He did not know he could not fly. So he did.

[kathryn-sander]

Young Scientists

Every year I find another way to be stunned by the ability of the kids I teach. Last Wednesday, I took my entire class to compete in the University of Wollongong Science Fair. These 10 projects represent 10 hard weeks of work by my students. In groups of 3, they devised a scientific question that could be tested, placed the question within a real world purpose and wrote an aim, used background research to guide their hypothesis, designed a fair method including controlled, independent and dependent variables, observed and recorded their results in tables and graphs, discussed any anomalies in their data, challenges they faced and attempted to explain their results and finally drew conclusions based on their investigation. On the day of the Science Fair, each group had to present their project by talking to 5 different judges. Not only that but all the students collaborated using shared Google Docs within folders on Google Drive which they managed. 

It was the first time taking kids from my current school to the Science Fair and the competition was incredibly high. One of my groups walked away with a Highly Commended. That group of girls just blew away every expectation of what I had imagined a group could achieve in 10 weeks. They had researched two different environmental campaigns; Return and Earn and the Last Straw. They were interested to know why people chose to recycle as both successful campaigns were driven by two different motivators. To investigate their question, they set up 6 soft plastic recycling buckets in 6 classrooms. Two of the classes were only given the instructions, the next two classes were given the instructions and shown photos of ocean pollution and videos of turtles with straws fixed in their noses and the final two classes were promised a pizza party if they collected the most rubbish to be recycled. 

The girls collected and counted the recycling everyday for two weeks and at the end found that kids motivated by self-gain will overwhelmingly recycle more than others. Interestingly, they took their research further by conducting a survey which asked the students involved why they chose to recycle. The majority of kids, even in the reward groups, said they did it to help the animals which lead the girls to question whether young children are able to admit they completed a task for self-gain rather than a more noble cause. The girls will now take their findings to a discussion meeting with the principal and P&C about how to motivate students to return their bottles to the new recycling system being set up next year at the school. 

Across the class we had a wide variety of topics, none of which I came up with.  One experiment proved that a plant’s roots work to filter water whilst another experiment found that a teacher's laptop key board has a higher level of bacteria than the school toilets. One group tested whether changing the distance between dominoes in a line will affect the speed at which they fall over. Another group investigated whether changing the weight of a ball will affect the speed at which it rolls down a ramp and one of the groups mixed powdered vitamins into the soil of potted plants to test whether certain types of vitamins would improve plant growth. 

All of this from kids that are only 9 and 10! Believe me when I say, the younger generation know a lot more than we as a society often give them credit for. These kids have 8 more years of education before they turn 18 and many decisions will be made on their behalf by politicians before that time. I never once stopped to question whether kids standing up for the future of this world were being disadvantaged by missing a day of school. Instead, I saw kids who have learnt a hell of a lot already and are just trying to work out how they can be heard in a world that seems determined to tell them they shouldn't be.

[kathryn-sander]

My body taught itself how to have a panic attack.

20 metres underwater and I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. It was my fourth dive of the weekend and a dive I had already done the day before. I had had trouble with my buoyancy during the previous dive and had experienced difficulty descending on this dive. 10 minutes in and at the entrance to the cave I felt uncomfortable. My breathing quickened. In the 6 seconds it took to catch up to my dive buddy, reach out and tap her on the shoulder, that feeling of uncomfortable transformed in to something I didn’t know.

I signalled trouble with a flat hand, tilting side to side but when I was unable to communicate exactly what was wrong I raised my second hand to chest level and with both hands vigorously continued the motion without stopping. I breathed deep but exceptionally short. As if a straw I was breathing through had been pinched close, I gasped and sucked for air deep and fast. With each breath in I was reaching for the next. My regulator was not broken. My air was not low. I just couldn’t slow my breathing.

I looked up. I wanted out. I wanted to breathe. 20 metres down and I desperately wanted to rip the regulator, the very source of my air, from my mouth. There are no words to describe the feeling of wanting to remove your air source underwater. That incredibly counter intuitive feeling that in doing so I would somehow be able to breath and then the chocking feeling of panic that I may just do so accidentally. I wasn’t screaming but with every heightened breath in and out I was exhaling with a noise that I can only akin to the sound of someone hyperventilating on the surface.

My buddy, who I had only met that morning, had quickly moved to face me. She took my hand in hers. My vision tunnelled to focus only on her eyes, as if with my eyes I would be able to tell her everything I was feeling. She looked back. She knew. She held me close with one hand and signalled to breathe slowly with the other. Her left hand swept slowly towards her mouth in a curved motion and then away. Slowly towards her mouth and then away, as if she was sweeping the air towards herself. I followed her rhythm. I slowed my breathing. It took 2 attempts, the first interrupted by heightened panic, before I was again calm. By now the dive master was nearby. He had missed most of the event. She still held my hand in hers. The divers nearby silently discussed the next move. We rested, swimming slowly for 2 minutes then went through the cave. Back on the surface, I was embarrassed. People around me discussed the event and I just thanked those involved for helping me.

It had been the final weeks of the summer holidays. Soon enough the new school year arrived and the memory faded. With the start of a new year came a huge amount of responsibility. I was with a new group of students, at a new school and there was a significant amount of work to get through. I looked back on my holiday days with longing.

I work very hard and I work long hours. The time and effort pays off in my teaching but I am completely aware of the toll it takes on my body and mind. I have been teaching for 7 years so getting along with my stress was not new to me. Standing naked in the shower, my head propped against the wall, crying was not new to me but sitting on the floor, in my bedroom, hyperventilating definitely was.

I was exhausted and had started to cry. As I cried, my mind continued to think about the list of things I had to attend to, prepare and program for that evening. My body just lit up. Usually it would sob, become exhausted and eventually tire itself out but on this night it received the slightest signal of panic and just ran with it. I could hear my heart beating faster in my chest and my breathing quickened. Before I knew it, I was 20 metres underwater grasping at my regulator. It was as if my body was incredibly proud of the new thing it had learnt to do. It pulled out all the stops. “Here’s that shortness of breath I remember how to do and ohh I’ve been practising that racing heart thing.” I was stunned. I didn’t know how to respond.

