I watched the first game of the 2011 AFL season last night. It was the first time that the new Substitute rule was put to the test. A quick Google search this morning provided many news articles saying that it was a failure.
Author: Ben Clapton
I'm a violinist, teacher, composer and arranger from Ellenbrook, Western Australia. I love my family, coffee, AFL and running.
A little hint goes a long way
On Saturday, I treated myself to a golf lesson. I’ve been playing for a number of years, but had never had a proper lesson. While I did have some good things in my game (eg, my grip) I also had a number of things to correct in my posture.
My teacher got me to change only a couple of things, but that made big changes to my swing. Through practice to make it regular, it should hopefully bring my game down to a lower score.
What I liked about the lesson is that he didn’t make massive changes, only small ones. Bending my knees less, bending more from the waist, lifting up my chin. When we want to make changes in our lives, we often tend to look for the big changes. Problem with that is that we’ll fall off the bandwagon, and get disappointed. Instead, we should look for little changes that will make a big impact on our lives.
For example, one of the little changes I made to help me lose weight was to stop buying soft drinks when I was thirsty. Instead, I’ll have water, cordial, or fruit juice. These aren’t as bad as soft drinks, and it’s just a small change that will have a big effect on my life.
What small changes can you make on your life?
Let your light shine
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:13-16 (NIV)
Have you been to the country recently? Just recently, I headed down to Margaret River for a weekend away. We were driving, and there were no lights anywhere. We looked up and saw the stars. Having escaped the light pollution that cities normally give, we could see all these stars lighting up the sky. It was really amazing. Continue reading “Let your light shine”
One car or two?
I’ve recently been thinking about the possibility of selling my car. I’m definitely selling it at the end of the year when I (hopefully) move to Melbourne, but I’ve been thinking of selling it soon for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it’s not going up in value, and only going down in value. Plus, it’s only going to cost me money in repairs. So by selling now, I’m saving money in repairs and getting more money for the car now than later.
Secondly, by selling the car now, I can put that money into a savings account, and instead of costing it money, it could be earning me money.
On the down side, catching public transport would increase the travel time to an hour (as opposed to 15-30 minutes), and would make things difficult in sharing one car between two people – working out who needs to use it when.
I think that there’s a fair few things to think about, but I thought I’d put it out there to the blogosphere to give their thoughts on the matter. So what’s your thoughts? Hit up the comments to let me know.
Mr Holland’s Opus
I was reminded of this movie when someone quoted a line from John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy” which is performed by Mr Holland and dedicated to his deaf son. It a touching moment in a movie full of them. When I think about it, this movie has a similar hold over me as M*A*S*H does – through the course of this movie, you get involved in Mr Holland’s life. From his first day at work, his attempts to get a football player to play drums, his temptation by a student, and finally his retirement. All through this you get to feel his emotions as he feels them. His anger, his hope, his despair. Plus, it always helps that it’s a film about music – and I love films about music.
Anyway, I’m going to leave you with a couple of clips of my favourite parts. Firstly, the performance of “Beautiful Boy” and secondly his farewell assembly, including the first performance of his symphony.
The first (and worst) album
The first album I ever bought was one I remember because it is one that I regret so badly. I hear all these stories of people who bought these classic albums as their first, and they have great pleasure in remembering how it affected their lives.
My album is far more embarrassing – being Hansen’s first album. it got turned into an art project soon after.
I’m hoping that there are some readers who have similarly bad first albums. Please feel free to share on the comments.
Favourite Class at College
Just a quick one as it’s late, and I need to be up early tomorrow.
My favourite class in college (well, University), would probably have been String Class. This was where we would play for the other string players at uni, and get specific feedback relating to string playing.
I remember my first performance, and I hated it. I felt like I didn’t deserve to be there. It probably didn’t help that string class was joined with the other Music Uni, because “there weren’t enough string players for their own class” (despite there being more string players than brass players, and brass players had their own seperate class). While they may not agree, we certainly felt like second class citizens, as if we were the string players who weren’t good enough to get into their school.
