#23 - Go bike riding

In 2006, as part of one of my conference trips to Europe (the best thing about doing a PhD!) I spent about a week in Paris with my lovely friend Katrina.  One of the highlights was visiting Monet's house and garden at Giverny.  Giverny is a little way out of Paris - we caught the train and then had the option of taking a bus or riding bikes to Monet's house.  We deliberated long enough to miss the bus, and so the decision was made for us.  And then I discovered that it is possible to forget how to ride a bike!  At first, I could hardly stay upright.  We walked our bikes through the centre of town, but once we were out on the road, I was completely freaked out.  I just tried to ride in a straight line as close as possible to the edge of the road and hoped that cars and trucks would just go around me.  It was such a relief to get off the road onto a bike track, although I was still holding onto the handlebars so tightly that my hands barely worked for several days afterwards.

Here, Katrina was taking photos of me as I rode the bike towards her.  You can see my complete inability to ride in a straight line!

This is a recreation of my crash.  I was riding towards this gate, and somehow could not avoid hitting the post, at which point I completely lost control and the bike fell over.  Not to worry - I wasn't hurt, so I got back on the bike and we kept going towards Monet's house (which was just beautiful!).

Despite my crash, and the bruises on the back of my legs from when my feet kept slipping off the pedals, I enjoyed bike riding in Giverny, and so I'd been wanting to try it again.  I convinced my lovely friend Danielle to come with me to Centennial Park, where we hired bikes and set off to ride around the bike track.  About 50m from where we hired the bikes, I managed to lose control.  The front wheel of the bike hit a step, stopped abruptly, and I went flying over the handlebars, gaining some pretty spectacular bruises in the process.  But we kept going, and made it around the park 3 times before we decided it was time for chocolate at Max Brenner's!  Next time I'm thinking of trying Bicentennial Park - the route around Centennial Park is just too short!

#15 - Go paragliding

This is a bit of a cheat, since I added this one to my list after the event, and before I actually turned 30.  Although it was a spur of the moment thing, it was my 30th birthday present from Matt, so it seems appropriate to include it here.

As part of our conference/family visit/holiday around New Zealand earlier this year, Matt and I spent a couple of nights in Queenstown.  The main thing we were planning to do there was the gondola and luge.  We'd seen lots of people paragliding, since our accommodation was not far from the base of the mountain.

When we were up on the mountain, I commented to Matt that it looked fun, and I was tempted to have a go.  Matt said I should, and it could be my 30th birthday present.  I deliberated for quite awhile - should I do it?  Will I be too scared?  Am I too heavy?  Is it too expensive?  Aw, but it would be fun!  But I'm scared!  This went on for quite awhile, but Matt is very good and knows me very well, and knew just how much encouragement was appropriate without pushing me into something I didn't really want to do.  So I did it.  And it was awesome!

While we were waiting for my turn, I was going to SMS my parents to tell them I was about to go paragliding, but I thought I'd better wait until I was down safely!  It turned out they didn't think it was too bad (although when we were in NZ for a family holiday years earlier Mum wasn't keen for my brother to go parasailing) - Mum was apparently jealous!

One of my PhD friends had gone skydiving while we were both still working on our theses, and she said it was a great boost to her confidence - if she could jump out of a plane, she could do anything!  Paragliding is not quite jumping out of a plane - not even jumping off a mountain as much as just getting blown off the mountain!

#9 - Have lunch at the Balmoral Bathers' Pavilion

When I finally submitted my PhD thesis for examination, after five and a half long years, my parents offered to take Matt and I somewhere special to celebrate.  After perusing the menus of several fancy restaurants, I decided on the Bathers' Pavilion, Balmoral.  My parents had been there before, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  And we were not disappointed when we went there together in August 2009.  I thought it was the best food I'd ever had at a fancy restaurant (except, perhaps, for Restaurant Balzac).  Even Matt enjoyed it, and he doesn't normally enjoy such fancy food.

My parents, being the incredibly lovely and generous people that they are, took Matt and I back to Balmoral to celebrate my 30th birthday earlier this year.  We had lunch on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and once again, the food, service and the view were amazing!

Entree

Main Course

Dessert

Petit Fours

Petit Fours boxed up to take home, since we were full!

#7 - Have cocktails at a bar I haven't been to before

As part of my extended 30th birthday celebrations, some lovely ladies joined me for cocktails and tapas at the Orbit Bar.  Foolishly, I did not take many photos - just one, of my first cocktail for the night, a Tom Collins.

I also had a gin martini with a twist.  Must be an acquired taste, given that some of my friends said it tasted like perfume.

