NAIDOC Week


From 8 - 15 July, Australia is celebrating Naidoc Week, with the theme for this year 50 years: Looking Forward, Looking Blak. NAIDOC celebrates the survival of Indigenous culture and the Indigenous contribution to modern Australia. It is held around Australia in the first full week in July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’ which was once responsible for organising national activities during NAIDOC Week. Now its acronym is the name of the week itself.

What goes on during this week? Usually there are local activities and also 'national focus' activities. Some of the local activities that you can do is: Listen to Indigenous music, Study Aboriginal arts and crafts, Read a Dreamtime story, and Learn the meanings of local or national Aboriginal place names.


The ‘national focus’activities are more elaborate, and these include:

* choosing a national focus city or town - for 2007 it is Darwin, Northern Territory
celebrations are based on a national theme
* distribution of the national NAIDOC poster based on the theme, chosen from entries to the NAIDOC Poster Competition
* celebrations culminate in an awards ceremony and ball held in the focus city - in 2007 the National NAIDOC Awards and Ball will be held at SkyCity Casino, Darwin on Black Friday, 13 July 2007
* at the ball, national awards are given to Indigenous achievers in a number of categories.

The Department of Attorney General, where I work, and the Department of Corrective Service are also participating in this event. Last Friday a few colleagues and I was involved in painting the the WA banner. Each department under these two Departments were given a circle on the banner where we were suppose to express our interpretation of the Naidoc week in painting. Five of us went and none of us had any idea of what to paint!! We were under the impression that a design would be allocated to us and all we had to do was paint it. I guess that was a wishful thinking, coz we were told that we were suppose to come up with our own design. But, being creative people that we are, even though artwork is not one of our forte :-), we managed to put together some aboriginals artwork and created a beautiful piece. I also got to know some symbols that are used by the aboriginals in their art, for eg the kangaroo, child, people, snake etc etc. I guess I can proudly say that I have participated in this year's Naidoc Week :-)








Want to know more? Click here: Naidoc history

TO ALL THE THOSE WHO WERE BORN IN THE 50's and 60's / early '70s............
I can identify with this.. can you?? :-)

First, we survived with mothers who had no maids. They cooked /cleaned while taking care of us at the same time.


They took aspirin, candies floss,fizzy drinks, shaved ice with syrups and diabetes were rare. Salt added to Pepsi or Coke was remedy for fever.


We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, and


As children, we would ride with our parents on bicycles/ motorcycles for 2 or 3. Richer ones in cars with no seat belts or air bags.


Riding in the back of a private taxi was a special treat.


We drank water from the tap and NOT from a bottle.


We would spend hours on the fields under bright sunlight flying our kites, without worrying about the UV ray which never seem to affect us.


We go to jungle to catch spiders without worries of Aedes mosquitoes.


With mere 5 pebbles (stones) would be a endless game. With a ball (tennis ball best) we boys would ran like crazy for hours.


We catch guppy in drains / canals and when it rain we swim there.


We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually worry about being unhygenic.


We ate salty, very sweet & oily food, candies,bread and real butter and drank very sweet soft sweet coffee/ tea, ice karang, but we weren't overweight because......


WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!


We would leave home in the morning and play all day, till streetlights came on.


No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.


We would spend hours repairing our old bicycles and wooden scooters out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem .


We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, multiple channels on cable TV, DVD movies, no surround sound, no phones, no personal computers, no Internet.WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!


We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and we still continued the stunts.


We were never birthdays parties till we are 21,


We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and just yelled for them!


The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!


Yet this generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!


The past 40 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.


We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.


I must admit those were the good old days, life was so simple then. I remember growing up with my older brother and the few cousins, we used to climb trees and walk through the bushes behind our house. I also remember the time I was learning to ride a bicycle - mind you, I didn't have a BMX, it was my father's old bicycle!! Then there was the time when we played 'thieves and robbers' - we were so fit then!! Or the time when went fishing at the ditch behind our house, or digging earthworms for bait. I was such a 'tomboy' :-) We didn't have a computer, a playstation or an X- Box, we played games that involved a lot of running around. There was no telephone, let alone a mobile!! There was no Astro, or Foxtell as they call it here - the only channel we had was RTM one channel, until TV 2 came along. I remember watching 'The Waltons' and 'Little House on the Prairie' and the superhero was the 'Six Million Dollar Man' :-) I can still recall the black and white TV.. hehe.. thank goodness colour TV came along. Those were the days...gone but not forgotten!!

Today's Quote

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

-Aristotle

Kopi Luwak

It costs USD1000 a kg!!!! Which comes to about $50 a cup of coffee.. It comes from the island of Sumatra and it is the world's most expensive coffee. Why the sudden interest in this coffee?? I was watching Border Security on Channel 7 and someone came into Australia with this coffee. What caught my attention was not how much it costs, it's how the coffee beans are prepared. Apparently, these coffee cherries are the favourite food of the little mammals, known as luwaks which live in the trees. They eat the cherries, bean and all. The cherries go through the animal's digestive system, fleshy parts digested leaving the beans which then exits. The beans are then collected, cleaned, then roasted and ground like any other coffee.This produces coffee that is said to be like no other. It has a 'rich, heavy flavour with hints of caramel or chocolate'. Fancy a cuppa?? I may be a coffee addict but I don't think I am that adventurous :-)

You can read more of this special coffee, and see images of how the coffee beans are prepared in this website :www.animalcoffee.com

Wet, Stormy Monday

We are still experiencing strong wind and patches of heavy rain.Luckily for me, it didn't rain when I left for work and when I got off the bus to walk home. I was all ready though, to face the storm, with my big umbrella and raincoat :-) but I guess if it had rained, I would still be soaked through.. haha.. The severe wind yesterday has caused a lot of destruction - trees fell, buildings damaged, roads flooded, and some suburbs are still without power. This morning the wild weather creating major traffic jam, with water from the Swan River washed onto the freeway and flooded the road. This is the first storm I experienced since I arrived in Perth. I suppose everyone welcomes the much needed rain as Perth has been very dry for sometime now, it's just that the enormity of the wind and rain was just too overwhelming. Weather forecast for tomorrow - still more rain to come :-)

It's a cold and windy day in Perth today. From my living room I can hear the strong wind blowing, the rustling of the leaves on the tree, the rain falling intermittently. The gale has been going on the whole day, and will continue through the night and tomorrow. It's a time like this that I am grateful to be indoor. Curling up on the sofa, watching a good DVD, enjoying a nice cup of coffee, listening to the rain and wind outside. Of course it would have been more romantic to curl up in bed with someone, ahh... but that would be another story :-) For now, this is Simply Delightful!

A little sharing on a Sunday morning

"When we look at it, most of the things we get involved in have hidden costs - those things we were not quite prepared for. It may be the illness we didn't expect; the child or parent (or even ourselves) who disappointed us; the positions we worked so hard for but which landed in someone else's lap; the relationship in which so much was invested,but which was one-way only. Each of us has something 'costly' that we journey with, something not measured in dollars or euros.

As followers of Jesus, we know that there will be the inevitable hidden costs. Jesus made it quite clear that in following him we will travel to some lonely or difficult places. His most difficult journey was to Jerusalem but along the way he encountered lots of lonely places too. The reassuring thing about places is that Jesus gets there first - and there he waits for us."

An excerpt from Sr Kathryn Williams' sunday reflection...