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No walking, no blogging.

Written by Juliet Bennett
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I walk, ideas come, I write.

I don’t walk, my mind slows, and good blog entries become few and far between.

Just over a week ago I twisted my ankle and ignored it. I think I inherited my Opa’s high pain tolerance. But now it hurts. Not physically, it’s more a mental pain. The ankle is as swollen as ever, and although it’s a frustrating pain, I have to rest.

Walking is my meditation, information-processing, keeping-me-sane time. It is after a long walk I sit down and feel like I write my best. It is on long walks that the best ideas pop into my head. It is on my walks that I make sense of my world, of the conversations, the people, the books, my thoughts. Walking keeps me sane. And fit.

And now it is February. I made it through my last week of “holidays-zone” and now it is time to get serious:

Detox.

Write lots.

Teach Pilates.

Get into shape.

The most annoying thing is that the getting my ankle better doesn’t really fit so well with the writing lots, the teaching pilates or the getting into shape.

Patience, patience, patience. Baby steps. Stay off the ankle now and the rest will fall into place.

I did manage to start the detox. No alcohol, coffee, chocolate or greasy foods. None. At least for the month of February, and I’m hoping to get into good habits that last longer. The last couple of months, or maybe even the last couple of years, have been progressively more destructive in terms of such habits, varying with life’s ups and downs, challenges and celebrations. Now that I’ve signed a one year apartment lease – the longest commitment I’ve made to anything in a while – it’s time for a change. And I’m considering committing to a 3 year PhD so I had better get some good habits under my belt or else I can throw my body goodbye.

Which brings me to the detox…

Today was the third day. I believe the third day is the worst, right??? It was tougher than the first and second combined.

So, if you please, keep your fingers crossed for my ankle and the detox… the quality, or lack of it, of entries on this blog depends on it.

Adventure, Random Life Stuff,

Chapter 28 – Size Does Matter (Rio de Janeiro)

Written by Juliet Bennett
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When it comes to Brazilian butts, as you see in the clip below, SIZE DOES NOT MATTER. You got it, you flaunt it baby. But according to a drug dealer Rachel and Lola meet on the streets of Lapa, when it comes to something else size does matter…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56sdnxQucuk[/youtube]

Here’s a funny little snippet from Chapter 28:

‘Cool. Ok, so what happened next?’ I ask Rachel, interested in where this story was going.

‘Next we walk up the hill, and meet a young girl in really tiny shorts, a very tiny top and a belly button ring which kind of sat on top of her very big stomach like a cherry on top of a cupcake. She was showing us how to samba, in a very expressive way. She was a bit rough around the edges but the story we got was that she was the mother of five because her boyfriend doesn’t like to wear condoms. I guess they haven’t heard of other forms of contraceptives, I don’t know. And she went on to say that she doesn’t like Brazilian men, she likes blonde men. And one of her children had blonde hair, she is not quite sure how. She said black Brazilian men are not nice – their penises are too big and they hit their women.’

‘No stereotyping going on here,’ I laugh.

‘We later found out, 20 or so min later, when the police turned up, that she was a drug dealer. But on the way home we surmised she must have been a pretty good drug dealer, because she didn’t try to tell us any drugs. She was more interested in telling us about her life and her existence than selling us drugs. She must have been a drug dealer with a conscience. She loved sex. She made a point of saying that. And she hand shake she went like this, like this, like this and like that, and then she hit her fanny!’ Rachel grabs my hand in different arrangements and slaps her pubic bone. I start laughing uncontrollably. Trust Rachel to leave nothing to the imagination.

‘Then she was doing the whole dance behind you, let it all out, thing. So she was a very very expressive woman. But she was out and proud, you know, like the belly was there. It looked like she had had had children, but she wasn’t hiding it. She had the belly button ring going. It was good. She looked young. Younger than us. But maybe that’s the Brazilian skin. And she said to us, “Do you like black men? You want a black man? Have you been with a black man? Just warning, you they have big penises. Do you like big penises?” and I said, “well I don’t know” and she said, “well theirs are really too big.” She goes, “I can’t do it.” And coming from a woman who loves sex, I thought, that’s saying a lot!’ Rachel laughs.

‘Well… there you go,’ I say, shaking my head and with a big grin across my face. ‘Maybe size does matter.’

MUSIC CREDITS:

Cash Money, The Beautiful Girls.

