Author Archives: Gillian

Wise Words

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Without asking permission (sorry…), but taking the chance that it is okay, I want to share my uncle’s wise response to a post I made on my work situation.  I think that they should resonate with all of us.  I certainly appreciated them.  Thanks!

You’re right, a job should be more than simply doing something to earn money for food and other living expenses. Ideally you want to find a calling in life that provides you with the ability to manage these necessities, but that also provides an opportunity to stimulate your intellect and spirit, and that provides a sense of self-worth, and one that provides a service of some sort that others can benefit from. Actually the real trick is not in trying to find a job that does all these things – the joy-filled person discovers how to achieve all these things regardless of what job they have and regardless of their circumstances. We don’t always recognize when this is happening in our own life, but we can certainly see it in others that we come across in life.

Thanks!

On Travel

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I’ve started to dream about my next trip.  I’m not sure if this is a good sign or a bad sign.  Part of me thinks it is bad because it means I’m not happy or settled where I am right now.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Victoria, but I miss the excitement of new places and people and the constant education involved in learning about new cultures and experiencing life in new and different ways.  It may also have to do with the state of slight uncertainty that I find myself in right now.  I have a job, but the employers are on holidays and the future of said job was left in a fairly ambiguous state.  I may be full time when they get back, I may be part time; I don’t know.  Until then, I’ll enjoy the people I work with and learning (sort of) new things there.  I also have another job in the wings which I’m going to be casual at starting next week.  It is potentially more along the lines of what I’ll be doing long-term so I’m looking forward to that.  However, it may mean working six days a week for the next bit which isn’t so much fun.

Come to think of it, maybe what I miss and why I’m looking ahead to new adventures is the thrill of no set schedule when traveling.  It is quite a different lifestyle to have no agenda for the day and to be able to take life as it presents itself and capitalize on the opportunities as they come.  I had dinner with friends the other night and they have also spent considerable amounts of time in places with lifestyles vastly different to our North American way of life.  We were speaking of the freedom that comes with not needing to be a cog in the wheel of capitalism/materialism/whatever.  Many, and I would hazard to say most, of the world works only to live.  Once the food for the day is accumulated, there is no point in working further unless repairs need to be done to the house etc. and so one is free to enjoy family, friends, music, sport, and so many other things.   Work is done solely to exist, none of this working to get ahead and amass vast amounts of material possessions.  Some of the happiest people I have ever met are people living in what we would (perhaps arrogantly?) label Third World.  No they are not as “developed” as we are in the “West” (another misnomer), but how do they compare on a happiness level?
One thing I know for sure, some of the happiest times I have experienced have been living out of my backpack or my bunk on the boat as I’ve traveled in places where people have, relatively speaking, nothing and finding the joy of experiencing life with them.  Not because I have lots of things to give and share but because of me and because of them and because of the fact that we share life together on this planet.

On Take Out

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I got take out tonight.  It was cold, wet, and windy, I had no desire to go to the grocery store or attempt to cook something out of the meagre supplies in my food drawer.  I ordered Chinese and ate it by myself in front of my [roomate’s] TV.  

On reflection, this makes me somewhat concerned about my state of being.  Most nights I don’t feel like cooking.  Partially this is because I simply don’t have all the things I’d like to cook with and can’t be bothered to buy them/can’t face the size of the bill if I did.  The other part of the partially is that I don’t have the ambition to cook.  I spent two years cooking for thirty-five people and all “easy” recipes have now been killed for me.  There isn’t much left but take out at this point.  I just hope that doesn’t make me too much like Bridget.

Work, Church, and Coffee

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I realize I’ve been a bit AWOL as of late.  Its been a busy last couple of weeks.  Exactly a week after my depressing day of being un-hired (“We’ve reconsidered” was the exact phraseology, I believe), I started work at a local optometrist.  It is a relatively new optometrist, although as an optical place, it has been around for a long time; the addition of a doctor is relatively new.  We shall see how it goes.  I’m also trying to get lots of paper work together to begin working as a casual employee of an organization in town that runs group homes for people with mental/developmental disabilities.  It sounds quite interesting and will be potentially good preparation for grad school.  Hopefully all of that will come together in the next week or so.  While I am not the type to usually have two jobs on the go at once, I feel like it will all work out in the end.