Of course, I turned to Google mid-panic attack; signs of a panic attack. I messaged Mitch who was at the gym with a simple, “I think I’m having a panic attack.” Finally, I remembered what worked the first time. I looked straight ahead, tunnelled my vision to the wall and moved my hand in a curved, sweeping motion towards my mouth and then away, towards my body and away. After a few relapses of panic the strategy once again brought me back to calm. When Mitch got home he sat down next to me on the floor and hugged me. My second panic attack may not have ended with a cool cave dive, in incredible waters, with turtles, sharks and dolphins but at least this time it ended with the support of a loving partner.

[kathryn-sander]

Which way is home?

I lived in a beautiful house in Tahoe. 340 Skidder Trail at the base of Northstar. The down stairs living area had large class windows that reached from the base of the second floor down to your feet. I remember the first time it snowed in Tahoe while I was living in that house. I think everyone remembers the first snow fall of the winter season.

Built into the rock to the left of Belmore Basin lies a beautiful ocean pool perfect for swimming laps during the summer. I wait all spring for the ocean temperatures to reach a level that makes swimming in this pool bearable. Then one day the sun’s heat becomes so hot and I crave the feeling of fresh, salt water so much that I forgive the still cold temperatures of the water and dive right in. I think everyone remembers their first swim of the summer season.

Home is where the snow is falling and the lake is freezing. Home is where the sun is shining and the waves are breaking. Happiness at home will come when I forgive the fact that one of these two beloved places ended up in the wrong hemisphere. No matter how much I love, find great joy and happiness in one home I will forever be screaming, crying and longing for the other.

[kathryn-sander]

I wrote this in 2012. I could have written it today.

[kathryn-sander]

It’s been a month today since I returned to Australia. My camera came home from 8 months of travel gritted with sand, covered in mud and fostering a broken lense but to look at a single photo and be able to recall every adventure and misadventure that lead to that single shot is worth the world to me.

The photo on the left is taken on a dive in the Galapagos. We were warned in the dive briefing that due to the strict protection of the marine creatures if we were seen to be following or interfering with any animal during the dive we would not be permitted to dive at the second site. Underwater, I soon realised that they had failed to tell the turtles the rules and this guy would not stay away. I always worried that people would look at my body language in this photo and think I was scared of the gentle turtle facing me when in fact I was trying to back away so that I would still be allowed to dive later in the day.

The dog in the photo on the right is not responsible for the death of the turtle it is eating. There is no way that dog could have so cleanly separated the large sea turtle’s bottom shell from its top. That was the work of a fisherman who after ‘accidentally’ catching the turtle had taken the meat for sale and left the remains for the dogs. And still when I look at this photo I recall not only this scene but the stars that came out over us as we battled the strong tide and setting sun to make it back to this spot in our kayaks after we had stayed out too late.

[kathryn-sander]

Adelaide

At the end of 2011 I was in a taxi heading to Miami Airport. The taxi driver started the conversation by asking where I was from. Upon my reply he was quick to explain that his younger sister was named after an Australian city. I was just as quick to ask, “Is her name Adelaide?” Shocked I guess that I hadn’t thought to suggest Sydney, perhaps the more obvious choice, I simply stated that I had always liked the name.

The story of his sister’s naming is, I believe, as beautiful as the name itself. The driver’s father, decades prior, had traveled to New York from his home country, the Dominican Republic, to study medicine. He had received a full scholarship. At University his best friend was an Aboriginal man from Australia who, like him, was there on a scholarship and unlike the other students had dark skin like himself. The pair studied together, graduated together and then parted ways to return to their homes to practice.

Years later the man traveled to Australia to visit with his friend. By now the friend had a wife and a young daughter named Adelaide. The man was so overwhelmed by his time spent in Australia and the love he received from his friend that when he left to go home he told his friend that when he had a girl of his own that he too would call her Adelaide.

Well of course the man’s first 3 children were sons, one of whom was my taxi driver. The 4th and final child was a beautiful girl. He named her Adelaide.

[kathryn-sander]

Why don’t you use drugs?

I akin using drugs for the first time at 26 to losing your virginity at the same age. What should have been an unassuming event in my teenage years is now a larger deal than it needs to be. I wish I could say I’ve never done drugs but I can’t. When I was 18 I was given a cookie that I was unaware contained weed. It’s the only illegal drug I’ve ever done. I remember the situation clearly and I remember my body’s reaction, I remember Jeff driving me home from Newtown and letting me sleep it off at his Mum’s house but I do not remember the exact person who robbed me of the satisfaction on my 100th birthday of attesting to the fact that I haven’t done a single drug. 

I do not condemn recreational drug use. I worked 2 summers as a volunteer for Red Cross’ Save-a-Mate; an incredible program that instead of encouraging abstinence promotes education and safer practices surrounding drug use at music festivals. During this time I saw friends leave friends passed out on fences, I saw security guards drag young, inebriated individuals outside of the festival without companions, I saw the spew, the wide eyes, the red eyes, and the closed eyes of those who had wasted an entire day. More than anything I wish to use this particular experience as the reason for my lack of drug use. It would be a simple, justifying way to explain myself when asked. Instead I have difficulty pin pointing a reason.

Peer pressure is an ugly social side effect of a group trying and adapting to something new. When an individual or group of people finds enjoyment in something new and starts to view that thing as the new norm in their life peer pressure becomes a tool in which to assimilate or eliminate those around them. Peer pressure places one’s worth purely on willingness to participate. I so desperately wish I could have grown up facing this peer pressure. In my teens I never had a friend sit down with me and offer to try something with me, to go with me for the first time. I never had anyone hand me a pill and tell me to take it. I never had anyone pester, berate or threaten me to try anything.

