today’s musing – the joys of stress

I find it interesting how our body sunconciously does its own thing and deals with every situation which comes its way.

Most people know when they’re stressed or anxious; you get that slightly panicky look and feel. The voice rises, the breath shortens and quickens, the adrenalin starts flying through your veins, you do things quicker and yet get less done because while your brain is shortcircuiting you remain incapable of actually  doing your work effectively.

unless, of course, you’re me. I just calmly state that I’m swamped, my eyes widen…and I quietly and calmly get on with it. I do what I’m meant to do with nary a raised voice,  some extra adrenalin puming around and maybe a small glimmer of excitement in the eye.

Oh but that doesn’t mean I don’t get stressed! It’s a perfecte xample of external vs internal action. Our bodies will not let us get away with it. While others show their stress externally, immediately reacting to the situation and dealing with it, others react internally. Remaing a calm facade, their bodies slowly attack them in the weirdest of ways.

I couldn’t breathe properly all week. Yawning to catch breath, exhaustion and slight chest pain. While it may sound like a recipe for heart or lung disease it’s all down to stress, according to my GP.

I don’t know how to respond to this. How can my body react to the last few stressful weeks by stopping me from breathing normally? But it is normal, if unnatural! Apparently all I need is to stay calm and not become too anxious. As I look around the office, ignoring the constant pinging from the mailbox and the mad scramblings in my notebook, all I can think to myself is %^&*^&%*&”$£!!!!!!!

today’s musing – theatreland

I wonder what it would be like to actually grow up with the theatre. Living in Brisbane, you really only get the opportunity to go maybe 6 times a year to see a show, because let’s face it, there is not enough culture nor enough to actually see. You buy tickets months in advance or hope you know some way of scoring some for free. It became a case of spending hours getting ready, putting on a lovely dress, heels, doing your hair, wrapping up in a pashmina and heading out to dinner first and then enjoying glasses of champagne during intermission. You’d always be sitting too far back to actually see anything, and these were the cheap seats, so you have to rely on binoculars which means you miss half the stage anyway.

And now I’m in London.On my lunch break, I walked up to a half price booth and bought some left over tickets for today. I’m in jeans and a nice top. After work, I will meet up with Ola, we’ll walk in, sit down and enjoy the show, maybe buy some popcorn or lollies or soemthing to go with it. There’s no fancy dress up. No point in putting yourself on display. Except I keep wanting to. I put on an extra nice top today because I knew I was going to the theatre. Some things are hard to break out of.

Yet, if I felt like it, any night of the week I can walk up to a theatre house and buy a ticket and walk in, basically like your local cinema. Yes, the ticket’s a little pricier and you may not see as much as you would at the cinema, but it’s a live show and there’s always about 30 shows to choose from. I’m in heaven. And yet I haven’t been using it to its full purpose. It just makes me want to go out and enjoy all the shows, see them all before they run out. I’ve already missed Mary Poppins and that uspets  me. Oh well, it wouldn’t be the same without Julie Andrews anyway.

I guess it’s not the same for people who have lvied here their entire lvies. Do they treat the theatre as another source of entertainment, as if it’s a choice between the pub, a gig, the cinema or the theatre? I doubt it. After all, there’s a reason why you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone…or unless you’ve never had it. If you don’t grow up with it, you admire and adore it, you savour it and ensure you enjoy the full pelasure. If it’s always been there you walk past and ignore it. After all, tomorrow is another day, another day when you could go to the theatre.

today’s musing – online newspapers

You have to wonder how the media will look in the next 10 year’s time. They call it the dying trade, a form of life we’ve become sued to for centuries, seriously under threat by cyberspace. BUt is this true?

I love reading newspapers. There’s something about sitting down with a newspaper over a coffee, finding out what’s happening in the world and forming my own opinion based on whether or not I agree with whichever manical journalist was writing the article.

But whoc an afford to buy every single enwspaper each day? Who has time to read them? Sure, you can pick up the Metro on your way in to work, but really, that’s nothing more than a cover for the boredom of travelling on the treacherous District line. Central line. Bakerloo line, I don’t really discriminate.  And there’s the fact I walk in to work everyday, which  is suprisingly difficult to do while reading a paper. You tend to run into poles, people and cars.  Great if you hate your job and looking for a way to get out of it for the day, but then you have a hospital stay to contend with.

Thank the goddess for the internet. every newspaper, every article, everything you need to know right at your fingertips. It may eat up a good portion of your day, but when working in  media, I think you can get away with needing to know what’s going on.  And the best newspapers are the ones that do proviode everything, right there at your fingertips.

Last week, I bought The Guardian (I buy Monday’s edition for the Media section) only to discover I’d already read all the articles that morning alone. Ok, there went 80p, but on the other hand I don’t have to buy it today. I’ve read it all. I know what’s happening, I even get the added benefit of reading other blogs based on my interests and current affairs (which might explain the detrimental lack of updating here, which I do apologise for!)

But how will this affect our dailys? Will we discover a reduction in broadsheets, more expensive copy, only a select few being published everyday until suddenly they disappear altogether? Can the newspapers keep up with online media?

