Charity: Water at Christmas

So, loyal readers, by now you probably know all about my fondness for an awesome charity that builds wells in countries with inadequate water supplies, Charity:Water.  But in case you’re new here, consider these facts:

• One in every six people on the planet doesn’t have access to safe, clean drinking water
• Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.
• Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault.
• Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water.  Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.
• The surface of our planet is 70% water. 97.5% of that is saltwater.  This means only 2.5% is available for the 6 billion people on the planet today.

The amazing thing about this is that’s it’s so easy to do something and do something real.  $20 US is enough to provide someone with fresh water for 20 years.

Charity:Water have just launched their annual Christmas appeal.  Their wonderfully branded Christmas e-Cards are just about the best gift idea I can imagine.  Each $20 donation includes a card sent to your gift recipient, explaining what that $20 will do, and the money itself goes toward the cost of drilling a well in an area without access to fresh, safe water.

Charity:Water are really great at showing exactly what they’re doing.  With Google maps, you can actually see some of the projects.  It really is worth taking the time to check out their website and maybe replacing a box of chocolates or bottle of wine with a gift that will really help somebody this Christmas.

PS.  I’ve just signed up for number four, to start my own little fundraising page, and this year, I’m asking for donations instead of presents.  So just be warned, once it’s going, you’re going to hear me talk about it a LOT more… and if you have any cool ideas on how I can raise a little more, I’d love to hear them.

Gossip Girl

1) I hate V.  A LOT.  And what’s with Little J being all evil again?  I can’t keep track of whether I’m supposed to like her or not, but anything is better than whiney, self-righteous V.

2)  B.  Is her hair perfect?  I think it just might be.

3)  Surely a reunion is on the cards for S and D… they were adorably awkward together tonight.  But what would that mean for R. and L?  I kind of like R and L better… I must be getting OLD

4) Don’t have any clue what I’m on about because you’re an Australian without Foxtel?  Don’t worry!  Gossip Girl starts tomorrow (Wednesday) night on Channel 9 at 10:30pm, starting at the beginning.  It’s a classic from the get-go, you will get hooked, and it’s worth staying up.

Props to my little Bro

Congrats to my little bro Joel, aka Rizillio, who just finished his first year of medical school.  I’m going to play the proud big sis for a moment and say that I think he’s going to be a real, true, kick-arse doctor.

(And I can say that because I realised my Mum can’t read this ’cause she’s in China and blocked by the Great Firewall, so I won’t get a slap on the leg for saying arse).

What makes a song special?

This weekend, my Grandfather was in Wollongong to attend a party, and though I was busy for most of the weekend, I did manage to get down there for a few hours on Sunday night.  It was a long drive, though, there and back for just a few hours with Grandad and my brothers.  But, naturally, the long drive was easier with my iPod on, and in fact was surprisingly pleasant.

But then, as I was driving, the song One Sweet World, by Dave Matthews, came on.  It was the version from Live at Luther College, the first Dave album I owned and probably the first CD I love in a real, forever kind of way (Check it out).  Oh, there were the Mariah Carey CDs before that, but this is the first piece of music that was really part of my identity.

When the first few bars of the song began, my heart swelled.  But I started thinking: is it because I love the song, or because of my history with it?  That’s when I came up with my latest grand theory:  the three reasons we might love a song.

The first is simple:  it is musically pleasing to us.  We all have sounds we like, sounds we love.  There’s something about the sound, the beat, the combination of instruments that makes something pleasing.  Sometimes it’s something you can pinpoint- like my love of the harpsichord and odd time signatures- and sometimes it’s just something about the way a musician or musicians have created a certain song or their whole sound.

The second is less musical, I suppose, but I think sometimes you love a piece of music not because it’s particularly good, but because it speaks to a certain experience, either past or current.  There’s something about finding the perfect song for a situation that is the ultimate katharsis.  Early this year, a certain song spoke with amazing resonance- and creepy accuracy- about something I was experiencing.  The situation is long past, but I still love the song because I understand it and felt, in a stupid, teenage way, it understood me.

The third is more accidental than anything.  Sometimes you can love a song not because you like the song itself, but because it reminds you of a particular point in your life.  Not so much thematically, as with point two, but more that any certain song may have been played a lot during a period of time, such that every time you hear it later on, it takes you right back.  We lived in the US for 3 years when I was 12-15, and there are some songs that always make me think back to that time:  Eve 6’s “Inside Out”, The Wallflowers’ “One Headlight”, pretty much anything by Sarah McLachlan.

So they are my three reasons for loving a song:  you can love the way it sounds, you can love what it means, or you can love what it means to you.

But the best bit?  The best way to love a song?  It’s when the three combine.  When you love the way a song sounds, yet find resonance in the words.  And as you listen to it over and over, because it’s just so wonderful, it becomes embedded in your personal history.  That’s a song that becomes part of your identity.  That’s a song you really, truly, completely love.

Sufjan Love Of The Week

Given it’s now December, and Christmas is fast approaching, we may as well start exploring Sufjan’s awesome Christmas music.

You may or may not know that Sufjan released a rather fantastic five-EP box set of Christmas songs a few years ago.  Some are originals, some are classics, all are wonderful.

The song below is undoubtedly my favourite on the album(s).  It’s an old hymn, one I remember singing with my much-loved Granny at my grandparents’ church in Mt Kembla.  It is one of my favourite hymns, and Sufjan’s version is simply breathtaking.  Because it is as lyrically beautiful as it is musically, the word are below the fold

On Luck, again

So Ezra posted again about Luck (original post here, my take on it here), and the role of luck in deciding one’s future, and he, as usual, articulates the idea I was primatively forming and adds other dimensions.  Here’s the crucial point:

But since we justify income inequality by understanding success as an outcome of virtue, there’s a tendency to ascribe achievement to diligent effort rather than the market’s amoral decisions to attach high value to certain spheres of labor and low value to others. The important variable for success, however, does not seem to be hard work but profession.

That’s it, of course.  We ascribe value to certain professions.  Of course, there’s the old supply and demand arguement, that there are more people capable of doing what “menial” jobs, thus you can pay less.  But that still ultimates comes back to luck.  I’m lucky in that I was born with certain skills and abilities and genetic materials that allows me to be an in-demand employee.  I was lucky to have been born in an era when, as a woman, I was allowed an education in maths and science and literature.  I was lucky to have parents who could afford to support me while I went straight fron school to a four-year University degree.

Yes, I am a narrow part of the labour market and can ask high wages because I am in high demand.  But even that is a function of luck.

Commitment

I always thought commitment was about love or marriage or maybe debt.  You know- the great, large decisions that make you less able to obey any whim you so choose.

Then I bought a Very Large Television.

I had a VIP card at a local electronics store while I worked at Swans, so before I left, I put the Very Large Television on lay-by.  I really wanted one I could hook in to my computer.  I had no intention of buying a Very Large Television.  Maybe a Large Television, but not a Very Large Television. But the Very Large Television was so pretty.  And at 50% off, how could I say no.

Oh, but when the tattooed delivery man carried it upstairs with impressive ease, I began to worry.  The box was, well, Very Large.  And the television inside it was too.

That’s when I realised: gone are the days in which I can pack up and move in a heartbeat.  If I were to decide to do the Apple Pie roadtrip across America, where would my things go.

I am an adult.

And now I am in one place, stuck for the forseeable future, because of my Very Large Television and associated Ridiculous and Excessive Electrical Devices.