Born to a tough as nails Aussie family of five just before the start of WW2 in 1938, my father knew about hard times and would often talk about his childhood with a mixture of joy and the type of sadness that only those who have struggled could ever really understand.
His family survived the depression, war time and post war together in the Western suburbs of Melbourne where he grew up shooting rabbits with his uncle Les, chasing trains for coal, stealing scraps of food from the chook shed to stave off his hunger and generally being a complete scallywag with his older sister Linda.
Linda shared some funny tales about their early childhood adventures that included nicking their father’s treasured chocolates and smokes and the time that dad created a makeshift community swimming pool from a burst water pipe hole that resulted in my dad emerging caked from head to toe in thick brown mud.
One day the two of them had a marvelous time jumping on the bloated belly of what they thought was a deceased horse just to hear the farting noises come out. Turns out that poor horse wasn’t dead at all and when they decided to poke it in the bum with a stick it jumped up and ran off, much to their shock and horror. Linda informed me that that poor horse not only survived its run in with her and my father, but gave birth to a foal soon after…I wonder why?

Dad would often reminisce and regale us with tales about his youth; which were generally tales of mischief, childhood bravery or just straight up acts of delinquency! I recall his stories about shooting snakes with his father’s shotgun that had slithered into the family home, getting picked up by the local cops for various law breaking deeds and his free spirited days upon his beloved Aerial Square 4 motorbike that his older brother swapped for a Ute; which I think that dad never forgave him for.
One of dad’s lifelong friends Carso shared with me what a tremendously good friend my dad had been over the years. He once even offered his beloved Aerial bike to use when I was dating a woman in another town, he said, he was the sort of friend that would give you his arse and shit out of his ribs. Sorry to the sensitive ears for that one….but I do think that accurately sums how generous my dad could be.
 
My dad was a handsome, suave man and with his quiet cool attitude and rugged demeanor the women always seemed to notice him. My sister Donna recently told me that her friends at school used to comment on how handsome he was when he would pick her up ‘he looks just like Elvis’ they would swoon, and with that perfect jet black, side combed slicked back hair he caught the eye of my mother and from that moment on they fell in love and started a lifelong love story that lasted for more than 60 years.
He married my mother in 1960, much to the distaste of both of their families. My mother’s family was not too sure about my mum marrying an ‘Aussie kangaroo’ as they called him, and my father’s parents weren’t too keen on him marrying a new Australian either, but against all of the odds and prejudices they did marry and they made it work together.
They were young parents, mum only a teenager herself when they welcomed Donna into the world and dad being super handy with his hands built a bungalow on my grandparent’s property so that they could start a life and save for their first home. More children soon arrived, Morry, William, Kath and myself and before he knew it dad had a brood of children to care for and he took his fatherly duties very seriously, especially when it came to his three beautiful daughters.
Fiercely protective and possessive as a father, any boy that knocked on our door for a date was ran through the Donnie Hall series of difficult questions and demands. ‘What exactly are your intentions with my daughter?’ He would ask whilst running his eye over some sweaty, clueless teenager that looked like they were going to explode under the weight of dads inquiring and judging eye.

And dad was incredibly old fashioned like that, he was a boys will be boys and girls will be ladies kind of a dad who had high expectations that we all felt obligated to meet.
And there was something about dad that made us all seek his approval and affections because underneath that hard exterior beat the heart of a truly soft and genuinely sensitive man.  Dad was firm but fair and we all knew that he only had our best interests at heart.
Those of us that knew him well understood that dad was actually just a big marshmallow who had mellowed greatly over the years and who loved nothing more than a joke (preferably a dirty one) and a good laugh.

He had many interests like cars, western and action movies and tinkering with mechanical things, especially fiddly things like clocks. He always had a curious mind and liked to learn new things, a fitter and turner by trade, my dad liked knowing how things worked and could spend hours investigating gadgets, taking things apart and putting them back together again.
One thing that we all knew about dad was his incredible work ethic, need to be kept busy and demand for perfection. He built and renovated several homes in his lifetime, one in Deer Park, Daylesford, Ballarat and eventually here in Ararat. House proud up until the end, he was laying new flooring in his house only weeks before he left us. Everyone said that dad would go with a hammer in his hand and that wasn’t far from the truth.
If something needed fixing, dad would do it. If something got broken, dad would work it out, and he took pride in being able to repair and mend almost anything that he put his mind to.

At his essence I believe that my father was a complicated man. He was often guarded, secretive and somewhat mysterious to us all in so many ways. He was difficult to get to know well and at times struggled to even understand the complexities of himself. I shared many conversations with him where he spoke candidly of his deep love and adoration for all of his children, grandchildren and our mother.
His last year with us was fraught with health complications, both physical and mental and it eventually took its toll on dad. But I also know that dad would want us to all remember the good times that we shared with him when we think about him, the laughs, the stories and the wonderful memories that we have of our time together.
I know that I will never watch a John Wayne, Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood movie or hear a Roy Orbison song without thinking of my dad, I’ll never eat a roast lamb without wishing he could share it with me and I’ll never forget the man that I called dad.
Goodbye dad, we will all miss you very much. 

I like to think of myself as capable, I also like to believe that I am open to new learning and willing to expand my skill set and horizons regularly through new experiences and upskilling opportunities. However, everyone has their limitations and this week, much to my own agony and dismay, I had to admit to myself and also to my employer that my bucket was full to the point of overflow and that I needed to set a boundary around certain expectations of me in the workplace. 
It is one thing to encourage others to put boundaries into place for themselves, but when you have to put in a boundary for yourself, especially when you pride yourself with being the 'can do' kid, it is a really difficult and honestly, very emotional thing to do. And for someone like me that sets themselves continuously high personal standards, it was one of the most uncomfortable things that I have ever had to do. I have never had to ask anyone to step up for me and put a stopper in something because the expectations were getting too high for me to meet, and it has been a bit soul destroying to have to do that. 
Even though I know that setting a boundary for myself is nothing to feel guilty about, I still oddly do feel a pang of guilt and also a measurable degree of disappointment in myself for not being able to meet certain expectations. As I said earlier, when you are used to coping under pressure and then suddenly find that you can't sustain that any longer, you feel like shit about yourself, and even though it takes strength to say 'this is too big and unrealistic' you just don't want to ever have to say that. 
However I did, I did say it and probably delivered a few other home truths about my role that has needed to be clarified for some time as well. And in all honesty, these things probably should have been clarified a long time ago, well before I got to the point where I was using the 'frog in the boiling pot' analogy to describe what it feels like to be in my position. The saying better late than never is certainly true in this instant however, for my own sanity I do wish that I had clarified these feelings earlier, but as I said, in order to clarify these issues I also had to be willing to admit that I wasn't coping and that was not an option for me until I had reached my maximum overload point. 
So what did I learn from all of this? That I have limits, that I can't do everything all at once and that sometimes I need to be willing to own my shortcomings without seeing it as a defeat. I have also learnt that I need to open a more clear dialogue around problems with senior staff earlier and that setting boundaries for myself in the workplace is a skill that I need to hone before I will be comfortable with it. 
I haven't quite made my peace with owning my limitations just yet, but I know that I will and hopefully things will change for the better now that I have raised a few flags for my employers to consider. And who  knows? Maybe some good will come from my conversation and perhaps it will open some people's eyes to some of the realities around positions like mine where you are a highly effective worker bee reliably contributing as best you can to a much larger business, but no less valuable or significant than some of the queens bees in the hive, especially when you look at it from our perspective.
I just wish that it didn't feel like I had to die a little inside to make these things understood, but I also understand that those feelings are all coming from me and no-one else but me, and those feelings are my personal jagged little pill to swallow...all on my own. 

I went to see the much discussed and heatedly debated Joker movie on its opening day this week, not because I was caught up in all of the pre-movie controversy but rather because I genuinely had a desire to see it. I have seen every other DC comic movie offering and let's be honest, the preview of Joker looked amazing. For those of you that have somehow missed all of the pre-movie persecution of Joker, let me fill you in. 
This stand alone origin movie was shrouded in great concern because authorities felt that the film had the potential to unleash copycat violence and anarchy, particularly with fans of the previous anti-social media depictions of the Joker. And sure, after seeing it I can understand how it could make people that feel marginalised identify with the villain's plight, but I am not sure that will be enough to insight anarchy in the streets. The Joker has always been a character that embraces nihilism as a means of escaping his perceived cruel and unjust world, but if Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and Jared Leto didn't get the downtrodden lashing out, why should Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal be any different? 
Well, I cannot deny that when I went to see Joker and a man stood up at the front of the theatre at the beginning of the movie and shouted out to the audience- "We all live in this society" that my heart didn't leap into my throat recalling the mass shooting  that occured in America at an airing of Batman - The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others. Yep, all that pre-talk controversy did get to me and for a moment I did perceive potential danger and frightening social disorder. 
And I cannot argue that Joker is undeniably relentless with its portrayal of the beaten down underdog. There is literally no relief for poor Arthur Fleck (aka Joker) in this movie, he is the most insanely tragic character to grace our screens in a long while, and being a DC comic character, this film is going to reach a wide and greatly varied audience. And contrary to his title, he isn't very funny at all, he's actually extremely sad, socially inept and painfully awkward. He clearly has a range of anxieties, suffers from severe depression and evidently already has a mental disorder that is not being treated correctly. How can we not feel sorry for this invisible and pained character? This film is gut-wrenchingly upsetting and we eventually just accept his complete breakdown as an inevitable consequence of his conditions. There is nothing funny about that at all is there? 
However, this whole 'pushed to the end of my limits' character arc is not new or original, it has been done before. Martin Scorsese did it with Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver and Joel Schumacher did it with D-Fens in Falling Down and no-one took the streets and shot up the world to hell in support of those characters either. And maybe that's because all of these characters had lost their minds, they were not sane and they were not in control of themselves, and to assume that awake and intelligent audiences are going to become gun toting loons after seeing Joker is of course ridiculous, but we also cannot ignore that to some already abused and unstable viewers that the fantasy of becoming a hero to the powerless and abused, even if it means being feared, could be perceived as appealing. 
However, if we are going to start inciting DC comics as a call to action for unstable sympathisers than we would also need to address all of the other forms of nihilism that exist in the media and the music industry today in order to really explore the influence of villains in our current society. Let's be real, Joker isn't funny, but the ugly side of life isn't and it never will be. Will it make people rage against the machine? I honestly doubt it, but stranger things have happened, who knows? Maybe a Disney movie will trigger someone one day.
Mostly, I think that what people are afraid of in regards to this movie is the fact that they will indeed identify with the dreadful oppression of the downtrodden and mentally unwell; and the lack of resources that are made available to them, which is really highlighted by this film. Rather than making people grab their weapons, I would hope that this empathy would instead make them feel called to address what is going on in our society today for us to identify with this high level of neglect and what can be done for the marginalised and neglected in the form of prevention. Like I said, woke audiences will see this movie and its message in a very different way, and perhaps a more proactive way overall than anyone could have ever expected. 

