I’ve had a thought for quite some time now that I would probably cope quite well if I was a nun. I don’t seem to have the same issues with silence that other people do; in fact, given a choice between a noisy party and a quiet home, I’ll take the quiet home kthnx. Why? I don’t like being in noisy places. I can’t think clearly and it makes me withdraw somewhat.

My favourite time of the day is about 10pm – 2am at night. After the madness of prime time and before the infomercials. I know, TV rules my life, yes? We’ve established this before, I believe. It’s quiet. There’s a stillness about that time of night that I adore. Usually I’m the only one awake, and with that still silence, I can think, I can write, and I can do things I can’t normally do during the day. Most of the artwork I’ve done has been done late at night, with the TV on as background noise.

I’m not really a morning person. It takes me a while to wake up. I’m not the sort who can get up instantly, at least, not very often. Is it possible to be addicted to the night? Because I think that’s what I’ve become. The night is most conducive to my mind, so I tend to embrace it. I’m not as nocturnal as I used to be. I’ve had to compromise my need to be up early enough for work and my need to go to bed after midnight. That hasn’t stopped a few 3am bedtimes though.

Also, rage has become a staple of my Friday and Saturday night. The effect of this has been that a lot of music (and music videos) is just better at night. Some clips only make sense at 2am when you’re half-asleep. XD But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even if my interest in triple j wanes (which it has, because I found a better radio station to listen to – sorry, Marieke), rage will always be there to start my weekend.

Perhaps it’s because I spent the first half of my life without the internet, I am somewhat wary of it taking over everything. There are times when I don’t want to be connected to everyone. I just want to shut it all down, and spend some time with myself, and my Gods, if I’m in the mood. There just isn’t enough time for people to do that these days. Everyone rushes about at a hundred miles an hour, and barely has time to think for themselves. We’ve lost the ability to just sit still and think, we’ve always got to have our mobile or laptop or mp3 player or whatever. But these things are not essential. I think we’d all be better off if we could find that silence again, and not be afraid of it, but to fall into its loving embrace, and find ourselves again.

I still remember her telling me once to go home, home meaning the UK. I’ve never forgotten that, and I suppose that’s when I had this dawning sense of being half-English. Okay, if I’m honest, a third Australian, a third British, and a third Welsh. Mum’s mother’s family are Welsh, and Granddad carried a Welsh flag when he used to march with the Normandy vets in the ANZAC Day marches.

I suppose part of my ignorance/apathy towards the British side of my ancestry was that I didn’t particularly see them as vastly different cultures, even though I know intellectually that they are. Okay, so I’ve always had a love of Britain and British things and the UK is somewhere I have wanted to visit for years. Still, I never really saw it as a second ‘home’ like I do now.

It was in this realisation that I figured out where I sat on the republican/monarchist side with regards to Australia, and the British side of me won. In spite of the fact that Australia is rather much like a republic anyway, cutting ties with Britain would, to me, feel really wrong. It’s not a rational, fact-based argument for me. It’s tied in with my identity, and my half-Englishness. Both Britain and Australia are my home.

It’s funny, I remember my mum telling me that my (paternal) gran didn’t like mum because she was too English, and she felt she was bringing up her grandkids to be British rather than Australian. I suppose I was doomed from the beginning. Even later, I felt gran wasn’t as keen on me as much as my brother because I was too like my mum.

You could argue that identification has stuck in my mind and I’ve grown into it over the years. I mean, shit, even I’ve noticed my vowels are becoming more British.

And yet… I have such an attachment to Australia and the places I’ve grown up here that it would be impossible for me to cut ties with Australia. I’m still wholeheartedly and proudly Australian. If you live on the same land long enough, you become part of it. No matter how much I might yearn for other pastures, I grew up on this land and I’ve lived most of my life here. I know the plants, the seasons, the animals, the way the year progresses. I have a connection to this land and cutting ties with that would feel the same as cutting ties with Britain. Both are important to me.

