Where have I been?

Good question! This time I can't blame my absence on my computer or anything else in my life except that I have escaped the rut I have been in. Yes I don't mind admitting it but I have been so down about the Australian Political Experience that I have ended up in the foetal position on more days than I want to contemplate. But out of the blue came a complete stranger requesting me to review his book on Bullying and suddenly I was up and about...my ego had been tapped into in a good way. I did his review on the basis that he would review mine on Amazon. And off I was, pen in hand, no not quite and I found myself reviewing several books I had bought from Amazon and read. In the meantime my publisher has kept on the pressure sending me research proving that unless more promotion of my books (Baggage and Kin Deep and the Inability to Mourn) occurs I would be described as a loser. On the contrary I think, why has my publisher spent not a second promoting my books? I known he/she has been too busy lugging my money to the bank! Or his printing pressers in Asia are running out of orders. Not my problem!!!
 But 'Baggage'is a good read because it is based on an incident which really happened to me and of course the Memoir, 'Kin Deep and the Inability to Mourn'  is full of real life also. So get onto Amazon and try them out....I don't like being called a loser simply because I am not performing my duties as a book salesperson.
While you are at Amazon read my book reviews. They have kept me really interested  this morning as have my posts of the past. I must be just like so many others in this world and just love to see my opinions in writing perhaps I should start writing to the paper. No this Blog will do for the time being.

Back at last!

I refuse to be  one of the stats...85% of bloggers stop blogging eventually.  Me? Never!
So let us prepare for Remembrance on Anzac day.

The image taken in Albany WA 2013 I thought I would never use. But time has crept up on us once again. I won't be going to any dawn service but I will be thinking of all those young men and women who served their country. I feel proud to have been at Gallipoli last year. I am not a a supporter of wars and can't help but see it as a huge ego trip played by boys. Even if, when we visited Gallipoli, the sight of gravesites was very moving emotionally considering the many young lives lost.

 As evidence of the religious wars and ideological warring continous with many innocent by-standers among the people whose lives are destroyed.....can anyone describe the benefits of warring to me? 

 

On a better note let us allow our imagination  to run riot. Can you see what I saw when  took these photographs?

My new life? My rock foetus or was it a watery birth?

And this image gave me a pain in the foot!
There are many more rock images in my collection and over time I'll show them to you....now that I have learnt to post them to my blogspot.

How to survive Australia!

The subheadings should have been...how to survive a computer upgrade or/and the installation of 'Lightroom' in time to enter the magnificent photographs unadulturated into competitions or the interior painting of your house. BUT I will take each topic one at a time.
As per usual I couldn't resist reading some booklets I found in my bookshelf...the house painting had forced me to donate 6 boxes of books to the children book fund...but these topics I couldn't resist to read again while the painters swooshed their brushes over my walls. And I will never part with these books...NEVER!
Robert Treborlang...you are my hero!! Wherever you are today your books have had me curling up in laughter. At last I have discovered where I have been going wrong in the 57 years of my stay in Australia. I have been living under the false impression that I was /am a true-blue Aussie. Not so old girl! But I wasn't even ten years old when I came to Australia and began my denial of being German-born. Not so Old Girl! I have been speaking Aussie since that day of arrival. Perhaps, was the answer.
Let me explain: 'How to survive Australia', 'How to be normal in Australia', 'How to make it big in Australia', says it all! It explains to me why I have been living on the edge of society. forced to live that is...bullied at school and in my working life for being different... too smart, too tall, too opinionated, too successful, too outspoken, too good-looking (when young), single parent and refusing to marry, too critical and judgemental...I get it now...I have been living on the wrong continent wearing my German mantle, something I have never considered before until reading these wonderful books by Robert Treborlang.  If you are not original Australian read these topics...'Are you surviving Australia? For a start...Don't ask questions, always seem busy, never be interesting, how to have nothing to say, never draw conclusions, how to be moody, how not to make requests, never criticise, never praise (unless expected), how to be low key, not to dress well, how to recognise a tall poppy, never question ancestry, why losers are heroes' and much more. Try reading the books. You will be amazed! I now know why so many Australians have become ex-pats! Why didn't I discover all this before now? Enough is enough!! For all the other topics I will continue in my next POST.

Happy Chinese and Australian New Year!!!

Better late than never I always say. But you can be sure that I have been wishing for a great New Year...BUT did I get it ? No, I got a very expensive New Year and looking around at all the structural problems I am facing I am convinced that the devil actually owns this house. I have been told by those who know that the easiest, cheapest and best way to solve these problems (or are they challenges?) is to bring in the bulldozer. But no, I refuse to accept the negative and am willing to make it all the biggest challenge of my year.
I actually wanted to write about a most amazing Christmas market I saw on "Global Village" the other night. This one is held each year in Leipzig, Germany and the size of it all and the items offered just astounded me. I'm sure there are plenty of others in Germany but my relatives live in Leipzig and what's more the last time we were there we hadn't been told about the GDR Museum etc.etc.etc.. So another visit is ensured.
I also wanted to post some photos of beautiful Lake Rotorua in NZ and the most active volcano Mt White, we flew there by helicopter and donned gasmasks and helmets as the activity was up to level 2 tourists stop landing there at 3.... spent 10 days on the North Island and what a great place the North Island is....weather was really hot with a little rain only on one day. So that's December/January for you.

Great Reading!