Maybe I was just oblivious but it honestly felt like one day there were no drugs and then one day there was and I had never been invited to take part in the transition. In my early 20’s I forever felt on the edge looking in at friends who were taking part in something that I wasn’t a part of. I have lived 4 days with friends at festivals and never known what they were experiencing. I’ve skied extra runs on my own while friends stop to have a safety meeting. I have been outside of laughter because I wasn’t high. I’ve danced holding closely the hands of friends who were feeling things that I didn’t. And yet one simple step and I could have been closer. Back in the centre. I could have asked to do drugs. But I never did. A defining reason I never did still fails to show itself to me and for that, if you ask, I will still answer, ‘I don’t know why I don’t do drugs.’

At some point I stopped looking in. I know now more than ever that this other world still exists. I have interests that are imbedded in a culture of drug use yet I don’t consume. I choose to live geographically and socially within a weed smoking society yet I don’t participate. I lie in bed next to a partner who will light a joint after sex and still I will refuse the offer. I know that it is nearby. But I’ve walked away from its edge. The moment I walked away I stepped closer to my friends. I listen to honesty and answer honestly about choices surrounding drug use. My friends no longer keep their drug use hidden from me and instead talk to me about it, respect my decisions and finally relentlessly pester me to try it. My friends know how much I love to dance and how much I love music and I am thankful every minute a friend on drugs at a festival is able to feel comfortable enough to lose themselves to the festival just as I already am.

I have seen incredible beauty in my known world. I have swum with whale sharks off the coast of Panama and soared over the Great Barrier Reef. I have skimmed the surface of jungle river at night sitting at the tip of a boat. I have felt outer body experiences in my travels. I have sung my lungs out to Cold War Kids live at Lollapalooza, danced in the mud and rain at Splendour in the Grass and sat in the dirt at Coachella with 30 other friends. I have cried overwhelmingly at new sights. I have listened to music that moves me in ways I never imagined and I’ve seen colour and images in my surroundings that others will never witness. I have found personal ways to deal with my own stress that are sustainable and found creative outlets to reach a sense of enlightenment. I push myself further and farther from what I know every year in search of these things. The further I move the more I seem to find drugs around me, especially in South America. But until my own world ceases to provide me with such incredible experiences I do not need this other world.

[kathryn-sander]

To Teach a Child to Write.

Teach a child to read and you give them more than the world. You give them many. You can give them their own world reflected back through their own self connections. You can give them a world that brings to the surface the very essence of laughter that is childhood.  You can give them a world to see through another’s eyes. You give them a world so different from their own that only through their own creativity can they imagine such a world coming to life.

Teach a child to speak and you give them reflection. You give them a pathway through which to express their understandings of the worlds that they face in their reading. You give them the ability to discuss, to comprehend and to challenge what they have read. You give them a chance to share their amazements with their best friend.

But teach a child to write and you give them the ability to create their own worlds and to invoke reflection within others. You give them the opportunity to create images for others to visualise, beliefs for others to see, ideas for others to challenge, feelings for others to bear and understandings for others to learn.  Wonderful is the teacher who can not only teach a child to write but who can help a child to see value and power in their own written word.

[kathryn-sander]

The Cat.

The cat abstains from walking outside onto the balcony. Instead she lingers cautiously by the split door. The open air seems familiar but the tiles and pot plants do not. The gap between the ground and the railing’s bottom makes both the cat and the humans wary. The humans worry about onlooking neighbours whilst the cat tries to reminisce of a once familiar outside.

A sudden, harsh command reverberates through the cat’s ears to her tail. Loud noises startle the cat and upon hearing the stern clap of the human’s hands the cat’s legs instinctively scat from under her. She darts down the hall, scrambles through the ajar door of the spare bedroom, navigates swiftly over the boxes under the bed and tucks herself into the furthest corner impossibly out of reach of the monsters that scare her. The humans know better than to approach the cat now. The waiting game until calmer, quieter times begins.

The cat, after time, seeks out her familiar; a sheep wool blanket over a printer, in a cupboard within a room, hidden within an apartment. Warmth tightens around the cat’s body. Her fur, no longer on end, settles into the soft surroundings and the distant muffle of human voices relaxes the cat into a low, vibrating purr. Sleep comes.

Night has broached the apartment and the humans lay sleeping atop the cat’s impenetrable fortress. One soft round paw slides out from the safety of the cupboard. First a black speckled nose and then a small white and orange head cautiously protrudes from behind the mirror to inspect the surroundings. Stillness. The cat’s remaining front paw lifts unnecessarily high up and over the ridge dividing the inside of the cupboard with the outside. The cat’s body moves to the outside. She sits and watches.

The humans’ bodies rise and fall in a rhythm that seems somewhat comforting to the cat. The cat moves stealthy towards the bed and with a shift of weight back over her hind legs and a shuffle of her feet on the carpet she pounces lightly onto the bed. She stops hastily out of fear of being blatantly caught by the humans but heavily enough that the movement may evoke within the humans a sense of her presence. Disappointingly the humans don’t stir. The cat edges ever closer towards the sleeping mounds finally sidling up on to one of the human’s back. She positions her front paws close together in front of her and proceeds to massage the doona. Left paw. Right paw. Claws in, claws out. The human awakes. With a groan the human acknowledges the cat’s existence. The cat is satisfied with the night’s efforts.

A letter has arrived for the humans. The cat is oblivious of the letter’s forsaken impact on her being. Concerned words are passed between the humans. The humans look into the cat’s eyes. The cat senses love. The humans sense shame within themselves. Muttered words whimper and shake from the humans’ mouths. The humans can no longer bring themselves to look at the cat. The cat goes about her day. She eats, she sleeps, and she chases flies that don’t exist upon the walls of her cardboard castle.

Now perched upon her thrown, the human’s couch, another recently absent human enters the apartment. The cat takes longer to register this human’s connection to herself then she once would. Upon this day the newly entered human does not go about her regular affairs interacting with the existing humans but instead walks straight to the cat and steals her from her comfort. This stealing is not a display of annoyance towards the cat as she would usually expect, a ruffle of her soft fur or a nudge from her imperial perch. Today is not a day for playful teasing that comes from the loving knowledge of the cat’s oddities but one of incredible pain and guilt. The human takes a tight, unrelenting hold of the cat. It is a hold that the cat does not understand and that the human does not bare to understand.