JOKER
Release Date: 2019
Rating: MA 15+
Running Time: 121 mins 
A psychological thriller and a DC comics Joker origin story, this movie really divided audiences and critics alike with it's violent and often disturbing portrayal of mental illness. However, love it or hate it, this is one of the best performances of Joaquin Phoenix's already impressive repertoire and probably the best DC comic movie so far. Directed by Todd Phillips who co-wrote the screenplay with Scott Silver, Joker premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival where it won the Golden Lion award. 
Arthur Fleck, a clown for hire with a mental condition, lives with his aging mother in Gotham City. As the city collapses under crime, unemployment, and financial ruin, the Fleck family like so many others, fall onto hard and impoverish times. After a series of unfortunate and disempowering events occur, Arthur suffers a complete breakdown and begins a mental and physical transition, eventually transforming into the violent and deranged Joker of Gotham City. 
This is a chilling and plausible origin story that offers real depth and insight into the Joker character, as well as providing some new information about the Wayne family enterprise that Batman belongs to.
Phoenix delivers an Oscar worthy and completely engrossing performance as the Joker, which not only compliments the great work that Heath Ledger layed down years earlier in The Dark Knight, but adds yet another layer to this intriguing and genuinely disturbing character's tale. 
FINAL SAY: My mother always tells me to smile and put on a happy face. She told me I had a purpose: to bring laughter and joy to the world.
4 Chilli Peppers ​

It is important to understand not only your own triggers, but to able to identify the triggers in others around you as well. The fact is, that no-one in the world doesn't have a tipping point, everyone does, even the Pope and the Dalai Lama have trigger points, they are just a lot better at managing their triggers, so people think that they don't actually have them. But of course, they are human and every intelligent individual on the planet understands that to be human is to be imperfect and fallible, and sometimes that means getting angry or annoyed about things, feelings or situations. 
The ability to be able to identify triggers in yourself and others offers a person a huge life advantage. If you can identify your own triggers then you can both manage them better and avoid situations that are going to cause you undue stress. Being able to identify someone else's tipping point could be seen as an unfair advantage and if you were a villain you could certainly exploit that knowledge, but I believe that understanding why others trigger is actually an opportunity for compassion and stronger personal relations.
The better that we can understand ourselves and others, then the higher are our chances to come together in peaceful  and equitable ways. Understanding that people do not behave the way that they behave for nothing allows space for unpacking and understanding and eventually compassion as well. However, in order to get to the root of a trigger, you must firstly be willing to take a very honest look at the emotion and feeling that it is attached to that trigger. 
Generally, people get annoyed and angry because they have perceived something to be unfair, but that definition of unfair could fall into a number of different emotions, and to able to identify any trigger properly, you have to be able to name the feeling that is associated with it first. When you find yourself triggered, or are in the presence of someone that is being triggered, try to identify which of these feelings is being conveyed:
I feel unheard.
I feel judged.
I don't feel good enough.
I don't feel worthy.
I feel left out.
I feel blamed.
I feel uncared for.
I feel unloved.
I feel controlled.
I feel betrayed.
I feel unimportant.
I feel disrespected. 
As I said, all of these emotions will make a person feel like something unfair or that some sort of injustice has occurred, but the emotions attached to them are varied and rooted in very different origins and will therefore require different levels of mediation or conversation for resolution. However, once you can identify the emotional link of your trigger, then you can start to identify its origin and why you are attached to that feeling, and this is the first step to healing and eventual release. 
Managing and identifying your triggers (and the triggers of others) is a process, one that requires patience and commitment, but it is such a powerful process and one that will develop a genuine understanding the self. Anything that allows you to let go of something that no longer serves you is never wasted and anything that can open a dialogue with the people around you that are feeling triggered is only going to further nurture your relationships  with them which is always going to be worthy work to undertake. 
So try a new method, try not to engage with your triggers, but rather try to practise identifying them. Name them, attach a genuine feeling to them and start to work out what it is that has created these feelings within you. As I said earlier, everyone has triggers, but some people are just a lot better at managing theirs, and you have the power to also be that person. 

It's almost been ten days since our Zoe arrived back home after breaking up with her fiance and partner of 8 years Lachlainn. The news came as a bit of a shock to us all, but maybe I just didn't want to see the problems because I wanted to believe that Zoe was happy, but in truth, she wasn't. Looking back on these things with hindsight you can always see the cracks and chips in clarity but at the time you are just blinded by what you want to see. It is always like this with breakups of any kind I think, and even though the clarity is there, it really doesn't make breaking up any easier to do. 
Zoe has been strong and organised with this break up to within an inch of her life, which is what we have all come to expect from our Zoe. She's tough and she strong, and it does take great strength to admit that things aren't working and then to also walk away from them. Zoe leaves behind eight years of memories and most of her formative years experiences with Lachlainn since they practically grew up together. Zoe was only 14 years old when she and Lachlainn got together, so it is both fair and probably to be expected that they have just grown apart as time has progressed, and we really should have seen this coming to be honest, but as I said hindsight is 20/20. 
I think back to some of the douche bags that I was hooking up with when I was only 14 years old and...jeez! There is no way that I could probably even stand to be in the same room with some of those weirdos let alone in a relationship with them. Not that I am saying that Lachlainn is a douchebag or anything, but the likelihood of wanting someone that you hooked up with when you were a kid as an adult are probably slim to none.
Craig and I got together when I was just short of 18 and we have had more dramatic episodes than Days of Our Lives on the way to eventually finding happiness and contentment together. We broke up numerous times, fought like we were on the set of Rocky, got regularly and spectacularly wasted together like we were Sid and Nancy at an Irish stag do and eventually popped out the other end (somehow) still together.
And I'm not going to lie to you, it was really hard to stay together when we were young, it felt downright impossible at times. We were both the youngest of five children so we were both used to having our own ways and we had no idea how to make a relationship work, we were both headstrong, opinionated brats. However, unlike Zoe and Lachlainn we were already married and had a home mortgage and a child before we were even 25 so we felt like we had to stick it out through thick and thin, it was complicated. Fortunately for Zoe and Lachlainn they didn't have any of these responsibilities to make them feel tethered together, so breaking up became amicable and quite simple really, well as simple as breakups can be if that's any consolation. 
Breaking up, no matter how clean, is not easy. You are never  just leaving another person, but also leaving a part of yourself and a way of being that you may have grown accustomed to. You leave behind who you once were when you were with that person and you are technically re-inventing yourself into another version of yourself. A single version of yourself, which will be hard for Zoe because she hasn't really experienced being single yet, it's totally foreign territory. However, as we all know, foreign territory although a little scary at times, can also be exciting, exhilarating and empowering. And if anyone is going to be able to stand on their own two feet, I have absolutely no doubt that Zoe will. She has more strong independent woman in her than Sinead O'Connor and I really believe that although it is sad that she has broken up with Lachlainn that this will be her time to shine and really come into her own. 
Sometimes we need a clean break to kick start a new life, and sometimes that opportunity can only be seized by letting go of an old and outmoded version of ourselves. Sometimes letting go of people in our lives that are holding us back from meeting our true potential is only sad for a short time before we can fluff up our own wings again and take flight on our own. And I cannot deny that the very selfish and motherly parts of me are genuinely  excited to have my darling daughter back in the nest for me to fuss over once again. Here together we can support her, help her to heal the broken parts of herself and then help her to move on to the next big adventure that life has in store for her. Zoe deserves all of that and more and now it is her chance to fly solo, put herself first and do whatever she wants to do. 

