Victor

It was my cousins first confirmation. He walked down the isle of the church, holding the glowing candle high above his head. As the priest blessed him and he's fellow confirm-ees (best word I could think off). There seemed to be some commotion down the front. I ignored it, and waved at my little cousin as he walked by.

When it was time for us to take our seat, several rows at the front of the church remained standing. I took note and dismissed it.

10 minutes later, half way through the proceedings, a group of people stood lifting an elderly man over their heads.

He had had a heart attack, halfway through his grandson's confirmation. The choir kept singing, the confirmation went on, but the entire church seemed shaken by the sight of the limp, frail man being carried from the church. His name was Victor.

I cannot tell you the current condition of his health, or even if he lived or not, but I was moved by the amount of people that offerred their help, but also wondered how many of them were motivated by curiosity.

I, myself am of no Christian faith, and my beliefs are far too complicated to mention here. But I will keep Victor in my thoughts, and whether your Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan or anything else, I hope you will too.

If I hear anything else, you will too.

Trains

Sydney trains. I hate them. They are filthy and slow and smell like urine. The people on them seem just generally unfriendly and sometimes even threatening.

I'm nearing the end of my 4 hour train trip, the worst end if it. I just got off a comfy little long-distance train, seated across from two lovely old ladies who lent me their crossword puzzle. And I traded that in for this dingy, smelly dump.

But you know what? I am happy. I could sit here for hours and describe the mess that is the Sydney train network. Or I could just be grateful that this hunk of smelly metal is getting me to my destination. To my family.

Also: thanks to the nice man who just smiled at me after I took my random photo of the train floor (and him) :)

William Pears

An entirely irrelevant and uncomplicated blog post today:

I dragged myself away from my desk, after an almost full day of watching Vlogbrothers videos, (you can find them here) in search of food. I opened the fridge. Nothing. Open the cupboards. Nothing. Back to the fridge, (I know it has been said before, but it is somewhat peculiar how the human mind is wired to assume something new would have materialised, or else we dramatically lower our standards) and I found pears. An unopened plastic box of pears. (I think they do this so they can hide the bad ones - the bad ones need love too.) Anyway, upon examining said plastic box (because I am that bored) I discover that these are not just pears, but they are 'William Pears'. (Which is probably just the "fancy" name for ordinary pears)

It made me wonder, as I do often, the origin of the name 'William Pears' and whether many other fruits and vegetables are named like humans. Meanwhile, I was also thinking that William Pears would make an excellent name for a character in a short story, mostly because right now I have my writing cap on and everything sounds like a good idea for a story. I wonder, are there any real William Pears out there? Statistically it is a possibility. Are you William Pears?

Stay tuned for The Story of William Pears on my other blog: Scarlet Words

Don't forget to be awesome!

Children

I kind of love this picture. There is just something about children and there innocence that I find beautiful and amusing. It amazes me that their simplistic way of looking at things can be so deep and unbelievably pure.

Children, it seems, are the only ones that understand the meaning of happiness and the joy in simple things. And we should all learn to do the same as adults.

Here's to putting stuff on our heads!

                                                      Nerdfighters!