Yes, I have had a great time reading but that hasn't been why I haven't written for so long...the motherboard on my regular computer has failed and left me waiting for a new computor to be installed. This is being written on a very old comp. I have managed to put together using various bits and pieces lying around the house.
So I managed to read one of my Xmas presents...All that I am... by Anna Funder and guess what? I raced out to buy her original first non-fiction book...Stasiland. 'All that I am' hooked me in because for once it was a book written not only in the Nazi Era but in the early 20th century...the years of my mother's growing up. Berlin featured strongly as it did in Stasiland. In both books, my mother's experience came to bite me on the nose. Interesting how some of these books can help us to understand our family's role in those years.
  In Stasiland, in particular, I was taken back to the years of my visits to Berlin, Leipzig and Weimar, at first when the wall came down and then in 2001. I discovered the existance of my mother's first cousin, a famous artist and teacher, a member of the "Vertriebenen", the artists who had been forced out of Prussia to live elsewhere in East Germany. In his instance, he took his family to live in Weimar. And it was in his presence when we stopped on the stairs long enough to peer at the enquiring stare of his neighbour. We witnessed, what must have been a very upsetting time for our relative, as he abused his neighbour unremittingly. This man, his neighbour, had been an informer during the GDR years and had obviously not given up his old habits of spying on our cousin.
My second cousin, who now lives in Leipzig, but had been brought up in Weimar started to tell me of her experience...as a brilliant student she was not allowed to enrol in the school of her choosing...she was forced by the establishment to attend a boarding school a long, long way away from home. Did she need her thoughts re-arranged? This experience she has not forgotten, yet she complained to me that when the wall came down and the GDR became non-existant, she was robbed of her nationality. "We all had jobs in the GDR, there was no unemployment as there is now. And there was no homelessness." Her attitude amazed
me. Her husband thought differently. "Yes, everyone had jobs...with nothing to do. At least now we all have career structures." And that was all I could hear. Subject closed. Anna Funder, on the other hand, opened the doors on these years in a well-researched book...another set of books I couldn't put down.   

Moments of Philosophy

Yes the moon is ... and I must be feeling philosophical...and I am. But what a surprise! These ideas I found in a book I have known about but never thought that I would read..."A Royal Duty" by the Late Lady Di's personal Butler, Paul Burrell. I couldn't put it down. Perhaps I could relate to it...the rejection by people, friends and family...it was constant! But Lady Di searched and found some very helpful thoughts to assist her in her daily battle to survive this nastiness.
Page 240
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are. How true is that?
The self must know stillness before it can discover its true song. Yes, stop chasing your tail. Learn to like your own company.
Success is the result of good judgement. Good judgement is the result of experience. Experience is the result of bad judgement.Yes and no.
Use problems as opportunities to change our lives. Definitely!
Problems call forth our courage and wisdom. Possibly!
Learn to adapt yourself to the demands of such a creative time. True, don't be afraid of success.
From a correct relationship to yourself comes a right relationship to all others and to the divine. Perhaps that should read, to the Spiritual.
 So, digest!

Personal Contemplation-The changing Years

Yes, the more things change the more things stay the same. Agreed? Maybe...read what I wrote 12 years ago.
I am revisiting the shores of the Kochel See, Bavaria, Germany in my mind as I stare at the photo lying on my desk. My mind recalls 1950.
It was later in the day when we were there, our mother and her four offspring, four daughters.
I am dressed in my best, as we all are, hoping that we would appeal. We are all nervous for this photograph is to be sent to Australia and Canada in the hope of attracting a suitable host. Perhaps a family which would be willing to sponsor us.
The little girl in the front, all of four years old, is standing perfectly straight and still, both feet parallel and together, arms side by side, obediently smiling. But both arms appear unnaturally extended, almost like a soldier's arms: trained soldier of fortune, perhaps.
I have to do my best I told myself then: look friendly. But I needn't have bothered. Our mother's world-weary look in her deeply set eyes, ringed by ever darkening circles and so emphasizing the bare bones of her normally high cheek bones, said it all. I am thinking now in the year 2001, how life has changed for us all and how there is no room to regret decisions made at that time of impoverishment in Germany.
We had indeed been the lucky ones. Australian families welcomed us with open arms ignoring willingly our recognised position as the enemy, post World War II. Some children were not so kind but over time we experienced unquestionable hospitality despite our obvious differences. These were the days when people cared for each other purely on humanitarian grounds; when people took responsibility for each other's welfare (and their own) beyond the alien language spoken, the unusual appearance in dress or the differing religious orientation.
Australian willingness to accept these differences resulted over the years for our culture to be regarded as a special gift to Australia to be shared and used to broaden Australia's life experience. Yes, migrants' contributions to society were thus valued and recognised.
How different society is now. A society fed on the notion of fear wherein survival is the motivating factor. The concept of possession and not sharing being the underlying principle.
We are taught that what we have is our own and not to be shared. No longer is it reasonable to trust your neighbours, trust our significant citizens, our valued institutions and most of all we are taught daily that the "d" in difference stands for danger and destruction.
To survive we must maintain our sense of separateness and be prepared to fight to protect what we have created so far. In direct contradiction and in economic terms we are advised to look towards the global village in positive terms and appreciate the arrangement for our benefit.
These thoughts were written by myself at the beginning of the New Millenium and twelve years later I sit and ask myself how different is it in reality today? Have we moved on to better understanding between ourselves? Do we accept difference as a positive or are we still terrified at the notion? I think you know your answer as I do mine. The photo in question is on an earlier Post..."More memories".