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Following on from last month’s theme of 'ridiculous things people expect Garry to be good at,’ on Friday my boss sent me to a Social Media Marketing conference, with a view to improving the office’s presence on online social media. I’m not sure why they sent me specifically. I’ve no qualifications in marketing and I’m not especially sociable. It’s got absolutely nothing in common with anything else I do at work.
It might just be because I’m male and under 30 (just) and am therefore naturally assumed to be good with computers. This is foolishness, but I didn’t mind a day away from the office where I’m assumed to be good at project management, which is also foolishness.
It was more a training event than a conference, run by a crew from America called SkillPath. It was a two person team who were in town as part of a whirlwind tour of Australia, shining the light of social media into the deepest depths of cultural cynicism, represented ably by me in the back row.
It didn’t start well. I had to give the Americans points for trying to contextualise their data for the locals, but pointing out that some people were likely to be following Julia Gillard on Twitter, while others were following Tom Abbott (sic) didn’t quite have the desired effect. And the presenter’s revelation that she thought she was in Queensland, and didn’t actually have any idea where Darwin was, was just downright hilarious.
However, the obligatory mocking of visitors from America having been indulged, the content they presented was quite interesting at times. And some of the examples of how not to use social media were fascinating.
Possibly the most cataclysmic outcome of the conference for me was that I’ve finally been convinced of – if not the virtues – then certainly the utility of Twitter. I’m only ten years late. You can follow me @GarryCondoseres, but I can’t promise I’ll lead you anywhere useful. Next thing you know I’ll be posting pictures of other peoples’ cakes to my Pinterest board.
I don’t have a Pinterest board. One step at a time.
#MakeOfThatWhatYouWill.
@GarryWith2Rs
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I’ve always had a rather strange relationship with prayer meetings. I’ve grown up in the Church, and I’ve acknowledged how important prayer is for people who claim to be in relationship with God, but special corporate prayer services have always struck me as being a bit like health food: I know it’s a good idea, but I don’t really get excited about it until someone guilts me into it.
I’m kind of a rubbish Christian when you look at it. Don’t get me started on my diet either.
I think part of the reason is that I’ve been to too many prayer meetings that are just opportunities for people to stand up in public and demonstrate how super-spiritual they are, not just by the fact that they like to go to prayer meetings, but by showing us all how fluent they are in the use of whatever spiritual buzzwords happen to be fashionable at the moment.
I don’t care what the dictionary says: “Prideful” is not a word! And even if it is I don’t think God is going to be impressed by how many times we can fit it into a paragraph.
But let’s be honest, I can babble on just as self-righteously as the next guy. I just do it on my blog instead of in a church service. The real reason I don’t go to prayer events is because I’m lazy and complacent.
But recently a bunch of people who run One Body with me have started calling random prayer and praise get-togethers. I went along mainly for solidarity, but I’ve been really struck by the power of what’s going on here.
This is no inner circle talk fest. This is a small group of young people who are quite passionate and committed to meeting together to seek the Lord. And we’re already seeing signs of a response. We met together at ten o’clock on Saturday night (because we’re all young and reckless like that. It’s absolutely a logical time to get together) and kept praying through to midnight, when we decided we’d better head home because we all had church in the morning.
My sister posted an article on Facebook this morning about something called Poe’s law, so now I’m all concerned that you’re not going to understand how sincerely excited I am (see my last post) to find more people in Darwin who are sick of the division and disunity that’s been crippling us for the last decade or so. If so, that’s fine. I’m sure this post makes for excellent satire if that’s how you want to read it.
If, on the other hand, you’ve decided that I’m dead serious, then keep an eye on the right sidebar. I’ll keep it as up to date as I can with news of the next get together. It’s on.
Make of that what you will. Unless you can’t tell whether I’m serious or not. In that case, make of that something else. If you will.
Will you?
Garry with 2 Rs
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So at the start of the year I moved house from Malak in Darwin’s northern suburbs, to a unit right in Darwin city. I’ve moved in with two friends in a unit with a harbour view, five minutes’ walk from work, church, Happy Yess and the supermarket. It’s definitely been one of the smarter moves I’ve made. I can walk to all of them with no dramas at all, although my decision to walk to church bare foot yesterday was not my brightest ever.
City living has an entirely different feel to it. I realise it’s a bit misguided to talk about “city living” in a metropolis the scale of Darwin, particularly given how much time I’ve spent in Sydney recently. But it’s still a different vibe. It brings an increased sense of possibility and involvement and a new sense of being all grown up and mature.
