Iron Women

A few weeks ago I went to see one of the films shown as part of the Belfast Film Festival. It was entitled ‘Iron Women of Liberia’ which didn’t sound overly promising at first but it turned out to be a real gem of a film. It was all about the first female president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, with the camera following her during her first year in post during 2005 as she faced various challenges particularly in relation to the country’s recovery following conflict and huge debts. The way that she dealt with people was really inspirational. She’s the kind of woman who just rolls up her sleeves and gets stuck in. I was impressed by her leadership skills and in particular the fact that she didn’t feel she had to lead like a man in order to be a good leader. In one scene she meets with a group of retired policemen who had taken to the streets in protest because their pensions had not been paid, treating them with dignity and respect and without avoiding the issues at hand. They addressed her as ‘Old Ma’ which I guess in the African context would not be unusual, but to me it reflected the fact that she did not deny her femininity but embraced that as part of her identity and used it to help her be a good leader. Some women scare me when they get into positions of leadership, it’s as if they feel they have to be like men in order to succeed (anyone been watching the Apprentice lately?!) whereas I feel that as a woman I will lead a little differently to my male peers and that is no bad thing, we need to play to our strengths. Another great character in the film was the female Chief of Police who also demonstrated great leadership of a police force desperately lacking in resources. The best bit was when she received a shipment of firearms and gets to open a package with a brand new handgun in it and she says, “I feel like a real woman now!” Then after a pause she winks at the camera and says, “Just kidding!” It’s brilliant stuff so if you get the chance, watch this film and be inspired!

Anyone looking a mop?

Spotted this today on BBC's 'Day in Pictures' feature. It's a Hungarian Puli sheepdog apparently.

View of Trassey Trail from Hare's Gap

Decided to go up Slieve Bearnagh yesterday - another new walk for me - and the scenery was fantastic! Unfortunately my camera batteries died after a couple of shots but hopefully there will be another time. It was extremely windy at the top, the wind almost blew me up the mountain and coming down I felt like I was in a wind tunnel. There were loads of Duke of Edinburgh groups out and some really looked like they were struggling - I remember those days! Hillwalking would not have been in my top 10 of favourite things to do as a 14-year old! Anyway I was really glad to get out for the dander.

This is going to be a great event to celebrate faith-based peacebuilding work in Northern Ireland. If you're a youth leader/worker, bring your young people!

Well can you credit that it’s officially 5 years to the day since I started blogging?! I can’t compete with prolific bloggers such as Ruthebabes who hit 200 posts after just 8 months and makes my 306 posts seem like a particularly feeble and paltry offering! I really have to be in the mood to write. Sometimes I’ll have an idea for something but I just don’t have the time and the moment passes, and often there are just other things calling for my attention.

I think when I started out to do this I thought it would be a great place to share thoughts and a few perspectives of the journey. It certainly has been that although to be honest I feel less comfortable these days about putting my deepest and most personal thoughts out in the public domain. At times recently I’ve been questioning the continued existence of this wee plot on cyberspace. But I think my feeling at the moment – however selfish it sounds – is that this blog provides a place for me to put down some markers, particularly in terms of travelling and kayaking, so that I don’t forget them. And if other people enjoy reading these things well then that’s a bonus. The spiritual stuff, well these days it’s only if I feel brave enough to share! Plus I think I’m a lot more content these days and I don’t feel the same pressure to ponder stuff ... So who knows what the future will hold?

(Any feedback will be welcomed particularly if you can tell me how to put pictures of books in my links section. I’ve also tried the new Blogger template customization thingymabobber but it didn’t lend itself to some things like my Picturetrail slideshow and ‘My Wanderings’ section.)

The picture comes courtesy of Rolf Hicker Photography

In the Name of Love
I'm not usually a big fan of U2 covers, but this was giving me shivers down my spine.

Recycle ink cartridges for Christian Aid!