The cat is seized from the restraint by her humans. Taken from the clutches of the girl she is placed into a box. The cat’s monsters have returned to her. Familiar monsters lay upon the cat as if their sole duty is to burden her with constricted breathing and an engulfing anxiousness. The cat senses movement within her hold. She hears cries like never before and then a door slamming behind her. The cat loses her bearings with every unsteady swing of the box counter to the static handle a top it. The human clutches the handle with now white knuckles.

The cat grows weak against her monsters. Her efforts to scare away her fears with growls and hissing have left her tired and weak. In this state she finds her most powerful defence against them, sleep. She awakes for a second to a cold and sterile room but she now only senses love, love from the humans who are with her, who are inside her. She thinks not of the human’s doings but of the warmth that they bring her. The cat’s fears disappear as she drifts back into sleep.  Peace comes to the cat at last. The monsters are gone.

The next week her human stands in the grocery store at the end of the aisle face to face with the cat food. Cat food that once brought arguments between the humans about whose job it was to buy it and why enough cans were never bought now brings the human to tears.

[kathryn-sander]

A Real Job: Intelligence

Occasionally I’ll go to Brewery on a Wednesday for Trivia. In the entire 2 hour process I am lucky to answer 3-4 questions and rarely answer a question that wasn’t already known by the rest of the group. My Dad, on long car trips, would pose questions involving multiple steps of reasoning and calculation that I could never unfold before the rest of my family. My brain quickly tunes out of conversations with engineering friends not from lack of interest but from lack of understanding.  I am a slow mathematical processer, have the factual/historical memory of a goldfish, and I cannot spell to save my life. I am aware that I am not ‘typically’ intelligent. This may seem like a rather demeaning, negative self-image to hold but for those with knowledge of multiple intelligences it can be happily accepted.

Acceptance comes from self-reflection. If I’m not logically intelligent what intelligence do I hold? I knew from an early age the strengths of my own mind. I spent many years of my childhood and teenage years unable to express my awareness of my own intelligence. Much of my transition into adulthood revolved around a search for a means of telling the world that I was intelligent in my own right. I took so long to find a way to intelligently express the views I’d held in my head that by the time I was able to do so I no longer wanted to. I had come to such an enlightened sense of self that it became something sacred; a personal satisfaction kept to one’s self and not shared with the logically intelligent world.

Teachers know about Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence. We use it to adapt our teaching to the needs of each of our students’ brains. The Interpersonal smarts in my brain possesses me as a teacher to discover how the 28 brains in my class think and the logical side of my brain allows me to perceive a relationship between this and my teaching. My spatial intelligence allows me to manipulate environments to create a positive learning space, my linguistic intelligence enables me to articulate my thoughts for my students and my kinaesthetic abilities enable me to keep up with energetic kids. My intra-personal intelligence, by far the most important, enables me to interpret my feelings through stressful situations and to gather my thoughts at the end of a long day.

It wasn’t until Term 3 of my first year of full-time teaching that I finally connected such thoughts to my thoughts of what constitutes a ‘real job’ (the slow realisation most likely linked to a severe lack of confidence in my own teaching abilities now being overcome). We speak a lot about teaching to suit the intelligences of our students but no one ever told me to find a job that suited my own intelligence. Teaching was made for my brain. I would, if only using my own experience as an example, be inclined to say that we are all naturally predisposed to end up in a job that suits our intelligence because after all our intelligence is directly linked to our interests and between our own interests in a job and our own abilities to succeed in that job it would only make sense to head that way.

People used to ask me why I chose to be a teacher. I don’t remember the point at which I realised that’s actually what I wanted to do. As far back as I can remember I just wanted to. I think that at a young age, at the very start of my self-reflection, being a teacher attached itself to those early thoughts of how I was smart. For me teaching not only suits my intelligence but becoming a teacher has shaped my understanding of intelligence. If you’re going to constrict the meaning of a ‘real job’ by putting it inside a box constructed by society’s perceptions then please let one of the labels on that box be ‘Intelligence’.  

[kathryn-sander]

A Real Job: Responsibility

Posted on the 4th of March 2012, over a year ago now, I wrote a blog which transcribed my thoughts towards what constituted a ‘real job’. The post reflected thoughts conceived and developed through my at the time employment as a Children’s Ski Instructor in Tahoe, California. The post attempted to articulate an intangible sensation of a moment, a moment in which you are left with such a high that you find it impossible to perceive a single profession that you would rather be doing.  I used this sensation to define a ‘real job’.

The same blog spoke of a future me. A me that would be doing a job that society and a pre-travel self considered to be real. To quote my own writing I said, “To me a real job (full time employment in an Elementary classroom) meant stress. It meant responsibility I wasn’t ready for. It meant no time to travel and being tired all the time.” I am now employed within this ‘real job’ and every previous thought I had a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago about myself in this profession are utterly true. I have been all of these things and more since starting full-time teaching this year. I have been stressed beyond my control, I have been tired and I have been unable to travel to see the people I so desperately miss overseas. So why not quit?

Yes, I have experienced the highs described in my previous definition but in ratio to the more difficult times so far they have not won out. But I’m still here and I still want to be here which means I must have developed along the way a stronger definition of what constitutes a ‘real job’ because what I am doing now I believe to be ‘real’ so I must believe in more than just doing something that brings you joy.

At the end of the Term, I sat down to speak to 20 sets of parents of students in my class. I, a 24-year-old without children of my own, was somehow meant to speak to parents about their children’s social and physical well-being, about their behaviour and most importantly about their learning. I felt a sense of responsibility to not only effectively report on these matters but to show how I was creating an environment within the classroom which supported and developed such information. What formed through these meetings was a mutual trust. A trust that I would do what was best for their child. Holding this trust is a responsibility that is not listed in a job title. There are no guidelines to carrying out this responsibility. It is a responsibility which simply comes from choosing to be a teacher.

