O.E.... Y?

So what's the deal with travel?

I don't think it's bad or wrong or anything. In fact I'm about to embark in a overseas sojourn with my husband around Europe for two months! (after traveling with my choir for 1 month) But why do we do it? I mean, I know the Eiffel Tower exists, but if I'm anywhere in the vicinity I find directions, go there and look it. Why? It's not that I didn't believe all the other people who have already seen it. I've seen photos, I've heard stories- yet I will go there. It is a fair bet to say that Jay and I will go to visit the Eiffel Tower when we are in Paris. How odd. I don't imagine it will bring any new and exciting revelations into our lives. It won't change the way we see the world. But we will go there.

Oh how strange we human creatures are!

Is it just me or is it weird to leave all you know, those we love and the communities to which we belong to see other places and stuff. Are we peeking into someone else's reality to avoid our own? Or is that just a guise to meet different people and see if we might be happier elsewhere? or to find out if we're at all similar or very different? or to glean information, learn things from them that we don't know?

And the weirdest thing is I feel the most "kiwi" when I'm away from here. I feel somehow proud of our distant speck of dirt in the Antipodes, happy in the knowledge that far-off, richly blessed Aotearoa is the place I call home.

The stranger on a strangers' fridge

I just got another phone call from a local stranger who read in the local paper about my screenprinted tops fundraising initiative. That's good- I got the lady's details and took her order and it's all happening. Great!

But I can't help but think that the article was run for one day about 3 weeks ago... Why did you ring now? Did you keep the article to forget about for a while then remember and think "ah! Yes, I really must ring that young woman and buy one of her shirts" Was I sitting on your fridge? Or did someone else see the article and think of you, put it in an envelope and keep it in their handbag 'til they saw you?

How strange to think that I might be the stranger on a strangers' fridge.

out-of-the-box worship: initial thoughts

I've been asked to put something together for worship for "connect" the 18-30ish postmodern-ish faith community, this coming Sunday. I want engage the group with something different and meaningful and so I've been going to a snoop around the intraweb. I'm looking into doing some alternative worship type thing. I've stumbled across a bunch of really interesting sites
www.altworship.org.uk
www.alternativeworship.org
www.rejesus.co.uk/spirituality
www.exileschurch.org/freehouse/retrospective
Please check 'em out and let me know what you think and I'll let you know what I come up with in the end. Should be fun... alternative worship is so rich and creative and diverse- drawing from a range of Christian traditions but creatively translating them to be relevant now!
I'm loving it.


Definately something I'd like to explore more.

Radio ga ga

Well, that was a fizzer! The whole thing seemed to really underscore my perception that no one gives a tinkers cuss about the struggling choristers of this land!

I rushed from a prior arrangement (playing guitar at church) to arrive early for our arranged 12:30 - 1pm slot, anticipating that we could possibly meet and talk before we went on-air... to no avail! The guy was with another guest, an interesting sounding young Scottish woman (fab accent!) who, it became apparent, had been working for the radio station and was just preparing to leave them. It dragged on until some other co-worker (I presume) arrived about 12:45 to present her with a greenstone pendant. It was lovely and, I'm sure, appropriate but it did leaving me feeling as though my time was less than valued... when I was finally ushered into the hot seat it was to listen to 8 minutes of detailed national news (it was 1pm by now) before ripping into the interview with very little time to talk about the direction the discussion was likely to take... or anything really.

The conversation meandered all over the place including the full names of my parents and the interviewers line of enquiry leading to the romantic hope that my family sang together at public engagements. I replied No... we're not the von Trapp family!
Does that sound rude? Could that be considered as controversial? A large percentage of me hopes it is- is that wrong!?!
I also was amused by Mel's introduction. Something along the lines of "While other young people we hear about in the news are doing wheelies in their cars and downloading music for their ipod's it is refreshing to know that there are some who care about and participate in The Arts through the medium of music, specifically the Human Voice in the Choral context" If you think that sounds over-the-top you must add the fact that he has a deep, boomy voice that he obviously knows is a "perfect radio voice" and he used it with variation of pitch and speed to further accentuate point and air of intelligence. God bless the volunteers of free-to-air local community radio!

Another point in proceedings that springs to mind is when Bruce, the technician/producer guy, broke in when we were on the subject of fundraising for my trip with the choir. "I have to ask, are you doing any busking?" ...to which I replied "Ah, no. No. While I can sing I haven't quite mastered the art of singing multiple parts in harmony with one another."
What a cheeky little chorister!
The technician played an ad halfway through Mendelssohn's "Ehre Sei Gott" to cut it short. He ejected the CD, passed it to me and bid me farewell as the host ushered in the next important guests, whom they wanted to start on time with, some local active retirees, starting a new Probus club.
I put in my ears buds and selected shuffle as spun a donut in the car park.

Keep your ears to the waves...

Exciting news! I am going to be appearing as a guest on Mel Driscolls' "Cosmopolitan News and Views" on Community Radio Hamilton AM1206 & FM106.7 tomorrow (Sunday 27th May) at 12:30pm as a special guest from the community. Click on the big button marked "LISTEN ONLINE" for the interview streamed live.

It seems their guests are a "suprise" from week to week so while the listeners have no idea that I am the special guest awaiting the microphone this particular week, they will be expecting some colourful, controversial, committed characters who make our community richer for the sharing of their experiences.