Ski Sunday it wasn't!
Last Sunday I returned from a week-long ski-trip to Borovets in Bulgaria. Seven of us flew out of Dublin to a place called Plovdiv. It was slightly disconcerting when we touched down to spot the numerous military helicopters parked beside the runway plus a few ground missile launchers! What’s more when the luggage conveyor belt started up, the lights in the terminal dimmed!

It was a 2-2½ hour transfer to the resort and it was a bit concerning to see no sign of any snow whatsoever until we hit the resort and even in the resort it was a bit scarce, but we were assured that there was plenty of snow on the mountain. On our first two days of skiing after that temperatures reached about 19˚ and the sun was splitting the trees (unusual according to the Bulgarians for this time of year) but then in the couple of days following that about 8 inches of snow fell which was good. This was what the nursery slop in the middle of the resort looked like without much snow:

So the skiing…well it was my first time ever bar a couple of sessions on the dry slope at Craigavon a few years ago, but to be honest I really didn’t get the hang of it. Three of us were in the same ski school class of 8 people (one of whom included a guy from Donegal Canoe Club so we talked about paddling most of the week!) whilst the other 4 were in an intermediate class. The first couple of days I got on grand but we got really frustrated by the slushy snow and the queue for the drag lift (see pic above) and we didn’t feel that our ski instructor was teaching us enough.

However in the following couple of days we got the chance to go up the mountain and try another run. Queues for the lift were bad up there too – on the Tuesday we only got 5 goes down the run in the space of about 4 hours (including a break for lunch). That afternoon I started to get really frustrated because my snowploughs just weren’t happening – I kept losing control especially on steeper sections of the run and was praying nobody would end up in my path! The next day the gondola was closed in the morning because of high winds so most of our group decided to have a rest day. But at lunchtime I was so frustrated that I was determined to try and get something right so I kept going and the weather improved so we got up on the mountain. And actually a few things began to click and I kind of figured out what my knees were meant to be doing so I got on better and was enjoying it a lot more. After our ski lesson some of us decided to do an extra bit of the blue run we’d been doing that afternoon. This involved going down what appears on the map to be a green run running alongside a red run to a drag lift which would take us a bit higher up the mountain to join the blue run a bit higher up. The run down to this lift was hilarious, not funny haha, but funny lets-go-into-hysterics-‘cos-it’s-so-flippin’-steep! I had a spectacular fall – both skis came off, but I was totally fine and was laughing my head off. I had just forgotten the whole concept of zigzagging down the mountain and had ended up blasting down somewhat out of control. Anyway we made it to the drag lift which earlier in the week my friends in the other ski class had nicknamed ‘The Violator’ – ‘nuff said! So then we got to do the extra bit of the blue run which was really great and I finished the day with a good sense of achievement.
Blue run on the top of the mountain

On the Thursday our instructor (who incidentally had been in the Bulgarian alpine skiing team for 5 years) took us down a 6km green run which was really picturesque. Unfortunately because of the lack of snow and also because the fresh snow from the previous night hadn’t gotten pressed, our skis kept getting ‘sticky’ and there were places were it was easy to get stuck in a rut or trip over a pine cone, so it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing down the run, but it was something different. We got up on the mountain in the afternoon and did the extended version of the blue run again so that was a pretty good day.
Adam's snow-angel

But unfortunately the Friday was my worst day of skiing. I think I maybe got out of the wrong side of the bed. The gondola was closed again because of high winds on the top of the mountain so we were restricted to slopes down in the resort which was disappointing. We went to a fairly steep blue run which I’d already attempted earlier in the week and kept falling so when I got off the drag lift at the top I just was not feeling good about it, the steepness just freaked me out and I knew I was going to end up out of control…so of course I fell and when I got to the bottom I pretty much took a moody cow fit and decided to just side-step up the slope a bit instead of going all the way to the top. Unfortunately for me this was the morning that our ski instructor decided to pull out her video camera to record us so that she could flog a dvd to us. I tried going down the slope again from the top of the lift but fell again, looked up and the camera was still on me – man I was ready to wrap my ski pole round her neck! I definitely had a sense of humour failure! After lunch the gondola opened so we headed up the mountain to do the blue run again, but by the time we got up there the winds had increased and we were skiing in blizzard-like conditions, it was fierce! I really didn’t enjoy the green/red run bit, I just had lost all confidence. In any case we only had the chance to do the blue run once before the gondola was closed because of the winds.

