Tuesday, March 5, 2013

March Forth!

I started writing this as a reply to someone's status update on FB. But I know better than to feed the internet trolls on that platform, I still need to get this out of my system though, so here goes.

There was a Police brutality video posted up this week showing.. well, police brutality.
I know I don't have the heart or stomach to watch it, so I won't. But I have a fair idea of what it entails, especially judging by the comments of those who have watched it.

I understand the uproar. It's a major human rights violation, agreed wholeheartedly.
But I don't see eye-to-eye with those who are using this as an excuse to jump on the 'What has become of Fiji' bandwagon. 

Police-brutality is a reality worldwide and so as wrong as it is, I still don't think it justifies us questioning our progress as Fijians, questioning our identity and saying that we are ashamed to be Fijian. I question humanity, yes. But I am still proud of being Fijian, and one has nothing to do with another.

Cases such as these have been happening for ages now, and while that doesn't make it ok, I only bring it up to indicate that the only difference now is that this time ...it was caught on camera. I think it's wrong to blame our circumstances politically, or otherwise. Yes, we should not be having such incidences at all, but I think by blaming it on things like democracy, and coups etc, is a cop-out from tackling the more deep-seeded issues in our society that leads its people to act so inhumanely.

Someone commented that we are going back into the dark ages. I disagree, as a nation we are doing better, we are good people, but bad people do exist. I question the integrity of the person who was a part of this abomination, and of those that stood around and did nothing about it. I try to get my head around what would lead them to be so cruel.
But I will not blame it on our country, and its people as a whole. I think we get enough of that from the misled foreign media and other countries already; we don't have to resort to blaming ourselves too.

We are good people. We need to remind ourselves of that. Bad people will always exist. But we shouldn't lose the good ones either.

Rant. over.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

You can count on it.

A Milford Sounds birthday

2013!

Last week during an ice-breaker at one of our regional training-workshops we were asked to share how we would spend 1 million dollars.

In the short time I had to think about it, I came up with:
"Pay off student loans, throw a party, buy a farm to retire on."

I've been mulling over the question for a whole week now.
Yes, I took the innocent ice-breaker to heart!

So I realised, who am I kidding, I won't buy a farm. (Well, not yet anyway.)

I am going to pay off my student loans, throw a party.
Put my belongings in storage and ... travel the world.

To every corner possible.
Sigh.

But for now, I will just continue to try to do the same without the million.
And while holding a steady job.

I spent the last month or so in Middle -Earth (NZ for you non-LOTR fans, gasp!)
The 10th country I have been to outside my own.
It was my 29th birthday, spent in a different country 4th time in a row.
(THAT was purely coincidental.)

This time around it was spent with two friends, travelling through the beauty that is NZ, to the Milford Sounds.
No better way to spend a birthday than in awe of the earth in all its majesty,
And feeding my soul with adventure!
(And geeking out on the fiords, and re-living my High School Geo classes in real life!)

I don't wish for 1million dollars.

But I am definitely in for the adventure.