Adventure,

Chapter 27 – Beauty in Imperfection (Florianapolis)

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Brazilian beaches – the best in the world. Coming from an Aussie that’s a pretty big call. But seriously, check out the pineapple cachaca cocktail… and the bar tender 😛

Oooo and I discovered the magic ingredient to that cocktail! Lucky I took notes. Inside that pineapple you will find a blend of  pineapple (obviously), cachaca (a spirit made from sugarcane), ice and… sweetened condensed milk.

Ok, so I recently discovered cachaca is available (at ten times the cost, but still available) in Australia, so now we just need the freedom to put a few cute bartenders on our beaches… then we’ll be giving Brazil a run for their money…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EMyO5ADduo[/youtube]

MUSIC CREDITS:

Tease me, Unknown.

Adventure,

Chapter 26 – One Big Cliche (Sao Paulo)

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The concrete jungle mega-city where I experienced my very first taste of acai (ah-sigh-ee) – the wild Amazonian berry that tastes like frozen chocolate and is full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidents that give you an energy hit and allegedly make you lose weight. My friend imports it to Oz in pulp and powder, and I happen to be drinking a mixture of acai, banana and ice right now. Mmmmm mmmm! Check out www.riolife.com.au if you wanna taste the purple goodness…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPJBWrcJF50[/youtube]

MUSIC CREDITS:

Sao Paulo, Morcheeba

Adventure,

Over it… almost.

Written by Juliet Bennett
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It has been a VERY long weekend.

From blind dates to lost dogs, movies with sisters, drinks with friends, pub crawls, drunken falls, sprained ankles, frustrating lockouts, more drinks, a Girltalk concert, Oxford St clubs, waterskiing on the harbour, Australia Day bbqs, more beer, and a creamy pavlova – all since my last post.

We found our dog after hours of search and worry. My real estate let me into my apartment after hours of impatient waiting. My ankle is sore and swollen but feeling better no thanks to my abusive dancing the next night and waterskiing the day after that. It was a long weekend but it was an awesome one.

On reflection, it has actually been a very long holiday.

Ever since I moved to the city I have justified almost every invitation as “making up for the last two years of my twenties spent living like I was in my eighties” and anyway, “I’m on holidays” right?

But when are my holidays going to end? Seeing as I don’t plan to officially be at uni till mid-year, it is really up to me…

It’s been fun. I’ve had enough alcohol, sugar and fatty foods to last the rest of the year. I’ve had a great summer. I love my new life in the city. But I have now landed at that point where enough is enough.

I’m ready go back to work. I’m ready to find some pilates classes to teach. I’m ready to get started on uni readings and work long and hard on my other projects. I am looking forward to getting my body back in top form – and I’m hoping a bikini catalogue in March will provide the motivation to make it happen.

As ready as I am and as much as I want to start it all right away, I can’t.

I have friends to come over for a housewarming/pub crawl this Friday – so I can’t give up alcohol quite yet. I have a sprained ankle so I can’t get fit or start teaching pilates quite yet. And I’m a bit tired from the weekend’s ordeal so I’m not sure how productive my mind is going to be. And there’s still too much chocolate in my house.

February. I’ll start in February. Just a few days to go… may as well live out the holiday mode till then.

Adventure, Random Life Stuff

A flea on a dog’s back

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Sometimes I feel like a flea on a dog’s back. The great-great-great grand daughter of a family who decided to no longer jump from dog to dog, but instead thought it a good idea to settle down on one animal forever.

My ancestor-fleas thought themselves so smart: finding ways to prevent their eggs from falling down onto the carpet, and discovering ways to protect themselves from flea collars and other flea-rid products. Now the members of our family live for months instead of weeks.

My flea-ancestors were  so “smart” that they create ways to harvest the dog’s blood – with some fleas doing the blood sucking for the “more important” fleas, who sit back and enjoy the ride.

Food was so plentiful we started to multiply. Now our family is in the billions.

But we are starting to realise something… Our dog is not well. His blood is starting to taste different. It’s starting to run out. The host of our last few thousand generations has become anaemic and debilitated. Our dog is dying. It will only be able to provide for us for a couple more generations of fleas, maybe less.

We need to find a new host. The only problem is that after so many generations on this one, living such an easy life, we have evolved to live on that dog and no other. Our eggs can no longer develop in carpet. We are stuck on our dying dog. We are doomed.

