I’m only human. Which means that I like to be recognised for my work, like everyone else. I particularly like to be recognised for the work I do voluntarily, since it’s a gift and I’m not expecting anything in return.

Two and a half years ago when Ceri and I and a couple of others got together to create the Montreal Pagan Resource Center, for example, we were aiming to create something for everyone in the city to use as a resource, Pagan or not. It was to be a place where people could go to do research, to ask questions, and to talk to others in a safe environment in an effort to share information about all sorts of religions. Eventually Ceri, and then I as well, gave up in frustration on the project. It wasn’t worth the crap and resentment that the local Pagan community was throwing at us; not when we were volunteering so much time, energy and effort.

Why are voluntary leaders always unappreciated? Why is it that as soon as someone is paid for their work, it becomes “legitimate” in some way?

Patricia Telesco has written an interesting article that examines the concept of give and take in a spiritual community. One paragraph in particular caught my attention, and it begins with:

Scanning our rather dysfunctional family there has been great growth, but it has also come at a great price. We do not really honor our priests, our elders, our teachers — for the most part I see these people burning out because everyone takes, and few give back.

I know exactly what she means. And unfortunately, it brought up all my old frustration with the local Pagan community again.

Oh, the MPRC is still around. Half of its founding members have washed their hands of the project, though, burnt out, frustrated.

As a teacher, like it or not, I’m a leader. I know that at some point I’ll have to get involved in the community again. I’m not looking forward to it at all; my experiences with it over the past seven years have been 90% negative. Not much of an incentive to return, is it. Every once in a while I think I can make a difference, help create an environment where we can all support and learn from each other, and then I look at the notoriously apathetic local community’s history, and their brick walls that I’ve run into in the past. How many times must I do it before either I or the community learns the lesson?

It’s like a playground: everyone has to co-operate. It just gets so damned frustrating when some of us try and try, and eventually give up… only to hear the community complain about the lack of leadership. The hypocrisy chokes me.

And people wonder why I keep to myself.

Aha!

Something I enjoy doing, if a film puzzles me, is reading about the production team’s reasoning behind their decisions. So, when I found Scott’s link to an interview with Peter Jackson and Phillippa Boyens about the changes they chose to make in The Two Towers, I was rather pleased. Almost as pleased as I was with their reasons for moving things about and re-interpreting characters slightly for the storytelling style that film as a medium requires. Their choices made sense. And it’s not like one could just film LOTR word for word, after all – what a gods-awful bore that would be, if it were even possible.

So yes, there’s mention of Faramir and his apparent contradictions (which seems to be one of the major issues people are having, if they’ve read the book), and Gollum, and other interesting issues that people have decided are just plain wrong. Speaking of which, folks, Aragon and Arwen have their own little love story in the appendices of RotK – go read it and stop complaining that Jackson’s making things up. Inserting flashback sequences isn’t a crime, for heaven’s sake; by creating the appenix, Tolkien sort of employed a similar technique. How Jackson chooses to integrate it into the main tale is what should be focused on, and so far it’s not as horrendous as it could have been. Quit griping.

Ahem.

I would like to announce that my husband has just been contacted to start his old job in animation, as of eight o’clock tomorrow morning, at approximately the same pay he was receiving when he was laid off eighteen months ago.

We’d like to thank everyone who was supportive and understanding and helped us along, and we know that all of you will be as crazy with glee as we are right now. So I just wanted to let you all know before we stepped out for a celebratory luncheon.

Whilst cleaning out a bunch of drawers this week, I discovered a tiny pot of cosmetic micro-sparkles, employed as part of a costume a few Hallowe’ens ago and never used again. I’m not a sparkle kind of gal.

Well, part of Project 2003 is to learn how to have fun again, so I scooped some of the powder up and dusted it all over my arms and throat. What the heck, right? I’m at home, after all.

It’s kind of quirky, and the sun outside catches it every once in a while, and I laugh at myself. So far, so good.

While I was in the living room getting a reference book, our little black kitten Nix hopped out of one of her hidey-holes behind a row of tomes and rubbed against my legs. I automatically bent down to pat her… and you know those micro- sparkles: even when you try to brush them off, a few still cling. Which means that they transfer to everything that you touch. For example, from my hands to her silky coat.

Voila – instant magic kitty. Here and there, glinting in the sun, there’s a tiny random point of light in the depths of her midnight fur, like stars.

She’s absolutely beautiful.

Okay, who let a seventies-throwback design the new Palais des congr�s de Montr�al? It looks like a kid built a house with a pile of Jolly Rancher candies.

Honestly. Does no one have taste any more?

Humph.

To reassure yourself than the mind of man is actually capable of creating beauty, go see the Varna: World’s First Gold, Ancient Secrets exhibit at the Pointe-a-Calli�res Museum of Archaeology and History in Old Montreal. Wonderful collection of goldwork and art from the area of Varna, a.k.a. Odessos, on the western shore of the Black Sea. Submerged by rising sea levels due to global warming not once, but twice – then struck by drought. Can you imagine? One of the most fertile areas in Europe, rendered uninhabitable for a good chunk of time until the Thracians came along and said, “Hey, this looks good for a headquarters while we try to unite the clans,” never knowing that there were huge necropoli under the hills, or what amounted to a graveyard under the waves. The Greeks liked it too, and the Romans thought it a funky vacation spot as well. Like the rest of Europe. (Love those Romans, conquering without raising a harsh word. “No, no, we wouldn’t dream of attacking you. Mind if we put a temple here and a garrison over there – since we’re friends and all?”)

Anywhats. If you’re in the area, and need a quiet stroll through some lovely samples of hostorical art and craftwork, do stop by. The exhibit isn’t overwhelmingly huge, and will only take you perhaps an hour to go through it. In fact, it’s terribly relaxing, what with the constant sound of gentle waves, and a lovely soft light created by the masses of translucent blue fabric flowing through the middle of the exhibit room. Worth the money.

From Neil Gaiman’s blog:

Have you ever noticed that your writers have changed? Semi-serious question. You�ll spend six months in a romantic comedy, then you turn around one day and you’re in a ghost story or a medical thriller, or you spend a year in a kitchen sink, grittily realistic drama and then, without warning, your life turns into a sitcom…

It�s always sudden. It often happens with a bang. Ah, I think, when that happens to me. New writers…

Yes. Yes, that’s it, exactly.

Sigh.

Whoa! This is a surprise!

Harry Potter’s getting a brand new headmaster–and his name isn’t Ian McKellen.

May I say, “I told you so?”

Except… it seems that the headmaster will not be played by any of the gents whose names were bandied about:

Following Harris’ death from cancer in October, there had been much speculation over who would take over the role, with leading candidates supposedly including McKellen and even Harris’ stand-in. But McKellen never seriously considered the role (he’s already done the franchise thing with The Lord of the Rings and X-Men) and producers ultimately went with [Michael] Gambon, a classically trained actor who studied with Laurence Olivier and whose credits include Gosford Park, The Insider and the lead in the British miniseries The Singing Detective.

Well, well, well. Michael Gambon. This will be very, very interesting…

(Thanks, Ginger Girl!)