Book 8: The Sound of one hand clapping by Richard Flannagan.
This is probably one of the most heart-wrencing books I have ever read. It begins in Tasmania in the 1950’s with a young girl whose mother committs suicide, and her immigrant, alcoholic father who is trying to desperately to escape his brutal past. He then bashes and beats his daughter til she finally leaves. 20 years later she returns to see him and the story resumes again. As you can imagine very depressing but it is beautifully written with redemption at the end. Transformation and redemption are key themse for me at the moment so it hit home in some ways and so I actually quite enjoyed reading it. Here is a quote I really liked:
“There was something about Bojan Buloh that strange evening something that approached the most curious innocence. As if innocence, thought Sinja, were not something one had before it was lost, a natural state into which one was born before life sullied it forever, but rather something that could only be arrived at after one had journeyed through all the evil life could manifest. He was lost and condemned to loss, he was damned and lived with the damned, but somehow, somehow because of what he had lived through he had acquired an innocence.”

Movie 4: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
I liked it although I was glad I had read the books. It missed so much which didn’t overly trouble me as I was able to fill in the rest for myself but Martin asked me a few questions after which made me realise that it would have lacked much without having read them. Like others have said I thought the first kiss was fairly poor but I can’t complain about anything else. I thought the child Voldermort was the freakist child and Snape and the other “baddies” as usual outshon the “goodies” but they didn’t do too badly either really.

I’ve started my new job. It is really intense I have to say. The woman before me left very quickly and unexpectedly so there’s been no hand over or anything. She was obviously not a very organised person as there are papers everywhere and no clue as to what they were for or anything. I truly have never seen anything like it in my life. On top of all this I am the only AMEP person in Alice, all my supervisers are in Darwin and they don’t really know much either. They have promised that someone will come next week to help me sort it all out and explain to me what I am supposed doing. Hopefully that will make this a little less overwhelming.

In the mean time I have just been attempting to teach some classes. I have had three classes and although they have not been great I think for my first attempts they haven’t been too bad either. Perhaps that’s more to do with the fact the students are lovely and very forgiving. They are a diverse group that is for sure. I have a number of Asians and Sudanese people, as well as an Afghani couple and a Cuban girl (there is also a Venezualen on the list but she didn’t come). There are no Europeans thus far at all though.

Although I feel fairly nervous all the time at the moment and very overwhelmed by it all, it feels good to be doing what I studied all those years for.

A few things happening here for me (finally) which I am very excited about. I have a job at Charles Darwin University with the Australian Migrant English Program. New residents and citizens are entitled to 501 hours of free English classes and I will be teaching and coordinating this program in Alice (although I am the only employee). I confess this is not what I had in mind when I moved here, was keen to get into Indigenous education, but I decided to take it for a few reasons. The first reason is that it is only 20 hours a week, but pays as much (perhaps more) as any other full time job I’ve had or applied for. Secondly, it is mostly in the evening, so my days are still free to do some tutoring work with indigenous students. I figure that given my limited experience and the complexity of the work this may be a better way to start off. I will be able to assist students in the classroom but another more experienced teacher will be in charge of the class who I can learn a lot from. Thirdly, I will also be doing some on call work with the Sexual Assault Service. This involves been available to go out on weekends or night times (can be 4am) to be with someone who has been sexually assaulted. This is probably only going to be about one week a month but it is much more sustainable if I don’t have to get up at 7am the next day to go to work. Fourthly, this work will still leaves me with time to work on the house or spend time with the neighbours and their children or get involved with things at the church. And finally, we thought that if we do happen to have children in the next little while I will be able to keep this job as it is mostly hours that Martin does not work. All in all I am very pleased with the job and the way it fits in with my life and where I am at.

I also have a church. After visiting most of the churches here in Alice I have decided to go to the Salvation Army church. This is the first church I visited so perhaps I should have just stayed (although iit was interesting seeing what all the denominations do). I have only been back once but I like it. I have say I do struggle with the the imagery of the Army such as members are called soldiers but I like the vibe of the place and everyonce seems pretty welcoming and inclusive and they are doing some good stuff around the place so I will try this out for now.

There is also some movement at the house. Painting has been done on half of it; electricity is in, tling is done in bathrooms and the septic is in. Tiles for the rest of the house have been ordered and are on their way, the kitchen guy is coming next week. We are hopeful to be in by the beginning of next month. This will be such a blessing I tell you what.

So overall things are really starting to fall into place. I am hopeful that this will all make me feel a bit more settled here in Alice, a bit more like home. In saying that though I think this time of waiting has been really valuable I have learned a lot about myself, about the culture here and about God that has been very important for me to learn.

I arrived home today to discover a kangaroo walking around the yard. There are builders here working on one of the cabins and it kept walking over the slab they are building on. The kangaroo is not wild mind you, its name is Bubba and he now lives here. A friend of our neighbours picked it up on the side of the road as a joey when it’s mum had been killed by a car. He has raised it ever since but now it is too big for his small place. However he doesn’t think it would survive in the wild as it has been raised in a house so he asked us to keep it at our place as we have lots of space. While I don’t know if any of us are thrilled about the idea of a pet kangaroo it seems like a better option than it living in a small house so we agreed. He and Keith patched up all the fences so that Bubba could live in one half of the property. He was dropped off today but it seems he had already got out.

