Opposition candidate sarath fonseka has been killed in what the government calls”accidental crossfire” inside the Cinnamon Lakeside hotel following hours of the hotel being surrounded.
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THIS IS NOT TRUE, BUT IF YOU CAME HERE FEARING THE WORST, I TELL YOU DO NOT BELIEVE EVERY STORY YOU HEAR! LOOK FOR DEFINITIVE PROOF BEFORE SPREADING FEAR STORIES.
It is no secret that my personal attitude towards being a Sri Lankan is not one that can be simply described in a sentence. Or so I hope.
To those who’ve known me over the years, it has been quite clear that I have many problems with the country, from certain things about its people to factors that make up everyday life. This is all quite true, however I have come to the belief that many people think that is all there is to it, and that I appreciate or love nothing about the country. This is quite understandable because many times in moments of frustration I have, you could say, gone overboard with my criticisms.
But as I have discovered since moving back to Australia last year, there are many more things about Sri Lanka that I do appreciate that I had somehow managed to ignore. If this was due to me subconsciously blocking them out so I would have something to grumble about and avoid dealing with more realistic problems, or if as I’ve grown and developed as a person their importance has grown as well, I will probably never know.
Before leaving Sri Lanka, I was not exactly proud to be Sri Lankan. If I had to write it down in a form I would, but that is perhaps as far as I would go. Since moving to a great nation of hundreds of different cultures and nationalities, I have found that I am quite proud to include the name Sri Lanka in many an opening sentence. I know what you may be thinking, I was shocked myself. I find myself drifting into stories from or about Sri Lanka in many conversations without really having planned it beforehand. Following these occurrences I’ve finally come to realize that despite what I may have thought (or made myself think before), I am Sri Lankan. That does not make me any less of an Australian, this is a country made up of immigrants after all.
I am an Australian of Sri Lankan origin, but I am more a Sri Lankan who lives in Australia. While these two statements are seemingly identical, they are quite different. I believe the major difference is what one associates with a country. Australians of Sri Lankan origin will associate beaches, holidays, a few family members, occasional interest in the Lankan cricket team, and some stories their parents or grand parents tell. A Sri Lankan who lives in Australia associates Sri Lanka with certain restaurants, school stories, politicians, the War, many friends, certain brands (Bata, EGB, odel, keells, cargills etc), the cricket team, road names, hospitals, shops, their own special lamprais dealer….. the small things.
The things I miss about Sri Lanka aren’t things like the music, the local TV or the weather. In fact those are three things I like the least about Sri Lanka 
It’s the small things.
- My beloved Chinese Dragon combo of hot butter cuttlefish, sesame chicken, foo yung hai and mixed fried rice.
- My bedroom.
- My dog (the chubbah).
- My family (though my family was split up well before I came here).
- My girlfriend and her family.
- My car.
- Dialog TV (cable TV here sucks for sports).
- My school.
- The list goes on.
Of course there are those things I do not miss, and am in fact glad to be far from.
- Very nosy people.
- People’s lack of respect for anyone around them… anywhere.
- Lankan queues.
- Lankan drivers.
- The roads (though they’re improving very quickly which is great ).
- Driving (yes kinda contradicts me missing the car, but beats public transport!).
- Unbelievably poor internet connections.
- Rather limited variety in cultures and foods.
- GETTING ANYTHING DONE IN GOVERNMENT OFFICES.
- The very small community in which privacy is a wishful dream.
- Again, the list goes on.
Overall I’d have to say that the list of things I don’t miss does outweigh those that I do miss, and I just feel much more comfortable living here in Australia. It may well be far too early to make that kind of a statement, as I have not worked or made a life for myself in either state, but I do feel my opportunities are far wider and the standard quality of life here fits my desired lifestyle better.
Of course as these lists continue to run through my mind, I do finally understand why some people would prefer to live in Sri Lanka. Some things are more important to me than to others, and vice versa. Fair enough.
You definitely do appreciate certain things more when you don’t have them, and I sure do miss more about Sri Lanka the longer I am away from it. Oh the irony.
Well I realise I’ve been babbling on here and chances are I’ve drifted all over the place and I’m not making much sense… this is a thought of a fuddled mind, so it should’ve been expected 
Anyway as someone said,
Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Couldn’t be more true…
PS – I think it is very important it be known that while I may complain a LOT about Sri Lanka to many of you, I have NEVER, repeat, NEVER badmouthed Sri Lanka to anyone else. Quite the contrary. I’m sure quite a few of my uni friends are sick of hearing me tell them they should go by Sri Lanka some time. Many tell me I should be working at the tourism office. Perhaps I should be!I’d like to think many of you have heard me saying that Sri Lanka is easily one of the best countries for a tourist to visit. It has EVERYTHING in a tiny little island and you don’t need a massive budget to travel around.
Well… that was a rather easy exit for Aussie… rather sad actually. But damnit they didn’t deserve to go any further. So many mistakes, so many of them simple, they just didn’t deserve it.
Yeah of course, they’re missing Gilchrist, Hayden and Symonds. The first two were the two top scorers at the recent IPL T20 tournament. But still, what about the other Aussie’s who played in it and performed bloody well?