If he lived, the news would soon be here. Nay, evil news fly faster still than good. That line came from a play called The Spanish Tragedy which was written sometime between 1582 and 1592. It was the first time that the phrase Bad news travels fast was written in print form and proves that even hundreds of years ago it was human nature to be more interested in failure and woe than success and good tidings. 
And believe it or not, it's not our fault that we do pay more attention to the negative things, because we are actually hard-wired to do that. From an evolutionary standpoint the primary goal is to survive, and in general it's the bad experiences not the good ones that have the biggest impact on that ability to survive. Our evolutionary ancestors would've had a far greater chance of survival if they remembered how to out-maneuver a predator or which berries were safe to eat instead of where they found nice tree to nap under. It was the difference between surviving and dying, so storing negative information and passing it along was a means of survival that we still carry with us today. 
Rick Hanson wrote a fascinating book on the subject called Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom and in it he cites how studies have shown that the brain detects negative information faster than positive, stores it for longer and creates very lasting and difficult to undo pathways that we will reactivate when we find ourselves in similar circumstances. Did you know that in personal relationships it can take up to 5 positive interactions to undo just one negative interaction? It actually takes numerous go overs to unlearn a negative experience which is why it is so difficult to forgive someone when they hurt or betray you, it isn't easy because your brain actually physically resists you creating a new pathway. 
Your brain is unconsciously always deciding whether to avoid or approach everything that it encounters in the world, and regardless of how extroverted you may be, your brain in its most primal form is actually naturally wired to avoidance first and fighting against that is what causes feelings of anxiety. However, not all hope is lost, you don't need to avoid everything and you don't have to suffer relentless anxiety, there are ways to retrain your brain.
Hanson goes on to explain that your brain can override these instincts and be retrained to develop compassion through practising mindfulness, gratitude and self affirmation. You can actually create overriding positives for yourself that will crush your negative experiences, create new and better brain pathways and lead you to a more emotionally balanced and calm lifestyle. 
In short, you don't need to feel like a slave to negative words and thoughts, you can chose positive ones through repetition and focus. You can start today by passing on some good news, sharing your thoughts of gratitude or complimenting others instead of being the bearer of bad news. You don't actually have to help bad news travel at all if you don't want to, you have the power to give yourself peace of mind because you have evolved far beyond the need to ignite your monkey brain functions, you're a higher and more evolved being than that now. 
So it's time to spark your good news, pass along some positives and give yourself a compliment every single day because when you do that you are actually annihilating negative pathways that you have previously carved into your brain and giving yourself the opportunity to be free from anxiety. You deserve to have peace of mind and now you know that it is as easy as being more mindful of your thoughts about others and yourself and honing your ability to focus on the positives around you, it's really is that simple! Change your focus, be positive and be complementary and I promise that you will feel a whole lot calmer and more in control of your emotions, trust me it really works!  

FINDING NEMO 
Release Date: 2003
Rating: G
Running Time: 100 mins
Pixar Animation Studios really raised the bar with their computer animated, comedy-drama Finding Nemo. This movie tells a meaningful and heartfelt tale of a father-son relationship set under the sea in Australia.
When young clown fish Nemo gets taken from the Great Barrier Reef by a diver, his father Marlin sets out on an epic adventure across the ocean to find his son. Meanwhile Nemo, who has arrived in Sydney, finds himself in a dentist's fish tank filled with a bevvy of other tropical fish that are keen to make an escape. 
There are loads of laughs to be had here, mostly coming from Ellen DeGeneres' character Dory; but more than that, this movie is a visual delight with it's brightly coloured depictions of life aquatic. 
FINAL SAY: Just keep swimming!
4 Chilli Peppers
NOTE: Finding Dory (2016) was an excellent sequel to Finding Nemo, every bit as beautiful and enjoyable as it's predecessor. Boasting a consistent voice cast, this next adventure of sea life mishap is based around a city aquarium.   ​

So many people are getting sick at the moment, and it's easy to understand why when the weather is constantly freezing and the wind chill factor makes your fingers, toes and face ache. Even Craig, who rarely if ever gets sick, has a runny nose, sore throat and even gravelier than usual rattle to his speech. The kids at my school appear to have various things leaking out of a variety of orifices and a number of the staff are looking a little worse for wear in spite of just returning from a winter holiday break. But that is July in Ballarat for you - cold, freezing, freezing cold or Tundra, and if you don't like cold weather then moving here would be the stupidest idea in the world. 
A common misconception about Australia is that we have nothing but hot weather. I think that a lot of foreigner visitors expect that since we have so much desert that we are going to be sweltering hot all year round, but that is just not the case. I cannot deny that summers are actually pretty hot all over the country, with the exception of Tasmania which never seems to get over 35 degrees celsius. And I know that 35 degrees celcius may sound hot to some people, but when it comes to Australian summers, 35 is considered the ideal.
In summer it genuinely does get hot, really, really hot. I have seen roads literally melting into sticky tar puddles and desperate snakes searching for water in very open and risky areas in the summertime and it is nothing to get a string of 45+ degree days that make you intensely worried about bushfires when you live in the outlying bush areas.
However, contrary to popular opinions about Australia, it doesn't stay like that all year round and some areas are frickin freezing and even snowy in the winter time. Ballarat is one of those areas and if you're from another more temperate area of the country, the weather here can seem brutally cold and the winters intolerably long. It seems brutally cold and intolerably long to me, and I have lived in the area for over 30 years, but to be truthful I do this every year. I whinge about the cold in the dark of winter and I complain about melting at the peak of summer, but at the end of the day I have very good heating and cooling, and absolutely nothing to whine about at all. I even had my hot water system die this winter and guess what?I lived! Okay, I stank a lot too, but I did survive until I could pin down a plumber to sort out my problem. 
​I think that if you have your health you can face just about anything really, and that's why I really don't want to catch another dreaded lurgy right now, I've already had one of those this year and I hated it! I can totally deal with the wind, the ice and even the snow but please, please don't let me get another lurgy!
Sidenote: I'm already regretting putting that much energy into the sickness topic now, it's a bloody recipe for disaster! I'm just asking for trouble! 

This holiday period has not come without it's own unique set of challenges. I am never really sure if it is a good thing for the wheels to drop off during a down period so that I have the time to properly deal with things, or if it only serves to rob me of some much needed down time. However, regardless of how I choose to perceive these inconveniences makes them no less real or prevalent in my life, so I choose to just face them head on and continue to search for the hidden silver linings in these hiccups of the human condition. 
What it has meant is that I have had less free time and also less money to splurge on the frivolous and fun things, but c'est la vie....like all things in life these moments of challenge are impermanent and constantly moving and won't last forever. You have to stay firmly rooted in the 'milk and honey' aspects of your life when you find yourself wrangling with darker days like these. Luckily,  I still have a lot of milk and honey in my life, so it is easy for me to be distracted by love, good company and humour. And it is in these moments of realisation about my blessings and good fortunes that I ponder how people that do not have these things still manage to find their milk and honey during the difficult times. 
It is easy not to drown when you have a life vest, a flotation buoy and a rescue boat coming to get you, but what do you do if you don't have those things in your life? Not everyone is as fortunate in life as I am, so where do they go when the world grows dims and the days feel darker? Clearly for people without good support units around them, things can get rather grim when life seems insurmountably difficult; but all hope is never totally lost because there is always help available if you know where to look for it. 
Aside from trying to expand your support networks, which can be ridiculous difficult for some people and sharpening your own coping skills, which again is easier said than done, there is always a voice of reason that can be reached out to when things get too big and the world gets too loud.
You don't need to have a life full of milk and honey to find a shoulder to lean on, a friendly voice or a helping hand that will pull you up when you feel like you can't lift yourself up, and the great news is that Australia has one of the best help lines in the world for this kind of thing. Lifeline (PH: 131114) is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week with experienced counsellors and it's free and completely confidential.  And no, lifeline is not just for people that want to commit suicide, it's for anyone in crisis that feels like they need someone to talk to or confide  in. 
Many people without adequate support don't reach out for help because they think that their problems may not be significant enough, but anyone in need without adequate support is significant enough. The counsellors at lifeline, regardless of a callers age, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation are there to listen, provide immediate support, offer strategies and options and provide  referrals that can assist with moving forward.
We all need someone to lean on from time to time, there is no shame in crawling sometimes or admitting that you are finding things hard. Bottom line is that life sometimes is hard, really bloody hard and if you don't have a support network around you, just remember that you are not alone and you do not have to do anything on your own. There is always help out there and your problems are more than important enough to tap into them, so please don't struggle on alone; reach out, open up, share the load and please, please.... get some help. 

PIN CUSHION
Release Date: 2017
Rating: MA 15+
Running Time: 82 mins 
When odd Iona and her hunchback mother Lyn relocate to a new town, they are both optimistic for a  fresh start and hoping to integrate into their new community and make new friends. Unfortunately, their naivety about just how vicious, exclusive and unpleasant bored suburban housewives and attention seeking teenagers can be, causes them to crumble. 
Written and directed by Deborah Haywood, Pin Cushion completely assaults your senses with it's onslaught of awkward coming of age interludes, cruel and manipulative behaviours and it's agonisingly emotional struggle for acceptance. Joanna Scanlan is amazing as the well meaning social pariah Lyn, and Lily Newmark is perfectly awkward as the 'desperate to be liked' teenager Iona. 
This is truly heartbreaking stuff and at times it is quite hard to watch. Pin Cushion openly explores the many facets of a mother-daughter relationship within a single parent dynamic and explores issues of loneliness, isolation, bullying and co-dependence in ways that cannot be ignored. 
FINAL SAY: It's not just children that can bully in relentlessly cruel ways. 
3.5 Chilli Peppers ​

The winter holidays kicked off in style, as they always do at the commencement of the June/ July break because Zoe's birthday always occurs right at the beginning of this break every year. Today we celebrated her special day with a leisurely and much needed break together at Peppers Mineral Spa in Hepburn Springs. A full day of mineral spas, detoxing saunas,  a relaxation massage and a two course lunch injected just the right amount of respite and recuperation into all of weary and exhausted our lives, leaving us feeling fresh and pampered in every way. 
Seth spent a day at Ballarat's Winterfest as a volunteer for the Winteractive Arcade at The Mining Exchange where he worked the interactive tattoo booth and taught newbs how to use virtual reality, which he loved doing. So the winter break has really kicked off well for us, and the next few days will be for catching up on some rest, spending some time with my parents and getting together with a few friends. 
​As much I would love for this entire break to be all couch bashing and movie binging, unfortunately it just can't be because I really do need to get some jobs done around here, especially in the garden which is starting to look like the set of The Jungle Book. And this is the biggest dilemma that I face every holiday period, finding that perfect balance between self time, job time and time that I give to others.
In the past I would've had my entire two week hiatus booked out well in advance, but I try not to torture myself like that anymore. Then I went through a faze where I would just hide from everyone and not even return text messages so that I could slip unencumbered onto the couch everyday to binge watch entire seasons of TV, but I just ended up feeling like a big lazy lump at the end of the two weeks because I hadn't got anything important done.
These days I like to find a healthy and also not completely unproductive medium where I catch up with people that I  want to see (not people that I feel obligated to see), get a few things ticked off the household 'to do' list and also settle back onto the couch to binge watch TV and movies for a couple of uninterrupted hours a day. 
There is absolutely nothing selfish about making sure that you actually get some needed rest during your holidays, and sometimes that means that you have to politely say no to requests or put a 'to do' list job on the 'do later' list.
Besides I can admit that I practically limped over the finish line last week. I was exhausted, tired and still not 100% well after the dreaded lurgy smashed me apart two weeks ago. Choosing to take some time to completely repair seems like a necessity to me at this point and I really don't think that I have the energy to soldier on much more anyway if I am really being honest.  The time to go outlaw and reclaim some self time has truly arrived, and I am claiming my self time for myself...y'all hear me? I am claiming it! So step back and give me some room to reclaim my me time! Phewww... really got lost in the moment and went all Outlaw Josey Wales for a minute there didn't I? And that's how I know for sure that I need to claim back some me time and get some rest, I am literally going crazy! 