I think the internet has vastly changed the way humans perceive the notion of ‘community’ and ‘nationality’. Nations are not just bound by physical borders; Indeed, I’d argue that a nation is only as big as the people who belong to it, whether by self-identification or by acceptance by the wider community. The internet allows for people to belong to communities or ‘nations’ in a way they might not’ve been able to do before.

I think even more now than before there has become a need to label and identify yourself, to announce/declare to the world who, where and with what you identify. You, as a person, are judged based on your identification before anyone gets to know you. I realise this has always been the case, that people judge before they get to know someone, but my point is the internet makes it stupidly easy to merely list every group or affiliation or identity we hold, and reduce ourselves to a group of words on a profile. I think in doing this we are selling ourselves short, and turning complete people into tiny little bits of information. The different groups we identify with are not seen as smaller parts of the whole, they are seen as separate things, separate sides, and we have to juggle these differeing sides so that one group doesn’t find out about the others.

I’m doing it all the time, juggling my queer, pagan side with my other sides. Every time I join a new group, I’m constantly trying to judge how much and what information to tell them. Which side do I show to them? Which would they be most accepting of? Which groups am I willing for them to know about? Which ones will I hide? I think it causes more fractures than anything.

*sighs* I think I have run out of thoughts. But at least I got this out. I don’t think I can use this for the unit I was thinking of using these thoughts for, but I’ll have to find some sort of angle I can use that I’m interested enough to research. I am not convinced my tutor will be as open to my strange ideas as the tutor I had last semester who allowed me to interpret an essay question in such a way that it allowed me to discuss God, religion, alien/UFO cults and the Mongolian Empire. But we’ll see. I’ve got the week to find some angle that might interest me so I’ll leave it for now and head to bed.

(If I’m being technical, I am Gen X, since I’m the child of baby boomers. But I like my special awesome not part of either classification better. )

Anyway. I’m a rather nostalgic person. I’ve mentioned it before on here. I adore vinyl, old movies, VHS, cassettes, retro games, old consoles, all that awesome stuff I grew up with. At the same time, I’m very at ease with modern technology and the internet. I’ve been using the net since I was in my early teens, around a decade.

(Also, WWII-era code-breaking and computers and Enigma machines are all epic and winsome and Srsly, when I saw CSIRAC at the Melbourne Museum late last year, I was quite possibly the happiest little Alex alive. 8D!)

(AlsoAlso, I want to visit Bletchley Park. Like, really badly. Really, really badly. >.>)

I remember dial-up, DOS games, 14.4k modems, and dot matrix printers. I remember doing assignments and referring to actual physical encyclopaedia volumes in the library. Hell, we even had a set of ~20 year old encyclopaedias at home. They were awesome. XD

I’ve been writing websites since I was 14. That’s when I first learned HTML. I remember the first site I ever made. It had a red background and white text. It was awesome. XD

My parents have always dragged me off to op shops ever since I was a kid. They’re the sort of places where, if you’re nostalgic like me, you fall in love with old stuff. Old stuff with character. Every time I buy something from an op shop, I can’t help wondering who used to own it, why they donated it to the op shop, do they still miss it, those sort of things. I could create characters based on everything I’ve bought based on asking those questions.

(In fact, perhaps I should do that one day. Get a bunch of stuff I’ve bought and make characters based on who might’ve owned them.)

But I digress. I don’t know. I’ve got this love, fascination and adoration for analogue technology. We’ve got a record player at home, a VHS player, I think we even still have a cassette deck somewhere. Also, old stuff smell is intoxicatingly gorgeous. Like, it’s like old book smell, but more awesome. It’s old stuff smell. It’s orgasmic. XD

(Er, sorry for the brackets. My thoughts fail at being linear. XD)

At the same time, I rather like new technology and I’ve grown up with computers and CDs and other awesome things that I possibly couldn’t live without anymore. They’ve become a part of my life and world-view and as much as I adore the past, the internet and the kind of technology we have now is really quite awesome and it’s all good and I really should stop now before I ramble any more. XD

This is possibly not one of my better pieces, but whatever. It’s late, I’m tired and yeah. 8D

1) It is impossible to listen to The Idle Race and be unhappy as a result.
I didn’t think it would be possible to like a band after only hearing one song, but, well, I’m shallow. And ‘Days Of The Broken Arrows’ is EPIC. Srsly.