But this wasn’t an ‘a-hah’ moment. A sense of responsibility to the children I teach doesn’t form when you meet their parents. It forms the second they walk into your classroom. It is an incredible sense of astonishment the moment 28 sets of eyes sit down to look upon you as their teacher. When 28 sets of hands show you how they write, when 28 voices show you how they articulate themselves and 28 brains show you how clever a thinker they can be.  It is from this moment you realise what a task you have ahead of you, being responsible for the well-being and development of such wonderful individuals. It is a responsibility that sits at the very core of what teachers do and how they do it.

This is a responsibility that I still fight to believe I’m ready for, a responsibility that has at many times in the past months led me to question my abilities as a teacher and my strength as a person in the face of such great responsibility. But it is also something that I now believe to be a fundamental part of what should be defined under the colloquialism of a ‘real job’. Holding significant responsibility constitutes a job worth doing. For me there is nothing more real than seeing that responsibility every day in the faces of the children I teach and that is why I haven’t quit. 

[kathryn-sander]

My 2012, as was my 2011, can be entirely explained through my Triple J Hottest 100 votes... Click on song titles to hear and watch. Songs not in order. Electric Guest takes out the Number 1 spot.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis- feat. Wanz – Thrift Shop

Liz’s car may not be in the best shape and you may have to sift through piles of trash just to get into it but man can it still pump out ‘Thrift Shop’ (and Kanye West’s Clique) rolling through Wollongong, and The Harp may be disgustingly seedy and their floors overly sticky but they can still drop ‘Thrift Shop’ on the d-floor at 1am to which you will regrettably yell out ‘I love the Harp’ in a state of zealous excitement and they may be 11 years old and way too young for such language but when it’s their Year 6 Farewell and the principal is watching the teacher come DJ may just play ‘Thrift Shop’ uncensored by accident to the screaming joy of a short crowd who despite their long running, painful obsession with Gangnam Style will sing you all the words to ‘Thrift Shop’.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are infamous for bringing new meaning to ‘popping tags’ and doing it ‘grandpa  style’, for bringing ‘skeet’ back into our vocab, for squeezing more hella’s into one song than any other rapper and for 10 years on making a still crude reference to R. Kelly’s infamous ‘peeing on a minor’ incident. When I heard the boys at school singing Thrift Shop, after having themselves excuse such language, I told them about our Thrift Shop party in which my friends and I were to go to Vinnies, with only $20 in our pockets, in search of the most ridiculous come-up to wear to an inconspicuous Tuesday night of bowling.  One of the boys told me I needed to find flannel zebra jammies or a fur fox skin and if all else fails he added “it shouldn’t be too hard to find a built-in onesie with the socks on, motherfucker”.

When ‘The Heist’ was a feature album last year Triple J asked Macklemore why he chose thrift shopping (needs to be translated to op-shopping for all the Australians) as a theme for a song. He replied simply ‘why not?’ Some days are made for talking about feelings and crap and some days are made for thrift shopping.

Jack White- Love Interruption

“I want love to: roll me over slowly, Stick a knife inside me, and twist it all around. I want love to: grab my fingers gently, Slam them in a doorway, Put my face into the ground.

 ‘Love interruption’ is only 2 minutes and half in length. It is minimal and it is harrowing. Jack White’s voice is clear and the tantalising harmony of Nashville singer Ruby Amanfu’s voice disjointedly overlaid is subtle to the point of creepy.  Jack White manages to intertwine seamlessly a narrative of love with the imagery of pain and death to a point in which you find it difficult to distinguish a difference between the two. White adds a further complexity by toying with the idea of love as a manipulator of the mind (“I want love to change my friends to enemies and show me how it’s all my fault”) and a disguiser of truth (“I want love to, forget that you offended me”).

The brilliantly compelling verses welcome love’s atrocities but the hook, “I won’t let love disrupt, corrupt, or interrupt me any more”, provides a breath of hope that the victim still has the desire to overcome love’s inflictions. Or perhaps in this line they are simply inviting death to provide them with nothingness; final freedom from love’s pain.  I can’t help but wonder whether they were saved from love or overcome in the end?

Mumford and Sons- I will Wait

This is a long and convoluted story. Please stick with me here as it is one of my favourite travel stories.

In April 2012 I went to Coachella in Indio, California. It was an epic 3 day desert festival complete with scorpions, dirt and dust and sun, intense heat and a new friend called Travis. Travis I met by offering him left over dinner. He happily accepted. Noticing he was on his own we became festival friends. The next day we met again both with the common goal of seeing Laura Marling. I wasn’t a fan of Laura Marling. I explained to him. But for my brothers sake I had to go see her live. I went on to describe my brother’s love for Laura Marling and his inner torment over loving Mumford and Sons despite the rumours that Marcus Mumford had cheated on Laura leading to their break up.

Travis believed he could confirm the rumours. In fact his roommates were, at that exact moment, attending the wedding of one Marcus Mumford in England and it was not to Laura Marling.  Turns out Travis knew Marcus and the boys well. I was gobsmacked but sceptical of my new friend’s stories. The festival went on and when it ended we parted ways, until it came to my final night in America. Travis lived in Orange County and I was flying out of LA close by. I crashed at his that night.

Travis was cool. He epitomised California cool. He knew music, he knew art, he knew writing and to me he lived and breathed the very essence of California. And amongst all the art and images on the walls of his place was pinned a single photo; a photo that stood out from everything else in his place; a photo of Marcus Mumford, his bride and their friends at their wedding. His roommate told me stories of Marcus’ bucks day, of the wedding and of Marcus; a glimpse into the life of one of my favourite artists.

After missed chances of previous shows I finally had the opportunity to see Mumford and Sons live at their own, personally organised festival called “Gentlemen of the Road”; a festival within a series of “Gentlemen of the Road” festivals. This one held in Dungog, a town which Matt and I knew well from our childhood. Mumford and Sons played a show like no other. The sound was loud, the sound was clear, the sound was all involving. The sound seeped into every crevice of your body and squeezed you tight and only let go when the music stopped. This, following on from an unbelievable set from Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, will forever be one of my favourite music moments and all I could think to yell out was “I know your friend Travis!” Guess that's better than my brother yelling out "Why would you ever cheat on Laura Marling?"