You can take every precaution in the world, but no matter how well planned or prepared you may think you are, a head cold or some new strain of the flu will eventually track you down and smack you to the ground like a bad playground bully. Turns out that my health scare was just the flu, I say 'just the flu' very flippantly, but the alternative to that was far worse, so I am sticking to 'just the flu.' 
Of course, 'just the flu' has come with a plethora of discomfort and side effects that have today forced me to hide away from the world, not just for my benefit but also for everyone else's as well. Body aches, headaches, chest pains, severe joint pain, nausea, dizziness, a persistent dry hacking cough and the all so lovely night sweats have all made an appearance over the past five days and I have been left feeling drained, impatient, over-tired and frayed around the edges in ways that I have not felt for a very long time, and do not wish to feel again in a very long time. 
It is always the last couple of weeks of the Winter school term that really brings the 'shove over' for me every year. In fact, according to my journal entries, every year for the last 8 years in  a row I have had some kind of head cold or flu in the month of June. Thankfully, none of them have required anything more than a couple of days of rest, but still it would appear that 'tis the season for me to feel gross, wear out and generally feel like a slice of shit toast every year. 
In light of that, perhaps in the future June would be a fortuitous time for me to take a trip each year to Bahamas in order to escape the dark recesses of Winter and the dreaded lurgy that hunts me down and pounces on me at the same time every year. However, I doubt that my employer would share my enthusiasm for an annual winter retreat, so that idea will probably need to wait until I am retired. 
I swear that bears have the right idea when it comes to seasonal self adjustment though. Gorge yourself stupid on all of the deliciousness of an Autumnal harvest, find a comfy place to hide and sleep out the dead of Winter and then pop back into the world when the Spring blooms are just peaking their heads out of the soil. Sounds terrific to me!
I have always found the human need to maintain the status quo during the winter months both ridiculous and counter productive, because let's be honest we all need more rest in the winter time. It's darker, colder and completely uninviting outdoors most of the time. You just want to eat way too much comfort food for your trousers to manage! And getting out of bed in the mornings is often an impossible and monumentally unpleasant task. The writing is on the wall isn't it really? Let's make the months of June, July and August four day working weeks. Everyone gets an extra day off a week to be like a bear and roll about in bed, binge on Netflix and eat stoggy goodies! Hooray, Winter woes solved! Everyone gets more rest time, less cold exposure and a day to play every week. I think that I would actually look forward to Winter a lot more if that was going to happen every year.
And I honestly believe that my brilliant idea would mean that less people would get really sick as well. I mean you would have less exposure to other people and therefore less exposure to other people's germs, you would also be more rested and better fed therefore making you generally more resilient as well and you would be feeling a lot more job satisfaction because the work to life ratio would be more agreeable. We really do need to take a leaf out of the books of the hibernating and migrating creatures of the world because the animals clearly have their shit sorted out a lot better than we do. I'm pretty sure bears don't have to ring in sick or contend with hacking coughs all night during the winter do they? 

It always takes something serious to happen to your health to jump start you into action. Nothing like a surprise health scare to really force an unwelcome re-evaluation of your current physical status. Only days ago I was wandering about in blissful oblivion of my own physical shortcomings, and now I am suddenly reflecting with a terrifying and hyper critical eye about how I have really 'let myself go' and how I have probably rained all of this down on myself anyway.
I find that whenever something goes wrong with me physically I immediately thrust myself into this ridiculously harsh and deeply damning zone that forces me to take hard, cold stock of my physical make-up and my body flaws. It is not a friendly or self loving place to be, trust me, it's horrible.
Suddenly, I start to see every minor physical imperfection as a glaringly horrible obstacle that stands before my ability to thrive.  I begin to rapidly hate the failings of my body as I scrutinize every inch of my aging physique and every major health choice that I have made in the past, desperately searching for a logical reason for my body to fail me. I eat well, I take care of myself, I have a fulfilling lifestyle, I get adequate rest, I exercise...why is this happening to me? 
But the truth is, that sometimes bodies just fail. Even really healthy, sexy, slim and young ones fail, and it has nothing to do with years of abuse or sabotage, sometimes it is just the genetic hand that we are dealt that determines how things will play out and there is little or nothing that we can do about it. 
As you get older, you do start to notice that things on your body don't...how can I put this? Operate as well as they used to. Things start to head south rapidly and you find that you have new aches and pains that you never used to have. Weird ones, ones that just appear like unwanted hair in the wrong places or liver spots on the backs of your hands, but more annoying and sometimes more alarming than that. I personally find these annoying new arrivals extremely hard to analyse, because it is so damn difficult to decide if I should worry about them and consider any of them serious, or if I should just ignore them as normal signs of aging. No-one tells you, so you don't know for sure. And at my age, you still feel way too young to have any serious health complications so you generally dismiss all of the unwelcomed weird stuff as nothing, but this may not always be the wisest thing to do. 
Ignoring any health complications, no matter how small they may seem, is definitely not a smart thing to do. And having those honest and scrutinizing assessments with yourself, although uncomfortable, are also at times completely necessary. I wish that I was bulletproof, but I am not, I am human, which sometimes makes me fallible and fragile and susceptible to illness and disease. And as much as I really don't like going to see the GP, I think that a professionals opinion may be important for me right now.
There really is nothing like a health scare to boot your thinking back to those things that you hold in the highest esteem in your life, and how much you would hate to jeopardise your chances of making the most of your time. It is unfortunate that we as humans aren't made a little more resilient than we are, but perhaps it is our fragility that make us all the more precious and special, and also so utterly worth fighting to preserve.  

When you have a couple of crappy things happen to you in row, it can be really easy to get totally gung-ho with the 'poor me' routine and lose sight of what is really going on. Over the last week it has been one of those weeks in our household, one of those opposite to a Midas touch kind of weeks, where everything that you do, even if you set out to do it with really grand and noble intentions, it turns out to be shit show.
We all know what it feels like, we have all been there and people even say that these things come in threes to try and limit the amount of crap that can arrive in their lives at one time. However, things do not come in threes, they come any damn way that they want to, because the universe is totally random and unpredictable, which means that sometimes they come in tens and or even twenties. However, sometimes these things that we perceive to be obstacles or setbacks or problems are actually just signposts of change or opportunities to grow, but it's so bloody hard to see it that way when you're in the thick of it all.  
The first thing that you need to do in these situations is to define what really constitutes as a disaster. To some people a flat tyre is a disaster, to others it is merely an inconvenience and then to  others is it a chance to take a walk and smell the flowers. For me a flat tyre is somewhere in the middle, hardly a disaster, but not exactly a delight either. Unfortunately, most people fall into the disaster zone pretty quickly, and it is something that I am attempting to try and engage in less and less often. 
For example, my car needs repairs and I need to go to hospital to have something corrected that is making me uncomfortable.  Neither of these is a disaster, firstly I can pay for the repairs and medical bills and secondly I have a car and can get the medical treatment that I require immediately. That's a lot more than millions of other people in the world have, so first world squabbling about something manageable is pointless and stupid. Is it inconvenient? Sure, but so what? There's no point whining about it, let's just get it done and move on. 
And pretty much all of my stuff has been inconvenient, but that's all, just inconvenient. Some of it has been my own fault actually, like the speeding ticket that I got last Friday night. I got that ticket because I was speeding, no-one told me to speed or made me speed and I didn't even need to rush to where I was going to, so that was clearly a signpost for me to slow the fuck down! I know that I am lead foot at times, and there is nothing more humbling than a hefty bill to make you ease off the accelerator. And I was going way too fast, I could have caused an accident or pranged my car, and then I would've had a disaster to contend with!
So I think that when these things do happen you need to step back and have a really good look at what is actually occuring. Ask yourself, how much of this has been created by your own choices? How much is just necessary maintenance on an abundant lifestyle? And will you even care about this in 6 weeks time? Once you've answered those questions then you can analyse your real depth of disaster or lack thereof, because most of the time everything is really pretty amazing and we do need to be grateful for those moments and not let the small inconveniences distract us from that fact. 

