A Turtle Stranger

The end of the world (as we know it)

Apparently the song It’s the end of the world by R.E.M is topping the charts at the moment, and it’s not hard to understand why. We are currently in uncharted waters, we are dealing with something new and dangerous, and so how we react to this is also uncharted territory.

I for one, am not upset about the current changes to my life here in Australia (at this point). Yes, it is a big and scary thing, but having to stay home for as much time as possible isn’t the end of the world. It gives me time to be creative, to read, to write, to study astronomy, to learn a new language. All the things that get neglected in real life. I am hoping I don’t just spend my time watching Netflix.

But the reality is, life is going to change not just for the next few months but forever. Our habits and behaviours should be changing over time…

I am currently working from home, as my current workplace is equipped for that (and my white collar work makes it possible). There are plenty of other people who are also currently working from home, people who were told they never could because it didn’t fit with their role. Now we know the truth, now we know we can all work from home, the way we work will continue to shift rapidly. I am not saying that people won’t continue to go to the office, they will. Some F2F interaction will still be needed. But as a whole, people and companies will realise the world doesn’t stop just because their employees work from home. This will mean places will have less office space, people will live further away from the CBD, and hopefully means house prices start to drop because people won’t need to live in the cities anymore.

We also know that over the next few months people won’t be able to travel overseas for some time. For a time, borders will close and people will probably err on the side of caution when it comes to overseas adventures but that won’t last forever. I think eventually people will start flocking overseas again in hordes.

Finally, I think after spending lots of time cooped up we will want to break free and get out as much as possible. Pubs and restaurants will be full, sporting teams will be full, parks and pools will be full.

That’s my hope anyway. Because we will need something positive to come out of these hard times.

Where are all the leading heroines at?

This International Women’s Day I felt empowered looking at all the inspirational women around me and their contributions to the world. I felt hope that maybe we were getting somewhere in the world and that the pay gap and sexist agendas really could become a thing of the past.

Then I settled in to start reading one of my favourite female authors, JK Rowling. I was settling into the 4th novel of the Cormoran Strike series when the thought hit me. JK Rowling is one of the most well-known feminine icons, and her books have some of the strongest feminine heroines in them too (Hermione, Professor McGonagall, Molly Weasley, Bellatrix Lestrange, etc.) But as I thought of all the strong female characters, I realised that none of them were ever in the lead. You have Harry Potter, you have Fantastic Beasts, you have the Casual Vacancy and you have the Cormoran Strike series. All of them with male leads, and strong supporting females. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have strong female roles who are often just as (if not) more powerful than their male counterparts, but as a strong feminine icon, why isn’t JK Rowling writing about women at the front of the story?

Luckily it doesn’t happen much in today’s society anymore, but this caught me. We should be celebrating the women who are putting women at the front! I wonder whether the male lead is subconscious, or whether it’s because we know that in today’s society, books with female leads are never going to have the impact that those with male counterparts have. It’s hard to know, all I know is that growing up Hermione was someone I aspired to, and how good it would have been to be following a series that was about her and her saving the world.
Don’t get me wrong, JK Rowling is still a heroine and I still aspire to have an impact on the world like her, but she is also missing an opportunity. An opportunity to write more female characters who are the star of the show, so more young girls can grow up aspiring to be great, and realising they can great in their own right, not as a side show for someone else.

Happy International Women’s Day everyone, I hope one day thoughts like this will never have to cross my mind because we will see just as many female literary heroes as male ones!

Emily Dickinson

Recently I have stumbled across a new lady love, Emily Dickinson. Sure, I have heard her name hundreds of time before, and I knew she was somewhat a literary star, but I must admit my ignorance. I had no idea who she really was or what her story was. Luckily for me, we live in an age of TV re-hashes. Where original ideas are slowing down, so TV producers need to take historical events, people, or in some case old shows and ‘re-make’ them so that they can keep the people interested. Well, this time, it has worked.

Apple TV has released a series called ‘Dickinson’ which is a modern twist on the life of Emily Dickinson. It is loosely based on her life, with the backdrop of her time, but it is accompanied by a modern day soundtrack, modern day lingo, and some allusions to modern day themes. From my description, it doesn’t sound as great as I promise you it is. It’s entertaining, funny and has some truths that hit far too close from home. And it sucked me into the world of Emily Dickinson.

