On International Students - a contrast

The end of the academic year, international students are returning to their homelands, hopefully full of stories of a different country with strange foods and incomprehensible customs.

Many, however were achingly lonely in their student lodgings, not knowing how to integrate into the local networks, or if their hesitant overtures of friendship would be misunderstood or worse - rejected.

So they take the safe option, and eat alone in their rooms with computer games blaring to dull the pain of loneliness. Parents blissfully unaware of the suffering some endure.

Home, known, understood and loved has never looked so good.

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Muffled chuckles escaping from the lounge-room. The occasional chirrup of an electronic message, otherwise ... silence.

A comfortable silence, companionable, relaxed.

Not wanting to intrude, (but keen to snoop) I peek.
Our guests, curled comfortably on couch and chairs, reading happily. "Footrot Flats", "Asterix and Obelix", "Calvin and Hobbes", but some more challenging - "Guns, Germs and Steel" and "Myths and Legends of Australia".

The dusty television a mute testament to the power of the written word and the joy a book can bring.

Gen Y gets negative press

But these are our children

Our future

I'm proud of them.

Thanks to Teresa for the photo above.

A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.


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Poinsettias

The drought has broken

Plague locusts massing

An army waiting. Biding their time

Farmers nervously watching, crops decimated if all goes as feared

Summer skies, usually blue and high, will blacken with the onslaught of flying
ravenous insects. Devouring every green thing in their path

A politician (chasing city votes) flippantly states: "They'll stop when they get to Melbourne"
as of thats ok

Glossing over the farmers' anguished loss

The scientists disagree - the suburbs will mirror the farmland, bereft of green
All will be eaten in the path of this horde

Happily the silk poinsettias in the window box survive.



More information about the Australian Plague Locust including a link to a swarm map, can be found here, and images here.

This Drabble is number 7 of 31 at the Annual Advent Calendar at The Burrow.


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A Christmas treat.

I'm taking five to rest my aching feet. It's noisy with the grinding of the beans and the hiss of the coffee machines. But the aroma! Rich and heady in the thickness of the sticky humidity.


There's music in the background, I think, barely audible above the discordant clatter of cutlery and happy chatter. This is the best part of Christmas shopping, taking time out to check and update the list - twice if you must know!

I'll call it a successful three hours and retire from the frazzled hoards and tedious queues.
                                                        

Two lovingly chosen gifts are ready to wrap.

A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.

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Procrastination - a Drabble

If you'd started that course you researched four years ago, studying part time, you'd be finished by now

I know

How proud you'd feel!

Yes, I know

And what a sense of accomplishment

That's true

And right now, you'd have the framed 'Certificate of Completion' on your wall

Yes, I know
but back then, I wasn't sure,
I was scared to make a decision, any decision in case I got it wrong.

What's wrong? What's right?

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started" a wise person said.

Sometimes it's better to begin in uncertainty than not to begin at all.


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A drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more. No less.


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I Dared to Drabble for December

Last month (November) I entered a competition.

I'm not usually big on entering competitions, after all I never win, and it mostly seems waste of time. However this was one devised by Burrowers, Books & Balderdash who've introduced me to the beguiling art of Drabbling. I was delighted by their Drabbles, but also intimidated by the well crafted beauty of the pieces.

A Drabble is a story written in 100 words, no more, no less, (they're very strict about this) and since I was introduced to them earlier this year, I've been smitten. The process appeals to me. I like tinkering with words but tend to go on a bit, and this forces me to find better, briefer combinations of words. The challenge was to explore if I could produce something reasonably interesting in this condensed form.

I was nervous entering their December 'Dare', after all I felt like I was 'playing with the big boys' and well out of my depth. I thought I'd be scoffed at, not publicly (they're not like that) but, well, these people and their contributors are GOOD, and I'm in awe of them.

But I did it, I wrote, edited, surprised myself, clicked on 'send', felt sick, wished I could unsend, waited nervously, and I WON!!!!

Really! Two of the pieces I wrote were considered good enough to be part of the Advent Calendar that you'll find over at The Burrow.

To say I'm delighted is an understatement, but mostly I'm honoured that the judges considered that my Drabbles wouldn't tarnish the quality of their December contributions.

I'm not going to include my pieces here, because that wouldn't be in the spirit of an Advent Calendar. You'll have to pop over there and open the little boxes on the correct dates (remember it'll be a bit later than here due to the time difference) and wait for mine to appear on the 7th and 24th. The contents are far better than chocolate.

Enjoy!


You'll find my response on the December 4th picture of Ice Sculptures here.

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Thinking about interviews makes me feel sick

Benny from Fluent in 3 Months recently wrote an interesting post discussing confidence from the perspective of someone learning to speak a new language.  In "Fake it 'till you make it"  he gives some good tips on confidence building that are equally applicable to someone going for an interview,  making a presentation at work, returning faulty merchandise and myriad other things.

Benny discusses self produced confidence

My approach to get what I want is to presume from the START that it’s going to happen. I then just follow the path that is most likely going to lead to that result.

There is no “maybe” in my mind. When I start a language mission, I presume from day onethat I am going to be successful. This isn’t arrogance – it’s a crucial part of the strategy to make it happen. Any doubt is going to do me no good, so why should I embrace it as most people would?

and he goes on to make the observation that "Negative self-fulfilling prophecies work really well, so I'm just doing the same thing for positive ones".

Over the years, I've heard many interesting excuses from people about how they are unable to attend interviews for jobs and courses because they don't have the confidence. They expect to go to jelly - and they're missing fantastic opportunities as a result. Their negative self fulfilling prophecies are alive and well, and extremely unhelpful. Whilst Benny is pretty full on, he's got a point and it's certainly worth thinking about for your next interview.

My additional suggestion if you are particularly unsure of yourself would be to find a trusted person to work with who can give you reliable feedback.  As I said above this could be a valuable technique for interviews, presentations and other daily activities that require you to appear confident even if it's not how you feel inside.

A technique I used a couple of years ago when I was teaching business students to make workplace presentations, was to suggest they adopt as many positive mannerisms as possible from the most confident person they admired for the 5 minutes of the presentation.  Each presenter was then asked to rate their level of butterflies/nerves/sickinthestomach/fear/sweaty palms etc. The audience (the other students) were requested to give honest feedback on their apparent confidence. It was abundantly clear to every student participating that it IS possible to feel horrendously nervous, yet APPEAR to be in control.

For many of us it's a matter of learning a few techniques that work for you and applying them. We can still feel unsure and insecure, but come across confidently.

What do you think?

Drabble Dare #11 Photo #2 - Ice Sculptures

The Drabble theme was December, but the following words asked to be written in response to photo #2 Ice Sculptures:



Don’t lie to me about the promotion then pass me by.

Don’t lie to me and agree I’m exempt from the latest, crappy, government ‘initiative’ then instruct me to promote it at a public forum.

I’m like the ice sculpture, professionally moulded, but inside a writhing mass of red-hot anger. My raging blast furnace has the force to explode these carvings to vicious shards, the fragments piercing your twisted observance of ‘professional values’.

Where is your integrity?

What happened to ethical behaviour?

Look into your heart, then mine, and tell me you don’t lie.

Don’t lie to me…

Don’t lie


Thanks to Burrowers, Books & Balderdash for introducing me to the art of Drabbling (a story in 100 words; no more, no less).