How embarrassing!

What an embarrassing week for Australia this has been. The political party (Labor party) that is supposed to be running this country is doing anything but that. They are fighting amongst themselves and knifing each other in the back.

 

I thought we elected governments, not that this mob was elected but that's a different story, to provide good governance, infrastructure etc and to govern for the long-term good of the country. Not this government. Their main concern is to maintain office for themselves and to run over whoever they have to to remain in office. I am sick to death of seeing reports of parliamentarians feeding some self-serving interest rather than being there for the good of the country.

In this video Julia Gillard says that they are leading for the good of the nation. I don't think so! Julia Gillard is leading for the good of Julia Gillard. A member of her own party, Kevin Rudd, has been actively destabilising her leadership from the very day that she staged a coup to divest him of the leadership. Ever since the Labor party was elected with Kevin Rudd as the leader they have been there for their own sakes and not with the interests of the country in mind. They just want to be in power and to be remembered by history.

 

Well, guess what? This mob will be remembered for all the wrong reasons - infighting, disloyalty, treachery, you name it.

 

It is so very embarrassing. What must the rest of the world think?

 

Actually, I think I'd rather not know.

No respect

It's confirmed! It's not just me! I thought that maybe I had become intolerant now that I am old (over 50), but it seems that lots of people are feeling the same way.

 

I know it's easy to say "we weren't like that" when we see young people misbehaving themselves. No-one seems to respect anyone else these days, especially it seems young people. They think that they should be on show all the time and that they can do what ever they like, even if it affects other people. Getting falling down drunk seems to be what you do these days. Sure, we got drunk, but not falling down drunk. Here's a case in point - two girls who have lost control because they are too drunk. They seem to think it's funny, but it has caused a lot of people in Perth to agree with the man who tried to stop them. Have a look....

 

 

 

Lots of people, me included, think that this man should be congratulated. We have lost tolerance with people who have no respect for anyone else.

 

Why is it that no-one seems to respect anyone else these days? It's not limited to young people. I don't know how many times an old granny has deliberately run into me with her trolley at the supermarket. Or people driving aggressively to gain one car's length. Or cases of road rage. The list is endless.

 

Is it because there are many more of us squashed into the same space? Maybe parents these days don't teach their kids manners. Maybe they think it should be the schools that teach social skills and manners. Maybe it's because kids don't learn social skills because they 'connect' with each other online and rarely go out and play when they're younger, or just go and hang out with each other when they are a bit older.

 

Who knows? I just wish that everyone had more respect for each other.

 

I'm interested to hear what you think.

I'm back

I can't fit into the day all the stuff that I used to. That's why I've been gone for quite a while. Is being 50 something to do with it? I don't think I am trying to cram more things in, but maybe I am.

 

What kept me very busy for the first two months of this year was the Rottnest Channel Swim. It happens during the last weekend of February every year. We have about 2,300 swimmers and about 10,000 spectators on the day. Some watch the start at Cottesloe

Beach, some are crew members on boats and some go to Rottnest Island to see the swimmers arrive.

 

Some solo swimmers ready to start. The lights in the background are their support boats.

 

 

I was the race director, which is a position that has responsibility for everything on the day. The buck  stopped with me! It involved a lot of meetings for the few weeks before the swim and maybe because I am well and truly over 50, I would just get home and not want to do anything else! Is it just me?

 

There is only one red T-shirt and it belongs to the Race Director - me!

 

 

I have researched being permanently tired and have found that it can be due to any number of things. Working long hours, then having meetings out of hours and trying to keep up my swimming training probably didn't help. Also, the stress of the week before the swim - the weather was really bad and I might have had to cancel the whole thing!

 

Imagine that - 2,300 swimmers who have been training for the better part of a year let down by the weather at the last minute. That is not to mention a few hundred international and interstate swimmers who have travelled a long way to participate in the swim. The swim has been cancelled only once before, and it was me who cancelled it. The weather was so bad that no-one complained about the cancellation. Some swimmers who had travelled from Japan were very nice and said that is the risk of open water swimming.

 

Anyway, all my thoughts were consumed by that and there was no space in my head for blogging or doing the assignments that I was meant to be doing for an online course (big mistake - I need the motivation of having to go to a class everyweek otherwise I don't do what I am meant to do. Anyone got any suggestions?).