It’s partly the music. It’s just so… freakishly awesome. And happy! Yay for psychedelic rock. XD But yes. Also, /random fangirl moment/ Jeff Lynne’s voice is sosososo prettiful! /sanity restored. …I might be slightly in love with his falsetto at the moment. >.>

Though I still adore them post-Jeff as well. Very prettiful music, considering it’s ~40 years old. <3 *watches music collection age a decade* XD ‘By The Sun’ is epic and prettyful and I luffs it so. <3
2) People are morons.
I know, I know, I knew this already, but seriously. People are too easily offended. And if you go looking to be offended and find yourself offended, then it’s no one’s fault but your own.

Seriously. When did we become so up ourselves as a nation? When did we lose the ability to laugh at ourselves?

*sighs*

I don’t know. I suppose I’ve reached the point at which any outrage about The Chaser is one too many. Then again, this is the same country who were obsessed with Utegate for over a week.

3) You can never stop playing Tetris.
No, really, you can’t. No matter how hard you try, once it’s sucked you in, you’ll never be free of it. I’m beginning to believe it’s unbeatable just to keep you playing for eternity. D:

…Did you guess I’ve been playing a lot of NES!Tetris lately? XD

I have been playing Tetris on various formats/consoles for *thinks* 14 years? I started on my brother’s old black and white GameBoy. I was away on holiday, playing it, and I almost beat it. Since then, I have wanted to beat it, just once, so I can put this addiction to rest. Alas, I have no conquered level nine yet. D:

One day, people! One day! D:!

4) Stephen McDonell is my new hero
*swoons*

The Eyebrow Man is ABC’s China Correspondent, and really quite kickarsedly awesome. I’ve always had a lot of respect for foreign correspondents, Sally Sara being a particular favourite. I don’t envy the job they do, even as it needs to be done.

But why is Stephen so awesome? Well, I do love that he speaks mandarin, and you really can tell he has a great respect for the culture in which he’s working, and a passion for his job. I might tease him for his errant eyebrows and his awesome wardrobe, but really, he’s completely awesome.

I remember seeing a doco series on foreign correspondents and how they cope with what they see and experience. Sally Sara was on that and oh, man, I may have kinda fell for her. >.> *seems to have a thing for ABC journos*

5) It helps to actually have five things to write in here before beginning.
I thought I had five, and then I kinda forgot the rest. Should I do this again (due to lack of other ideas), I’ll remember to plan it out before hand.

Perhaps I’ll do them every week anyway, in case I fail at thinking of some deep and meaningful topic to bitch about for 600 odd words.

And on that note, since I am tired and in need of sleep (when I finish listening to moar Idle Race), I might finish this semi-successful attempt at blog content. Huzzah! XD

I don’t know why I’m writing this here. I suppose just for something to say. Haven’t written much the past few days. Even my inspiration is tired. I might do some reading tomorrow, or that editing I keep putting off. Maybe refresh my Age of Myth skillz. I don’t know how I got so bad at it. I need to rehash my cheats memory. Pandoras Box and Wrath of the Gods will only get me so far… XD

No idea if I’m doing anything for Wep Ronpet though. At least, I have no plans for something big, not when it’ll just be me. Might spend some time in shrine though. And destroy a snake cake or similar. We’ll see. Brain is kinda dead right now, so any thoughts about New Year are very much  ‘oh gods why aren’t you here yet?’

There are too many things I have thoughts on, but not enough to make any sort of coherent post about. Writing is going okay, though, in spite of what I said above. Writing is just not as prolific. Then again, after writing 5k in a weekend, I tend to need a rest and let my inspration recharge. Perhaps I should do that editing tomorrow.

