Queen's Birthday - King and Queen quotes to ponder

Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.
Queen Elizabeth II


 A throne is only a bench covered with velvet. 
Napoleon Bonaparte


Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmiths. 
Elizabeth I



All the time I feel I must justify my existence. 
Prince Of Wales Charles


Kings fight for empires, madmen for applause. 
John Dryden



They say that kings are made in the image of God. If that is what he looks like, I feel sorry for God.
Frederick the Great



The foremost art of kings is the ability to endure hatred. 
Seneca (Seneca the Elder)


The past cannot be cured. 
Elizabeth I


Good memories are our second chance at happiness.
Queen Elizabeth II


Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination. 
George Bernard Shaw


If your job is to leaven ordinary lives with elevating spectacle, be elevating or be gone. 
George Will


When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future.
Queen Elizabeth II





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Melbourne to Darwin November 2019

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Melbourne to Darwin

The Shopping Centre
Not knowing whether to be scared or to be content Make your judgment Halo or devil 
We describe our persona of creepy In our religious manifestations In our children books In our stories  In our movies
Our hell on earth Permitting the dead to guide our fear and vision 


Peter went shopping In our hallowed place of transaction To think and talk about probability To keep the gate open for approved believers To revoke the others who continue to seek knowledge
Our gatekeeper of the significant fell into a moment And became lost in thought  He let his guard down  There on a humble symbol of power  Laid down to rest Control
A situation began to unfold No-one saw who claimed it
Everyone knows Key 6 was extensively employed to establish Terra Australis Incognita To support those of divine grace to access the fruits of this new world To impose those bereaved from grace and imposed to a fate of generational poverty



The moment in which Peter forgot about ke…
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Darwin Jingili Water Gardens Day 7-8

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On reflection, although I have mainly worked in a people-based industry (education), my mode of operations has been product-based. Dealing with large numbers of people invariably leans towards systematization. I focussed on systematization - that is - a step-by-step process underlined by consistency, performance, and dependability. Everyone knows, does their job, knows their timelines, and meets deadlines as expected. The systems that are designed by the controller's realities and meets expected standards. What I have found difficult over the journey and within the systematization of process and procedure were attitudes and behaviors. The intended system always seemed incomplete and momentarily lapsed into unreliability. Quite a few years back I became interested in error - more specifically accumulated error. I also became interested in values and the lingering ghosts of previous systems. I now realize that learning growth, change management, project management, and the success o…
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Ambitious Artist Ha Ha Ha video

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At the age of 60, I thought life would be much easier to understand
In the '80s, I was painting art inspired by Fauvist, Cobra and Art Brut artists
I wanted my art to be raw, powerful and primitive
I was investigating our psychological and physical barriers as they failed to protect
I wanted to paint self entrapment where sickness and resistance hid any possibility of outwardly demonstrating wellness.


Back in ‘81
When
Times were fun
As a fine artist
With ambition in mind
I thought of life


It was so primitive
From the 1860s to 1950s
They were seemingly untreatable
They were feared
There was panic
Colonies within a colony


A prison for the sick
Of appalling living conditions
Enforcing social isolation
GRIM and SHAME


A wish in time
Investing in negative sentiment
Self-sealing
Theory
Evidence
Belief


Invested in negative sentiment
Fabric and Structure


Pressed on for living
I have the need to know
Fleeting and impulsive distrust


A self-deprecating joke
I murmur in delight of my loss
I j…
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Social Networking and Teaching

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Simply put, Social Networking is big business.  In regards to schooling, there are high gains and big risks.
Social Networking holds a significant skill-set which is increasingly becoming an important part of contemporary life. Students need to learn how to effectively and efficiently employ the tools for their working life. How do students gain the required skills set whilst advancing the required subject knowledge? Social Networking has added complexity to the teaching environment. It is not a question of open exploration, suck and see, or for the teacher to step aside and assume the role of a friend. The interconnecting role of a teacher and student should not be compromised. Teachers are the experts who set standards, who hold the knowledge required, who provide an instructional environment that enabled clarity of purpose. 
This is not the era for teachers to provide a fuzzy environment where students have to guess what they need to know or are graded without knowledge of standards.…
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Darwin Jingili Water Gardens Day 1

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COVID-19 2020 has shut down my travels. 
So that now I'm on my annual mid-year break I have the time to question my actions. My employment is based on a formal strategy.  High pressure and doing it. 
COVID-19 has placed barriers onto my normality. The basis of this blog is questioning the 'just doing it' normality within the confines of COVID-19 restrictions. Understanding my actions within confinement -  'we cannot know things as they are in themselves' (Kant). 
On this basis, I have dedicated part of my holiday getting to know myself getting to know Jingili Water Gardens. In short, thinking about my experiences experiencing Jingili Water Gardens. 
My initial quandary is that I do not know if this blog is a response of being free to act within restrictions or is it a 'just do it' reaction imposed by confinement.  In other words, is this aesthetic of my own freedom or is it that of an outcome derived by that of an authoritative decision? 
If I walk around Jingil…
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Darwin Jingili Water Gardens Day 4-5

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Across the first 3 to 4 days of walking around Jingili Water Gardens my thinking evolved from discovery and my understanding of the actual scope of commitment it will take to realize a creative breakthrough. My reflection efforts have been centered on observing my thinking and my thoughts about my thinking. I now realize that I have evaded thinking about my cognitive psychology and what I bring to the gardens each repeated activity. In short, the subconscious filters that inhibit my perceptions
As mentioned in previous reflections, I am a career educator and a fledgling artist, and I am preparing my exit from educational leadership and building my aspirations as a late-career artist. The repeated activity is intended to enable me to find a difference that can help support a transformation.
On the macro, when I entered my artistic and education-based careers, computers were not readily available. As such, the Fine Arts course I completed at RMIT was in oil painting and teacher training a…
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Australian Post - why are we doing their job?

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I have a problem
​My issue concerns automation and human-based services. The Australian postal service was originally based on the daily delivery of mail, however, with email and automated billing fewer mail is delivered. So the efficiency of maintaining a full fleet of mail persons is questioned - fewer posties are required. However, corresponding automation of delivery has occurred - that is buying consumable products through online services such as Amazon. Online services require fewer retail staff, however, they need people to deliver the order to complete the order.
My problem is that we (the customer) are using our resources to complete the transaction. Both companies are relying on our time and cost to complete the transaction.
In Australia much of the online delivery is achieved by the Australian Postal services, however, the manual delivery method hasn't much changed to accommodate online orders. There are perhaps more delivery vans than ever before and fewer mail bikes, howe…
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Darwin Jingili Water Gardens Days 8-10

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In a social environment, each repeating action is slightly different, even when social interactions are limited to a few actors and a limited range of actions is undertaken.
Walking past a stranger and muttering 'good morning' or making a hand or facial gesture, whilst limited is also grounding. Each repeated action improves the experience of the activity. The smile gets bigger and ignoring more pronounced.  The gesture shifts from novel to heightened and then to automation. Simple transactions fall into the shadows or normality. The gesture occurs without realization. It is systematized.  Is there a way of not plateauing into reductive repetitive activity and to continually improve the experience? 
Perhaps gamification? For example, one reaction for one person and another for another person. 
My original and prior thoughts were that continuous and repeated actions inhibit each transaction's ability to adapt. So mix it up - change hand & facial gestures - make the play in…
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