That probably all sounds rather negative from my perspective but the seven of us did have a lot of craic together. We weren’t exactly party animals in the evenings (in bed by 10.30 most nights!), sometimes staying in the hotel to play table tennis and pool rather than going out somewhere. Borovets has a reputation for being cheap and cheerful but actually a bottle of coke could set you back nearly £2 some places. Those of our group in the intermediate class had a great instructor who took us all to a traditional Bulgarian restaurant in the next town one evening and we had a really good meal. Bulgarian salads are great – their tomatoes are so much better than the flavourless ones you get here, and they’re big into feta cheese which was really tasty.

Would I go skiing again? Mmm, the jury is out on that one. I’d rather spend my money on kayaking trips, I guess it’s ok if you can afford to ski 2-3 times a season, then you’d see some progress, but I just got frustrated with queuing and intimidated by everyone else swooshing down the slopes with ease and elegance! I also couldn’t get ski boots to fit right – I’ve got odd feet so the toes in one foot ended up a bit squashed and actually a week later I still don’t have proper feeling back in them, they’re still a bit numb! But sure I’ve finally had the chance to try a ski holiday and overall it was a great experience.
View going down on the gondola

Tagged
I got tagged by both Ruth and Colin so thought I'd better make an effort! Here's the Rules:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

These are not necessarily weird facts about me and considering they’re all kind of linked around travel stuff, they’re not necessarily random facts either, but here goes…
1. When I was 16 I travelled alone to Glasgow to stay with cousins for the weekend. This would be no big deal to most 16 year olds today but for me at the time I really thought I was something and loved the freedom of doing my own thing. This is most likely where my love of independent travel came from.
2. The Glasgow trip also gave me a love for train-travel, especially in Scotland.
3. Whenever I listen to Marc Cohn’s ‘Ghost Train’ song on his debut album I always think of the train trip from Stranraer to Glasgow and watching the Galloway hills go past the window.
4. Another great train trip was to the Neuschwanstein Castle in southern Bavaria when I was at uni in Regensburg for 4 months as part of my undergraduate degree. The German rail service was running a special weekend ticket at the time so that 5 people could share a 25DM return ticket on regional trains. So five of us got together and our 7-hour round trip to the castle cost us less than £3 each!


5. The other part of my year abroad was spent in Amiens in northern France. Its claim to fame is a huge cathedral in the same style as Notre Dame but is twice the size.
6. During my year abroad I also managed to visit Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Colmar, Freiburg, Stuttgart, Pforzheim, Munich, Nuremburg, Pilsen, Prague, Marianske Lazne, Cesky Krumlov, and Salzburg.
7. I had one rather negative experience with the RER trains in Paris when heading to the airport with friends. I confidently stepped onto a train thinking it was the right one when the doors suddenly closed behind me leaving my two friends still on the platform and all I could hear was one of them in true Victor Meldrew fashion, “I don’t believe it!” I had gotten on to the wrong train but as all French people stare (I know this is a sweeping generalisation, but believe me it often felt like it!) I kind of acted as if nothing was wrong but got off at the next stop, then waited for the next train going back to where I’d started so I could get the right train to the airport. This was in the days before everyone had mobile phones so I’d no means of getting in touch with my friends. It took me a few hours before we finally all got caught up with each other at Charles de Gaulle and had a good giggle about it.

I'm now tagging Peter, Neil, Charlie, Erin, Dave, Cate, Emma.