Anyway, eventually, WAAPA granted us our own string class. And it was awesome. It really helped bring the strings together, and start supporting each other. And while there were many things that I would say helped along the way, I would say that giving us our own string class really helped kick start the redevelopment of the strings program at WAAPA.
So that was my favourite uni class. What was yours?
Zangief Kid: Bullying and its effects
The Zangief Kid is making a big splash. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s a video of this school student, Casey, getting bullied at school. He eventually snaps, and drops the bully on his head. He has since been suspended from school.
Now, I want to say right from the outset that I believe Casey’s reaction was most likely justified, but was completely over the top. I in no way condone violence. However, I know how harmful the effects of bullying can be.
When I switched schools at the end of year 10, I didn’t fit into the mould at the new school, and didn’t exactly want to change. I got pretty heavily bullied, including cyber-bullying. It was awful, and there were many times when I wanted to run away, to drop out of school, at times – to die. It was only through support of my friends, family and the teachers that I managed to get through the year. The main light of hope was that I would soon be out of school, and never see any of the bullies ever again.
The effects of bullying stayed with me well past the end of school though. I avoided the school – including the major shopping centre across the road – for years afterwards, afraid of seeing anyone. One day, the chaplain of the school contacted me and asked if I would meet him at the school for a discussion. Of course, he was late (not his fault the assembly ran late), but those few minutes of me waiting there were absolute torture, remembering all those bad memories, afraid that someone would see me and it would all start again. Of course, it didn’t – but it was still an awful feeling.
After that meeting, I was able to start releasing some of the anger that I held towards the school, and during a retreat, I was able to release it all to Jesus, all the pain that I had held in me, all the anger that I had bottled up. I’m a lot better now, but there are still some names that I’d prefer even my friends not to use.
Bullying is awful, and its effects can span a lifetime. This video has brought it into the forefront of our minds. At this time, let’s make a commitment to stop bullying wherever it happens.
Sunrise, Sunset
Do you like sunrises, or sunsets? As a West Australian, it’s hard not to love sunsets. We get incredible sunsets here in Perth, which I think is in part caused by living on the west coast of a country, with no land between us and the horizon. In summer it is brilliant, because the sun goes down so late, that you can get home from work, drive out to the beach and have a walk along as the sun goes down. It’s incredibly humbling, to stand there in front of something so massive, so beautiful. It’s a brilliant reminder of God’s handiwork, his creativity, his brilliance.
But, as the Perth sunrise is often no-where near as spectacular as the Perth sunset, I kind of regard sunrises as very special moments. I remember one from when I was a teenager. My family was on holidays in Albany, and as I was up early – and it was still dark – I thought I’d walk out to a special lookout, where I could see the sun rise over water. I have no recollection of it being incredibly beautiful, or stunning, but that moment, that space, has stuck in my memory, and most likely will for some time to come.
I have often heard people describe sunsets and sunrises as “thin places” – where the gap between heaven and earth becomes very thin, and we can see some of the glory of God’s kingdom. I would not doubt this for a second.
Jammin’
I wasn’t allowed to go home yesterday afternoon. My wife was having a girls only party, and I was strictly told that I was not allowed to go home after church. So I organised with a few mates to get together and have a jam. It was awesome, a whole heap of fun. We jammed over some riffs that we knew, then had a go at a couple of songs which ended up sounding pretty good. I had a chance to pull out some of my heavier guitar tones that I don’t often use in church situations, Dave had a chance to really play his new bass (which he discovered was even more awesome than he originally thought, finding a beautiful dirty side to the slightly bluesy sound he thought he had found), Paul got a chance to play a whole heap of stuff and Isaac got to hit some drums really loudly. It was awesome fun.
One of the songs we had fun doing was “Jesus is Just Alright” by the Doobie Brothers. I think this is one that I might see if we can pull up for the youth band sometime. Would be a whole heap of fun.
Have a listen to that, that will make your Monday go much better. What would your favourite song to jam on be?
Ben Clapton 