Popping in to blog

Popping in to blog is really a guilt thing today. Lots of people seem to mention blog guilt- I guess its universal- we all want to do things when we think of them, not as a matter of strict routine. It's natural to go for ages not wanting to do something we're quite interested in, then have a mad concentrated few days on it. Humans like routine for everyday ordinary living- like when to get up, have breakfast and go to work, but we all have to thrash ourselves to varying degrees to do more than the basics and the passions. I've always had trouble reading and writing about topics that I haven't thought of- like school or university subjects I wasn't particularly wild about. On the other hand, I absolutely love to find about about all sorts of other things, and to do other things- like my hobbies and socialising over a meal. At school, things like history and geography were deadly boring and I gave them up when I could. On the other hand, I would suck the library dry to find out how people lived in the Amazon, or what you could eat in the Congo, or in Greenland- but they weren't what geography was about. Oh no- you had to learn the list of the main crops of Uganda- one thing was probably “sorghum” which no one I knew had ever seen or heard of- we grew up in an area of dairy cows, timber logging and tourism- you could grow sweet corn in the garden- but sorghum?? You had to learn the name of the climate- a taiga or a boreal forest or whatever… But what clothes did you wear in summer or winter there- how could you afford a fur coat if it was all icy in Moscow?? I wanted it all to mean something personal that I could relate to and it just didn't. As an adult, I have trouble studying at uni, if I have to spout what someone else thinks, or reproduce the way somebody does something- I want to find out the origins of things and learn how to do things my way, learning about the background to it all along the way. I guess I have to DO in order to learn- or I have to see the consequences in a physical world before I'll accept that something is worthwhile or valid. I notice in my current uni courses (I'm a mature age student now), that the ones who do well are the ones who are very precise and organised- they read what they're told, write according to the guidelines and remember all the right things in exams- then they get good jobs. It looks so simple. I sit around learning things my way, don't do as well and get refused for jobs that I have been able to do all my working life, because I can't go back to square one and learn the way people want me to know things. I find it frustrating, depressing and insulting, really. But I can't go back and change the way I learnt stuff at school, because I didn't ever conform then, either, although it didn't seem to matter. Now I am competing directly with the conventional learners and performers, I lose out totally and it has put a big hole in my life.

Must write in here more…

I saw Shai Coggins' blog today and see that she explains a lot about her life, experiences and what she's doing. I tend to think that no one will read my blog except me, and I already know what I do and think! I guess I'll have to try and externalise a bit. I don't generally write about how I've been feeling, as I'm often down and writing it down seems counterproductive, but I could focus on the positives and a few neutrals, couldn't I? My new camera arrived, which I had ordered on the Internet last week, from Sydney. It's a beauty as far as I'm concerned- a Fujifilm Finepix S8000fd, for those who are camera geeks. It has a wide angle to telephoto range (18x zoom) with a maximum aperture of 2.8. It also allows me to have manual control when I want it, which I have been missing while using my dear little 8-year old Sony Cybershot. I am stuck in the era of wanting an ISO around 100 and as fast a shutter speed as I can get to capture action and minimise movement. I don't like the Auto part of cameras when they insist I shoot at ISO800 because I don't want all that grain unless there's no other way of acquiring the shot. A digital SLR would have been nice, but Thommo (my partner) already has a new one of those- a Sony Alpha100, and I can borrow that if I'm pining for one! My old manual SLR (a Fujica with a 50mm 1.4 lens) was such a nice thing- and I have 2 beaut Tamron lenses for it that we are going to fit on the Sony Alpha. However, I am addicted to instant results with digital and don't seem to be able to make myself go back to film. I DO have film in the old SLR currently, but I don't notice myself shooting furiously to get the results! LOL! My first pix with the new camera have been pretty good- the first macro actually went straight onto Explore on Flickr, which was a huge surprise. I just want to take photos that I find enjoyable to look at- if others like them, that's OK, but I'm not into changing what I do to fit a category or expectation. I don't know how well people think of my photos- I can't be objective about them- I just look and think “Yep, that appeals” or “Nup- not that one” and it's hard to explain what I like about my own pix. I am finding it hard to choose a photo to put in our FlickrSA exhibition at the Austral Hotel for SALA in August- I'm going to get some friends to help me pick out the most suitable from about 5 possibles.
Perhaps in a few days I'll write in here about how I feel about not having a job… maybe not.