The Cusher
Yesterday I got a little run down the Cusher River through Clare Glen near Tandragee with the canoe club. It’s been ages since I was last there. Unfortunately I haven’t had many opportunities to get in the boat this year, mainly because of work/study commitments or dry weather conditions, and working weekends look set to feature over the next while too. But heigh ho that’s just the way it goes sometimes and anyway I’m skiing for a week at Easter so really I can’t complain! Yesterday we initially met up at the Blackwater at Benburb but it was absolutely tanking. The ‘Steps’ were at a dangerous level to run (some might run it but I certainly wouldn’t!) and the wave at the bottom was flushed out so there was no action to be had there. The Cusher wasn’t at a big level (all the rain seemed to fall in the west) but it turned out to be a nice leisurely wee run with a couple of small waves to play about on. Until the next run I guess I’m going to have to content myself by watching videos like this one.

Yesterday I took to the hills as there was no paddling happening. I decided to do the Slieve Binnian walk that I did last November as I was short on time. It was glorious! Although a bit hazy there was full-on sunshine this time at the top and no fog, no helicopters and no William Crawley! The last time I hadn't realised that when you get to the top of Slieve Binnian you're looking right over into the Silent Valley reservoir - it had been completely obscured by the fog that day! There were even a few snowflakes left at the top.

There were a fair number of folks making the most of the weather – some climbers doing the North Tor, a couple of fell runners whizzing up and down even the steep sections and others out for the dander.
Ben Crom Reservoir

I decided I would fast radio for Lent. I tend to listen to the radio (Radio 1 usually) when I get up in the mornings and eat breakfast, when I’m in the car and when I’m making dinner (or if I’m at home, when I’m making lunch). It just is automatic to switch it on, or leave it switched on when I get into the car. I wouldn’t say I’m addicted but I do enjoy Chris Moyles in the mornings (when I was living in Dungannon and working in Bangor he definitely kept me sane on the 90 minute commute!). Whenever I’m stressed out about something and driving (or suffering a little bit of road rage!) I tend to tune in to Classic FM – Smooth Classics at 7 is great for calming you down a bit.

Anyway those are my habits so I thought I would break them for the 40 days of Lent and use the time to be more conversational with God or at the very least be ready for the ‘still small voice’. It’s not a music fast per se – I’ve listened to a CD here and there as I normally would, I’m just trying to get away from the background music that doesn’t necessarily serve a purpose. So far it’s going fine. There have been times when it’s been hard to resist the urge to flick the radio on – mostly when I’ve been in bad form about something and you just need some music to lift your mood. I listened to the radio a bit on Sunday when I was driving up to my sister’s – because Sundays are feast days in Lent – but after a while I actually turned it off because I’ve begun to enjoy the silence and the chance to focus on turning my thoughts towards God.

It’s funny though how you can sometimes have music running around your head that just comes out of nowhere. Today for instance I had two songs running around in my head all day at work – Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas is you’, which I have to confess has always been one of the few Christmas songs I’ve liked though I wouldn’t normally admit to it and Mariah would never be on my playlist! The other song on repeat was Scouting for Girls’, ‘Elvis Ain’t Dead’, a song which is pretty good but I wouldn’t run out and buy it. Don’t know what all this says about me but they were pretty well stuck for the day even though Christmas is well and truly past and I probably haven’t heard ‘Elvis isn’t dead, Elvis isn’t dead’ for over a week!

…and so much for what started out to be a vaguely spiritually meaningful post!