At the moment, the highlight of the week is choir.  I’ve joined the parish choir at church (read: the non-audition choir at the more informal family-oriented service) and its fun to get together Wednesday night for practice and then sing on Sunday morning.  We sit at the front of the church facing the congregation and while I love looking at the huge rose window with the beautiful organ in front of it every week, I miss facing the altar at times and seeing everything that goes on up front.  It has been a wonderful way to get to know other people at church.  I feel like I’m in now and know lots of people.  The only difficult part is getting there for 8:30 on Sunday morning.  The only bus comes a little early and gets me downtown by about ten after so I usually grab a coffee (I know, not the best thing to wake up vocal chords but the only thing to keep me awake.  Yawning at the front of church while facing everyone not a fantastic idea.) from the Starbucks on the way.  Yes, Starbucks.  It is the only time I drink their coffee when I’m in Victoria as it is not my favourite.  But, the only other coffee shop on my way in the morning doesn’t open until 9 on Sundays, so Starbucks it is.  This morning, I had the horrible experience of finding out that all the Starbucks in the city (or so I was informed) were out of soy milk.  How is a lacto to have their latte without soy milk?!?  After I recovered from that shock, I went into express mode and walked at top speed down to the other end of Yates St to my usual coffee shop, the Serious Coffee at Broad.  Fortunately for me, they had only opened twenty minutes earlier (it was twenty past 8 at this point) and there was no queue.  In and out, 12oz soy vanilla latte in hand, I’m booking it back up the street to get to church in time for our before-service practice.  Up the several tight twists of small stone steps to get to our choir room half way up the tower, I have my coffee and no breath.  But, I’m on time.
Speaking of coffee shops in town, I’ve been conducting an informal survey of prices: I go into a coffee shop, order the same thing (12oz soy vanilla latte) and always bring my own mug and then take note of the price.  While it is always a rip off, prices have varied from $4.12 to $4.63.  Though not dollars apart, that still is a bit of a difference between them.  I’ve got about five different places in my sample thus far.  Mundane, I know, but this has been my life for the last few weeks.
UPDATE: I was charged thirty cents less today at a previously sampled place for my coffee sans mug.  Interesting given the fact that it is supposed to be cheaper if you bring your own mug.

Lest We Forget VII: Hiroshima

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Saturday, I went to see Doctor Atomic, the opera by John Adams about Oppenheimer, the man in charge of the Manhatten Project which was responsible for the development of the world’s first atomic bomb.  It was an interesting opera that focussed less on the events (though they were evident) than on the people behind them.  It showed, very well, the internal conflicts many of the main characters experienced while working on the bomb.  At one point, Oppenheimer quotes the Bhagavad Gita: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.  Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

For me, and the friend I went to see it with, it had added meaning because we were in Hiroshima in March (for the original visit blog, see here) and saw first hand the rebuilt city and the memorials that have been set up on the site.  Thousands of people died when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima in August of 1945.  Thousands more died in the days, weeks, and years that followed as a result of various radiation sickness.  Visiting the Peace Memorial was an incredible experience that moved me to tears at a number of points.
This is the A-Bomb Dome.  It was a large, stone, bank-like building only a few hundred metres away from where the bomb exploded.  Surprisingly, parts of the walls were left standing: one of the only buildings in the area.  The building has now been reinforced and is a monument to the destruction of the atomic bomb.  It was the first site we saw getting off of the tram.
This is a model of Hiroshima prior to the bomb blast.  You can see the above building in the bottom left (green roof).  The target of the bomb was the T-shaped bridge at the bottom.  It was deemed to be the best place to kill off transportation in the city as the purpose of the bomb was to be psychological as well as destructive.  

The city post-bomb.  The T-bridge is still there because the bomb actually exploded about 600m SE of where they wanted it too and up in the air.  The A-Bomb Dome is still bottom left.  The destruction of the bomb was immediate and ultimate.  There was no living thing left within the inner circle of the bomb.

This is a photo of the city post-bomb.  This photo was on the wall in the Peace Museum and took up an entire wall, almost as if one was looking out the window at the sight.  

