Nowhere is there warmth to be found among those afraid of losing their ground (The Byrds)

As my faithful readership knows, I'm a nervous flyer. I'm not terrified of flying - I'll do it, but I'm not a fan.

A dose of calm-me-down medication gets me through the experience while aiming to avoid conversations around tricky flights people have had - that just feeds my imagination. 

On a plane back to Palmerston North from Auckland last week we had a pilot announcement that didn't help. 

Post safety briefing, we were loaded and ready to go when the pilot announced, "There'll just be a slight delay - we have a fault with the right engine". 

Gulp!

This elicited a panic attack from a girl in front of me and a nervous reaction from a first-time flyer who was sitting behind me with her mum (who remained calm I must say).

The young cabin attendant responded to the panic attack girl's call button request for assistance with a glass of water and a phrase she was obviously hoping would calm the girl. With a chuckle she said, "Just remember - we're much safer on the ground than we are in the air".

I swear I'm not making this stuff up.

I managed to keep reading my book and shrug it off. It's rilly good calm-me-down medication!!

Love and peace - Wozza

Pull it out, a paper sleeve. Oh my joy, only you deserve conceit (Pearl Jam)

Wie geht's?

A record fix hasn't happened for a while, and then like London buses - two (potentially) come along all at once.

On Saturday I travelled to Palmerston North for a record fair. These are always interesting events as a bunch of like-minded people come together for a few hours in the single pursuit of vinyl. 

These days, not just guys like me either (white, middle class, male, of a certain age) but youngsters looking to start their collections. A young 13 year old girl next to me bought her first album - ABBA as it happened, while I was picking out some late period Joni Mitchell albums. Great stuff for both of us!

Ninety minutes later I emerged from the bowling club venue with eleven albums, a few of them recommendations from fellow punters sifting through bins beside me, a few yarns with old campaigners and even a couple of bargains.

Then, a few days later I'm in Auckland for two days of meetings bisected by a trip to Real Groovy Records at the top of Queen St. in the CBD.

Because their regular vinyl collection is readily available on line, I concentrate on the ten dollar bins - looking for bargains. 

I got there at 4.55pm thinking I had a good hour to browse them before meeting an old buddy, only for the girl at the door to tell me that they were closing in 5 minutes!!!

What the? Turns out they have 'winter hours' and close at 5.00. Yer what????

Winter hours!? 

Not a happy customer! Poor form Real Groovy!

Love and peace - Wozza

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues (David Bowie)

Wie geht's?

Wonder of wonders! Customer service is alive and well and living in the Hastings' Hannahs shoe store. I'll even forgive them for their apostrophe crime.

A few months ago, I bought a pair of formal black shoes for school from the Hannahs store in Palmerston North.

After I'd broken them in, I noticed some sort of fault with the left shoe. I couldn't pin it down. I tried moving the inner sole around a few times. Nothing worked.

When I eventually mentioned it to Jacky, she suggested I take them to Hannahs in Hastings to maybe get a new inner sole.

So, after school, in between locking the campus and my haircut appointment with Cheryl at Urban Retreat, I wandered into Hannahs with my problematic shoes. I mentioned I'd bought them in Palmerston North and the lovely young lady took a gander.

I waited for her to tell me that, sadly, she couldn't help me - I'd need to take them back to where I'd bought them.

Instead, she spotted a fault with the actual left shoe, did some paperwork, had me try on a new pair of the same shoe and then, with a minimum of fuss, gave me the shoes!

Gobsmacked! Flabberghasted!! Dumbfounded!!

Surely this couldn't be right. 

I again told her I hadn't actually bought them from the Hastings' store. No problem, she said. If these ones aren't right just bring them back, she said. 

When I'd regained the power of speech, I told her that I was going to buy my shoes forever more, from her, and exited the store an INCREDIBLY happy (new) customer.

Love and peace - Wozza

Hello! How are you? (Electric Light Orchestra)

With my students in Doha, Qatar.

Kayf haluk?

I often find myself being reminded of my time in the Middle East as an educational advisor.

Whenever anyone asks me, "How are you?" on a zoom call, I invariably find myself replying in Arabic without thinking.

'Alhamdulillah' (Al-harm-du-lill-la) is a phrase taught to me by my Qatari friends. Their translation of it was - By the grace of God, I am well. 

Is there a better response to "How are you?" than that?

When colleagues find out about my time in Qatar (and then the UAE) they are curious about my experiences. All I can say is that it was a genuinely life-changing three years for me (and Jacky) because I was working with a great collection of people in a vastly different environment.

I loved many things about their way of life, and I was often in awe watching the kind of relationships the male teachers had with the boys in my school. 