The Lumineers- Ho Hey

Lake Tahoe introduced me to true Californian bluegrass. I loved every show I saw. It was fast and energetic, and contained incredible string instrumentals. Lake Tahoe also introduced me to Taylor. I have never seen that kid happier than stomping at a bluegrass gig. Before leaving California I wrote out a book for Taylor to help him work his way through Australian music. We always shared music. When we parted ways sharing music was one thing that could remain unchanged even if we were on opposite sides of the world.

I could have easily chosen First Aid Kit to represent this sentiment. Taylor saw them at a festival in Oslo and then I saw them at Falls Festival in Tasmania. Whilst we didn’t see them together it was hard to shake the feeling that at some point he was listening to the same beautiful chords of the Söderberg sisters in person just as I was. Instead I choose The Lumineers, Ho Hey partly because my favourite First Aid Kit song ‘The Lion’s Roar’ was actually released prior to its 2012 album release but mostly because Ho Hey is a beautifully simple song and mostly because Taylor introduced me to it. Never stop sharing music with me Taylor. It makes me realise how close you still are to me despite the time and the distance.

The Bamboos – feat. Tim Rogers- I Got Burned

When The Bamboos came into Triple J to do their ‘Like a Version’ cover of Frank Ocean’s ‘Lost’, Lance Ferguson explained that they had chosen ‘Lost’ not only because it was an amazing song but because he had always wanted to hear Kylie Auldist, one of their vocalists, sing about titties. Their cover, on a Friday morning on my way to work, was simply one of those songs that filled your head with that soul sound and your lungs with joy; an uplifting joy that wouldn’t pass the rest of the day. Whilst a personal predisposition towards covers being voted for in the Hottest 100 inhibits me from including their cover in my list, ‘I got Burned’ is an original that I love even more and with ‘On the Sly’ missing out on a well deserved spot in the 2010 countdown I couldn’t pass up the vote for this one.

I was very disappointed to hear that I had missed seeing Tim Rogers show up to perform this song with The Bamboos on stage at Homebake last year. I did however have the chance to see The Bamboos at the Marion Bay Falls Festival over New Years. Auldist and Ella Thompson have a voice that radiates through the crowd and the sensual moves to match.  In fact each member of the Melbourne based  band is incredibly talented in their own right and the 9 piece outfit as a whole does an astounding job of showcasing each individuals abilities on stage whilst maintaining a smoothly unified sound. The only band I’ve heard take something as simple as a flute and use it to create a breath holding, body raising solo that somehow manages to add another dimension to a deep-funk sound. Nothing quite cures a day 3 festival hangover as a flute solo.

Everything Everything- Cough Cough                                     

Can’t help but be sucked into the infectiously choppy, hip-hop jam structure off Cough Cough. The disjointed fabrication of this song affects self control over your bones and head causing them to move and bop in an erratically fast rhythm. Jonathan Higgs’ hectic vocals build to a point of near bursting before oozing smoothly into the chorus just in time for you to wrap your head around the lyrics “And that Eureka moment hits you like a cop car! And you wake up just head and shoulders in a glass jar!” And then of course you realise you’ve been taken so aback by the snare snippets, horns and drums that you haven’t even stopped to listen to what they’re going on about.

“Money,” Higgs says, “the power of money and the desire to get away from it. It’s also about waking up and seeing the world as an unfair place and then slipping back under the spell of greed. It’s about having no money, and wanting more money, and wanting nothing to do with money at all.” Even reading this back over I read it fast. It takes my brain a while to slow down to a regular rhythm after listening to Cough Cough on repeat.

Of Monsters and Men- Little Talks

My brother and I are hopeless about sharing music with each other. We are both so self involved in our own personal preferences that when one tries to share a new find the other will respond with their own new find ignoring the original suggestion. When I was buying Laneway 2013 tickets I showed my brother the line-up. He didn’t seem so interested in the list. I introduced him to ‘Of Monsters and Men’. He hasn’t stopped listening to them since. I win this one.

Electric Guest- This Head I Hold          

Spotify has revolutionised the way I listen to, source and share music. In previous years my number 1 spot was always left to the track on my iTunes with the highest listens. ‘This Head I Hold’ takes out my number 1 spot for 2012 because it had the most plays on my Spotify account. Picking my number 1 song in this aspect is an easy process, describing and justifying the song as my number 1 choice is however a more difficult process for me.

‘Mondo,’ the album from which this song comes from, became the sound track to my last months in America and my first months back in Australia. I struggled more than I wish to admit coming back to Australia. It was a transition phase that did not suit me well. I kept to myself, I argued, I complained, I grappled with missing travel, and friends and family and California. I had no money in fact I owed money. I had no car to get to work and no work to get a car. All the time “This Head I hold” was on repeat on my Spotify.

But there are no sad feelings attached to this song. Instead I recall this song with immense joy because it makes me sing and it makes me dance and because after 2 months of being home on the night of my 24th birthday my brother took me to see Electric Guest at the Metric in Sydney and we sang and we danced just as we always had and I remembered all the reasons I loved living in Australia. I month later I had a car, I had a job at a school I now call home, I was back with beach views, I had Californians coming to visit, I had a spring leading into summer and I had a lot of good music coming my way that I could sing to and could dance to.

Tuka- Just to Feel Wanted

Tuka, one third of the Thundamentals, doesn’t do an interview without a ninja sitting in the background. The ninja reads a magazine the entire time. No reference is made to the ninja throughout any of the interviews. If you listen carefully every now and then the ninja from beneath his cover will throw Tuka a word, or name, he’s stuck on. It’s a helpful ninja slip-up that is welcomed by Tuka and the interview continued. I wonder at what point Tuka wakes up to the ninja’s actions and thinks to himself “shit the ninja spoke again!”

