July 18, 2010

John Mayer

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John Mayer is pretty much my all time favourite artist. When most people hear this I get petty responses back to do with his love life...thing is, I don't care for his love life or whatever he chooses to do in his spare time. Why I admire him so much is because of his absolutely incredible and amazing guitar pieces, his voice and his live performances. It is in his live performances that his talent and his skills are displayed and clearly evident. He's amazing.

This is just one of my favourites: Bold as love

Please listen to it....or at least scroll through to 2mins 53 secs...its from here you will see his talent on the guitar and you will hear some words that may get you thinking. For those who won't listen, i will post the words below, but trust me....it sounds so much better coming from him rather than reading it on this page. ENJOY.

I've tried every approach to living, I've tried it all. I haven't tried every thing but I've tried every approach. Sometimes you have to try every thing to get the approach the same but.. I tried it all, I bought a bunch of stuff I went 'nah don't like that' I kinda came in and out of that a couple of times. I thought I would shut myself off, I thought maybe thats cool, maybe thats what you have to do to be a genius is you have to be mad so if you can get mad before the word genius then maybe you can make genius appear. Right, that doesn't work either. And, I'm in a good place, I've paced myself pretty well. I'm 30, I've seem some cool stuff, I made a lot of stuff happen for myself-I MADE A LOT OF STUFF HAPPEN FOR MYSELF right. That's a really cool sentence when your in your 20's...I made it happen for myself right. But all that means is that I've just somehow or another found a way to synthesize love or synthesize soothing, you can't get that and what i'm saying is that I've worked best with all the approaches and it going to sound real corny but thats just love, thats just love. I've done everything in my life that I want to do except just give and feel love for my living. And I don't mean like roman candle, fire work, holly wood, hot pink love, I mean like I got your back love. I don't need to hear I love ya, you guys love me, I love you, we got that down.But Some of the people who will tell you they love you will be the last to just have your back. So i'm going to experiment with this love thing, giving love, feeling love. I know it sounds really corny but its the last thing that I got to check out, before I check out.

July 13, 2010

121,000 steps

I don't quite know how to explain the Relay for Life.

In one sense it was bizarre....we arrived at the venue to our marquee set up entailing signage that read 'VIP Team of Honour' and consequently fielded questions as to why we were the team of honour (slight let down for them when they find out it was because we were drawn out of a hat...).


The VIP tent meant we had champagne...


and 11 pizzas for 11 girls (dont worry we gave half of them away)...


But also bizarre...planning my day around the half hour walking slots. It was the hottest day of summer so far, so walking round and round that track was a somewhat sweltering experience, but popping next door (or next marquee) to the Indian food stall for a half hour shift straight from the track, really tops the sweltering stakes.


After this, we had an hour and a half off. This involved eating, drinking, bathrooming, indulging in the odd foot spa (also courtesy of the VIP tent) and some idol chat. Before we knew it, it was time to flip of the sandles and don the runners (or walkers) again. The day flew!


In another sense, the event was extremely......(lack of words here to describe)......moving, emotional, symbolic of suffering but also symbolic of hope.


Come darkness was the candle of hope ceremony. Encircling the track and positioned in the stands in the shape of the word HOPE were candle bags, most dedicated to someone lost to the cancer struggle. Walking the track as these were being placed was tear jerking enough. Add on gospel singers with the most glorious voices, moving poems and light from the candle bags being the only thing guiding our way.....emotions were high, and the affects of cancer on EVERYONE present was apparent. It was a truly moving experience, one to remember loved ones lost, but one to also remind us of our battle against this disease TOGETHER. With 2 beaut friends on either side of me, I felt overwhelmed at the losses myself, my friends in my team, and others around us have experienced, but also overcome with gratuity.....how lucky am I to have friends as these.

Upon the closure of the candle of hope ceremony, we embarked on our one hour shifts on the track. Other than the track walkers, there was a hive of activity around us, most apparent was the football game taking place in the middle of the track. The lights were on, and if you used your imagination really well, it kind of felt as though you were at a major sporting event....yip, that was if your imagination was as vivid as mine.



So my next walking shift was from 11-12pm. One hour FLIES when you are just enjoying the company you are in! My next shift was 4-5pm. I had to be woken for this one and didn't wake up till I had left the tent and walked 10ometres or so, this was not a fun experience. At our marquee site most of the girls were trying to get a little sleeping, some sitting up right on couches, others on the floor, the lucky ones on the airbed. I think the average amount of sleep for our team was about 2 hours??? Very tired girls come 10am which equaled finish time, but very very happy to have succeeded in our mission to stay on the track for 22 hours straight.

So 121,000 steps later we are finished (according to the pedometer). The majority of our fundraising is complete and I can tick this off my list of things which I hoped to achieve this year.

The battle against cancer however is far from complete, and instead of feeling as though I will never participate in another relay for life team again as I had thought I would feel (purely because of the workload involved in fundraising), I am wishing and wondering if there is anything more which could be possibly done....and I wonder if somewhere, some place, there is a part that I could play again.

July 12, 2010

Lets get physical

Old school sports day began with plenty of equipment

A ref...


Then really kicked off with the egg and spoon race....


Then we got into some stretches...


Next up sack races
Pity the rubbish sacks didn't quite last the distance...


Next event- wheelbarrow races

Followed by the gumboot throw (apparently the grunt makes the boot go further?)


Next was the hoola hoop comp

After which we entered into one round of tug of war...

Before our rope broke...


Then we moved onto 3 legged races


And more spills...



Handstand comp...

And then the event which really displayed the boys competitiveness...relays (unfortunately no photographic evidence).

To finish off: we raised over 400 pounds for Cancer Research UK

And there was plenty of laughs, and spills along the way.

All up, a pretty successful day I'd say.