30 Things To Do When I’m 30 - final list

Crafty

1. Sew a quilt
2. Sew a skirt
3. Sew a dress
4. Crochet slipper socks
5. Knit a scarf

Food

6. Eat at a restaurant I haven’t been to before
7. Have cocktails at bar I haven’t been to before
8. Have fish & chips on the beach at Manly
9. Have lunch at The Bather's Pavilion, Balmoral Beach
10. Go to a winery

Travel/Fun

11. Go to a craft market and/or craft fair
12. Go to the zoo
13. Go to Melbourne for a weekend
14. Travel some place I haven’t been before
15. Go paragliding

Organisation

16. Have all completed cross-stitches framed
17. Choose photos for wedding album
18. Print honeymoon photos and put in album (or make photo book)
19. Unclutter my life
20. Have my PhD degree framed

Health/Active

21. Reach goal weight
22. Go bushwalking
23. Go bike riding
24. Complete C25k
25. Complete Sutherland to Surf and City to Surf (walking counts)

Work/Intellectual

26. Submit an article to a journal
27. Submit a book proposal
28. Implement “Getting Things Done”
29. Read Wolfhart Pannenberg's Systematic Theology (at least vol. 1)
30. Read entire Bible in King James Version

Science and Religion: Letters to the SMH

On Friday I wrote a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, anticipating narky responses if the letter was published (like those I received when I wrote that people in the medieval period believed the earth was round). The letter wasn't published, so I'll post it here, in case anyone is interested:

Why is it so hard to accept that someone can “believe” in science as well as in a creator God? The foundations of modern science were laid by people, such as Johannes Kepler and Robert Boyle, who not only believed in God but saw their scientific work as an act of worship and priesthood. Whereas church priests explained the book of God’s word (the Bible) to their parishioners, scientists interpreted the book of God’s works (nature). The existence of God, by definition, is beyond the scope of natural science, but science is not the only form of knowledge. It is quite easy for a religious person to believe that God created the universe, but to look to science to find out how he did so.

Here's the original letter that started this thread of correspondence:

Gerard Henderson's article, "Jews know acceptance still has its exceptions" accuses me personally, and the left in general, of waging a sectarian war on Tony Abbott.
Mr Abbott's obstructionist approach and dog whistle politics are ample material to criticise his contribution to public policy debate without stooping to involve his religious beliefs - which as a Catholic myself, I happen to share.
Our current television campaign, ''Great Deniers'', uses humour to point out the absurdity of those remaining few who still deny the scientific consensus on climate change.
By using examples from the past of ridiculous denial (notably the idea the world is round, not flat), the campaign aims to point out that climate change sceptics will be judged as fools by history.
The point here is climate change, not religion. Denial, not belief. It highlights the absurdity of Mr Abbott's position on this topic and on no other aspect of him.
As a Catholic, I'm fed up with the conservative right claiming a monopoly on Christian beliefs and carrying them heavily on their sleeve.
The carbon price is an incredibly important issue. At stake is the future of our great nation.
Mr Abbott and Mr Henderson should have the courage to engage in this debate rather than trying to detract from the issue with irrelevant shadows.
-Tony Maher National president, CFMEU

And the particular letter to which I was responding:

If you believe in science you can't cherry pick to suit your own convenience. Tony Maher (Letters, July 14) professes to be a believing Catholic while at the same time embracing the scientific consensus on climate change.
At the core of Catholicism - and almost all other religions - is the hypothesis of a creator god. Why, Tony, do you not also accept the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence against creationism? Are those early years of indoctrination too hard to shake off?
- Mike Phillips Wollstonecraft

Here's the letter that was published instead of mine (it is a better letter):

Mike Phillips (Letters, July 15) suggests that Tony Maher has engaged in cherry picking of his beliefs and that there is an inconsistency between accepting climate change science on the one hand and belief in a creator god on the other.
As many theistic scientists will attest, it's a false dichotomy to pit God against science. Scientific inquiry looks at the world and how it works, while theology looks behind the curtain and wonders why it all exists to begin with.
One might look at how the world began, the other at why and by whom the world began. The two disciplines ask and answer completely different questions about life.
Cherry picking? I don't think so. But Mike Phillips might be comparing apples with oranges.
- Andrew Miers Bardwell Valley

And finally one more that was published today:

Your correspondent Mike Phillips (Letters, July 15) would do well to check his facts before rushing into print. Some Catholics do not believe in ''creationism'' - presumably the belief in a literal six days of creation, given this is the usual meaning of the term.
In the first decade of the 20th century the then authoritative Catholic Encyclopedia concluded that Catholics should have no difficulty with Darwin's theory of the evolution of species. More recently Pope John Paul II declared evolution ''more than a hypothesis''.
On the cosmological front the theory of the Big Bang, that the universe originated in a massive ''explosion'' some 15 billion years ago, was first proposed by the Jesuit physicist Georges Lemaitre. Many of his colleagues rejected the idea, despite the evidence, because it seemed too irreligious (sic?) a notion for them. So Catholics have no concern at all about the ''overwhelming weight of scientific evidence against creationism'' and would in fact agree with the science on this matter.
And on global warming, both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI have warned of impending environmental catastrophe and the Vatican state is committed to being carbon neutral.
- Professor Neil Ormerod Faculty of theology and philosophy, Australian Catholic University, Strathfield

I'm wondering if "irreligious" in the third paragraph is a typo - I was under the impression that Lemaitre's physicist colleagues initially rejected the idea of the Big Bang because it seemed too religious, rather than too irreligious. Demonstrating that the universe had a definite beginning, after all, may leave open the question of what/who caused that beginning.