My colleagues often talk about having good relationships with students, but I didn't really know what that truly meant until I watched the men at Ali bin Abi Taleb school in Al Foah (just outside Al Ain in the UAE).

There were zero behaviour issues at that school while I was there, but a lot of laughs and a whole lot of care and compassion.

It was an extraordinary experience and I feel incredibly privileged to have been a part of that world for a while. A few of my colleagues in OneSchool Global know what I'm talking about.

I often think about them all - what are they up to? How are they and their families? What happened to them next? 

Love and peace - Wozza

I keep seeing these reflections deep in the currents back to me (Israel Nash)

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Here are ten things I thought worth sharing:

1) Reading Celestial Navigation (Anne Tyler) was an interesting experience. I've mentioned her books a lot in my blogs. She has an amazing ability to get inside her character's heads. Jeremy is a piece of work!

2) A quote from 365 Days with the Saints is a great way to start my day. Each day features a different saint and a quote. Today's was Blessed Anne of Saint Bartholmew: Silence is precious; by keeping silence and knowing how to listen to God, the soul grows in wisdom and God teaches it what it cannot learn from men.

3) Concurrently with whatever novel I'm reading, I also dip into Lennon on Lennon - a compilation of interviews. John on performing live on stage: You put yourself in front of the public, and it's like the Roman theatre...it's a very sort of masochistic scene to stand up there day after day, offering yourself as a target for their love or their hate, depending on how good you are or how they feel that night.

4) Rest in peace. The last Mojo magazine I read (Feb 2022) had obituaries for Graeme Edge (The Moody Blues' drummer); Maureen Cleave (journalist who wrote excellent pieces on The Beatles in the sixties. her 1966 interview with John contained the 'We're bigger than Jesus' idea that created headaches for the fabs); David Longdon (Big Big Train singer who died accidentally); and Billy Hinsche (honorary Beach Boy) amongst others. 

 
5) Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart plus Israel Nash albums Lifted and (especially) Topaz (on vinyl) have been my soundtrack this week. Blissed out summery sounds have helped with the cold snap as we officially started winter.

6) I dug out the DVD player on the weekend to watch a couple of films that I bought years ago but forgot about. Allied was good value. A Robert Zemeckis film starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard. Billed as a romantic thriller - it was enjoyable! 

 

7) The Richard Linklater trilogy - Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, has also been sitting on the shelf for a few years. I bought it while living in the UK a few years ago after loving Boyhood. The late autumn, early winter cold/overcast/rainy afternoons have been perfect for catching up with these three romantic dramas.

8) Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth is my latest book. I've read some great books by him, but I've also stopped reading a few of them a couple of chapters in. Sweet Tooth, with a female protangonist, is of the former variety thank goodness.

9) Waves was a NZ band from the seventies. Their eponymous album (a second one, added to the first on that Spotify link, was recorded but not issued until years later as a bonus disc) is a bone fide NZ classic. It's the-three-amigos' album of the week!

10) Cheekily, here's a link to another six via my Jewels For The Thirsty weblog.

Love and peace - Wozza

I am not spilling over the edges, and I am not easily found (Sinéad Lohan)

Wie geht's?

Recently, I read an interesting article by Thomas Oppong about the need to slow down the pace of our modern busy lives.

He's right - all too often, we fail to take the time to be still and enjoy the moment.

Central take away: Slowing down is essential for mental clarity.

I am attempting to embrace this idea by having a goal of walking for 30 minutes during three lunch times a week, blocking out some non-contacts during the week to think and write, and aiming for an empty email in-box.

So far so good on the first two and an epic fail on the third. My personal email account needs addressing. Sadly, I need to unsubscribe from some regulars because I just don't have the time to read them.

My school email is another case in point. I can easily get 10 or so emails an hour that need triaging - i.e. either action, delete, or file.

Those can build up quickly - so that, like everyone - I can get swamped. These days people expect an answer as soon as possible (I'm not innocent btw) so doing a task or taking a non-contact often means getting behind with responses.

I've read various guides to getting on top of emails and none have worked for me yet. I don't want to be a slave to my emails, but it seems this is now an unpleasant fact of modern life.

If anyone out there has a top tip for controlling emails, I'm all ears!

Anyway, I do like the suggestions for slowing down in that article.

My four favourites are:

1. Mind your breathing: Slow deep breaths will relax your body and mind. 
2. Get organized: Have somewhere for everything, so your brain doesn’t have to think about where things are.
3. Make time for nature walks: Turn off technology for an hour or two, get outside and enjoy nature. Your focus depends on it. 
4. Keep things simple: Don’t make life any harder than it needs to be by overcomplicating everything.

Love and Peace - Wozza