In celebration of this new found sense of being an adult, my house mates and I have spent the weekend developing highly sophisticated ways of entertaining ourselves on stormy afternoons. I hereby present the first known documentation of the new game taking Harry Chan Avenue by storm.
Padawan Learner: A game for two or more players.
You will need:
- A plastic light sabre
- Adeptness with the Force (optional)
- At least one Nerf gun
- A blindfold (not recommended)
Points are scored (if you can be bothered) for every Nerf disc successfully deflected with the light sabre. For best results, a selection of different guns should be used. Experimental evidence suggests that Matt’s giant 40 disc shooter actually fires with slightly less velocity than my lighter ten shooter, although obviously I run out of ammunition a lot sooner.
Actually dressing up as a Jedi is recommended, but not essential.
May the Force be with you.
Garry with 2 Rs
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A lot of people stop me in the street and ask me “Garry, how do you manage to be so consistently awesome?” I generally give people a reasonably humble response, about investing a lot of practice and watching a lot of television, but honestly, the secret is to always look like you know what you’re talking about.
I’ve also often been told it’s very difficult to tell the difference between when I’m being deliberately ridiculous and when I’m being dead serious. And as for the times when I’m being accidentally ridiculous; well who knows what that looks like?
But the problem with always looking like I know what I’m doing is that people tend to think that I always know what I’m doing. This can be a bit of a problem when people ask me questions about things that I don’t actually know anything about. The fact that I’m quite capable of giving an answer with a straight face doesn’t make it a good idea to ask me in the first place. There really is no way to know whether I’m full of it or not. But seriously, if in doubt, bet on ‘full of it’.
In the last two weeks, people have asked me to do a whole bunch of things of varying levels of ridiculousness, including: fixing a computer, being a scout leader, fixing the tenor section, managing the training department (what?), blocking a Nerf bullet with just a plastic light sabre (to be fair, I’m getting pretty good at this) interpreting Ephesians, landing a 747 that was on fire (okay, not really), running a social media marketing campaign (Okay, seriously. What?) and finding a fourth thing to blog about in February (Success!).
But by all means, go ahead and continue to trust me with your increasingly insane requests. Who knows what new and fantastic things I might be able to pretend to be good at next week?
Garry with 2 Rs
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I’ve been a little flat out of late. I’ve spent more time travelling in the last month than I have in my own home, though that's largely because I’ve also moved house in the middle of it. Last night, as I collapsed into bed after yet another flight home from Sydney – which this time was delayed by an hour and a half – I was struck by what a strange sensation it was: I was inordinately grateful to be sleeping in my own bed again, and also acutely aware that I’ve really not slept in it more than a dozen times so far anyway. I do like it, though.
Anyway, a side consequence of being so insanely busy over the Christmas/New-Year/Freak-Me-Sideways-It’s-February-Already period is that I really haven’t taken time to take stock of 2012. It’s not really appropriate to post New Years’ reflections half way through February, but if you think respect of literary convention is going to stop me, you’re obviously reading the wrong blog.
Well okay then. 2012 was, on the balance of things, pretty freaking awesome. Especially considering that it was the rebound from 2011, which sucked monumentally. 2012 was the year I escaped from the credit union and joined the public service. The year my sister got married. The year I finally got One Body off the ground. The year I joined the chorale. The year I took up comedy with Happy Yess. The year I came home to DMUC.
The year Kim and I finally got our act together.
So what does 2013 hold for Cum Tacent Clament?
I’ve decided the time has come to go commercial. To renovate my blog into a blend of hipster book reviews, vegetarian casserole recipes and advice/inspiration for other young mothers out there, and then sell it to Woolworths.
Not really.
2013 looks to be a year to build on the foundations of the last year. Last Thursday I had a meeting with some other guys about how we can take One Body and really make it into something that can energise and unite people across the city, instead of just being a worship jam session that we slap together at the last minute. This evening, I’m off to meeting to organise marketing for Happy Yess comedy, to try and make it something we can actually be proud of, and that can really build a local core of entertainers.
In short, 2013, looks be the year where “consistently half-arsed” gets removed from my résumé. And as much as I’ve enjoyed being the guy who repeatedly gets away with putting in almost no effort, I think I’m okay with that. I’m closing in on a milestone birthday which may or may not disqualify me from the twenty-something bloggers collective, and maybe it’s time for me to do something a little more concrete with myself.
It seems to be the thing to do to create a “Thirty before thirty” list to silently judge oneself against. As with most such conventions, I’ve chosen to simultaneously acknowledge it and deride it. You can find my list of stuff on the right over there.
Some goals are more realistic than others, as usual. Deal with it.
Garry with 2 Rs