Emily Dickinson grew up in a time where women were to be home-makers. They were married off young by their parents, and had to focus on cooking, cleaning and other chores around the house. Emily Dickinson never fit into that mould, instead always aspiring to be a published poet.

It was one thing for a woman to try and consider herself a poet or writer, it was another to even think about getting published. Sadly, Emily didn’t receive much fame during her life because of this restriction, but she never stopped writing and she never stopped being true to who she was.

She never married, because she didn’t see why she should have to. She wanted to pursue her dream of writing, which she did, and whilst she was much more privileged than others in that she had the status to spend all her time following her dreams instead of marrying off to keep a roof over her head, she faced her fair share of prejudice and heartache along the way.

Each episode has the undertones of one of Dickinson’s poems, and so I liked to explore each poem at the conclusion of the episode. One of the poems really stuck with me. It goes like this;

“I am afraid to own a body –

I am afraid to own a soul –

Profound – precarious property –

Possession, not optional –

Double estate – entailed at pleasure

Upon an unsuspecting heir –

Duke in a moment of Deathlessness

And God, for a Frontier.”

That someone could write something so beautiful, when the whole world is telling her it isn’t her place to even understand such beauty, is such a wondrous thing. That we can still enjoy Emily Dickinson’s writing, because she refused to give up on her dreams, is even more wondrous.

So I have one thing to thank TV for, providing me with my latest heroine, the great Emily Dickinson.

We are the weather (Saving the planet begins at breakfast)

I am back after a bit of a hiatus, which to be fair, isn’t entirely my fault. My Word Press decided it didn’t want to work anymore and every time I tried to create a new post, it just gave me a blank screen. After giving up for a while, I searched the internet until I found the solution (you need to clear your cookies if it happens to you).

The other reason I have had a bit of a hiatus is that I have been on a reading spree, and I am not exaggerating by spree. This year, I made a resolution to read more and watch tv less, and I am delivering. So far I am averaging two books a week, which seems like madness to me! So far in 2020 I have read 10 books, so who knows what it will be by the end of the year!

One of these books is called ‘We are the Weather’ by Jonathon Safron Foer. This is one of those books that popped up on a list somewhere of books that will change your life, and anyone who knows me knows how much I love the environment and sustainability, so this one was a no-brainer for me.

In the end, this book was… interesting. I think for anyone who doesn’t know much about sustainability in the modern age and how changing the way you eat can have positive impacts for the environment, and is looking to develop their knowledge a little more, this book is for you.

For me. though, the book didn’t really teach me anything I didn’t know, and I didn’t find the story compelling enough to try and convince anyone to change their behaviours. The storyline felt jumpy, and the whole time it felt like the author was trying not to say what they were actually trying to convince you of. Instead of telling you not to eat meat, he described stories of change including the Holocaust and Rosa Parks, then drops facts about the impact of meat consumption on the environment, and then I don’t even remember what he rambles on about next. Maybe that was his intention, he didn’t want to tell people what to do, he wanted them to get there on their own. All I know is that by the end I didn’t feel compelled to stop eating meat, and I was vegetarian for 2 and a half years, and still don’t eat that much meat myself. So if I couldn’t be convinced, why would anyone else reading that book be?

Again, there was some great facts and for people looking for an intro into the sustainability context of consuming less meat, and I think this book would be great for someone like my boyfriend. But for me, it just really wasn’t emotive enough, or have enough of a clear story throughout. I would be interested to see his other book on factory farming to see how that story pans out, and whether he is able to make a stronger argument there.

This is a book that maybe everyone should read, or a topic that everyone should do some research on at least. I just wish that whoever told this story to the masses was able to tell it a little better.

I give it 3 out of 5.

The Talented Mr Ripley

I am nearing the end of my Blind Date With a Book subscription (boo!) and I just finished up my second last book to come through which is a classic, The Talented Mr Ripley. The name was familiar and I have since found out that there is a well-known movie which might be why, but I haven’t seen it yet which is probably for the best as I normally prefer books to the movies, or at least starting with the book.