Can you believe that I have been feeling so zenned out lately that I had totally forgotten what it felt like to get really angry? Sure I have gotten annoyed and antsy from time to time, but not full blown 'Mad Max Fury Road' for a while now. I'm talking really angry and uber frustrated because this week I did encounter those feelings for the first time in a really long time and it was so completely lousy in every way. I'd forgotten how genuinely shithouse those feelings are, and as a result of that I just didn't know how to process them. How the hell do people that are angry all of the time function? It's so exhausting being cross, I just wanted to go and have a lay down!
I was at work when it happened, which is the exact place that you do not want to be when you find yourself feeling ultra frustrated and pissed off, so I couldn't just go on an hour long hike into the bush or meditate the feelings out of me, I had to deal with them. If I was a big time shouter, trust me when I say that I would've been yelling, but I didn't yell....I just broke down. Snapped like a twig and wept, which isn't exactly the best way to process frustration but I suppose that it beats throwing a stapler at someones head or smashing their face into the side of the photocopier, so in the big scheme of things it wasn't a complete disaster.
I was however shocked at the uncontrollable outpouring  of emotion that I felt. I don't cry that often so I was quite horrified when my body just let go like it did, horrified but not disgusted or ashamed of myself for it, just shocked. I used to think that crying was a display of weakness because I was raised to believe that that was true, and in the past I would have been questioning whether I was going through perimenopause or something like it, but in the last couple of years of my life I have come to understand that crying is most certainly not a sign of weakness at all.
We live in a world that demands that we keep a lid on our feelings most of the time, but the truth is that it isn't really healthy to keep a lid on your feelings all of the time, that kind of thinking creates barriers and gives people cancer. There are going to be moments in your life when emotions are going to rise up from the shadows where you've worked hard to keep them contained and you will become, even if it is only for a few moments, unable to stuff them back down, and you know what? That's totally okay. 
Showing that you are affected deeply by something is not weak, pathetic or dishonorable, it's human. And as long as you aren't having regular breakdowns on a daily basis then it's totally acceptable to release a bit of tension and anxiety and let the tears flow on occasion. I remember hearing once that people only cry when the emotions inside of them get so big that their bodies cannot contain it any longer and so it has to find an exit, and that exit is through the windows of the soul. It's kind of beautiful when you think about it like that, it's cathartic and cleansing and purifying to the soul to cry once and awhile. 
And so I have had a big cry and let it all out and you know what, I actually do feel better for it. When you don't cry that often then people do tend to take notice when you do and I think that I probably couldn't have communicated my level of frustration and annoyance in a better way than I did now that I look back on it. However, one thing that all of this has taught me is that no matter how zenned out you may think you are, it is a very thin line between keeping your composure and being ridiculously annoyed and frustrated, and that no-one has it all together all of the time. 

I often get asked by people that never watch horror movies about my levels of tolerance to scary and supernatural material.  'How do you watch all that horror and not get totally freaked out?' they ask me, claiming that the Freddy Kruegers and Babadooks of the cinematic world would keep them awake for nights on end if they were watching it.  
My reply to these enquiries are always the same, and it has nothing to do with having a high tolerance to violent or disturbing material, quite the opposite really. My reason for not being deeply affected by horror is that it is, for the most part, absolutely implausible bullshit. I am not going to be kept awake at night worrying about fictional characters, spooks or demonic behaviours when I know that they are nothing more than the creations of someones overactive imagination.
I totally respect horror for it's genuinely entertaining and inventive storytelling and I enjoy the thrill of watching horror, but it doesn't keep me awake at night or affect me that deeply because my brain can tune it out based on the fact that is all untrue. What does keep me awake at night are movies that are based on true crime stories, actual events and tragedies and tales of home invasion. I have spent a lot more time lying in bed at night trying to clear the cache of some of the stuff on my gritty/ documentary and crime lists than I have ever spent pondering a rogue werewolf or a poltergeist. 
​When a film has an element of realism or fact attached to it then my mind interprets it on a whole other level. I can recall my father telling me when I was small that being scared of ghosts was just plain stupid and that the real dangers in the world and the things to worry about and look out for were the bad people who are very much alive and kicking. 'The dead can't hurt you' he said 'it's the live ones that you need to watch out for.' And I think that I have always hung my hat on that advice and it has allowed me to keep my focus on the rational things to be afraid of and not the fables and fantasies.  
There are some genuinely depraved and sick individuals out there in the world that make your average vampire and werewolf look like kittens. After all, a werewolf is really just a wild animal driven by the need to feed and even a vampire can be taken down with a bit of sunlight and decent sharpened stake, but the real life sickos of the world are far more insidious than that. They are often intelligent, manipulative and far more deranged than any Hollywood monster or horror character has ever been. 
It's the grizzly Ted Bundy, Andrei Chikatilo, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Gacy types of the world that keep me awake at night. Serial stalkers that prey on the weak and the innocent, have no remorse for their actions, cannot control their impulses and are prone to the cruelest and the most violently inhumane acts ever know to man, they are the terrors of the world that mess with my mind at night. They are the reason that I can't listen to True Crime podcasts and avoid watching too many crime investigation dramas. Give me a rampaging ghost or demonic possession over a true crime story any day thanks, at least I know that I will get some sleep and not feel unsafe all of the time. 
Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is much much darker as well, and it is important to remember that most movie monsters and horror characters are all actually derived from the evils of man in the first place anyway. The real evils of the world are not only more disturbing, they are also constantly humming in the background, unseen and mostly unconsidered as well. And unlike a supernatural villain, they cannot be dismissed as folly or fiction either. There are no Hollywood sets, costumes or blood spatter effects going on in true crime stories, they are about real life monsters and their real life victims and the dreadful terrors that they endured, which easily makes them the most evil, horrific and unforgettable stories to wrap you head around.
​True crime is the stuff of nightmares, not horror movies, and that is why watching horror movies does not  keep me awake at night. 

When people think of stalkers they think of famous people that are in the spotlight getting pursued by weirdos that send them creepy stuff like mutilated dolls in the mail or have creeps turning up at their houses in their underwear demanding a massage; but the truth about stalking is actually way more alarming and far more common than that.
It is only the celebrity stalkers that make it into the news, so we never really hear about all of the other stalking that goes on around us everyday. Turns out, that the real life everyday stalkers are actually very common and according to the National Centre for Victims of Crime statistics, one in 45 men and one in 12 women will be stalked by someone during their lifetime. How creepy is that? I bet you didn't know that there were that many people out in the world with stalker-ish qualities. I have to admit that I was pretty surprised when I read the statistics myself. So, obviously I wanted to know more about stalking, like why does a person stalk and how can you spot stalker behaviour before it gets out of control? 
From what I have read, a stalker's main objective is to induce fear which they try to incite through methods of harassment and intimidation. The official definition of a stalker is anyone that creates unwanted contact between two people that directly or indirectly communicates a threat or places the victim in fear, which means that stalkers can be intentional or unintentional in their actions. 75% of all stalkers personally know their victims, so if you do find yourself being stalked, odds are that you will know the perpetrator. 
Here are the seven types of stalkers to watch out for:
Domestic: A former spouse or paramour. This is the most prevalent type of stalking and can often manifest in the workplace. It also has the highest incident of putting  innocent bystanders at risk.
Lust: A serial predator that stalks victim after victim. Serial rapists and murderers often begin as lust stalkers. 
Love-Scorned: An acquaintance, coworker, neighbour etc. that desires an intimate relationship with the victim but is rebuffed.
Celebrity: Famous people stalker, aka. obsessive stranger. 
Political: A person who's stalking is motivated by their political beliefs.
Hit: A person hired to stalk and murder a person.
Revenge: An angry, aggrieved, resentful and vindictive person that is seeking payback.
Unfortunately, there is no reliable profile to predict who is likely to stalk. Some patterns have begun to emerge from research, and although these fall short of providing a reliable or conclusive checklist, what has been discovered so far is interesting to say the least. Clinical studies have discovered that a large percentage of stalkers are:

• Unemployed or under-employed
• In their late 30's to late 40's
• High school and/or college graduates
• More intelligent than other forms of criminals
• Mostly male
• Often delusional
• Sometimes narcissistic
• Usually antisocial 

Interestingly, in another study, most women said that they felt more afraid of being stalked by an unknown stranger than by someone that they knew. And I suppose that it is easier in some ways to see why an unknown predator would seem scarier, it makes them more unpredictable and mysterious. However, the truth is that the greatest danger of being stalked comes from the devil you know, not from the strangers, so don't get too complacent about odd behaviours in people that you already know. 
Some potentially stalking behaviours to pay attention to would include:

• Someone who has an unnecessary need to contact you but still does, their contact levels will be persistent and incessant. They will use calls, text, emails or even visit in person more often than you feel comfortable with. 
• Someone who seems clingy or keeps tabs on your goings on. They will always enquire about who you spend time with, where you are going and the details of your future plans. 
• Someone who knows more about you than you have told them. This means that they have enquired about you to other people or researched you through the people you know and your online profiles. 
• Someone who is socially awkward, says inappropriate things in large groups of people or is rude or mean to your friends. Many stalkers have these social traits. 
• Someone who cannot respect your personal boundaries and tries to contact you at inappropriate times, even after you've asked them not to. 
• Someone who drops in unannounced and hangs around when you don't want them to. 
• Someone that becomes aggressive, annoyed or intimidating when you try to set up personal boundaries or if you decline an invitation that they have initiated. 
• Someone that has left signs that they have been to your home, near your car, at your place of employment or on your social media accounts when you have not been there yourself. 

Above all else, if you do feel like you are being pursued or stalked by someone in any way then you really need to take action. Firstly, by telling the person clearly that you would like to be left alone, then by increasing your own personal security (eg. telling friends and family about the stalker, changing your phone number, getting your locks changed, adjusting your daily patterns, not being alone as much as possible) and then if your stalker still doesn't get the hint, then you need to alert the police.
Remember that stalkers are not emotionally stable people, and therefore you cannot rely on them to make the right decisions, so always protect yourself first and never approach them alone. Hopefully, you will never need to employ any of this information, but with many things of an insidious nature, prevention and early detection can be key. So, don't feel like you ever need to put up with being intimidated by someone who attempts to gain your attention and friendship through means of fear, harassment and aggression becasue that's called stalking and it's illegal. 

