Over the weekend I happened upon a provocative conversation with a fellow train commuter that had me pondering about how and where we should share our impassioned beliefs. I boarded the packed train to Sydney and quickly realised my journey coincided with that of many teens on their way to a music festival: neon singlets and Smirnoff swigged from coke bottles was the apparent order of the day. Upon taking my seat beside an older gentleman, the only free seat in the carriage, I began reading my copy of the Weekend Australian. I was only one paragraph into a story detailing the latest strategy for Afghanistan when the man beside me struck up conversation. He spoke at me for the next hour and a half.

He told me he was 79 years old and I soon discovered that he believed in everything that I did not. He was a Christian author and a creationist who laughed at the the mere suggestion that science could trump religion. He went as far as to attribute Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans hosting the annual LGBT Mardi Gras celebration. He asked me if I had witnessed the Superbowl, it was flaunting evil, he said. It was at this point I could not longer hide my offence at his extreme views. I couldn't help but wonder if the man was deliberately attempting to elicit a similarly passionate counter to his views or if he was blindly evangelical. I think it was the latter.

As a general rule, while not compromising my own views, I try to ensure that I am not actively and purposely battering those around me with my own agenda. What's your tactic? Do you get passionate or keep it light? What are your rules of conversational engagement?

I'm on my second day of 4:45am wake up calls. This is because I've not yet moved into my new, much closer to college campus, apartment. This means that my daily commute is quite a long journey. I think if this sort of day continues I'm going to have to start taking Nanna naps at about 2pm. The upside to long train journeys is that I have a lot of time to read and write. However, rather than inducing enviable productivity, the morning journey occurs pre-caffeination and thus results in live-tweeting as I read The Australian, rather than clever analysis or comment for my blogs.

This week on Tres Lola I'll be talking about celebrating the 80's, beating the back to work/school blues and body image (which I also touched on a few weeks back in this article about naked and unretouched Jennifer Hawkins). In yesterdays Australian Daily Telegraph, it was reported that Australian women have the highest rising obesity rate. Which got me to thinking, why is this the case? A male commenter touched on what is probably quite a likely contributing mindset to increasing weight gain amongst women when he said "Food is fuel, it isn't recreation, eat when you're hungry, not bored ".

Earlier this week I noticed a tweet from Natalie about the fat acceptance movement and the lack of media coverage it receives (at least, here in Australia). When asking her whether she believed a movement of this sort really deserved greater media attention, she replied that she didn't believe any person deserved to be demonised based on their body type. And I agree with this sentiment whole-heartedly. I know I could never consider judging the worth of a person based upon what size pants they wear.


In saying that, on a personal level, I think that we place too much of a link between our body image or size and our self worth. But when it comes to 'fat acceptance', comfort in ones own skin can be a positive, but I must err on the side of health. We must also acknowledge that being underweight can be just as damaging as being overweight. The only questions I pose when considering my weight are: am I healthy (ie. how is my energy, have I been poorly a lot lately?) and do I feel good about me? If I can answer both of those questions with a yes, that is good enough for me. There will be more on this on Tres Lola this Thursday.

Onwards to contentious topic #2: Late last week I attended a talk by radical British climate sceptic, Christopher Monckton. I wrote an article about his presentation that you can read here. You may know, my hometown is Newcastle, Australia. Newcastle is the worlds largest coal exporter. While this is most certainly not a feat to boast of, it gives some context as to the sort of receptive crowd (consisting largely of people around my grandparents age group) Monckton met with when he addressed Newcastle. To hear so many allowing fear of a loss of traditional industry in Newcastle result in mockery of climate science, and those who lobby in favour of it, was disheartening. However, as I write this on my train journey back to Newcastle, I can over hear a mother explaining wind power to her young son, my faith is renewed and the enviro-activist in me is encouraged.

Whichever side of the climate argument you find yourself on, surely both sides can come together to agree that a move towards sustainable energy is positive for the new jobs it will create and the economic prosperity it will bring about. If we want to operate a capitalist society, the least we can do is to capitalise on natural resources, such as wind and solar rather than coal, in a way that will ensure that not only us lot in the United States, Britain and Australia are enjoying all the luxuries our industrialised societies afford us, but that we give developing nations such as Bangladesh and island nations like the Maldives a fair go too. And, if, a time comes where all the incredibly learned climate scientists and economists are proven to have miscalculated the effect of our carbon emissions on the environment, we will still have developed a new industry to bolster our economies, provide jobs for our families and ensure that even after we have exhausted our oil and coal reserves, we can still enjoy our lifestyles.