Not knowing what to do I went and saw the neighbours. They came over and by looking for tracks worked out how the kangaroo had got out. It seems one of the gates was left open. That solved the first problem but we still didn’t know how to get it back in. So they called the owner and he came straight away. Mind you not fast enough to stop Bubba pulling down a few of Keith’s shirts off the line and pooing on them. When Bubba saw his owner they had a bit of a hug and then the owner carried him (and this is not a small roo) back into his half of the property. We shut all the gates and are hoping that Bubba will not escape again. I now have soy milk though which is apparently one of his favourites and I can use it to bribe him back in.

This is all so bizarre to me but very cool.

Last week I went to the choir. I can’t really sing but everyone says that doesn’t matter and it seems to be the thing to do around here. I haven’t decided if I am going to join yet due to the not being able to sing factor but I had heaps of fun and the people are really cool so I am tempted.

The nicest thing though was the choir leader and his wife. They are both elderly but the choir leader is a bit younger and as a very dark skinned man hasn’t aged much and is still very attractive. He is also very charismatic and most of the ladies in the choir love him, some even flirt with him. He though pays no attention to this and remains very present and attentive to his wife. Without been over the top their love for each other is still really obvious after 42 years of marriage. It is so nice to observe.

So Martin and I are now the proud owners of a motorbike. Not that I know how to ride it, Martin does that, but maybe I will learn. Bikes are lot more expensive than I would have thought so it took us ages to find this one that wasn’t. I just hope it doesn’t break down really soon. It is good to have a second vehicle though. I was starting to feel fairly overwhelmed by all the driving I had to do to get us both to and from work. This is much better for the environment and my mental health. And I have to say I think Martin looks really hot on the bike. Let’s just hope he doesn’t hurt himself.

Yesterday I went to the PO Box, a task that still amuses me as I have never had one before. Anyway it was especially lovely as my Grandparents has sent me a card and a little gift and Jess had sent me second season of Brothers and Sisters. Woo Hoo. Big thanks to my Grandparents and Jess. You are lovely.

Got on the blogs and facebook tonight hoping that I would find a post or some photos of Jo’s wedding but everyone has been very slack. Now I know that it has been less than 24 hours since the wedding but some of the Australians (mainly me) who didn’t make it to Guatemala are very keen for some contact so this is my plea. I have been feeling a bit sad this weekend that I didn’t make it to Guatemala for Jo’s wedding but thankfully we did get in a last minute conversation and I got in some good prayer in my poustinia so was able to feel connected in some ways but a post would be good.

I think I have already mentioned this book a few times but now I have finished it now. I was very sad when I finished it as I was enjoying it so much. It really opened up the gospel of Luke for me as well as the whole Bible. Richard Rohr has a way of reading it that really rings true to me.

Internet is not working at our place. I guess that is the price you pay to live out of town I suppose but it is very annoying. Especially as I have so many post running around in my head. But as I am paying $1 per 15 mins for internet I am not going to be able to do them any justice but here is a quick version.

I am still here in Alice. I am working for a cafe and going to do so until the right teaching job comes up. It is going okay really and it still leaves me with much time for being, waiting, listening and what John calls “sitting down” which I think incorporates all those things. I am trying to live something of a monastic life with three daily prayer or meditation as well as reading time. I don’t always succeed but we are not supposed to beat ourselves up about these things. I am also going to try and go up to the hut each month for 24 hours for what Sue calls “postinia”. Basically means going away in solitude to pray. Plan the first one for the weekend of 20/21 (Jo’s wedding). Let’s see how I go.

My other little task has been to try and rid our property of cats. Magrita, our neighbours daughter broungt some home and now they have about 10. It is a problem for the natives so we all agreed to take them to the RSPCA. On the arranged day though when i showed up they weren’t there. I saw one cat though so I took it and thought well I’ll at least take one. Unfortunately when I got there, after a fairly long drive of cat continuously escaping teh basket I brought to put him, the cat jumpedout of my arms and ran. I tried to chase after it but I was too slow especially as it was trying to escape the dogs. Since then I have been fairly disheartened as my attempt to make sure teh cat didn’t go feral actually assured that it would.

Martin’s job is going really well though. He says it is challenging but not overwhelminly so. he really likes the people too.

We went camping on the weekend to the Finke Desert race. That’s a Motorbike race for those who don’t know. Not that I am that into motorbike racing but it was cool. They race on a dirt track from Alice to Finke and back. 500km all up and bumpy as. We watched from a small hill which many of them were jumping at very dangerous speeds. One of the things about the NT is there is a lot less OHandS to worry about. The fireworks been let off was certainly testament to that. It was a pretty wild crowd though so we didn’t get much sleep.

I also saw Terminator Salvation with Martin on Friday. It annoyed me how they make out throughout the movie that if they win this battle the war is over and then at the end they say that it is not. I also thought John Connor was annoying. Everytime he ended his radio broadcasts with “Im John Connor” I thought lame. In saying that I didn’t hate it. I am not a huge action movie person but I have always got into the terminator ones. Maybe becasue they started when I was a teenageer and I have been following sincethen. We also had a nice dinner. Our first restaurant meal here just the two of us.