Discovering Raya

A couple of us got invited along a to a Raya open house thing tonight with some malaysian friends. What happened is that Ramadan, the muslim month of fasting has come to an end, so now they spend time celebrating! People go around to lots of other people's houses, eat and catch up and drink tea and take photos of everyone..

So we came to this friend-of-a-friend's place, and ate delicious chicken sate skewers with real sate sauce, and amazing beef rendang and soup and tea and other good things.. Everyone knelt around on the floor to eat and talk. The women wore pretty dresses, some of them headscarves too; and the men pants and shirts with traditional skirts over the top! There was a lot of malay talk but some english chatter as well, thankfully!

Whenever more people came in everyone would ask where they had just been and how many people were there and what food they had, to gauge whether or not it was a good time to go and visit there also! One of our friends had been around to 6 different houses already that day, and so this was number 7!!

It's cool to picture these little circles of homes scattered through the suburbs, people trotting from one to the next, eating and laughing together (and maybe even watching Fast & Furious #5 in the background, as they were at ours).

Had another food win this morning in class. We were doing a group presentation which was a promotion event or activity on a mental health disorder. We did a community walk, to encourage social inclusion, awareness, and general health & wellbeing. We had personal stories, pictures, a mythbusters section, and even tai chi! Then we met back in the classroom for a great morning tea :)

The other groups were cool too. One gave little goody bags with info, a homemade stress-relief ball (mine's called Henry) and sweets. Nice job.

itsy-bitsy life..

"There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage.

I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus."

- Annie Dillard.

Man, the stuff this lady writes makes me go crazy inside. I reckon I'd go running through the streets throwing my hat into the air if I wore one!

the end..?

Well, I believe I've come to The End. Of my 30-day blogging challenge - yay!

Actually, I'm almost disappointed. Almost. I won't miss the nights where I was about to go to sleep and then remembered I hadn't posted yet, and dragged myself bleary-eyed to the computer.

But it's been fun writing about stuff that happens, or that I think or read or find.... It's been a good way to reflect on the days and weeks. Imagine how much I'd just have forgotten if I hadn't written about it!

and I think now I'm in the habit, I'll probably keep spamming you all a bit more than I used to :)

I'm sitting here enjoying the exhausted ache of a well-fought (and WON!!) soccer game, and the fragrance of freshly baked cake wafting through the house, and the mug of lady grey tea by my side, fast growing cold.

But I have class at 9 tomorrow, so goodnight all, and thanks for coming on the journey with me!!

Of snot and other tasty things..

Superfun night with the girls tonight.

We made (and ate) tacos with gusto.

Read some colourful bits from Mark's gospel.

Talked about life friends family the universe and everything.

I smashed the top off a bottle of cider trying to open it. Still good!!

I've gotta say tho, the highlights would have to be a certain someone doing an almightly impression of a tail-wag, and another certain someone acting out "snot" in an unexpectedly graphic way. Both while playing Pictionary/charades. haha.

Then when I came home there was a red-headed dragon in my living room!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay for old friends and suprise visits.

And yummy brownies.

My not-quite-so-small friend

About a year ago (actually, make that two) I wrote a post about a small friend of mine.

Now he's a lot bigger. He can run and talk and hop and gallop and kick a soccer ball real good. He says any number of suprisingly insightful or just plain hilarious things every day.

He can even 'help'...

Tonight we were at his parents' place making pizza and he was tugging the high chair around between us and the bench, trying to get in on the action. At first I managed to keep him at bay by calling on him as primary pizza-making supervisor:

"How about you tell us what you'd like to have on the pizzas. Bacon? Excellent idea."

But soon that was not exciting enough. He passed us cheese and ate cheese - until the cheese snuck off to a safe distance. Then he began on the capsicum. One bit for me, one for the pizza...

Then he passed the bacon and ate the bacon and sprinkled the bacon on the middle of the pizza.

"Ok, doing well, let's just spread it out a bit" say I in my most patient voice.

I drew the line at him helping with the paste.

Anyway, the pizzas were made and devoured - much to everyone's satisfaction - and he was sitting on the couch with us a bit later when he exclaims:

"I just did four parts!"

"What, you had four pieces of pizza?"
"No, out of my bottom!"

"Ohh, farts....!"

Dinnertime with a 3 yrold? Priceless.

Madness

"Once upon a time, a powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.

The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water, and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take notice of them.

When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. The marched on the castle and called for his abdication.

In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: ‘Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then we will be the same as them.’

And that was what they did: The king and queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such ‘wisdom’, why not allow him to rule the country?

The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days."

- a story from Veronika Decides to Die, by Paulo Coelho. The book is set in a mental institution, centering around a woman who decides to die because she finds nothing to live for. Reflects on the nature of self, madness, sanity.. I'm only part way through, but it's pretty interesting.

Another bit:

"Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective way of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone in your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not in the other?”
“No.”
“If someone were to ask, the response they’d get would probably be: ‘You’re crazy.’ If they persisted, people would try to come up with a reason, but they’d soon change the subject, because there isn’t a reason apart from the one I’ve just given you. So to go back to your question. What was it again?”
“Am I cured?”
“No. You’re someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that, in my view, is a serious illness.”
“Is wanting to be different a serious illness?”
“It is if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else. It causes neuroses, psychoses, and paranoia. It’s a distortion of nature, it goes against God’s laws, for in all the world’s woods and forests, he did not create a single leaf the same as another. But you think it’s insane to be different, and that’s why you chose to live in Villete, because everyone is different here, and so you appear to be the same as everyone else. Do you understand?”
Mari nodded.
“People go against nature because they lack the courage to be different, and then the organism starts to produce Vitriol, or bitterness, as this poison is more commonly known."

I do think there's still a difference between thinking or acting outside of the box, and someone really losing their mind.. but still,

who says what is mad?

why do we act the way we do?

who are we made to be?

is there something stopping us becoming our true selves?

what happens when we try to be something we are not?

.....

Bits & pieces

This is one of the last scraps of the cheesecake I made yesterday..

And this is my embroidery, as of a couple of hours ago:

I took the photo and was going to blog.. and then I talked to the parentals on the phone for like an hour & a half, and by then I'd done a bit more on it but I can't be bothered to take another photo so you'll have to wait till the next update!

Just so you know, it's still fun. I'm not bored yet, though I do usually give up after an hour because my neck gets sore.

Today we were meant to play soccer but it got cancelled due to excessive amounts of rain (pffft). Which was very sad because it was the last game of the season, and we had to win to get into the semis (which we were determined to do) but they probably can't reschedule it in time so it'll be listed as a nil-all draw :(.

Very sad. The season always finishes so quickly.. at least there might be summer soccer!! :D

Some of us went to Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat instead, to bury our sorrows.

Then we had community gathering and talked about if and how the gospel is relevant in our culture. That was interesting.

And then I bummed around and tried to do some work and played mangled bits of songs on the guitar with the whole 10 chords I know.. and was sad for my friend.. and made sushi for dinner.

The End.