Some, like FT, only allow 3 free articles a month. Any more than that, and you start paying subscription costs. Fair enough, you’d be paying to buy the paper anyway. But will people so used to  freebies online really be willing to hand voer credit card details to read what they can find somewhere else for free? Then again, why do people continue buying newspapers?

It’s true the younger, tech-savvy and square-eyed generation aren’t buying newspapers. It’s not something they’re particularly used to. The last dying breed still buy it solely for the tv guide, mainly because they probably like having a copy of it on the coffee table.  But what of thsoe who’ve grown up with the paper, used to feeling it tucked under one arm as they walk into the office, and spreading out the broadsheet papers? Will they slowly convert to the online medium, reading words from a flickering, glaring screen? After all, it doesn’t matter whether they continue buying the paper or not. Once the newspaper conglomerates decide it’s no longer cost-worthy, it will go, regardless of the reader’s population.

As long as it continues to be available for free, I can’t see me buying another newspaper. Some might say it’s not cost-effective, until you hit upon the internet’s terrific money-making spiel. The websites are rife with ads, ones which cover up articles, appear alongside them and basically enable the producers to maintain a fairly high standard of journalism for the cost of nothing (to the reader). And here’s the good bit – the very same generation used to computers and all the joys it comes with, are the very same people who have grown up desensitised to advertising. So we enjoy the benefits of an ad-saturated world without ever allowing those bright and cheerful images to subliminally enter our minds. Not once have I sat down to check out yesterday’s ratings thinking to myself I should really look into Abbey’s new credit cards, they look great! I don’t even notice the cute little cartoons streaming across the screen, not the bright colours meant to attract attention. I’m after the words, and as long as they’re free, I’ll keep reading them.

today’s musing – internet radio

This has to be one of the better inventions created from the internet.

I’ve been thinking about it for several weeks, and kept promising myself last year I’d listen to Oxygen (Friday nights, 9:15pm Australian time, on 4EB 98.1fm – listen to it, people! it rocks!) and yet somehow I always became easily distracted by msn, work, youtube, other people’s blogs.

Then, I’d walka round the office and notice everyone covered in headphones. And yesterday I succumbed and turned on Nova Brisbane. Which was blissful, because now I can keep up with new Aussie bands and acts, as well as the news from home and catch my favourite commentator Spoonman Monday to Thursdays. I can check out Polish radio, catch up on my favourite station from Portugal, and start listening to local stations, hear the traffic reports and basically know what’s happening in this world.

It also seems to calm me down. particularly after lunch I get rather fidgety, erratic and start blabbering away to everyone. Unfortunately a lot of things I shouldn’t be saying start slipping out and I can’t seem to stop myself. It’s almost as if I’m on something, which I don’t know, bmaybe there’s some strange additive in the food in the UK? Or maybe the caffeinated tea. Who knows? At any rate, today there was none of that. I’m calm. Ok, yes it is Friday, yes I am exhausted from this week and my brain has been emotionally shutting down for 3 days now. But somehow it works for me. I’m not as distracted because I have music in one ear to keep me focussed. I’m one of those strange people who needs background buzz in order to concentrate and work. Hence the whole city living.

So here I am, surreptitiously hiding the earphone underneath my hair and enjoying the calming (or shrieking) tones of London radio, calm, collected and edging ever closer to hometime. I’ve heard some new songs which I kind of like, some older tuens which never grow old, and know what’s happening on the road. Strange, it’s so simialr to the stations back home, which has made me realsie here is another platform which has become globalised. I guess I should expect it, and yet somehow I never realised it. The same grabs, same vocal tones, same news bulletins…same songs. Maybe I don’t need to listen to the Australian stations after all – it’s all the same, after all.

What about Cuba?

Waking up to the news Fidel Castro has resigned as President of Cuba ends up leaving me confused. My emotions are flipping through the entire spectrum, to the point I end up shutting down any emotional reaction in order to actually be able to cope with work throughout the day (Also a useful technique on new episode days, because otherwise I wouldn’t get anything done).

Ultimately this should mean good news for Cubans, who will now have a chance to step forward after nearly 60 years of stunted development and backwards communism policies. A new elader, one with a more social approach to current affairs, may allow the small island nation to strive forward, softly, gently, and leave the 50’s behind.

Of course, there’s always the uncertainty which must first come. Who will take over? Whatkind of a leader will they become? Will he continue with Castro’s iron fist leadership or allow the people to start governing themselves? How will the people react? Will they start rebelling against 60 years of communism and demand they rejoin the rest of the world? Or will they sit back, enjoy their wondrous medical tratments and high levels of lieracy and allow the world to continue to pass on by?

It’s with some trepidation I say I hope it doesn’t change. Not too quickly, and not too violently. As a traveller, there are so many amazing places to see in the world, and yet Cuba remains n endangered species. Its life as a 50’s time warp is on its last legs, and this glimpse into a closed off world of broken down cars, laidback Caribbean society and general way of life will vanish. Or will it?

Maybe it will continue; it’s hard to say. You simply cannot predict the future and how people will react to this news. All I can ask is they hold out a little bit logner so I have the opportunity to visit this slice of history before it vanishes forever.