On first appearances, it is a relatively small book so I thought it would be a light read. If you are familiar with the storyline you know ‘light read’ isn’t exactly the genre Patricia Highsmith was going for.

To give Highsmith credit though, despite the heavy subject matter, it is a relatively upbeat read. Despite the morbid nature of the stalker/ serial killer protagonist, there isn’t much darkness to the storyline. Despite some very brutal murders, you still remain connected to the protagonist.

This is one of those books though where you don’t know where your sympathy feels, or which character you should be rooting for. None of the characters are particularly likeable or provoke warm feelings in the reader.

I got through the book pretty easily, but I think that might be down to the low page number. I didn’t think there was enough storyline to keep me interested if the book went on for much longer. It was definitely good to try a bit of a different genre, and I would be very interested in watching the movie as well to see how they portray the characters and to see if I feel more sympathy / affection for all of them, but otherwise I wouldn’t rush back to read this book again, or another of Highsmith’s.

Overall, it’s a solid read and I ended up giving it 3 out of 5 on Goodreads. It is probably worth a 3.5 but until Goodreads introduces the half star measure I will continue rounding down to 3. If you are looking for something a bit different then I would definitely recommend it!

The rise of the plant parent

There is a new trend hitting the shores of Australia at the moment, and by new I mean a trend that is as old as time but has really been becoming the new smashed avo toast for millenials. The ‘plant baby’ or for anyone that isn’t a millenial, owning a house plant.

I don’t know about you, but this one has really slowly seeped out. Don’t get me wrong, it’s completely normal to own plants and try and grow something of your own, particularly as you mature and age a little. But bragging about ‘plant babies’ and caring for them, but also bragging about murdering so many of them, is all the rage right now. People see owning plants as a status symbol. You can’t be a trendy cool young person living in a metropolitan area unless your house is overrun by plants that you don’t care for and that have no use.

To be fair, I am not immune to this trend. I made an attempt to grow a chilli plant which went well for a solid 18 months, and then winter hit and work got busy and like all neglectful plant mothers, I forgot to care for it and I lost the chilli plant. (Miraculously, somehow the chilli plant jumped into a new pot and grew itself without any watering which makes me think I am better at this than I thought, but that’s a story for another time).

I started thinking about the rise of the plant parent today after spending some time scrolling through Instagram. Since it was a Sunday today, and a rainy one at that, it was peak time for adult activities like gardening, so I would say about 1 in 5 stories from my Australian millenial friends was about raising plants, at least. It really started me thinking about why we have all become so obsessed with this lifestyle.

Firstly, we all know how trendy things become after one meme or one celebrity or influencer posts about it online, and then everyone has to follow, and that would explain some of the new-found plant lovers, but I think there is a little more to it than that.

I think for those of us living in the city, we are so deprived of nature and anything to do with the environment that we seek out plants as a way of clinging on to anything green, or reminding ourselves of life outside of the concrete jungle.

The real reason though, I think, is for us millenials that earn so little and struggle to reach the same levels of adulthood that our parents and grandparents did before us. We’re in our 20s and 30s and despite working our butts off, we still can’t afford houses, and we still can’t afford to settle down. We can’t have pets because we’re renting and our landlords won’t let us, we can’t have kids because we don’t earn enough to look after ourselves, never mind another child. So what’s the cheap and easy alternative? Plants.

Boomers and the older generations love to point the finger and say millenials are irresponsible but really I think the move towards being plant parents is everything but that. We are responsible and mature enough to know we can’t necessarily afford to give our children the lives they deserve, and beyond that, it’s not fair to bring a child into this world when it is all falling apart due to inaction on climate change. So call us irresponsible, but really, we’re just having to deal with the consequences of the world that you created.

All the while, killing off a lot of pot plants along the way.

Two Wolves Community Cantina

Two Wolves Community Cantina is the type of venue we need more of. It’s not fine dining, and it’s not a place where you are going to impress your peers with how fancy it is. This place is fantastic for two reasons: it is a social enterprise (a Not-For-Profit) one at that, and the food is fantastic.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a sucker for mexican food anyway, but this place is great. Again, I have to proceed with the caveat that it is not fine dining, or anything new or innovative. It is just your clasic tex-mex venue with burritos, nachos, chilli fries, the classics.