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. When we think about racial genocide we generally think about all of the indigenous communities that were horrifically and systematically murdered, removed or bred out of existence because of greed and intolerance.
Native people with advanced civilisations like the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Incas, the native Mexican tribes, the Apache, the Navajo, the Cherokee, the Yuki, the Indigenous Australian and African tribes, the New Zealand Maori and Inuit tribes were all severely diminished or even completely wiped out when the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, British, Belgian and Russian explorers began to invade their lands.
These white invaders from across the seas came to rape, plunder and claim the land, at any cost. If they couldn't just overpower or kill the natives outright with brute force, which was often the case, then they crept in, in the most insidious of ways, spreading their diseases, destroying their crops and livelihood and abducting and enslaving their people, eventually destroying entire native cultures from the inside out.
And that, is genocide. And that is the stuff of history is it not? White man comes, white man takes and white man wonders why he is not trusted anymore. And we all like to tell ourselves that this is all just bad water under the bridge, that this type of thing does not happen anymore, that people have learnt from their mistakes and that genocide is not a modern construct but an ancient one. Well I hate to be the one to break it to you, but people haven't learned jack shit from their sordid and generally horrific past exploits because genocide has also feature heavily in the 20th century history as well, and in a lot of those cases, people have actually turned on each other, their very own people and it is just so disturbing. 
There were the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire/ Turkey when the Christian minorities of Armenia, Assyria and Greece were persecuted. There was the starvation of the Ukrainian people during the Soviet Famine of 1932. Then the mass deportation of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians and the systematic slaying of Poles and ethnic cleansing of the Crimean Tatars by Stalin in 1937-38.  There was the mass killings of the Chinese people by the Japanese in the Nanking massacre followed by The Holocaust - when the German Nazis murdered approximately 3.8 million Jewish people and performed an ethnic cleansing of the Slavic countries. Then there was a genocide that was carried out on the Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot in between 1974 and 1979, and the list just goes on and on.....Tibet, the Congo, Somalia, Chechnya, Myanmar, ISIL... I haven't even touched the sides here, there are literally billions of lives and cultures throughout history that have been destroyed through means of genocide. And genocide is still going on today, it is happening right now and the end is nowhere in sight. 
So what have we learned through all of this killing? What is the take away from all of this bloodshed and civil unrest? For some, they have learned nothing and maybe never will, but for many of us around the globe we have learned that no-one is safe from persecution and that only through a united global mindset will we ever be free from another genocide.
The positive is that most countries have now signed to a peace treaty and will not tolerate the inhumane treatment of any ethnic, religious or racial party; and that is a very good start. We now also place more emphasis on learning from the past and understanding our torn history as humans and supporting the liberation of depleted and destroyed cultures.
It is not okay to not own our history, it is ours, we must own it and learn from it if we are to get better, and I do believe that we can, but it's going to take time and patience and empathy and ownership of what has transpired. And quite frankly, not everyone is prepared to own the atrocities of their own heritage which is going to slow us all down quite a bit, but that doesn't mean that we can give up, it means that we have to push even harder to drive home the message that no-one's culture, religion, ethnicity or race makes them inferior to anyone else and that no-one ever has the right to take that very human right away from anyone else. We have seen enough genocide in our past, wouldn't it be nice to see a lot more liberation and fraternity in our future? 

JOHN LEGUIZAMO'S LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS
Release Date: 2018
Rating: MA 15+
Running Time: 90 mins
Colombian-American actor John Leguizamo brings his one man Broadway show to Netflix in this unmissable documentary about Latino history. Latin History for Morons earned a 2018 Tony Award nomination for Best Play on Broadway and is easily the most interesting chalk and talk history lesson that you will ever sit through.
When John's son falls victim to a white bully at a Manhattan private school for being Latino, John delves into his own history to try and identify the reasons for America's whitewashed historical recount and the hidden heros that have been sadly overlooked. 
The excruciatingly violent past of the indigenous people of America and South America is delivered here in an informative and effervescent way by Leguizamo who manages to illustrate all of the ugliness with a good speckle of humour and an engaging flair. However underneath it all, this is a harrowing tale about all of the native people that were slain and driven from their homes over the past 3000 years and the impact that is still being felt today as a consequence of that.
Everyone needs to see this, it is a powerful and thought provoking watch that offers a great overview into Hispanic culture for people (or morons like me) that don't know a lot about the topic. 
FINAL SAY: Violence is the lowest form of communication.
4 Chilli Peppers ​

Just when you think that you have dealt with the worst of the weather for the year, another round of cold, windy and rainy days arrives, swiftly reminding me that I live in Western Victoria and that November is definitely no guarantee of clear skies and sunshine. However, to be completely fair and honest, it is actually quite nice to have a very decent excuse to pound the couch and catch up on a lot of television that I have stockpiled over the last few weeks, so the recent bout of bad weather hasn't really dampened my spirits that much at all. 
Quality television opportunities are arriving in buckets at the moment, and I am seriously struggling to keep up with the high volume of television series that have continually popped up over the last few months. Never in my life have I watched this much television before, and for good reason, there never used to be this much good television to indulge in! These days, that is certainly not the case, because as soon as I finish one series another six sprout up in it's place. It's like whacking the head off a hydra, the more that you cull the more that new ones seem to arise in their place and it is getting harder and harder to squeeze in as many movies as I would like now that I am getting snowed under with television. 
And I suppose that's why it is imperative to also be really discerning about which television programmes you put your time and energy into, because you can literally find yourself watching hours and hours of mediocre shit just because the show delivered a strong and promising pilot episode and now you feel compelled to see it through. Trust me, I have been roped into watching a number of TV series for that very reason, and I have since learnt that being faithful to a television series but not discerning about its actual content will waste hours of your life that you will never get back, so don't let a series hoodwink you into watching series upon series of tripe if it's not going anywhere, there's too much good stuff around these days to allow yourself to do that. 
Here's my top ten 'avoid at all costs' (aka. what a load of shit) television shows that are not worthy of yours (or anyones for that matter) time:
1. The Walking Dead - probably the most pitifully sad, dragged out, outdated garbage that is still being peddled to the masses. Woefully bad and shameful, I actually feel bad for the cast now, they even look bored delivering it.
2. Modern Family - I think that nine seasons of this has been rolled out now, and it is always the same formula. In nine years not one character has developed beyond who they were in season one, how is that even possible? Blah!
3. The Bachelor / The Bachelorette - why are people even watching shows like this? The premise is awful, the people despicable and the whole concept is deplorable, need I say more? 
4.The Exorcist - we did not need to go here, no one needed to go here, I went there...I really wish I hadn't! The movie is more than enough of that thanks very much, can't believe it got 2 seasons!
5.  Nailed It! - Any television show that has founded its name from a meme or Youtube channel is never worthy of your time, this is just pitiful viewing. The cakes on this show are bad for a reason, the bakers are fucking idiots! 
6. The Handmaid's Tale s2 - started out with some promise, and I was enjoying it, and then.....they totally dropped the ball and went for cheesy and unbelievably stupid story arcs that all had to involve torture or brutal death scenes. Season 1's boots were too big to fill. 
7. Snowfall - I sat through two full seasons of this show about drug dealers because I really liked the first two episodes. It did not get better than the first two episodes, but rather proceeded into a slow and arduous decline. I wasted hours hoping it would improve ...a waste of my time! 
8. American Survivor - if you thought that Australian survivor was getting sad, think again. American Survivor is gut wrenchingly sad, it is utterly unwatchable in every respect and quite possibly the saddest shit on modern television. 
9. No Tomorrow - I was sucked into watching this because it had good online reviews, it was also the last time that I allowed online reviews to dictate what I watch. Think fuzz feel good meets apocalypse and gets all kissy and convenient and you'll be in the wheelhouse. God it was bad. How it got good reviews still kills me. 
10. America's Next top Model - I admit that I got pulled back in this year and gave it another go, and I did love to hate all of the bitchy waifs as they fought their way to the top, but at the end of the day it is a dreadful show. Even when they are trying to be all forward thinking with plus size models and a controversial judging panel, everyone knows that the fashion industry is still as deep as a puddle and rife with terrible people. 
So there it is, my avoid at all costs television list. Hopefully you won't fall into any of those horrific and painful viewing experiences yourself!