Most of my thoughts are on religion and spirituality tonight, but I’m not interested in writing about that here. Various things around the place have me both annoyed at religion and glad to be amongst friends.

The way I practice religion and spirituality are probably rather a lot different to the way others might do it. I find my own way, and reject anyone who tells me what to believe. The nature of my beliefs and cosmology have shifted substantially this year. I am not solely Earth-focussed anymore. My worldview has expanded and is now filled with stars.

I am definitely a walking example of an eclectic pagan, a label I claimed when I first started out as a Wiccan. I think I have a better understanding now of what it means to be an eclectic pagan than I did when I was 16. I am also, perhaps, becoming more of a Discordian than I had anticipated. For all its apparent silliness, there is truth and wisdom to be found there too.

Kemetic beliefs, Discordianism and Hinduism are the major influences on my spirituality. They intermingle and twine together and create a cohesive something I can relate to. I have a somewhat more lax view on spirituality and spiritual practice than some. The world around us contains its own magics and power. To spend too much time in shrine, seeking desperately the company of gods, is to miss the beautiful, magical, powerful world we live in.

We are connected to everything. Everything we do affects the planet in some manner. The magic in the earth is … astounding. It’s comforting. I like feeling it. I’m the sort of person who will always want to be connected to the earth in some way. To my country. It’s where I belong.

The Kemetic calendar is so ingrained in my head now. I feel the energy draining, how things are gasping their last few breaths. The world is waiting for a new year. I can feel it. I’m ready for it, that I can say for sure. It’s that need for renewal. And I think the calendar does work in a southern hemisphere context very well. July, the last month of the Kemetic year (to use normal dating, as opposed to Kemetic dating), always feels like the darkest part of the year. The coldest, the wettest, the most miserable. And then August comes along and we’re halfway through winter. Spring is coming. The world begins to renew itself, to begin the process of renewal. To come out of the dark and cold of midwinter and emerge into the new year, and the coming spring, is fantastic. It breathes life into you again, makes everything brighter and cleaner. Everything becomes better then.

But I fear I am rambling now. I am not sure there is much coherent logic here, and I’ve been more spiritual than I had planned, but I think it’s okay. Anyway. Time for bed.

It’s a time of night that has a certain feel to it. It’s distinct from earlier in the evening, or much later on in the night towards dawn. It’s still and quiet, especially during the week. I’ve discovered some of my favourite TV shows and movies during this time of night.

I like hearing the occasional car drive past. Suburbia has its own insane beauty that I just adore. Being at work again has given me many thoughts. Peculiarly, one came to me while printing labels for a file. Is handwriting going out of fashion? We’ve come to rely on computers and technology for almost everything, all our communications, from twitter to writing letters to reading news. Will it eventually kill our need for handwriting? Will there come a time when a human being will not know what to do when presented with a pen?

It worries me. When you think about the work you do, how much is ever handwritten anymore? Sure, little notes or initial minutes of meetings might be handwritten, but how much of that ever gets preserved? Everything is typed, word processed and desktop pubished to death. Your employer is unlikely to see your handwriting.

Perhaps I’m being overly sentimental. Perhaps I’m being overly paranoid. I don’t know. I just … I believe the ability to write with a pen, handwriting, is too important a skill for humans to lose. We should not become so reliant on technology that we are unable to function without it. :/

I am, perhaps, rather more cynical tonight than usual. One of my moods, or perhaps the result of all the political bullshit that erupted over the last week, amusing as it is. I think the hypocrisy is getting to me. I just can’t believe any arguments the Oppostion make when I know they’ve committed the exact same crimes they’re accusing the Government of committing. It makes me a little ill. My growing apathy towards both major parties is increasing.

Also, late post is late because, well, brain has been preoccupied with other things, and it’s hard to finish a post about the night during the day. Srsly. :/

I have other thoughts, now that it’s night and I can think again. It’s quiet and calm and there is nothing buzzing around in my head. I might let them fester for a while though. I can’t quite articulate them yet. Perhaps Sunday. When I get around to fixing this blog at any rate. XD