Going back to the social enterprise part of this place though, is that they don’t make a cent out of it. All proceeds are given to communities in need around the world, either directly or through community groups that go and volunteer over there. As well as raising money, this venue works on volunteers, giving a lot of people who might not get the opportunity to hold jobs elsewhere a chance to get some work experience and learn some skills. Everyone that works there is friendly, kind and makes it a truly one of a kind experience.

And above all else, it isn’t expensive. Not even drinks. I have been back here a few times and honestly I am shocked that this place doesn’t get busier. I mean, they do $3 tequila shots as one of their specials. How that hasn’t got the uni students lining out the door, I don’t know. Maybe they just head in later after the old people like me have gone to bed.

Over the times I have been there, we have tried the nachos, burritos, quesadillas, chargrilled corn, and the chilli fries, which is most of the menu. I think my faviurites would have to be the nachos and the corn, although I am easily impressed by both of those dishes because they are some of my favourites. At the end of the day, though, they are cheap, easy delicious meals and you can’t really go wrong.

I give Two Wolves Community Cantina 5 out of 5 stars, and would recommend anyone looking for a great value for money meal with a great social purpose.

Bad Blood

I saw the book Bad Blood pop up on my Good Reads with outstanding reviews so it piqued my interest. Then, once I added it to my ‘Want to Read’ list, my friend also saw it and went out and bought it for herself. She tore through it and after she gave it a 5 out of 5 rating I knew I had to get it off her.

Bad Blood is an expose of Elizabeth Holmes. A young female who was being touted as ‘the next Bill Gates’. She was a university dropout who started her own biomedical technology company, and above all she was a sales person with charisma and charm. Without giving too many spoilers away, she managed to sell the wealthiest and most powerful people in America a product that never existed. She hoodwinked the world, but after reading it you know she hasn’t necessarily done it to deliberately be a liar. She just believed so wholeheartedly in her idea that she couldn’t grasp the reality of what she actually had.

On surface opinion, this book seems to go against my feminist side. This book is a tear down of one of the first female leaders in the tech industry. Elizabeth Holmes was a role model and a leader to so many, and so it is sad to delve into her true character behind the scenes. This book was well written though, and at no point did I get the impression that she was getting targeted because of her gender. Sure, there are times when comments were made about her sleeping with her COO and how unprofessional it was, and how no one else would do that which did make me think, that wouldn’t happen because in current society we don’t have too many females in the C-suite anyway. But apart from that shortcoming the book was well written and truthful. It even made a point of saying that what she did wasn’t uncommon in Silicon Valley, often tech leaders sell a shoddy idea and just wait for the technology to catch up, but the problem is that there is a big different between selling a faulty phone, and selling faulty blood tests. The seriousness of this is dramatically different, which is something that a number of people in her company struggled to grasp.

This type of book could lose you in the technical side of the product, or by not providing enough detail as to what was happening so you might not realise how bad things were, but this book nailed the analogies and explanations. The way that all the medical mumbo jumbo was explained made it so that anyone could follow what was happening, and anyone could understand the gravity of what was happening in this company.

Despite how well this book was written, the winning part of it was the fact that the story was absolutely unreal. As you go through the book you have to think, surely they are going to get caught out soon, how are there so many people that are not seeing through the facade. If I read this as a fictional book I wouldn’t believe it, but I know that this actually happened which is the mind blowing part.

Whilst I won’t give the book a 5 out of 5 like my friend, I think it is definitely close. I give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars, and I hope that one day we get a book about a strong female tech leader who is leading the way in inspiring the world, with no signs of foul play.

Veronica Mars

OK, so slightly controversial, but my inspirational woman for today’s post is a fictional character which seems like a bit of a cop out, but I have so many friends who look up to her as a role model for life so I think we can count her, and with the recent reboot of the 90’s favourite, it seems like now is the perfect time.

Veronica Mars, or basically the 90’s version of Nancy Drew, was something I didn’t cotton on to until I was well past my teen years of when I should have been drawn to this series. I can’t tell you what it is about this show or its characters that draws myself and so many others in, all I can tell you is that it is addictive.