Men's health is an extremely neglected issue, especially in countries like Australia where the term 'Man Up' or 'Don't be a Pussy' are the staple when it comes to male wellbeing. However, the truth is that the stoic, strong and silent male stereotype that Aussie males have happily hung their hats upon for decades has actually been incredibly damning for men.
Australia now has an alarmingly high suicide rate, and 75% of those suicides are men between the ages 15-44, which means that more men die of suicide every year than from road accidents. Suicide has now become the 10th highest cause of death among men, which means that it is an issue that we can no longer afford to ignore. Just today, 6 Australia men will take their own lives, and we desperately need to get to the bottom of what is going on and why this is happening. 
The men that are taking their own lives come from all walks of life, they live in rural areas and cities, they are young and old and they have diverse employment, socio-economic statuses and cultural backgrounds, but they do have one thing in common, and that is the inability to reach out and share their troubles with others. Turns out that the strong male stereotype is so well ingrained that most men say that they are concerned or even afraid to show their true feelings, their worries, their anxieties and their burdens with others, even their closest family members and friends. This inability to share tends to push vulnerable men into drug and alcohol abuse, gambling addictions or other unhealthy outlets to try and cope with their emotions. 
Essentially we have as a culture, disempowered our men to talk about themselves and their problems. Men are struggling to allow themselves to be vulnerable for fear of being singled out as weak; the pull to be an 'Aussie bloke' who can shoulder any responsibility has overridden men's ability to adopt introspection and let their guard down, and the results of this are just catastrophic.
So what can we do about it? First and foremostly, we have to acknowledge that what we are doing isn't working and that we need to make some serious changes to the way that we deal with men and their health and wellbeing issues. Organisation like Gotcha4Life and Movember are supporting programs directed specifically at men and agree that the approach needs to be different. Empowering and encouraging men to have deeper conversations about what is going on with them when they experience a crisis in their lives is the best place to start. We must make room for men to be in touch with the human parts of themselves, which means that they need the space to share, cry, mourn and feel weak from time to time without the fear of negative judgement.
We need to stop telling blokes to harden up or man up and we need to be better listeners and show support and understanding. We need to educate ourselves about men and their unique set of challenges and the heavy unspoken expectations that are placed upon them from an early age. These traditions of expectation have become so ingrained in Australian culture that it is going to take time to loosen the shackles of those constraints for men, but we have to start somewhere because male suicide is on the rise not the decline in Australia. 
So start right away, tell the men in your life how much they mean to you and take more time to just sit and talk with them when you can. Allow time for them to bond with other men recreationally, and encourage them to spend time alone with other men so that they can learn to open up and share their thoughts and feelings in 'safe mate' circle of friends. Support and normalise emotional releases and remember that it is all of our responsibilities to make men feel valued, heard and supported so that they can face the challenges of their lives with dignity. Help men to understand that it is not only okay to feel weak, it is absolutely necessary sometimes, and that being an emotionless robot isn't of service to anyone.
It is time for us all to wave goodbye to the stoic Aussie male stereotype that we have all been conditioned to accept and expect for generations, because we know that we can all do a shitload better than that for our men. And I implore all men to reach out and share, because we are all here and ready to hear you and support you, and never forget that it's all gonna be okay, help is never too far away and it's totally okay to seek it out if you should need it. 

I believe that the death penalty is an archaic and barbaric form of justice, in fact I do not believe that it is really a form of justice at all, it is a reaction to an act of violence with violence, and I think that it should be abolished worldwide. I ask you, how on earth can we ever achieve justice through more acts of injustice? 
I cannot understand it and I will never support it, for me the taking of any life, no matter how wretched that soul may be, goes against every fibre of my being and everything that I believe in. In a day and age where there are options for proper care and rehabilitation through correct practice and procedure, I think that we are far better equipped to deal with the ugliness of social misconduct than we have ever been before. Surely we can boast that we have evolved into a more civilised and humane culture that can bolster better consequences for the mentally unwell than just executing them?
In a recent episode of the television program Kidding, the main character meets the son of his penpal who just happens to be an inmate on death row. Through contact with this penpal we learn the truth about the lethal injection that is given to death row prisoners to euthanize them, and it really got me thinking about how deeply barbaric and horrific it would be to die in that way.
The so called 'painless' execution method is actually very far from painless and consists of a series of three lethal injections. The first of the three injections is an anesthetic called sodium thiopental, which is a fast acting barbiturate that depresses the activity of the central nervous system. This initial shot doesn't serve as a painkiller that numbs pain nerves, but instead it rapidly puts a person into a state of unconsciousness that's theoretically deep enough to make pain undetectable (note the word theoretically there). The assumption is that the drug will last long enough for the other two injections to be administered, but no-one alive has been able to substantiate that theory, so it's a grey area for sure. 
The second injection is pancuronium bromide which causes complete muscle paralysis, so even if the person being executed was in pain, they wouldn't be able to cry out or let anyone know that they were; and the injection also causes the respiratory system to go into arrest because the muscle of the diaphragm (the muscle that pulls air into the lungs) stops working, so odds are it hurts like a bitch. 
The last dosage to be administered is potassium chloride, which floods the heart with charged particles that interrupt its electrical signaling and stop it from beating. According to a study in the Journal of Forensic Science, the average length of time from the first injection to death is 8.4 minutes. Try and get your head around that, 8.4 minutes of possible pain and discomfort, maybe a lot longer, before you eventually die. It's a chilling thought, and not something that invokes a painless drifting off, as one may have imagined about lethal injection previously. It may be more humane than electrocution or a cyanide gas chamber, but let's not kid ourselves here, this is still a completely barbaric practice that needs to be abolished. 
And to top it all off, there are no real health professionals present when lethal injection procedures are administered because doctors and nurses are banned by their professional organisations from participating in executions since it goes against the moral code of health care professionals to be involved in such procedures. Surely that made you raise an eyebrow? 
And even though many countries have abolished the use of the death penalty, there are still 54 countries around the world that still have laws that sanction the use of capital punishment, and in some of those countries, the lethal injection would actually look like a good option considering the fact that they still use hanging, shooting, torture, flogging, firing squads and even stoning as a means of execution which is sometimes conducted publicly. I seriously shudder at the thought. 
An eye for an eye and the world goes blind, and I firmly believe that that is true. We cannot fight fire with fire and expect to survive the inferno ourselves, a life is a life and when others make poor choices we cannot simply put out their light, it is wrong and it is immoral. Anyone that supports the taking of a life for a life really needs to take a good hard look at what is motivating all of that hate in the first place, because in my opinion, it isn't natural to want to destroy your own kind. 

Trick 'r Treating on October 31st in Australia sure is a hotly contested topic. I heard some ladies at the hairdressers tonight going right off about it, they were saying that it is stupid and American and unseasonal and that if any kids knock on their doors looking for candy they will tell them to piss off! Woah, a bit harsh I thought. Sure, it isn't Autumn here when Halloween occurs which does make it a little un-pumpkin, chestnut and acorn friendly, but aside of that, it isn't actually American at all, it's Pagan and the bottom line is that it's fun! 
Kids love Halloween, they love dressing up and playing spooks and who wouldn't want to knock on peoples doors and get free lollies? Uh, it's frickin amazing and just because we never got to do it when we were kids doesn't mean that we shouldn't let them do it now. If you're going to use un-seasonal as your excuse for hating Trick 'r Treaters then boo to you, you're lame! I bet you still eat roasts at Christmas time even when it's hot and do all of the other Pagan based stuff the happens at Yuletide like  bringing an evergreen into your home and decorating it to welcome the coming spring....aka your Christmas Tree! That is not very seasonally appropriate is it? But it is fun, so we do it and Halloween shouldn't be any different. 
The ladies that were paying out Halloween tonight were also saying how sick it was to send your kids out for candy to strangers houses. Yes, sending your kids out to strangers houses for candy is sick, which is why 99% of the kids participating have an adult with them when they Trick 'r Treat. Safe and wholesome Halloween Trick 'r Treating can be orchestrated and seriously, if you were some Sweeney Todd type trying to lure kids into your home with candy to turn them into pies, you would hardly chose to do that on Halloween when there would be possible witnesses and the most easily traceable crime trail in all history would you? I bet that half of the people that say things like that wouldn't think twice about plopping their poor kids onto some unknown santa's lap at the mall for a happy snap would they? Are those kinds of strangers in red suits that hug unknown children at the mall better than the strangers that give out candy on Halloween? Doubtful, very bloody doubtful, but people only see what they want to see. 
We actually have a lot of little Trick 'r Treaters out here in Enfield ever year and it doesn't offend me in the least. They are often quite small and very enthusiastic and the vast majority of them are done and dusted by 7.30pm. They dress up like their lives depend on it, their faces painted and little plastic pumpkin bags in their hands, and they are always super grateful for the lollies that they receive. Some good samaritan mails everyone in our area an orange balloon to hang on their letterbox on the evening of Halloween and if you don't want to participate you just don't hang your balloon and if you run out of candy you just take your balloon down, pretty simple really. It's organised, it's optional and it's safe because all of the children are accompanied by an adult. Where is the harm in that? 
Sometimes I think that people just decide that they don't like Halloween because they can't be bothered, which essentially is fine, no-one says that you have to be bothered; but please stop making it out to be such a big horrible ordeal when it really isn't. Halloween to kids means fun, and well, even to some adults too if I'm being really honest about it, so stop being such bloody grumpy goblins, buy a few lollies and join in the fun as well, it's only one night of the year for goodness sake! 

In our household, no topic is off the table when it comes to family discussions around the dinner table. This open dialogue between myself, my husband and our children has led to many interesting, sometimes awkward and often lengthy and involved banters over the years, and even though many people have raised an eyebrow in regards to how open we are about all topics in our home, I have been vigilant about instilling the values of open conversation and honesty when it comes to family exchanges. 
Because of this open dialogue around the dinner table, we have had what many people would call 'difficult' conversations with our children as they have discovered the truths and at times the ugly realities about the world, but we pride ourselves for never lying to them or hiding an unpleasant truth from them, and they have both turned out to be pretty well rounded and open minded individuals as a result of this.
​Both of my children knew the truth about their body parts, how lives are created and that some people are 'not quite right in the head' well before they even arrived at primary school. And before they left primary school they also knew about war, religion, genocide, enlightenment, rape, cults, incest, racism, paedophilia, discrimination, poverty, mental illness, hate crimes and all forms of artistic, spiritual and sexual expression. Neither of them have become unbalanced by any of this information, and neither of them now struggle to understand the complexities of the world. The truth about the world did not fuck them up or steal their innocence and they both had really normal happy childhoods. In fact, growing up they didn't have nearly as many troubles as their peers when it came to managing social situations or complicated issues and have always had a strong sense of social justice and ethical behaviour as a result of their developed global understanding. 
I worked hard to cultivate a mindset in my children 'that nothing is too big to tell, or too awkward to ask about.' And yes, it has lead to some 'hot' discussion and even some disagreements over the years (because with an open forum people will tend to debate and defend their formed opinions) but it has also meant that my children are always willing to talk to me, really talk to me. If something is going on they will always tell us about it and if something is happened that they don't understand or need clarification about, they will ask. And the conversation is still very lively around our dinner table and although we sometimes hit the hard topics, generally we share many relaxed and casual meals where the order of the day is much laughter and silliness. 
I am in no way saying that open-conversation is going to fly smoothly at everyone's dinner table, but having room for opinion and the comfort to ask questions is certainly not a bad thing to generate in any family. Being able to talk about anything, even the really tough stuff has certainly brought us closer together as a family and my kids have always been grateful for the honesty that they have received from us whilst they were in their formative years.
​I have never been able to think of a good reason to hide things from my children or to lie to them and I have never wanted to cultivate a relationship with my children that was steeped in deception or mistrust. I often wonder when I hear adults say that their children aren't ready to hear the truths about the world if it is just because they as adults aren't ready to deal with all of the ugliness themselves. All that I know for sure from my own experiences, is that nurturing a home where secrets are supported and lies necessitated will only lead to bitter resentments, disappointments and painful truths later on in life, and we all want a lot less of that for our children in the long run. 

