Anti Social Media

Source: bing.com via Donna on Pinterest

If you were to trawl through the masses of Tweets fluttering about in cyber space during any given night you’d be mistaken for thinking you’d been sucked into some sort of venomous vortex. Much like a fiery volcano, it is constantly spewing forth a river of hot vitriol at whoever is the target of the day.

Most recently the bulls eye has been placed on TV personality Charlotte Dawson and it has lead to dire circumstances, being hospitalised after a bitter barrage of the foulest tweets imaginable were directed her way.

It begs the question then: when did social media morph into anti-social media? And is the notion of “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?” simply a casualty of the digital age in which we live, given it’s so easy to hide behind the anonymity of a Twitter Handle or pseudonym?

The sudden onslaught of wrath with Ms Dawson has been swift, harsh and unyielding. While I am not a regular viewer of her TV shows, it does not stop me from thinking people have been unnecessarily cruel. Sadly, she has not been alone in suffering these online personal tirades.

Remember when The Voice was gracing the airwaves and it was Delta Goodrem who was been at the hands of many online hammerings? Can anyone pinpoint exactly what it was that displeases the twitterverse so much about this once darling of our TV screens?

The same can be said for the likes of Lara Bingle when her show aired. While I wouldn’t call myself a fan per se, I do feel sorry for her that she has to endure deeply personal attacks, just because she lives her life in the spotlight and has made some mistakes along this bumpy road we call life. But hands up who has lead an idyllic, stress free existence and been 100% successful at everything they’ve turned their hand to?

I figured as much.

The viciousness can at times make me treat my Twitter account as if its poison ivy – I get to the point where I can no longer bear to witness to such consistently disparaging commentary. I realise these people are merely exercising their right of freedom of speech and I am exercising my right to flip the switch to off but that doesn’t make it any less malicious. 

Of course, this sort of online ire is not just limited to Twitter. Internet forums, news and gossip sites and blogs also bear the brunt of often foul, harsh and unjust criticisms. What is most unsettling though is when the banter begins to fester into truly unsavoury, personal territory.

It completely sickens me to think someone can justify telling someone to end their life, as with Charlotte Dawson. And I'm even just amazed me that people will go to the effort to leave a nasty comment, seemingly just for the thrill of it. By all means, add your opinion if it is valid, not merely because you have some sort of unnatural loathing for a particular person.

Yes, I understand analysis is par for the course when you are in the public eye, but really, if we are but armchair experts, who have no knowledge what it is like to lead Charlotte Dawson's (or Delta, or Lara's!) life, do we have the entitlement to attack or preach? Ask yourself how you would feel if you were constantly picked apart at the hands of online vultures week in and week out? Hopefully channelling some empathy might make you stop for a second before you send that next nasty tweet out into cyber space.

I am not pretending to be Pollyanna here; there will always be a pack of metaphorical pitch fork toting peeps online, waiting to pounce on their next intended victim. And of course we all have a right to speak out if something said or done has deeply offended you (much like what I am doing now). But for the love of all things harmonious, and to maintain a semblance of integrity (online or in real life), let’s all extend some diplomacy please.

Start Spreading The News....

There's a new little Webeck on the way!

You see that beautiful little bundle of blossoming baby there? It is the next piece of the puzzle of our little slice of life, due to make it’s grand entrance into our world in early March 2013 (yes, right in time to coincide with the start of the NRL season – we timed that oh so well, didn’t we?!)

The common response to this baby announcement, besides being overwhelmed with well wishes, was certainly surprise that we were adding to our little family after so long – after all I spent MANY years vociferously protesting my right to only be able to have one child. Never in a million years did I want a repeat experience of what happened with the arrival of number one. And the cluckiness that people often feel at the sight of super cute little bundles of newborns? For so long it failed to make a reappearance in my spectrum of emotions – all I could summon was fear. But, eventually the niggling little voice hidden deep inside my heart grew beyond a whisper. Would I live to regret not giving my son a sibling? Would I always wonder if second time around the parenting track might treat me a little differently?

Would there be something – someone – always missing from our world?

Soon the voice grew to a crescendo I could no longer ignore. So I sought many facets of help to finally overcome this fear of mine, and after some time, we eventually were blessed with those two pink lines that pronounced “PREGNANT”!

I look back on that moment the result sprang to life on the test, knowing it would be a true reflection of how I honestly felt.

Unconsciously, I grinned, and pumped the air with a gleeful fist. A good first sign if ever there was one!

And even though I was shaking with shock by the time I had to share the news with The Husband, and spent the first week steeped in a surreal daze there has been an abundance of joy at the thought of another life coming to colour our world.

Keeping “mum” though on the topic was certainly tough. After spilling the secret to our closest friends and family and swearing them to silence for what ended up a period of 7 LONG weeks, was tough. I became very antisocial, both with illness and fear I wouldn’t be able to keep up the façade of health I was meant to be experiencing.

Even though it’s been a trying first trimester, feeling as though I've endured each day with a throbbing hangover, moving as if trying to walk through quicksand, and literally falling into bed each night feeling as if I’ve just completed the London half marathon, I would not swap any of it for even a second. Because I know feeling this way equals the health of the little body blossoming within.

And as we turn the corner from winter into spring, so too do I feel the tides moving back to tranquil. Energy is making a slow, but long overdue reappearance and I am ready to embrace all that awaits with pregnancy number 2!