Dirk Nannes? Not even selected for the Aussie squad despite his awesome bowling (which kept Glenn Mcgrath out of the team for the whole tournament!), so he said ‘screw this’ and went to play for the Netherlands! and he’s bowling well!
Brad Hodge? Yeah he’s Victorian, but that doesn’t matter. He’s been among the best in the domestic t20 tournaments, and he averaged pretty damn high in the IPL. Not selected.
Instead they pick players who have been ‘rested’ from the last so many t20’s, which they’ve lost, and expect to win? Please.
and good god, the first match, no dedicated spin bowler. I cannot believe it.
Second match, Nathan Hauritz is in the team. Good! Finally! but then… wait… what?? They let the quickies get thrashed for a good 6-10 overs before bringing him on. Even Michael Clarke, their part-timer… comes on late, first ball gets Dilshan who’d been thrashing the heck out of all the other bowlers.
anyway, I digress… Australian cricket is in a sad state in the latest, most attention grabbing form of cricket at the moment. and its not because they don’t have the players for it… they don’t have the selectors with the brains to pull it off…
anyway… go Lanka! kick those Indians in the nuts!
Yep, its over, so I may actually have some free time to post stuff here now. Got a few things planned, will get down to it post-Tuesday the 9th of June! Jeez June already… creepy.
Aussie ads are normally pretty good, but these ones stand out at the moment and I felt like I had to share them with you.
Toyota Rav4
Pepsi Max
Played Rock Band or Guitar Hero and think your good? or realise how hard it is to even play those rather simple drums?
Watch these… this guy is just amazing
Adele
Heard about this one a while back on CNN I think, only really took interest when I heard her again at Miaad’s place about a week ago.
Carolina Liar
Secret and Whisper
Saved my favourite for last. Found these guys while checking out Saosin (great band) on Amazon. Vocalist is I guess a bit high pitched, but he grows on you.
Also rather interesting, S&W in the studio
and this is a pretty cool looking drumming cover for two of the tracks…
I was watching something (can’t remember what) recently and it mentioned something about if we don’t kill other people because the law instructs us not to, or if it’s the human conscience that does so.
It’s an interesting though, because it could be said that the laws that are there were created from a general consensus of the human conscience. To most of us this may be the case for such things as murder and rape.
But what about things such as pulling ‘favours’ for friends, sneaking around on the cheapest TravelTen… You know the small offences. Does our conscience play much of a role when our small crimes don’t really affect anyone directly or anyone directly in front of us?
In other cases of similar magnitude, where we do indeed follow the rules, is it because of the possible guilt, or the fear of the law kicking our butts?
One thing I can say is that for drivers in Sri Lanka, neither conscience or the law plays a role in 99% of their actions. Perhaps both sides need a fix up there.
Wow that name took a while to type. Alright, so this is my first mini-review, to which I’ll add bits as time goes on.
For my 21st birthday, my family bought me this GPS. By request of course, I don’t think most people consider a GPS a traditional 21st birthday gift. Thank you very much guys for this gift, I love it.
Now most people will probably ask why I would want a GPS. As my girlfriend knows, “I love stats!”. I do, I love knowing my exact location, exactly how far it is from one place to another, what speed I’m moving at, how much time is left till I reach my destination etc.
I also get lost. Easily. I have a very poor navigation skills, and in a city like Sydney, its easy to get lost.
But probably the main reason I wanted this is for geo-tagging my pictures. Geo-tagging is basically adding the exact location where a picture was taken to the information held by the image file. Other details already included with the picture consist of such things as aperture size, shutter speed, ISO etc. While this may sound silly, I do see myself eventually taking pictures in many places around Australia, and hopefully the world, so it’d be quite fascinating to look over a world map and see where my pictures were taken and look through them that way.
Anyway, that’s all in the future. For now it’s important that I understand how to use the thing!
So lets take a look at the device itself.
It’s a great size. Looking at it by itself you’d think it is a bit chubby. It is. But that makes it feel so much more solid in your hand, and the ergonomics are actually very good. The tough rubber on the sides feels super tough and though I’ll be treating this thing like a gem, I know that if I were to drop it, it’d be quite alright. It’s also waterproof and all openings and buttons are rubber sealed. Quite a tough piece of kit!
In terms of handling it… I have to say when i first got it I was thinking “what the crap” when fiddling with the little navigation stick that is on the left of the upper side of the device. For me, a right hander, felt a bit weird at first. I have now got used to it though… holding it in my right hand, my thumb extends across the top to control it. I’m not sure how comfortable this would be for those with smaller hands though.
The buttons on the side are a bit tough because of all the rubber, and are nicely placed on the sides making them easily accessible by fingers and thumb.
The interface is the same as that on my brothers Garmin GPS 60CSx. It’s not pretty but its very functional, and very customizable, and manages a lot of stuff on such a small screen.
As promised this review will continue with more information on the interface.
For these pictures I tried out my Nikon SB-600 as a slave flash using the D80’s built in flash as a commander. For the first time i used the tripod mount I got with the flash… works well and opens a lot of possibilities.