(Photo above comes courtesy of Jazzizradio.com)

Calling and vision
Wiggy and Peter wrote some brilliant stuff recently (check them out here and here) which got me thinking about our ideas around having a ‘calling’. I hate it when Christians talk about their ‘calling’ as if they’re better than everyone else, as if they’re God’s one and only right-hand man or woman. We’ve all got a calling on our lives, but sometimes it’s not about some grand scheme, it’s just about being faithful and obedient. Some folks are stuck in dead-end jobs that are driving them astray but they are fulfilling their calling because they’re a faithful witness to Christ to their colleagues, or they’re bringing home wages to provide for their family’s welfare. I have to admit that I had a very strong sense of calling when I started working for YFC in Dungannon. And although there were a lot of things that were right about it and my time there, it all seemed to end in tears … Was the calling wrong, was the vision wrong? I guess there will always be some unanswered questions which can be painful. However I have to say that although the whole burnout thing was hugely painful, the process of God breaking me down and building me back up was hugely significant for me, he really did take me deeper into him. And on the other side of all that I feel so much more whole in Him. My roots have gone deeper. So now I’ve begun to dream again, with some pretty crazy ideas for the future. Am I scared my dreams are all wrong, that I’ll crash and burn again? Yeah – a bit. But I think and hope I’m a little more grounded now. I’m trying not to hold on just as tightly to the dreams and hopes, they don’t define me, they don’t give me status, God does. I’m trying not to focus on these visions and ideas as things which will propel me to membership of the super-Christian league. I’m trying not to have illusions of grandeur, I’m trying not to be ‘somebody’ because if it goes belly-up I’ll be left with nothing, I’ll have been building castles in the sky and in the wrong places. And this is where good friends will come in – helping to keep me grounded!

Handel - Messiah - Hallelujah

This is how I feel now that my dissertation is complete!

Here's to 2008
Well the fact that my dissertation needs to be taken to the binder on Friday week means that at last I can begin to look forward to what 2008 has in store. It often seems to be the way that when you can't do something there are loads of things you want to do and then when you get the opportunity to do those things, you either lose interest or just don't get around to it. I guess this is my attempt to make a list of some stuff I'd like to be doing over the next wee while, and maybe having recorded them here, I'll get on with doing them! Here goes...

What I’m looking forward to about life post-dissertation:
- Reading for pleasure, there are books I started ages ago that I want to finish and there are a few new ones sitting on the shelf begging to be opened.
- Going to the cinema, I can’t remember the last film I saw, it was possibly ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ or else ‘Black Gold’ at the QFT. At the very least I’d like to catch up on some DVD’s - I still haven’t seen the Bourne Ultimatum!
- Coming home from work and knowing that that’s it for the day, I don’t have to get my brain back into gear
- Catching up with friends and family who have been rather neglected over the last wee while
- Kayaking - kind of goes without saying really!
- Hopefully a spot of hillwalking at some point, I need some inspiring landscapes to get rid of the cobwebs
- Sleeping
- Not feeling like I'm permanently stuck to a desk


What I want to do:
- Get involved in some voluntary youth work
- Do some homework on a potential future project (I’ll maybe say more when the time is right)
- Get into a decent routine at the gym so that I’m in decent shape for a skiing trip at Easter – yay!
- Strengthen my left ankle (for the above reason) ‘cos it’s a wee bit weak
- Get back into the habit of playing the guitar
- Watch series 1 of 24 to see what the fuss is about (somehow I think I'll like it)
- Possibly get into a little bit more writing?


Then there's some stuff I ought to do
- Clean my car out
- Boring household things like defrost the freezer, clean out the kitchen cupboards, clean the oven etc
- Attempt to assemble a bathroom cabinet I bought a while back (though any offers will be gratefully received!)

Free T-shirt!
Check out the cool edun LIVE link on the left menu bar. If 200 unique visitors visit the site as a result of my link, then I get a free T-shirt! What’s even better is that “edun LIVE is a new line of blank t-shirts created for merchandising purposes. Headquartered in Ireland, it is the sub-brand of EDUN – the socially conscious clothing company launched in the Spring of 2005 by Ali Hewson and Bono. edun LIVE’s mission is to drive sustainable employment in sub-Saharan Africa through high-volume sales of blank t-shirts and organic t-shirts.” So if your youth group or knitting club or Mothers Union is looking for ethical club T-shirts then this could be worth checking out!