Riddle me this: How many humans on earth will it take to become the fleas that killed their dog?

…

Photo Credits:

Photographer: Brian Walker – www.lickthesun.com

Peace

Living too long and popping too many babies

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Today I’m doing a little report for my Dad’s business which is in the Aged Care sector. And I tell you what – I’m learning some VERY interesting (and frightening) facts along the way…

“Around two million Australians are aged 70 years or older. That’s 9 percent of our population. Four per cent of the population are over 80 years of age. The proportion of Australia’s population aged over 70 is expected to rise to 13 per cent by 2021 and to 20 percent (around 5.7 million people) by 2051.” (Australian Bureau of Statistics)

In other words:

In forty years, one-fifth of the Australian population are going to be over 70.

And the ageing population isn’t scary enough for you, put it in this context:

The world population that has gone from 900 MILLION to almost 7 BILLION – in just 200 years!!!

According to the US government census report the current populations of the US and the world are:

U.S. 308,530,840

World 6,797,902,065

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, on 22 January 2010 at 12:25:31 PM (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be:

22,124,384

This projection is based on the estimated resident population at 30 June 2009 and assumes growth since then of:

  • one birth every 1 minute and 45 seconds,
  • one death every 3 minutes and 40 seconds,
  • a net gain of one international migrant every 1 minute and 51 seconds leading to
  • an overall total population increase of one person every 1 minute and 11 seconds.

    By the close of this century we could have reached a whopping 14 billion – well that’s the UN’s “high” estimate… (see graph above.)

    What I really don’t understand about the “medium” and “low” estimates is what they think will cause people to stop having babies.

    Sure in the rich west we are slowing down, discovering the joys of life without children…

    But what sign is there that the third world are going to stop popping out their five or six per woman?

    In a world where (as a by product of being integrated into an unjust system created by the West) their quality of life is getting worse – why would they suddenly give up their source of joy – their desire to have a big family?

    It’s not like they are going to be brought out of poverty any time soon seeing as (very unfortunately) our system is intentionally designed to keep them poor. Don’t believe me? Think that maybe the wealth will trickle down, bring them out of poverty and then they will stop having babies? Then consider the fact that under the current system, reducing poverty to a state where the poorest receive $3 per day, ‘an impossible 15 planets’ worth of biocapacity’ equivalent to our earth would be required. (says Andrew Simms, the policy director of the New Economics Foundation in London in New Scientist article ‘Trickle-Down Myth’ 18 Oct 2008 – p. 49)

    In other words ‘we will have made Earth uninhabitable long before poverty is eradicated.’

    Ok – this has led me far too far into distractionville and procrastinationville. I’m supposed to be doing the report for my Dad on Aged Care but have spend the last two hours thinking and writing about fleas… (see next entry)… Ok, now back to work Juliet – back to work NOW.


Peace,

When you lose your peace narrative….

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Last night during some deep anthropological discussions, the subject of depression came up.

“Depression is the incongruence between creations of your mind and soul, and the creations you are manifesting in the material world.” Lauren explained. “A depressed person feels as if their mind is disconnected from their emotions and from their body. One’s feelings take over their body and although their mind might be wanting one thing, their energy levels prevent them doing it. It’s like the disconnection felt by a person who’s had a stroke… It seems to come down to a loss of hope.”

I know I’ve talked about depression when I was feeling down and lost, but my self-diagnosis may have been a little over the top. I might eat when I’m emotional or annoyed – as a “fuck you” to myself – but I’ve never been unable to get up in the morning and I’ve never lost hope in humanity and life. I guess there are different degrees of everything.

Western societies today have the greatest rates of depression than ever before. Why?

When I woke up this morning after a night of processing all we had discussed, something dawned on me… my last entry was wrong:

NOT ALL of us live by a narrative of peace.

And what happens when we don’t? I guess our minds might travel down a narrative of destruction. A narrative that affirms in our minds that nothing is going to get better. Depression being a possible consequence.

I guess the thing about narratives is that they do change over time – a narrative of destruction can turn into a narrative of peace. How? I’m not really sure. I guess that’s what I’ll look at in my phd if I do it.

One thing I know for sure is that I’m loving narratology already. Simply the idea of interpreting the world and our minds as different narratives seems to provide so much opportunity for understanding. And I haven’t even read a book on it yet!

Truth, ,