Veronica herself is a curious, headstrong and independent high school girl in America, who spends her life solving mysteries and fighting crime. She is a loner for the most part, but eventually finds herself a sort of clique of odd individuals. The kind of misfits that makes for great drama. All of the main facets of Veronica’s character are all the things I have aspire to all my life. To be a witty, headstrong, smart, brave woman, who isn’t afraid of challenging those who tell her she can’t do something or running headfirst into a challenge. She looks for the good in everyone, but at the same time is smart enough (most of the time) to know when she is being hoodwinked. Her sass and sarcasm, and her lack of conformity with whatever everyone tells her to be is what makes her an ideal role model for any teenage girl. She is the person we should all want to be, or who we want our kids to be, or our sisters, or any female in our life.

Strong, able to defend herself, never weak when she comes head to head with dangerous men, but also supported by a fantastic network of loving characters.

Again, it might sound weird putting a fictional character up on such a high pedestal, but I think the good that a character like this does can often be more than a real person. When asked why she agreed to a reboot of the show, Kristen Bell (who is entirely deserving of her own inspirational woman post – watch this space) replied that she wanted her daughters to have a real role model, and currently there was a gap for that. I entirely agree. I can only hope that when I have kids, there is a bad-ass as great as Veronica Mars on the screens for my daughter to idolise and learn from.

If you haven’t ever watched it, I highly recommend it, but I will caveat it and say that the original series is much better than the reboot, but what reboot is ever as good?

Rivers of London

I have some fantastic friends who know just what I want in my life, and this year for my birthday they treated me to a book subscription with ‘Blind Date With a Book’. For those who haven’t heard of this, the concept is that a book is wrapped in brown paper and on the outside is a few choice words that would describe that book. The idea is that you buy a book based on how it is described in a few words, rather than knowing about it. What my friends got me is just a book subscription version of that, so for the next 6 months I will be receiving a new suprise book every month. The great thing about a service like this as well is that you can choose the genres that you can receive. You can choose up to 5 genres from the list, or just choose ‘Suprise Me’ where you could end up with anything.

When making my choice, i decided to go with the ‘Suprise Me’ option because I figured if the books were going to be a suprise anyway, it might be a good opportunity to expand my reading repertoire and explore some new things.

I received my first book this week, and it was Rivers of London, the first in the series by Ben Aaronovitch. I had seen this book before and had nearly bought it but something about it just didn’t catch me so I decided to leave it so I thought it was great that I would get the opportunity to read it now.

The premise of this series (without giving anything away) is that a young cop gets brought into a world of fantasy and magic living in modern day London. He joins a team that investigates mystical crimes including for ghosts, river spirits, vampires and anything also fantastical that you can think of. It is basically Sherlock Holmes crossed with Line of Duty crossed with Harry Potter.

I think the premise of this book has some merit, however I didn’t love the execution. I think the author was trying to string the author along and allude to things that might resurface later in the book or series without explaining them, but all it felt like to me was that they were trying to drop hints on ideas that the author wasn’t able to explain or properly weave into the story, and it just leaves you feeling unsatisfied and confused about what the purpose of including it was. Having finished the book now, I am sure that a lot of the references were not important, so I think Aaronovitch would have benefited from just not including these hints at all.

Even the things that he did properly include and elaborated on more didn’t make sense. He talks about river spirits and I still can’t figure out how they work or how they are different to normal people or how their family structures work.

At the same time, there was so many storylines going on at once and I had hoped that they would all intertwine in the end and make sense, and Aaronovitch did try and do that in a sense, but in the end, it just felt rushed and forced. I would compare it to when you read Harry Potter and you get to points where you just go ‘A-ha’ and have to acknowledge Rowling’s mastery in that she had that whole thing planned out in her head from the start. This story really lacked that, and just seemed to be lots of things thrown together at the last minute.

I think the premise of the story is good and I obviously enjoyed it enough to finish it in 3 days, but I don’t think I would return for any more of his stories. Maybe this story could become an interesting movie?

I give Rivers of London 2.5 out of 5 stars.