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“Every day I have failures. A lot of things I do, I do them twice and it’s always the second time around that I get it right. The first time is always crash and burn - failure, but then I do it again, and success! A while back, I was due to attend a wedding and the night before I needed to learn these dance steps. It was an African wedding and there was a lot to learn. It was 11pm and the two people I was dancing with were resigned to the idea, but I wanted to learn. I was optimistic about the whole thing and my friends couldn’t understand why. It’s because I had let go of the consequences, the fear of failure, and embraced the experience. The wedding day came, I danced. Yes, I made a lot of mistakes. It wasn’t perfect, but I did it.”
photo: cyclone meena gathers strength as it nears the cook islands.
// OPINION
What lessons can we learn from the latest cyclone season?
Possibly the first is that we do not seem to be learning anything.
We live in the world tropical zone.
There are cyclones nearly every year.
Most years the country is lucky.
Some years we are not.
Over any 100 year period, there may be three or four years when we can be very unlucky.
The worst year of the last century was 1997 when 19 died, in Manihiki, during cyclone Martin.
No one died this year.
In fact, we got off quite lightly. Pukapuka was devastated, but no one drowned.
Light damage means big dollars, however.
According to government, eight percent of all rooms were knocked out by cyclones, five in as many weeks.
Eight percent may not seem high.
Most of that eight per cent is made up of premium waterfront rooms, from which the industry earns top dollars and bookings.
Latest statistics show occupation rates of around 60 to 70%.
Take your cyclone-gutted rooms from that total and the percentage rises to 11% or more than one in ten of the country's top producing rooms. Let's give a big discount and say each of those rooms were worth $100 a night. That comes to about $16,000 a night lost revenues, or $112,000 a week. Give about three months for those rooms to get back to full capacity and we are talking a minimum total loss of $1,456,000.
And yet authorities continue to allow properties to erect rock walls that have been proven, over and over again, not to work. In fact, rock walls are against the wall as they have a negative impact on the environment. No one wants to enforce those laws.
What will happen when we get hit by the big one?
Another, more worrying, example.
At the height of Cyclone Meena, about 20 people were praying for their lives aboard a small trading ship.
By some miracle, they made it through alive. It could easily have resulted in as many deaths as Cyclone Martin, three years into a new century instead of ninety seven.
What was the ship doing there?
Why was it allowed to sail straight into the cyclone zone?
What warnings were given by authorities?
If any, why were those warnings ignored?
Why has there been no inquiry or prosecution?
Risking the lives of 20 people would seem to be good cause to hold an inquiry. In fact, it might be a good idea to call a commission of inquiry. Then repeat that inquiry every year, tasking it to recommend prosecutions against those who continually fail to wake up to the fact that we live smack, bang in the middle of a tropical cyclone zone.
Otherwise, more Cook Islanders will pay for official inaction.
With their lives.
And that's another lesson we seem to be stuck on learning, over and over again.
Scuba lessons. Duds, Paolo and Roy (students) plus Mike and Sonny (fun divers), NAUI openwater scuba checkout, (Anilao), San Teodoro, Mabini, Batangas Philippines
To start your scuba diving class e-mail: dy.raymond@gmail.com
For more info see dyv.us and diveph.blogspot.com
My friend, Nancy Barry (right), wrote a one-woman play which was performed by another friend, Kristen Underwood (left). Nancy is a college English professor who had breast cancer at age 45. The play was brilliant, the acting was brilliant - in short, it was a triumph!
I can't believe I really did it!!! Also, if I can put a palm tree in it, I will. Thanks, Joanne for the lessons and somehow giving me confidence over the internet!
I've nothing left to say.
I've nothing left to think.
I've nothing left to do.
But move on.
(Last picture ever wasted on you.)
"The Lesson" is a physical performance based on "Circle Mirror Transformation" by Annie Baker. The event took place at blackbox theater (american college of Greece)
A neighbor of ours told Deb and I about asking his son to write, just a little, during his summer off from school. Photo taken in California a few years back.
Are you a technical minded person who wants to learn to dance but have concerns of not being able to pick up dancing fast enough? The old method of "monkey see monkey do" just doesn't cut it for people who are not blessed with physical co-ordination.
Fortunately with the right tools one of them being your mind, you too can learn to dance and hence you will be able to express yourself on the dance floor by showing friends that you can be swave too...and smart.
We at 'Elite synergy School of Dance' make it easy for people with technical minds to learn to dance by using a structured and systematised approach to making use of your best asset your mind. Hence you will be able to use your mind and make it communicate with your body by commanding it to SHAKE IT how you want and not in a weird sort of way like if you have dislocated a hip or something!
Elite Synergy School of Dance
93 Gilles Street
Adelaide, SA, 5000
+61 0433 840 087 (mobile)
Check out our site for more information!