The Left Foot
Three interesting meals over the last three nights. On Tuesday I mistook the washing-up detergent for cooking oil and we ate our meal speculating idly on the strange metallic taste and blaming the Leggo's sauce. Later the penny dropped. Last night was a charity do at Pustaka Negeri where the library staff and their handbags (eg. me) entertained residents of local orphanages, elderly cits homes and a home for those with intellectual disabilities. The guests were resplendent in their party clothes: a group of fifty young men from one institution were dressed in flamingo pink from top to toe. The evening consisted of three and a half hours of praying and twenty minutes of extremely rapid eating by those who had been fasting all day. In less then 20 minutes the feasting was over and the guests departed, leaving the Right Foot and me alone at a table set for 200, scooping up the last of the rice with our fingers. I had already disgraced myself once. Unable to face the raspberry cordial, I attempted to drink the water provided for hand washing, only to be stopped by someone who really did want to wash their hands. Oh dear - you can take the librarian out of Lilydale but you can't take Lilydale out of the librarian.
Today is my birthday so we celebrated at Denis', recommended by the Lonely Planet. It is essentially a tourist trap where average food costs you several zillion times more than in the places where the locals eat and where a bottle of Penfold's chardonnay sells for RM 119 (but not to us).
Thank-you for those virtual birthday cards and flowers, including the one which caused my computer to crash and especial thanks to those three souls who managed to stagger to the post office and send me a real card. You know who you are.
Thursday, November 14, 2002
The Right Foot:
Me, I've always hated hot weather. I knew from about the age of 6 or 7 that I was a winter person and that, cicadas, the Camberwell baths and Christmas aside, there wasn't much going for months of Aussie heat. So I guess its poetic justice or something that I am now living in tropical Sarawak where it's either hot and dry or hot and wet and sometimes both within hours of each other!
But the other day I was walking home from work, something that I would not normally comtemplate doing if I had any choice in the matter, although it is only 25 minutes away. It was not too bad heat-wise but I could see that pretty soon there was going to be a late afternoon storm, so I didn't dawdle. Walking along the road to the Enchanted Tower - deserted, naturally - I began to feel as if I had stepped right into Giorgione's enigmatic, humid and enchanted painting "The Tempest". Not that there was any unclad lady feeding her baby or shepherd in plain view, but more because of the uncanny atmosphere - the calm before the storm. Behind me and to the side, the storm clouds were swirling up dark and theatrically menacing against a blue sky still streaked with white clouds and catching the last of the sunlight. The darkening green jungle on one side of the road and the emerald golf course on the other were completely silent and empty and the only sounds were the rustling of falling leaves amplified hugely in the hush, while the few birds that were about were making sporadic alarm calls as if to signal that it was high time they were heading for shelter.
As I got to the moat surrounding the E.T., the first warm, fat drops of rain began to fall and the "Tempest" atmosphere soon vanished completely as the landscape was hidden behind curtains of vertical rain.
Me, I've always hated hot weather. I knew from about the age of 6 or 7 that I was a winter person and that, cicadas, the Camberwell baths and Christmas aside, there wasn't much going for months of Aussie heat. So I guess its poetic justice or something that I am now living in tropical Sarawak where it's either hot and dry or hot and wet and sometimes both within hours of each other!
But the other day I was walking home from work, something that I would not normally comtemplate doing if I had any choice in the matter, although it is only 25 minutes away. It was not too bad heat-wise but I could see that pretty soon there was going to be a late afternoon storm, so I didn't dawdle. Walking along the road to the Enchanted Tower - deserted, naturally - I began to feel as if I had stepped right into Giorgione's enigmatic, humid and enchanted painting "The Tempest". Not that there was any unclad lady feeding her baby or shepherd in plain view, but more because of the uncanny atmosphere - the calm before the storm. Behind me and to the side, the storm clouds were swirling up dark and theatrically menacing against a blue sky still streaked with white clouds and catching the last of the sunlight. The darkening green jungle on one side of the road and the emerald golf course on the other were completely silent and empty and the only sounds were the rustling of falling leaves amplified hugely in the hush, while the few birds that were about were making sporadic alarm calls as if to signal that it was high time they were heading for shelter.
As I got to the moat surrounding the E.T., the first warm, fat drops of rain began to fall and the "Tempest" atmosphere soon vanished completely as the landscape was hidden behind curtains of vertical rain.
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
The Left Foot
Today a lecturer asked me to design a 10-hour Information Literacy unit. Wow! Ten hours of hands on. I'm not sure if this is a librarian's dream or worst nightmare.
Driving home tonight I realised that at one intersection I encounter there are traffic lights facing in one direction but none in the intersecting street. I suppose you are meant to figure it out for yourself - when the through traffic stops it must be your turn, mustn't it? Why waste another set of lights?
Today a lecturer asked me to design a 10-hour Information Literacy unit. Wow! Ten hours of hands on. I'm not sure if this is a librarian's dream or worst nightmare.
Driving home tonight I realised that at one intersection I encounter there are traffic lights facing in one direction but none in the intersecting street. I suppose you are meant to figure it out for yourself - when the through traffic stops it must be your turn, mustn't it? Why waste another set of lights?
Monday, November 11, 2002
The Left Foot
Yesterday we visited the Wind Cave located in the middle of the jungle and surrounded by a warm, shallow river. This was none of your wussy Jenolan, Buchan or Princess Margaret Rose Caves, equipped with lighting and guides and commentary. No, this was a deep, dark, bring your own torch and find your own way kind of cave. It was a watch out for the bats, spiders, bull ants and slippery bits cave. Very atmospheric and very interesting.
Later we went to dinner with our new friend and her husband and children. I've rarely been invited into a home overseas and it's fascinating to see. Taking off your shoes is so universal in Malaysia that even in your own home it feels uncouth to have them on.
One of Charles Dickens' books features the Circumlocation Office where the bureaucracy is so complex that no action is ever taken on anything. Dickens would be interested to hear that the Office is now a multinational organisation but holding fast to its original credo.
A couple of the lecturers who have to teach the new Australian courses next year have come to me for help in interpreting the subject outlines. The first one was a marketing lecturer. No problems there - this stuff is etched on my brain. But the second one was an engineer. I tried to look wise as we discussed mechatronics, robotics and trusses and stresses and Gawd knows what. Where were you when I needed you, F. O'D?
Yesterday we visited the Wind Cave located in the middle of the jungle and surrounded by a warm, shallow river. This was none of your wussy Jenolan, Buchan or Princess Margaret Rose Caves, equipped with lighting and guides and commentary. No, this was a deep, dark, bring your own torch and find your own way kind of cave. It was a watch out for the bats, spiders, bull ants and slippery bits cave. Very atmospheric and very interesting.
Later we went to dinner with our new friend and her husband and children. I've rarely been invited into a home overseas and it's fascinating to see. Taking off your shoes is so universal in Malaysia that even in your own home it feels uncouth to have them on.
One of Charles Dickens' books features the Circumlocation Office where the bureaucracy is so complex that no action is ever taken on anything. Dickens would be interested to hear that the Office is now a multinational organisation but holding fast to its original credo.
A couple of the lecturers who have to teach the new Australian courses next year have come to me for help in interpreting the subject outlines. The first one was a marketing lecturer. No problems there - this stuff is etched on my brain. But the second one was an engineer. I tried to look wise as we discussed mechatronics, robotics and trusses and stresses and Gawd knows what. Where were you when I needed you, F. O'D?
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