They Swear

Today I worked for the White Ribbon Foundation on an event for White Ribbon Day. The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against women is an important day. I have not been directly affected by domestic violence but too many women have been. The men who make the white ribbon pledge to "never commit, excuse or remain silent about violence against women" are taking the right step towards making such a thing an unacceptable social practice. Thank you to them.

My First Wedding

I've only been to one wedding in the last twenty years of my life. It was my aunt's and I was the flower girl. I remember walking down the aisle next to my cousin and getting into the bridal but that's pretty much it.


Last night I worked at my very first wedding. I was put on the children's table and spent my night running around after the flower girls and page boy. The rest of the team saw to their jobs and as a whole we came together to put on an amazing wedding for the couple.


At the end of the night the bride was quoted as saying, "nobody get's to say that their wedding day was perfect but mine was." The maid of honor wrote a thank you letter to the staff and the groom told my supervisor that the night was a ten out of ten thanks to us. I get the feeling we did a really good job.


And so we should have. When I thought about what were doing, really thought about it, we were doing more than working another event. It was somebody's wedding. Somebody's memory, iconic life experience and emotions we were dealing with. We needed to aim for more than perfection and we did.


In terms of a wedding reception it was a fairly cookie-cutter affair as they say. Traditional white ball gown, two tier cake, matching bride's maids dresses and all.I got to see the "stress" they speak of when referring to weddings in the half an hour leading up to the arrival of the guests as the bride paced anxiously up and down the room.

I've never really thought about my own wedding. I try not too. But what I hope that it is an intimate affair, I hope that I calm and more focussed on the purpose of the day than the day itself and I hope that all those that I love are able to be there to witness my love made sacred. (There'll also be a flautist performing Pachelbel's Canon in D during the bridal march but that's the only detail I know for sure.)

Melbourne Cup Tuesday

On the first Tuesday of November, at three o'clock the Melbourne Cup Race takes place in Melbourne (but that part's obvious).


Today I "bet" on Harris Tweed. By "bet" I mean I guessed who would win, Mom guessed who would win and then we watched to see who did. Harris Tweed didn't. He came close... for the majority of the race but landed up in fifth place by the end.


If somebody had told me that Americain was a French horse from Marseille, I would have bet on him. But then again, it's easy to say that now, isn't it?


There are three handles on the cup. One for the owner, one for the jockey and one for the trainer. What about the horse? I always wish there was one for the horse.

For your information

This week I have been working on an event for an Australian women’s network. This year is their fiftieth anniversary and they are celebrating by visiting the nation’s capital. A number of women spoke at yesterday’s opening luncheon including Pru Goward. Naturally I didn’t get to listen to many of their speeches because I was working but I did get to listen to Pru’s and, while she said many notable things, when she said, “we can never underestimate the power of informed conversation”, I was struck to remember that.

I’ve always been interested in current affairs. I think this stems from having a mother that didn’t “protect me from the daily news” and wanted me to know what was happening in the world. I remember being seven years old and discussing the 2004 Olympic bid in depth with her.

That isn’t my first memory of acknowledging the world around me. In 1995, when South Africa played New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup, I was struck by the affect that one game had on, not only those I loved, but the general public in which I found myself.

Ignorant people have always annoyed me. In my opinion, there is no excuse for not knowing about the BP Oil Spill off the Gulf of Mexico or the floods in Pakistan or, more close to home, the politics surrounding Gillard and Abbott amongst others.

I may write this from an incredibly privileged point of view. I live in a first world country, I am studying at a tertiary level of education and I have unlimited access to media via computers, magazines and newspapers so, for the purposes of this post, I am not referring to those less fortunate than myself but rather those with which I surround myself.

There is, however, one thing that is worse than conversing with a person who has no clue what you are talking about due to pure lack of interest in the world around them. There are those people who haven’t taken the time to find out the truth and develop a substantial opinion based on fact as opposed to superficial assumptions of a certain affair. Those who feel Julia Gillard should be Prime Minister “because she is a woman” or those who look at a picture of an African man dressed in a suit and call him Robert Mugabe or Nelson Mandela because those are the only names they know.

Robin Morgan wrote that knowledge and information is power. This holds true. It makes for far more interesting people, creates more interesting conversations and fosters more interesting relationships.