In the models you can see an area between two rivers.  Now, that has been entirely turned over the Peace Memorial Park.  Inside the park, there are dozens of monuments, small and large, to different groups who suffered when the bomb was detonated.  One of them was to a young girl named Sadako. When I was in elementary school, we read a book called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, the story of a young girl who got leukemia and eventually died as a result.  She hoped that if she could fold a thousand paper cranes her wish to be healed would come true.  She died before that happened.
This is a monument to her.
All over the Peace Park, there are strings upon strings of paper cranes people have folded and left there in memory of her and of the desire for peace.
In another place in the park was this mound.  Inside are the ashes of the people who died and could not be identified.  A large number of children died from the bomb because they were at work that day moving things in the centre of town, where the bomb exploded.

Looking back over the memorial towards the A-Bomb Dome across the river.


It was inside this room in the Memorial Museum that I was moved to tears.  Inside there were parts of clothing and shoes that had literally melted off of people.  This is a wall.  The streaks are the radioactive materials in the rain dripping down.

Now, the city of Hiroshima is thriving again.  Rather than put the past behind it after rebuilding, it has become a proponent of peace and the danger of nuclear armament.  In fact, every time a nuclear test is done anywhere in the world, the mayor of Hiroshima sends a telegram to the head of that state urging them to reconsider and to stop.  These are all posted over several walls in the museum.  The sad thing is that they still continue: entire rows are dated within months of each other to the same country.

Lest We Forget VI: Japan

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Yes, Japan was an aggressor during the war.  However, that did not stop them from suffering horrific tragedies (more on that tomorrow).  While in Kyoto, I visited a great number of temples.  At one, a Buddhist temple with a massive (several stories high) statue of the Buddha sitting on the roof, there was a small shrine off to the side.  Inside, I was surprised and delighted to see a WWII memorial.

Above the file cabinets it reads “Individual Names of Allied Personnel who Perished in Territory under Japanese Jurisdiction during World War II.”

Thank you, Japan, for that rememberance.

Lest We Forget V: Australia and Midway.

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Australia has a special place in my heart.  So it (nearly) gets its own section.  Many people don’t realize that Australia was actually bombed during WWII.  In fact, Darwin was bombed over 60 times and nearly 300 people died.  The major hits went to the wharf, where many boats were destroyed, and the oil reserves which, well, exploded.

Not only did Darwin suffer huge hits, but Australia was a training ground for many of the Allied troops that served in the South Pacific.  There was (is? Its existence is fairly secretive) a major training camp somewhere in the Northern Territory.  Australian troops were some of the most courageous in the South Pacific, many enduring horrible conditions as POWs under the Japanese.  Many Aussie civilians were instrumental behind-the-lines spies for the Allies in an underground organization called the Coastwatchers.  There is a monument to them in Madang, PNG.
After leaving Japan on the way home on Offshore, we ran out of fuel.  Consequently, we stopped in at a small island in the Hawaiian chain that is aptly named: Midway.  Midway is considered by many to be the turning point of the War in the Pacific.  Pretty much, the Japanese got screwed here.  
To make a long story short:
Americans crack Japanese code but Japanese don’t know.  Americans learn Japanese planning attack on one of a couple places.  Americans send out phony messages, Japanese fall for bait and presto, Americans know where Japanese are going to hit next.  Japanese don’t know what is waiting for them.
The battle was long, the battle was hard, but in the end, the Americans won and the Japanese suffered huge losses and began to lose the rest of the battle.  They’d essentially tried to pincer the Pacific from the north and from the south and had now lost the north decisively.  You can still see the remnants of the war on Midway whether it be in monuments, in old buildings (like the old airplane hangar that was all shot up during the war), gun mounts, or even the guns themselves.  And there are lots of albatross on the island, 2 million and counting, but they are not from the war.

Now, Midway is run by the National Park Service and is a Wildlife Reserve.  There are about 60 people who live on the Island all of whom are either scientists, park employees, or Thai workers.  There are no kids, so they were delighted to see us.  The island is slowly returning to its natural state as the wildlife has free reign and comes first (even at the expense of your golf cart trip across the island or your evening volleyball game).  There is a push to retain some of the war sites like buildings so the past can still be remembered.