Tuka is a creatively intelligent artist. He, like Chance Waters, has a powerful way of articulating meaning and influences behind his music whilst maintaining the stereotypical, laid back hip-hop vibe and crude language that we love. Tuka gets lost in his head a lot. He posts daily random art, imagery, stimulus for the world to see, like an avenue for expressing himself to the world by sharing what he himself is looking at and responding to. In fact the title track from his second solo album “Feedback Loop” deals with the idea of how we process and organise ideas within ourselves, share these ideas with society and the time lapse for responses to come back. He explains a notion of ‘boycotting ideas’ in which people are hindered from communicating their fully formed thoughts by people who are quick to criticise too early. Gratify a person’s idea by giving them the chance to make known their thoughts before taking the opportunity to criticise he says. Tuka also gives a good analogy of the Australia hip-hop scene breathing in and out and speaks of a movement to break away from the ‘Aussie Hip-Hop’ label allowing artists to simply produce hip-hop.

Tuka, I have all the time in the world for. He speaks of embracing positivity and fucking politicians. He is ambitious. He explains in one interview how he started his career. He wrote one song then performed a gig, 3 songs then performed a gig, 5 songs performed a gig. Now he’s having massive success with the Thundamentals and releasing solo albums. I would say I’ve found an unusual role model in Tuka, in his drive and commitment and his ideas. Plus I fucking love his songs! I mean come on, the verses for ‘Die a Happy Man’ come from late night/early morning conversations with patrons at Newtown’s ‘The Townie.”

“Just to Feel Wanted is a light-hearted song, but it’s got a dark edge,” the MC explains. “A couple of years back, I had a conversation with my mum about wanting to do music as a career – and just trying to do art in Australia in general. She doesn’t give a fuck about the music scene – if it’s a good song, she’ll listen to it. So she actually coined the phrase in the chorus – ‘People make a lot of bullshit just to feel wanted’. It stuck in my head. It felt like a throwback Bob Dylan lyric that he never got around to writing.” When asked about the ninja he replied “I like ninjas. Ninjas are bossy.”

Flume- Holdin’ On

A new wave of electronic/indie (Indietronica) swung through Australia in 2012 from Alt-J to Purity Ring to the home grown Triple J unearthed artist Flume. I love watching this genre unfold and transform and once again Australian artists are coming to the forefront. 21 year old Harley Streten from Sydney is Flume. By the end of 2012 Flume was one of Australia’s most talked about producers. He released his first album in November with 15 original tracks featuring artists such as Chet Faker, Moon Holiday and Jezzabell Doran and supported in concert the likes of The XX and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. This kid is going far in 2013. See you at Laneway.

[kathryn-sander]

5 friends. 5 amazing travellers, philosophers, thinkers, drinkers and dancers...5 sets of thoughts on 1 question. Which way is home?

Will So

Will grew up in Wollongong. He recently spent 2 semesters studying in America. Will took up photography just before leaving, and I was able to watch his skills develop through a blog. Will’s determination to excel in photography symbolises Will as a human being; ever determined to find the best and find the fun in life. Wollongong, to Will, is home, “a place of peace and quiet, a place to return to.”  

“Home is away in the opposite direction to where you want to go. It is where you leave to experience something new and different. It is where you leave to feel free, lost, confused, clear, scared and happy all at the same time. It is the place that no matter how bad things get, you can always go to and know that everything will be alright. It is a place that you leave because you are bored of but love to come back to for some peace and quiet.”

Ben Fowler 

Ben I met in Tahoe. Ben is infamous in my mind for his ridiculous stash and such philosophical statements as “I don’t wear shoes in the real world”. I’ve seen Ben scrapping a trailer home for coins to buy cigarettes with.  I’ve seen Ben smile with all his heart as an awesome Silly Sally learns to ski on her own.  Don’t let first impressions fool you. Ben’s heart is genuine, and I only hope one day he fulfils his dream to call Australia home for a short while.

To Ben, home is “more of a feeling than a place.  I think the feelings one should get while at home is: safe, happy, comfortable, loved, trusting, and welcome. For me, those feelings are something that I have felt in many places on this earth. Whether I'm with my family in San Jose, or with new and old friends in Tahoe, I have found myself experiencing the essence of "home". Home is where you're in good company, drinks are flowing and the good times are rolling. All of the aforementioned can happen anywhere. Home is where we are now. Home is where we're going next. If you are at peace with who you are, and love and accept life for what it is, than you're already at home.”

Rachelle Balez

Rachelle has the world wrapped up inside her: a creatively minded, highly intelligent human being who cannot help but seek out the outer edges of life. After a stint living in Alice Springs, Rachelle recently returned from a year overseas in which she slept in 72 hostels, 8 campsites and 3 airports, took 29 flights, 19 trains, 34 buses, 7 boats and hired 6 cars in 26 countries across 4 continents.

“For the first time at the start of a big trip I was feeling melancholy. It wasn't because I was sad to be leaving home, but because I realised I didn't have a home to be leaving. After a year living in Alice Springs and a year on the road ahead of me I had no definite place to call my own in the near future or upon return. I adjusted to the situation and like all long term travellers home existed as a dynamic state, each new hostel bed, campground or house I stayed at.

Living for such a long time without a home, I began to realize my home was always around me. It was no longer a static place represented by a fixed destination where I rest my head at night, but was made up of the small things in the world around me. An Aussie accent, a beach, being around people who knew and loved me...or simply the taste of Vegemite on the end of my finger. These things are home. A huge part of finding my home is figuring out who I am and where I come from.”

Joel Ebsworth

Joel, I went to high school with. Over the past 18 months Joel and I began to find great similarities between our values and ideas towards travel, adventure and sense of place and community. I have greatly enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy, watching Joel’s beliefs develop as he strives to find his place within this world. 

“Where is home? Better yet, where do you find yourself most inspired? What people do you find yourself most inspiring to be around? Where do you feel most powerful? My recent travels had led me to these very questions.

I, for a long time, had no idea of the importance of community. My "home", in the general sense, did not feel like my community. I often felt lost, different in so many ways. Maybe my home is where I feel the most supported. My ideas can flourish. My opinions are well received. My characteristics are authentic and there is no need to use an ego as a mask.