Here's hope I take enough colour, controversy and commitment with me!

Will feed back with how it goes and any links to a audio download after the event. Jolly exciting!

healthy and quick ...

QUICK EASY DELICIOUS COUSCOUS
2 cups Chicken stock
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Grated Lemon Zest stuff
2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
2 tsp Olive Oil
Combine everything in a pot, bringing to the boil uncovered
Remove from heat.
Stir in 1 cup Couscous
Put lid on and stand (ie the pot- not you. You should sit... with a drink! ...And crackers and hummus!!!) for 5 minutes
Fluff with a folk and serve.

Mmmm- there's something so yum about the lemon in it!

You can other stuff to jazz it up. Some ideas would be
snow peas
Pine nuts
carrot
mushrooms
zucchini
parsley
coriander
onions and garlic...

Fundraising...

* (Please excuse the long sentences... still getting used to this)

So, I'm getting ready to travel overseas on tour with my choir. We're going for a month and we each have to pay $4000 each and $1000 each per region (ie if there are 10 member in one town they have to work together to raise $10,000)... but as I'm the only choir member in my region it's just an extra $1000 and it's all me- $5000!
So I did a movie night which pretty much bombed. It could have been good but I started advertising it too late and there were a bunch of people who (they said) would have come if it weren't for...*insert reason here*... Miraculously managed to make a wee bit on that one (thankfully, when it looked like I was going to be lucky to break even!)

Great plan #2 was my Silent Art Auction. I have a tradition with a couple of girlfriends of meeting for coffee on Friday night after work, to talk and unwind after the week (I really recommend it, by the way- a problem shared is less of a problem!) So I approached our regular Friday after-work coffee hang out, "La Commune" about doing it there over a period of a month or so, highlighting how it would beneficial for the cafe with the idea of the auction being that you would go back and check your auction, in an attempt to win the art. The manager/owner dude was totally sweet about it and so we booked May into our diaries. I approached a whole bunch of artist friends (one of the reason I thought of the art auction was all the arty peeps I am lucky to call friends) and a few generous darlings gave me some work for me to auction. I also found/created a eclectic selection of my own work to go in there. So "THUNDER: the cool silent auction" has been up since the 1st of May... it was really slow at the beginning and I was down in the dumps- doubting my "stupid idea" and generally trying to avoid thinking about it, but it seems to have picked up and I once again have a bit of hope in the thing. I like that it's got me doing art again too... what's an artist without a deadline- honestly, I don't know many arty folk who just decide they'll get our their desired medium and create a masterpiece. I wonder why that is!?! Anyway it's been good for that. So THUNDER's due to come down at the end of the month and I talked with Cam and we is havin' a party to see it off. It's all happening on Saturday night, June 2nd- Queen's b'day weekend Saturday night. At the mo I'm thinking the plan will be to have all the auctions finishing that night- maybe 1opm... but maybe I'll stagger the ending of each auction to get the blood pumping and crowd brawling and all that!

My other big fundraising idea (or Plan #3) was screenprinting and selling cool designer fashions . I designed a... design (!) for tops- hoodies, sleeveless hoods and tees (+ I've done a couple of polos and thermal tees) I call the range "Choral Thug". It has the word SING across the top in a bit of an arch (like those typical USA university jerseys) as well as "all my LIFE" (a play in the "Est 1979" kinda thing you see everywhere), a big S/A/T/B (for the 4 sections of the choir- Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass - buyers get to choose the letter to suit) and "Aotearoa Waiata" at the bottom (translation: New Zealand Songs". Yuh so that one has been going quite well... local folk have been emailing orders through after seeing the article in the local paper so that's been good. I'm hoping to go and visit a couple of the local choirs to rally support (in the way of hoodie sales)... we'll see how that goes.

Overall, though, I have come to agree with my wise husband... it is SOOOO much more efficient to just work at you job and pay the dosh yourself!

Here's me fundraising and getting the local media all going and that!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4053689a16115.html

Monday Musings

So I've write emails quite often and I've been thinking about how I sign off my emails. You don't say "Yours Sincerely" or anything like that but what are you 'meant' to say?
I have struck upon the thought that, to infuse a bit of humour into your day, it could be fun to sign off emails a little differently... Instead of the fun and friendly "Later Skater" you could try- "Later Slater" or "Later Scatter-brain" or "Later Dickhead"
If you often use "See you later" you could try "See ya- wouldn't wanna be ya" or "See you when I'm looking at yo ugly mug" or "(I hope I don't have to) See you later"
It seems many people think it fun to play with common rhymes. In place of "No probs corn cobs" try "No probs dick face" or "over and out, arse breath"
Rather than "Goodbye porkpie" substitute "Goodbye fart-breath" or "Goodbye lard-arse"

You could add a touch of intellectualism and quote famous sign-off lines such as
"May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits" (S Hussein)
"Eat my shorts" (Bart Simpson)
"Kinds retards" (Winstone Churchill)
"Sincere commiserations to your Mother" (Robin Williams)

I wonder if engrish might have a special place in new and exciting email sign-offs... instead of using the english language to make sense it could be rewarding to use it more artistically
"Happy day to shine you on" or "happiness rarely last as long as life is long. Be happy you on this day then"

I would appreciate any feed back and idea regarding this matter. I feel a revolution coming on!

Here we go....

Hello world!
All the cool kids are doing it, so here I am!
Let's see what happens.
Peace ya'll