What are your thoughts? What's going on in your world this week?

Sometimes when writing Tres Lola, I am just bursting with the urge to tell you about all the stuff that's kind of fabulous to me, which I often do, on twitter, but sometimes I'd like more than 140 characters. For this reason, once a week, I'm going to take a wee break from the usual style of articles and share more. After much pondering, I've come up with the rather uncreative title of 'Weekly Words'. But don't let my not-so-hot title writing skills put you off, I'll try and keep the post full of fabulous to make up for the lack-lustre title. This will be a space for me to share the motivation behind my posts. It will also be a place for me to share the stuff that has been playing most heavily on my mind and going on in my world. I'd love to hear about what's been going on with you too.

So here it is, the inaugural Weekly Words, feedback is appreciated, so do let me know if you believe this feature to be utter rubbish, though telling me it's not too rough would also be awesome...

I don't know if you guys read Problogger and Zen Habits, but I do and recently I listened to an interview Darren of Problogger conducted with Leo Babauta from Zen Habits. When it comes to blogging, Darren and Leo know their stuff. Leo was speaking about where he gains his inspiration for blog posts. What he said was something that I think really resonates and sums up what is true for most bloggers and certainly for me, "My life is my fountain of ideas...you can never really run out of ideas when you look at your own life, what works and what doesn't and what you can share with others".

This week I posted my second article on how to wear harem pants, the first post I did on harems is one of the most popular posts on Tres Lola and the post I did this week is a follow up that talks about how to style harem pants both casually and a little more formally. I followed my own advice and got into the casual harem look when I popped into town for a coffee this week (see image above left). I also wrote this week about relationships, how to get over break ups by focusing on rebuilding self-esteem and also how to know if it's time to give your best buddy the flick. The post about toxic friends elicited a surprisingly strong reaction in the comments, on twitter and in emails which got me to thinking - when it comes to friendships, we've all had our fair share of bad experiences, but we've come out the other side with greater tenacity and confidence.

Speaking of friendships, I'll be making my way to Sydney's north shore tomorrow to celebrate Australia Day by the pool at a BBQ hosted by one of my Sydney best girlfriends. I'm sure our soundtrack for the day will be Triple J's hottest 100 countdown - an annual music poll that catalogs the hottest 100 songs from the past year according to the listeners and an Australia Day tradition. But as the nation pauses to enjoy a day away from the office, indulging in BBQ's and sunshine, the plight of the Aboriginal people won't be far from my mind. Many Australians refer to January 26th as Invasion Day, and with good reason. History recognises that Captain Cook colonised Australia in 1788, but long before he arrived, the Aboriginal people called Australia home. Our history is full of shameful occasions of abuse against the Aboriginal people typified by experience of the stolen generation of Aboriginal children. While we now live a much more harmonious existence, I'll continue to believe we white folk have a lot to learn from the traditional owners of this land.

Before I sign off, I must turn my attention to Haiti. By now, most of us have contributed what we can afford to one of the many campaigns to help earthquake devastated Haiti. What I'd like to ask each of you to do will not cost anything and it won't take more than 2 minutes of your time. Long after Haiti ceases trending on twitter, Haitians and those working with them will be continuing to rebuild their nation. The road ahead is long and the path to full recovery is many years off. To give Haiti a real chance, we need to ask that the International Monetary Fund drop Haiti's $641 million debt. It's a roadblock in Haiti's road to recovery but by coming together we can demand real justice for Haiti. Let's give Haiti a chance - to add your name to the list of thousands who have already signed on pledging their support, please click here.

"...even as [donations] flow in, Haiti is sending money out--to pay off national debts run up by corrupt governments in years past. Haiti should not be worrying about debt to the International Monetary Fund as families are digging through rubble. At a moment like this, global financial institutions won't be able to ignore a worldwide outcry. Help lift a massive burden from Haiti's ability to rescue, recover, and rebuild -- let's raise a million voices for emergency debt relief for Haiti." Avaaz


This ridiculously long post was written on a slow train to Sydney made pleasant with a soundtrack of Queen, Peaches, Florence + the Machine, Lisa Mitchell and the Prodigy.


What's been going on in your world this week?