High points in 2013 included: a lovely Down's Syndrome teenager giving me a most wonderful smile - I'd remembered his piece of rope he likes to trail in the water during his weekly 'sail'; a bunch of excluded teenagers telling me I was a great sports coach because I didn't try to 'teach' them; an Autistic c. 40 year old confiding in me (in a stage whisper) that an Autistic c.25 year old shouldn't be allowed to touch the throttle as he was prone to 'max it' (his words); watching a solo sailor control his dinghy during a championship race... using only a mouth piece; teaching primary school kids to sail (girls more motivated - why?); moving into my own flat after 2 years in recovery care homes and being released from being classed as a vulnerable adult.
Low points were very rare: I got irritated at the national governing body for sailing - the RYA - the one behind the Para Olympics - the one I work for at Bristol Sailability - that a disabled person cannot be an
instructor. My rant did not help as it was eloquently performed to a very senior National Disability Organiser in public so he now ignores me ( I wonder if that's why I failed the course I was on when I dared to point out the contradictions?); I also 'failed' the first 2 job interviews I had - the first I have ever had but I do know why I failed them... HR has invaded care homes and I don't use the correct words but I have now been taught the language & format used by all the Polish, Romanian and Spanish applicants so crossed OK, so that's the minimalist annual of a 59 year old feeling his age because he's just had his first free Flu jab! Now for a Tiggerish bounce into 2014... ouch, forgot I'm decrepit Dodo of a pirate, an abb free incorrigible grump in gestation. Galumph.
I'm in between jobs at the moment as the charity I was working for has run out of funds for wages, the trustees are spending money on new rather then maintaining existing so volunteers are trying to look after the 47 boats I maintained though we do have a nice new indoor fitness suite. Enough of that, onto my job hunt. I'm probably going to end up doing a night shift stacking supermarket shelves which would leave my days open for sailing for the disabled here in Bristol (that's the guys I've been working for). The government has allowed me to sign onto the dole which pays my rent, council tax and £70 per week for food & utilities - but sometimes fortune smiles on me, NPower's computer has 'given' me 5 1/2 months free electricity that they can't charge me for, lol and brilliant. Job hunting is extremely web intensive, pity those who do not have a home computer or the skills to use one so my mates who have come from being on the streets are automatically disadvantaged without training which takes months part time as full time is not allowed except for youths which massages the unemployment figures etc. etc. blah, blah and there are other weird conundrums (set rant to simmer).
Utterly surreal... perchance political reality... a hidden agenda... whose reality does that fit into?
I admit I do get confused about reality, my reality that is; I've been following a series of articles in the New Scientist (don't worry, I won't go mathematical on you) which philosophise on reality using simple, observable facts to prove hypotheses of what the universe is, Higg's and all. A simple experiment at home with a torch, a white wall and a card with a minute hole in it can demonstrate that light behaves as a wave - the light/dark stripes of the diffraction pattern on the wall - and as a particle - excited atoms in the torch emit photons which can be seen by your eyes. You can go to your local physics lab. (CERN will do) and get them to repeat that experiment with a 'torch' that emits 1 photon at a time, put a 'card' with a 'hole' in it in front of the 'torch' & a whole load of 'cameras' where your eyes should be and hit 'on' but get the lab. to run the experiment before you arrive at the scene to see the result. Each photon should hit the same spot as there is no interference between waves, there is only 1 photon at a time, but the diffraction pattern will build up, why? The latest thinking is that it does so because 'I', the observer's mind, believe it will (bit egocentric!). Greek philosophers came up with that viewpoint too, that 'I', the observer's Id & Ego, create the 'reality' I experience including the quantum mechanics and mathematics to prove it... by the way the proof is only understood by a very few, and the debate furious, Steven Hawking recently reluctantly accepted this 'empty set' proof though I'm just going to accept I can't even effect my love of ice-cream.
Happy New Year
PS A salmagundi of my nurture is at https://sites.google.com/site/jkakathepirate/