Home to me is not where the heart is, but where the heart flourishes. Supported by like-minded people. A perfect balance of give and take. Intuition has led you to this place. Love keeps you here. We still have that urge to travel, but we know where we want to return.

Home...”

Joshua Scully

I will never work with so many like minded travel people as I did at UniAdvice. I could never count on one hand the number of UniAdvice crew living and travelling outside of Australia at any given point in time. I remember sitting on the duck pond lawn with Scully both planning out our trips to America at the same time...both back in Wollongong now.

“I think it's hard to know what direction home is until you leave. Even just for a short time. Leave so that when you return you see things differently. For me 'home' has had more meaning since I've travelled. It's less a place, less a point on a map. Home is a feeling of belonging. I've moved around from Bathurst to Melbourne to Narrandera to Albury to Wollongong, but 'home' is about people. Home is Christmas Eve; Nanna's desserts, Pop's BBQ, Grandad's pies, not laughing at Mum's jokes.  It's the boxing day test next to Dad on the couch.”

[kathryn-sander]

Which way is home?

I lived in a beautiful house in Tahoe. 340 Skidder Trail at the base of Northstar. The down stairs living area had large class windows that reached from the base of the second floor down to your feet. I remember the first time it snowed in Tahoe while I was living in that house. I think everyone remembers the first snow fall of the winter season.

Built into the rock to the left of Belmore Basin lies a beautiful ocean pool perfect for swimming laps during the summer. I wait all spring for the ocean temperatures to reach a level that makes swimming in this pool bearable. Then one day the sun’s heat becomes so hot and I crave the feeling of fresh, salt water so much that I forgive the still cold temperatures of the water and dive right in. I think everyone remembers their first swim of the summer season.

Home is where the snow is falling and the lake is freezing. Home is where the sun is shining and the waves are breaking. Happiness at home will come when I forgive the fact that one of these two beloved places ended up in the wrong hemisphere. No matter how much I love, find great joy and happiness in one home I will forever be screaming, crying and longing for the other.

[kathryn-sander]

An email from my Dad in the Cook Islands... "We just finished the cross island walk. Very intense. Straight up a mountain through jungle on a narrow winding path and back down the other side, four hours. Mum still a bit sore from her scooter crash yesterday. Very beautiful. Coral ok but not up to Barrier reef standards. Food very good." Way to casually announce to your children that their Mother crashed her scooter.

[kathryn-sander]

My life relies solely on the fact that my parents are teachers. My being born to begin with relied on my parents meeting at University studying to become teachers, my living and growing up in Australia relied on my parents moving here to become teachers, my love for travel exists from my parents having so many school holidays and me becoming a teacher myself resulted largely from dinner table school stories swapped back and forth.

In 1975 my parents, who had met at University studying English, came to Australia on a 2 year teaching contract. They were a part of a large overseas recruitment scheme being carried out by the NSW Department of Education at the time, a scheme which eventually led to 10% of all teachers in NSW schools in the mid 1970’s being from either the United States or Canada. My parents were a part of this statistic. In fact the QANTAS plane in which they arrived on carried 85 other teachers doing the same thing as them.  However, unlike most others, when their two year teaching contract was up they stayed and in 1995 when the laws changed and they were able to hold dual citizenship they became Australians. 

Now depending on whom you ask the reason for my parents leaving Pennsylvania will most likely differ. My Dad will state necessity mentioning a lack of teaching jobs in United States and a desperate need for change. My Dad up until this point had not left the country and Williamsport and the world he knew was growing ever smaller as the world he had not seen was growing ever bigger. My Mum on the other hand will speak of adventure and pin point travel and wonder as their reason for leaving but both will agree on their reason for not returning. They had (their cliché not mine) utterly fallen in love with the Australian way of life and whilst they missed their family dearly, Australia over the next few years would become their home.

Two Australia Days ago I went with my family to Government House to witness my Dad receiving the Medal for Member of the Order of Australia. A medal awarded by the Governor General for his service to education. An Australian honour awarded to an American. My Dad will laugh as he recalls his first strike event as a teacher. He went out striking the very overseas recruitment scheme that brought him to Australia. My parents were not born here but they have served public education to the highest of levels and given much of their lives to educating the youth of Australia, a youth made up of children from many different cultures and ethnic backgrounds.  You do not need to be from Australia to believe in Australian schools and you should not have to be born in Australia to receive the same high quality of education as those that are lucky enough to be. My parents have lived and breathed this sentiment for the past 37 years and they will not stop believing this once they retire.

When my Dad left James Meehan High School for Bulli High School, I asked him whether he was ready to move on. He said that whilst he would dearly miss the school, he had given it everything there was to give and that at that point in the school's life it was time for new blood and new ideas. With a daughter making her footing in the career, he still believes strongly in new ideas and new initiatives and I look forward to watching his new ideas and new initiatives flow within his new role in the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong next year.

When I graduated from University, my father gave me his Grandfather’s school bell. A bell he rang as a teacher in a small Pennsylvanian school prior to World War 1. Whilst I don’t have a bell to give you on this significant day, Dad, I do have a promise to give you. A promise to serve public education to the great standard you have strived to set, to love what I do and appreciate my role within the lives of the children I teach and to always have a good school story to tell at the dinner table.

[kathryn-sander]

Michael Wigge made it to Antarctica at the end of a 40,000km trip that began in Berlin. Wigge made the journey for free by working his way and asking for favours.

[kathryn-sander]

1 month...

Am I one month from being home or one month from leaving? Am I one month from saying hello or one from saying goodbye? One month from being with friends or one month from leaving friends? One from flying or one from landing? One from missing travelling or one from being settled? One from leaving the real world or one from entering it?

When we asked my friend Ben at Coachella why he wasn't wearing shoes he said he didn't wear shoes in the real world. Dancing at a festival in the middle of the desert I was confused as to what he considered to be the real world. He said that this festival was the real world and that all the other crap is just a way for you to fund entry back into it.

I guess in his mind I'm one month from leaving the real world as a means of funding my entry back into it. I kind of like this thought.