1461 Days of Firsts

“The days are long but the years are short”, a wise woman recently told me.

It is today that this sentence suddenly takes on significance.

Because yes, the days have been long – oh so achingly long at times. As it is usually just me and my boy while Daddy works his crazy long days, and as my son still has a penchant for starting the day before the sun does, we’ve had more than our fair share of 14 hour days to endure enjoy.

But to balance it out, when I think about the fact my baby boy is blowing out 4 candles on his birthday cake today and all of a sudden I am left wondering where those 1461 days have disappeared to!

I imagine, they are linked together by a series of life firsts, like a real life dot-to-dot that has outlined his little world.

So to my Master H, I want to share with you some of the standout "firsts" that are indellibly inked into this Mummy's mind:

There's no forgetting your dramatic entrance into the world (sadly) and the very first time we would meet, nor that first night home from hospital where you deigned to only slept a whole 45 minutes in an entire night (that should have been a sign of things to come!). Before long you were braving your first flight, as a 6 week old, to visit both your sets of Grandparents in Coffs Harbour and blessedly you barely made a peep!

There were those magical first words at 7 months old that were to unleash an early torrent of vocabulary we were continually amazed by, coinciding with the first time I began to fear for the safety of my belongings when crawling came soon to the horizon.

Let's not forget your first passport and family trip to Fiji, and of course the big birthday bash as a 1 year old - almost at the same time you FINALLY grew your first fangs and stumbled over those wobbly first baby steps.

Mugshot (aka passport pic)

The Big B'day Bash

Fiji Baby!

And so life sped by - starting daycare (where every germ known to man infiltrated our home, twice even resulting in emergency dashes to hospital) and swimming lessons, before sampling your first bike, big boy undies, big boy bed - and of course your first ever little best buddy...

Best little buddies

Likely Daddy's most treasured trio of all - your first Rabbitoh's jersey, your number one NRL game, and first game of Little Kickers... Oh, and that cute first nap together too

Bliss

And even though I'd care to forget it, what would this account be without the first time you accidentally sampled your own poo... (Sorry future 18 year old version of Master H, but hey, it was always a story that would haunt the both of us!)

Throughout it all those big beautiful blue eyes have twinkled back at me, that cheeky, impish grin has shone and my heart has expanded to a size I never before knew.

From Day 1:

To Day1461 days (or so, this was just the cutest recent pic!)

Despite the inevitable days peppered with tedium or tantrums on this parental path I can only sincerely say THANK YOU for the privilege of overseeing those precious firsts where you blossomed from baby to little boy.

I Come From A Land Down Under

Source: google.com.au via Donna on Pinterest

Easter Saturday, April 2002, and England’s most industrial city, Manchester, is playing host to a gaggle of 7 over excited Aussie gals, intent to party the night away in the North’s unpolished gem.

The DJ of this popular club has been keeping the punter’s grooving all night. Unexpectedly, there is a change of pace – someone must have slipped the headphone toting man a request because suddenly the air is filled with the unmistakeable strains of Men At Work’s “Land Down Under”. And the 7 girls slam their drinks down on the sticky table,  scream in pure, unadulterated bloody delight and make a beeline for the centre of the now empty dance floor.

They shout the lyrics – every damn word of it known by heart – with gusto, pumping the air with their fists (especially during the line "because we come from the land plenty"!) as they dance and leap with uninhibited pride. The locals meanwhile, watch on in silence, torn between feeling agonised and amused. It’s just become clear they are witnessing an Aussie invasion.

The dancefloor will not be safe again.

And so goes the story on almost every single night of drinking and dancing (and oh my, there were but a few…) I encountered during my 18 months as an expat in 2001/2002. It’s the unofficial anthem for any Aussie who has thrown a backpack over their shoulder, passport in hand, and made themselves a temporary base in another’s home country.

So every time I’ve heard this tune come on TV whilst the Olympics have been on have instantly transported me back to those crazy, carefree times, where my true taste for patriotism was born. Ridiculous, I know, that it took living in another country for me to understand the full extent of national pride, but never in my life had I realised how special it was to claim kinsman-ship with the Land Down Under until I was away. (Absense, heart, you get my drift..!) 

(NOTE: I did trawl through my many travel photos trying to select a suitable one to accompany this trip down memory lane post however they are FAR from being fit for human consumption thanks mainly to the good ol' "Heathrow Injection" that I succumbed to...)

So in lieu of pics I'll leave you with a snapshop of my favourite lyrics instead from Land Down Under instead...

Dying in a den in Bombay 
With a slack jaw, and nothin' much to say 
I said to the man, "Are you trying to tempt me 
Because I come from the land of plenty?" 
And he said, 

"Oh, you come from a land down under? (oh yeah yeah) 
Where women glow and men plunder? 
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder? (ooohh) 
You better run, you better take cover." 

We are.. 

Livin' in a land down under, 
Where women glow and men plunder, (yeahhhhhhhhhh) 
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder? (thunderrrrr!) 
You better run, you better take cover. 

How far are you willing to go to avoid hassle?

Source: athousandsheetsofpaper.blogspot.com via Jean on Pinterest

Hands up who wants less hassle in their lives?

*insert lengthy pause to count vast number of hands*

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