10-20-30 Year Meme

I found this at Literary Feline's blog. But I'm going to have to make this the 10-20-30-40 Year Meme since I am over 40.

Let's see - 10 years ago, 1997. I was living in Auckland New Zealand, working at a Media Monitoring business (this was a press clipping service - where we read the newspapers and magazines, and clipped out articles with keywords that the clients wanted.) It was an interesting job, but the management was not terribly good. I was single, living in a single room shed literally in someone's back yard. The shed had a carpet, a toilet, a shower and a small kitchenette. It was ok, but it had no insulation, so some winter nights were cold. But then, this was Auckland, the temperatures were mild all year round. I used to spend my free time at the movie theatres, or at the library or at my favourite book shop - the Hard to Find Second Hand book shop (see sidebar).

20 years ago 1987. Wow, this was the year I actually packed up and left home. I was 22 at the time, and my sister was married and living in Auckland. I was still with my parents in Dunedin. I decided that I needed to get a decent job, and there were no decent jobs available in Dunedin, so I opted to move. I packed up everything, went on a working holiday over the summer (December of 86, January & February of 1987) and then instead of returning home, I headed north to Auckland. My sister was recently married so I moved in with her and her husband. My first job in Auckland was at Mcdonalds. There were no McDonalds in Dunedin so I was totally unfamiliar with the concept of fast food. I got put on floor duties, washing the floors, keeping the tables clean, and washing the windows. The first week I had 5 shifts, the second week I had 3 shifts, and the third week I was given just 1 shift. That's when I quit, because I did not know that this was only a part time job. I walked into the Labour Department the next day and asked for another job. They sent me to the local city council where I was hired to do the costing. I enjoyed that job. It was full time, steady pay and I had the weekends off. I had a lot of trouble finding a place to live as well. I remember living with an old Dutch women as a room mate. I was there only because my sister said it was a good place. This old lady wanted company, and she was smoking and drinking the hard stuff all the time. Since I do not smoke or drink, I preferred to stay in my room, and watch TV or read. She kicked me out after a few months.

30 years ago 1977. My family were in the Solomon Islands at this time. I was going to the local secondary school, because the New Zealand correspondence school had told my parents that there were perfectly good schools to attend in the town we were living in. It may have been a good school, but it had a terrible English curriculum. Because English is the third language of the population (they have native languages and then pidgin english, which is the lingua franca) everything was about grammar, spelling and vocabulary. There was no literature and I never once cracked open a book of Shakespeares plays. [This did affect me when I came to sit English exams back in New Zealand a few years later. I had an excellent grounding in grammar and spelling, but I had no literature. So I was horrified when I failed the English exam. Not by much, but 47 is still a failing mark.]

40 years ago - 1967. Back in New Zealand. I was just 3 years old. I had one older sister and a new baby sister. Yep, I was the middle child. I assume the Vietnem war was at its' height. I don't remember anything of this time, but I know I was alive.

Mystery of the Nile

Mystery of the Nile
By Richard Bangs & Pasquale Scaturro
Official Website
Based on the Imax Movie - Mystery of the Nile (2005)
Book Published by Putnam 2005

I spent several hours at the ER yesterday waiting to have some swelling under my incision looked at. Turns out to be a small problem, nothing to be concerned about - according to the surgeon, but the 4 hour waiting time allowed me to finish reading this book.

This was a brilliant travel book. With lots of adventures, fascinating history, clashes with crocodiles, clashes with military rebels, border guards and bureacracy, malaria & other tropical diseases, and personality clashes as Pasquale and his friend Gordon, plus other crew members, aim to become the first people ever to paddle down the ENTIRE length of the Blue Nile - from Central Ethiopia through Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean sea.

The Blue Nile contributes over 80% of the water flowing into The Nile, and also contributes most of the Silt that fertilises the Nile during the Flood season. The other 20% of water comes from the White Nile that originates from Lake Victoria in East Africa.


Pasquale Scaturro

(from Wikipedia)
On April 28, 2004, geologist Pasquale Scaturro and his partner, kayaker and documentary filmmaker Gordon Brown became the first people to navigate the Blue Nile, from Lake Tana in Ethiopia to the beaches of Alexandria on the Mediterranean. Though their expedition included a number of others, Brown and Scaturro were the only ones to remain on the expedition for the entire journey. They chronicled their adventure with an IMAX camera and two handheld video cams, sharing their story in the IMAX film "Mystery of the Nile," and in a book of the same title.

The team was forced to use outboard motors for most of their journey, and it was not until January 29, 2005, when Canadian Les Jickling and New Zealander Mark Tanner reached the Mediterranean Sea, that the river had been paddled for the first time under human power.

On 30 April 2005, a team led by South Africans Peter Meredith and Hendri Coetzee became the first to navigate the most remote headstream, the true source of the Nile — the Akagera river which starts as the Rukarara in Nyungwe forest in Rwanda.

The Book Thief - Times Two

The Book Thief By Markus Zusak

Liesel is 10 when she moves in with foster parents Rosa and Hans Hubermann. She, of course, is the book thief of the title, and the books she steals — from the cemetery where her brother is buried, from a Nazi bonfire and from the mayor's library — are symbolic of her struggle to understand the horrors of war. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends.



Everyone has been raving about this novel. I'm sorry to go against the flow, but it does not appeal to me at all. Mainly because it is set in Germany before World War 2, and I am sick and tired of WW2 being thrust in my face every day. WW2 is over, done with and finished. Many things were stolen in that war - Books, Artworks, Dreams, Lives and Innocence. Things that we mourned over, and put behind us. And some of us moved on with our lives. Some of us have not. Most of us alive today were not even born when the last war ended. So why must we be continually be reminded of things that were stolen 60 years ago? Why should I care?



The Book Thief - The True Crimes of Daniel Spiegelman By Travis McDade

But I do care about what is being stolen today. I care that more and more of our art, music, stories and dreams are being ignored or are now deemed as no longer important. Thats where the second The Book Thief comes in. This story is also about Books being stolen. Not just any books, but rare books, old books, books from our past, books about our past. History Books.




HISTORY. Our History. Human history. History is supposed to be able to teach us what we did wrong back then, so we dont make the same mistake now. For some reason Man does not seem to want to learn that lesson. Books were stolen in the last war. Will more books be stolen when the next war starts?

Thanks also to Philobiblos for bringing this book to my attention.