Lest We Forget IV: The War in the Pacific

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Over the course of our time in the South Pacific, we essentially followed, in reverse, the Japanese advance through the region.  It was hard to believe that some of the beautiful, picturesque sites that we sailed (well, motored) through were once major battle grounds.  Like, for example, Gizo in the Solomon Islands, below.
The first major encounter with the war we had was in Luganville, Vanuatu.  Luganville is entirely quonset huts leftover from the war.  Its major tourist attraction is the wreck of the SS Calvin Coolidge, a ship that was used for transport by the Americans during WWII.  Upon entering the harbour, it struck a (friendly) mine.  The captain, knowing that he couldn’t save the ship, decided to run it ashore so as to save as much as possible.  En route, he it another mine and the boat sunk.  It is a long ship with the bow in only a few feet of water and the stern a long ways down.  It is quite divable and you can even go inside to check out some of the cargo of airplanes, jeeps, and weapons down there.
From Luganville, it kept getting more and more frequent that we ran into these types of sites.  Next stop was Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands.  If Honiara doesn’t ring a bell as a major battle in WWII, the name of the island it is on will: Guadalcanal.  The Allies and the Japanese fought a major battle for the island, one considered a turning point in the War in the Pacific.  At stake: the South Pacific.  Guadalcanal was along the major supply route for the Japanese.  If the passageway could be cut off, the Japanese advance through the South Pacific could be slowed if not halted.  The channel between Guadalcanal and its neighbouring island is often called Iron-bottom Sound in reference to the number of boats that were sunk in it during the war.
Now: Honiara is dirty, there are strange red patches all over the sidewalk from the betel nut that nearly everyone chews, its not the safest place I’ve ever been, especially for white women (I was fine, Dad), and there are lots of rats.  In fact, Houdini Sylvester, our [un]beloved rat joined us on board in Honiara.

From Honiara we continued north and west towards Papua New Guinea.  But first, there was a trip through Diamond Narrows (still in the Solomons) where we snorkeled a sunken supply ship (I swam up through the funnel, it was weird) to Gizo.  Just outside of Gizo is a small island that a very famous person swam to with the crew of his boat (PT-109) after being shipwrecked by a Japanese ship in the middle of the night.  There they survived for several days before getting word via the network of locals on the Allied side to American troops that they were alive.  This person’s identity is actually a Trivial Pursuit question, at least in the edition we had on board:
“During WWII, which former American President got malaria and suffered a herniated disk after being shipwrecked in the South Pacific?”  Answer will follow…  
This is the island:

Gizo is still home to a lot of quonset huts as well as a decent fresh produce market, some very friendly people at the biggest grocery store, and a rocking night club, the PT-109.  If you haven’t guessed it by now, the boat PT-109 was captained by non other than JFK.  He swam from the middle of the channel to the island dragging a crew-mate in a lifejacket with his teeth while the rest of his crew kicked their way over on a small part of the wreck.  I guess there wasn’t room for all of them.

From the Solomons, it was off to Rabaul, the centre of the Japanese world in the South Pacific.  Admiral Yamamoto had his hide-out high in the volcanic hills around the city and the hills are still littered with kilometers of Japanese tunnels.  We met a man who was actually born in one during the war.  Rabaul has a huge, incredible natural harbour.  It actually is a caldera, which accounts for its amazing shape.  The harbour is bordered by several active volcanoes, one of which was smoking profusely while we were there.  That is also the one I climbed to the top of.  No worries though, it last erupted about 10 years ago and completely destroyed the city.


After leaving PNG, we began our trek north.  First call was Chuuk/Truk Lagoon in the Federated States of Micronesia.  On the bottom of the lagoon is an entire Japanese fleet, sunk by the Americans during the war.  

After Chuuk, Guam.  There still remains a major US base on Guam, in fact, Guam was a huge culture shock: it was almost like being in Hawaii, complete with duty free shopping and Japanese tourists.  They even had stores that were open past 4pm and never ran out of eggs!  Just north of Guam, in the same island group is the island of Saipan.  We didn’t visit here because of unfavourable winds, but it was from Saipan that the airplane carrying atomic bombs bound for Hiroshima and Nagasaki left.