And just like that, two weeks of holiday bliss has passed me by again. This time I got to do all of the things that I had set out to do at the beginning of the break. I read a novel, binge watched entire an TV series and saw some terrific movies, painted at the easel, went for a walk everyday, slept in, caught up with a some friends, chilled out with my kids, did yoga and meditation everyday, drank some good whiskey, replanted by garden beds and vegetable patch and just breathed in all of the fabulousness that a fortnight of respite can offer. For the first time ever, I did not run around, I did not make an extensive to do list, I did not chase anyone for a catch up; in fact I barely even left Enfield unless I absolutely had to, and it was one of the most peaceful breaks that I have enjoyed in some time. Above all else, I rested and I rebooted myself for the final and undoubtedly busiest term of the year which is probably the most important thing to do at this stage of the year. 
Finding grace and calm during the busier times of the year is always a challenge, so setting yourself up correctly at the launch pad is always a very wise choice. In 2007, Randy Pausch (a professor from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who had terminal cancer) made a final lecture, entitled Last Lecture, about the most important lessons that he had learned in his life. The lecture became an internet sensation, inspiring millions of people around the globe and spawned an international best-selling book that would be interpreted into 35 languages. In his lecture Randy eloquently says, among many other pearls of wisdom,  "we cannot change the cards that we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
The most resilient and impressive leaders of our time have used this philosophy to stay the the course and to show courage in the face of adversity. The people that use the most challenging times of their lives as valuable teaching moments (for themselves or others) are the wisest and strongest people. And the bottom line is, that in the struggle, there is real growth. And even though I would love to swan around in downward facing dog and wander about the Enfield forest every other afternoon, that is not the only way that my soul is going to get fed. By avoiding all contact, challenge and confrontation I am not really stretching my boundaries as a person and I am not really fulfilling my potential to make a difference. The struggle is important, the struggle is valuable and the struggle is necessary. 
So raise a glass to challenge, welcome some adversity into your life. Don't let it make you furious, let it keep you curious. Like I said in my previous writings, it's all about turning straw into gold and finding the joy in all states of being. Yes, there is a time for rest and relaxation, but there is also a time for action and progress and I recognise that the time for me to pick up my tools and continue with the work at hand has arrived, and I feel like I am ready and recharged for the task ahead. This time, I welcome the return.

I did something this week that I have never done before in my life, I asked to speak to a manager about poor customer service. Being a person who used to work in the service industry myself, I think that I am pretty lenient when it comes to customer service. I understand that no-one can be at their best 100% of the time and I am usually reasonably accommodating to that fact. I normally would never request to speak a store manager to complain or 'dob' in a worker for their poor service, but on Friday at a well known Australian supermarket chain, I did. And I did it because of the disgraceful service that I received from not one, but two of their staff. 
Let me tell you exactly what occurred. I was in the fresh produce section and realised that there were no produce plastic bags on the rolls in the area that I was in, none in that entire row actually, and I stopped a young female staff member as she was scooting past me and asked -'excuse me, there are no plastic bags in this aisle, could I please get some more?' She did not speak to me, but held out a hand and pointed to another staff member at the other end of the isle, which I found extremely rude for a start. Then when I started to approach the other staff member that she had directed me towards, she quickly wheeled her cart out the back and was gone. Hmmmmm....okay, clearly not the best customer service day at this supermarket, but I just laughed and turned to Seth and commented to him that it was a 'not my job - not my problem' situation and went on with my shopping. 
That was when I overheard the young female staff member that I had first approached at the end of another produce isle, casually bitching to a fellow staff member about how rude all of the customers were today and how she was tired of our surly behaviour. They were both laughing and agreeing and then the first female walked away and the one that she was moaning to came to my end of the produce section. I'm not going to lie here, I was actually pretty annoyed at this stage and I approached the new female staff member and calmly said 'Hello, I was wondering if we could get some plastic bags on the rolls down this isle because there aren't any. I did already ask the young lady that was busy bitching to you down the other end about how surly the customers are today, but she didn't even have the respect to speak to me.'
At first the girl looked shocked, she shifted from foot to foot and then she laughed and said 'we don't have any more bags,' and then she turned her back to me and went on with stacking the fruit. I went on to say, 'you are joking, are you seriously trying to tell me that there aren't any replacement produce bags in this supermarket?' and she then replied to me in a very condescending tone.... now wait for it because this was the when the pin popped out of my grenade, 'there's some in other isles you know, just go and get one from the other end of the produce section.' And that was it, I was just absolutely livid...I felt really really angry, I was triggered, it was like a bomb went off in me. For some reason this simple chain of events had really got me cross, cross enough to go to another staff member and ask to speak to a manager. 
I would like to point out that in spite of me feeling exceptionally cross, I did not yell and I did not abuse anyone, I just calmly told the manager what had happened, and I stated that the young ladies had made me feel extremely unwelcome in the store and that the customer service standards were absolutely appalling. And get this, while I was telling the manager my story, the two young ladies that had just made me feel like crap were standing together in the produce section eyeballing me, whispering behind their hands and giggling, which I also pointed out to the manager in the hope that they would get a decent arse kicking for being so flippant and rude. 
Easily the worst customer service that I have ever had in my life - EVER! And after speaking to the manager who just seemed as ill equipped and lost as his dreadful produce girls, I went home and got onto the supermarket website and made another formal complaint. I was on a roll! And like I said, I would normally just let things go, but I have never felt so mistreated in a shopping environment in my entire life, and considering the fact that I didn't even shout, demand or abuse anyone, then the treatment that I got was totally uncalled for as well. 
I am hoping that this is just an isolated incident and that it isn't an illustration of how low customer service standards have fallen recently, because if I had to put up with that shit every time that I went out shopping, then I would just start to shop online. Talk about ruining a person's zen on a Friday afternoon, it was not a nice start to my weekend at all!

In life we are constantly faced with a series of choices and decisions. Some of those choices are simplistic and really don't require any deep thinking on our behalf, they are the no-brainer choices that we make everyday on autopilot, mundane things like 'what will I have for breakfast today, toast or cereal?' And other times the decisions that lay ahead of us are profoundly life altering, and making a choice one way or another can seriously alter the way that our lives will play out. 
There is nothing that any of us can do to avoid facing the fork in the road from time to time. Sometimes we feel ready to make changes and we are happy to discover a crossroad up ahead, and then other times we feel completely ill equipped to choose any of the roads that we are presented with; but the roads rise up to meet us nonetheless and in turn force us to decide our fate.
With decision making (like all choices) there are consequences, and we all want to avoid any bad ones as much as we can and carry our choices with us for the long haul. We all need to be able to live with our decisions, but sometimes things are not as clear cut as we would like them to be and we can find ourselves tossing around in bed at night, anguishing over the 'what ifs' and 'why did I's' that life sometimes dishes out to us. 
So, how do you live with the bad choices that you've made? How do you move on from a poor decision or a dreadful consequence? Well, you just do really, because you have to. It's either that or let it eat away at you until you are just a big ball of anxiety and self loathing and no-one wants to be either of those things. But living with the decisions that you make, good or bad, is certainly easier said than done, and I am yet to meet anyone that doesn't have any regrets about some of the choices that they have made in their past.
And I guess that there is something seriously comforting in that knowledge; that all of us do have regrets and that all of us do make mistakes from time to time. And just knowing that it is okay to do stupid things, say stupid things and make horrific mistakes from time to  time and then put them behind us and move on with our lives is good stuff to know. It's one thing that we all have in common, and in accepting our flaws, faults and mistakes, we can better accept the flaws, faults and mistakes of others as well. It's all part of the process of finding the whole self and getting a little better at 'life-ing.'
However, that being said, I do believe that one should always try to avoid making horrific choices as often as possible as well. Just because we all make mistakes doesn't mean that we should all throw caution to the wind making decisions without thought or in disregard to all consequence. Quite the opposite really, I believe that all choices should be made mindfully and purposefully; with longevity, community and humility always being at the forefront of any choice. An extra day of pondering can allow a lifetime of regret to become a lifetime of happiness, and that is certainly something to consider.
I once read that you should never make decisions when you're angry or elated because neither are sustainable feelings, and I do think that most of the bad choices that I have made in my life were generally during either my angry or elated moments. So I think that there is definitely some sound advice to be found in that little slice of wisdom, and any advice that can leads us to a guilt free, calm and settled lifestyle is good advice in my eyes.
​Even though there is no magic formula when it comes to the best life choices, just remember to always sleep on any big decisions and never allow yourself to feel rushed or pressed to make a big life decision. As for the little stuff, let that shit go, if it isn't going to matter in six months from now, then it isn't worth losing sleep over, let it slide off you like water off a duck's back. And anything that happened more than six months ago is well and truly over, so make peace with your mistakes, own them, learn from them and move on knowing that you just got a little bit better.