Living in a world of darkness

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Bo

I remember when I was a little girl and we used to play this game, “would you rather be blind or deaf.” I think at that young age, I had no idea what I was talking about, it was just something we used to think about at school. But turn the clock forward 30 years and I got the opportunity to visit the Dialogue in the Dark exhibition at Sci-Bono in Newtown which put things into perspective for me and enabled me to give it some serious thought.

In a nutshell, the visitors are led by visually impaired guides through a series of specially constructed and totally darkened galleries, where sound, temperature, wind and texture in the completely dark environment allows one to learn to interact by relying on other senses.

Sounds easy, right? Wow! Nothing prepared me for the experience. In the first few minutes of entering the exhibition, my whole body screamed inside and I wanted out! I was frightened. I panicked. Nothing prepared me for the experience. I was quite surprised how I was forced to rely on my other senses. It was completely dark. Even with my eyes wide open, I could see nothing. Nothing…

It’s an experience I cannot describe. It’s an experience that only once you’ve been through the exhibition, can you really understand what it must be like to be blind. It was an eye-opener (eish!) to see (yikes!) what blind people live with every day of their lives and how we take the smallest things, such as a walk through a park and buying a drink at a bar, for granted. Try doing that as a blind person.

The experience was so humbling too and I have a renewed appreciation for my sight. I learnt something about myself. Being forced into a situation such as that, I realized how quickly and easy it was to rely and trust others, something I don’t typically do. But being blind, you have no choice. I also found a sense of comfort in holding on to someone and constantly hearing their voice – Completely opposite to how I cope.

In future, I’ll think twice when seeing a blind person because their lives are a lot more challenging than what we realise. They’re also a lot stronger and braver than I am. That’s for flippin’ sure!

I’m getting old. #fact

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Bo

I turned 37 years old in April. *OMW* This means I have officially moved closer to my forties. My age never used to bother me, but suddenly, it does. It’s as if I woke up one morning and realised that I was no longer in my 20’s or early 30’s.

So why now? Why am I feeling like this all of a sudden? What’s different? I sat down and wrote a couple of things down…

My parents are moving in to a Retirement Home.
I’ve had to book my regular hair appointment from every 6 weeks to 5 weeks as my greys are showing through quicker.
In December, I will be going to my 20 year High School Reunion.
If I go watch a movie on a Friday evening, I fall asleep. In fact, Friday evenings I’m in bed before 9pm.
I recently chose to go home and snuggle in front of TV with hubby instead of heading off to a night club with my friends.
The beautiful model Tanya Fourie, who I adored as a teenager and who is featured in the May edition of Fair Lady, has wrinkles.
My age category when I enter running races is listed as Sub-veteren. *ouch*

I guess I can’t stop the clock… I’m getting older, I just need to start accepting it. But it has made me stop and ask myself, am I growing old the way I want to? Are there things I still want to do?

But while I do this, can everyone and everything around me please slow down a bit?

Time for a clean up

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Bo

I’ve heard it so many times before: If you are trying to lose weight, make sure you don’t stock anything that can potentially tempt you. To be honest, if I’m going to be serious about sticking to a proper, healthy eating plan, I got to do what’s right.

So I finally cleaned out my sweet cupboard. By cleaned out, I don’t mean I sat down and ate everything. I literally threw stuff away and took the rest of the sweets to work (only to make my colleagues grow chubby!).

I have been meaning to do it for ages but never got around to doing it and every weekend, I’d just buy more and more goodies, adding to the heap.

My weakness is chips. I love chips! Any flavour but especially the chutney flavoured ones.

Funny enough, I am able to resist chocolates. In fact, some years have gone by when we’ve had to throw Easter eggs away because they’ve gone old.

Sorting through the cupboard, I was horrified that so many of the sweets had passed their expiry date. So much of it had to be thrown away as it was inedible. Some of the goodies I had no memory of even buying. Worst of all was that some of it were gifts from people that had gone to waste.

What’s left in my cupboard are packets of nuts, dried fruit (and maybe one bag of speckled eggs and a pack of caramello bears). But no more chocolates. No more buckets of sour gums. No more chips.

And it feels good…

Why do we allow things in our lives to gather dust? Why do we put off clearing out and getting rid of things in our lives that are only causing us to slip up or not accomplish our goals? How come we don’t see how unnecessary things take up so much space in our lives?

Go to bed!

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Bo

I don’t get enough sleep at night. There, I said it. It’s my own fault too! Even though we go to bed religiously by 21h30, KK falls asleep immediately while I sit behind my laptop reading blogs, surfing the net and tweeting, of course.

KK is constantly moaning at me because even though I switch the light off, the bright light from the laptop glares across the bedroom. The tick-tick-ticking of my fingers on the keyboard keeps him awake and I realise, it’s not fair on him.

I sometimes feel like a 2 year old, fighting it, not wanting to go sleep. And I have no idea why this is? It’s not as if I have I have nightmares or sleep badly.

Here’s the facts: Not getting enough sleep can affect weight loss. No wonder I’m not losing weight! Sleep deprivation affects productivity at work. I’ll admit that I often wish I could grab that quick kitty nap on my desk when it gets to the afternoon shift.

The most important thing is that with my running training, it’s very important that my body gets to rest!

I know the facts, but come 23h30 at night, I’m still awake?

So…. I have made a promise to KK that I will try get to bed by at least 22h00 every night. It’s a start. No more late night blogging. No more tweets after this time. Just sleep.

To help, I’ve been taking melatonin at night. Boy! Those buggers knock me out, fully! The really are great! According to sleep experts, I need to get at least (!) 7 hours of sleep a night. This means that if I get to bed by 10, and wake up at 5:30, I’m good. Right?

Looking after my body is not only about taking my vitamins, going to the gym, eating healthily and drinking enough water. But with the amount of stress we live with, my body and my brain needs to sleep. Here’s to getting some good night’s rest!

I sure as hell need it!