A little place of calm

BiCon 2010, the 28th annual bisexual conference/convention took place from August 26th – 30th at the University of East London, Docklands campus. It was combined with the 10th International Conference on Bisexuality, and the first international Bisexual Research Conference. About 450 people attended, from 28 countries!

I got up ridiculously early on Thursday 26th August in order to take the coach from Winchester to London leaving at 06:30. The journey was smooth and I was at UEL by 10am, in time to check in and drop off my suitcase in my accommodation.

The research conference was utterly brilliant, full credit to Meg Barker and Christina Richards for running it. Most of the talks were of exceptional quality, and i feel i learnt a lot. I enjoyed hearing about Helen Bowes-Catton's research into how people perceive and visualise bisexual spaces. Kaye McLelland spoke about bisexuality in the works of Shakespeare, and i marvelled at how well my English teachers at school managed to hide it all from us!

I was thoroughly inspired by a keynote talk from Robyn Ochs, a public speaker, writer, and long-standing bisexual activist. Robyn spoke of the importance of the impact that we make when we create space for people to be comfortably bisexual. I was touched by Robyn's description of the reward when somebody tells us that we make a difference for them. I felt so proud at that moment that I helped to found Bi Wessex in Winchester: proud that people come along and gain something from the group, and that some of the members were there at BiCon.

On Friday i bought Robyn's book, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World and attended the workshop where we heard from ten of the people who contributed to the book. They stood up and told us something about themselves and read an excerpt from the book. It gave such meaning to hear them speak personally, and when i reach their stories in the book, i will remember them. Their contributions will be particularly meaningful for me. I asked several of the contributors to write in my book, which they gladly did.

I enjoyed hearing Heidi Bruins Green and Dr. Nicholas Payne speak about the results of a workplace survey on bisexuality. It was very interesting to hear the results analysed and validated from a mathematical perspective. Their results showed that bisexuality is not a phase on the way to something else, but a valid destination point, as are many other sexual orientations. They had some interesting data to show that happiness at work is directly correlated with LGBT support groups in the workplace, and anti-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

Saturday's discussion about words and phrases for bisexuality in other languages was intriguing. I shared my Esperanto knowledge about the etymology of the word ambaŭseksema and the positive phrase borrowed from shipping terminology navigi per vaporo aŭ velo (to navigate by steam or sail). We learned phrases, both positive and negative in German, Dutch, Danish, Spanish, Italian, Sri Lankan, Welsh and Hebrew. Everybody contributed something, and the results will be published … somewhere.

I knitted a bi pride bracelet in the amazing craft room, and then on saturday afternoon i took some time out to visit Central London. I went to Covent Garden to visit the new Apple store (the biggest in the world) and enjoyed spending time by myself.

Saturday evening was the BiCon ceilidh which i enjoyed immensely. When it comes to dancing, i really like being told what to do! :) I made a new friend that night, somebody who i feel could become a very good friend. We danced together a lot and had some lovely conversations. Later on the music became too loud but i joined the Corridor Club upstairs where it was quieter and i enjoyed chatting to more people. We were actually the last to leave because we didn't realise when the music had stopped and everyone downstairs had left!

Sunday was the disastrous "Bisexuality in Science-Fiction & The Future" workshop. It was marred by the speaker being late, a church group being in the room we were supposed to use, the laptop being broken, the projector refusing to work, and the speaker's corny sense of humour which did not go down particularly well at 10am. I gave up and left after about ten minutes of technology fail, and went and joined the church, which i actually really enjoyed! Those who stayed said it only got worse, and by half way through several of them had started their own alternative science-fiction workshop out in the atrium!

The highlight of Sunday was "Smutty Storytelling" which was very well attended, and the storytellers did not disappoint! The stories were well written, and delivered with humour and enthusiasm! There were cheers and a standing ovation by the end! I sat with my new-found friend and mentioned that I had "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" on DVD, which we watched later that evening.

Monday morning seemed to go quite slowly. Things were winding down but there were still a few workshops left. I went to one on sensual play, which was well facilitated, and led to discussions of how we might turn the results into an amusing website! Later i went to have my photo taken professionally, so that hopefully i will appear again on the front cover of Bi Community News and maybe in other publications about bisexuality.

Before i knew it, it was closing plenary. Awards and thanks were given, we celebrated the success of this BiCon, and met the team of BiCon 2011 which will be in Leicester from September 1st – 4th. Registration is already open!

The bi community is amazing. So totally inclusive and unquestioning. I am so happy that i went, I am sad that it's over, but writing this is my therapy: recording my happy memories and celebrating the joys of the last few days.

Thanks so very much to the BiCon 2010 organising team – you did an incredible job!

Note to self: Not everything has do be done as quickly as is humanly possible!

I tend to want to type as fast as i possibly can, all the time, and code as fast as my brain can do it. Learning Vim has been an excellent exercise in slowing down a bit, thinking of the best way to achieve the effect that i need, in as few keystrokes as possible. I am really loving Vim now. Been using it for about 3 weeks and have no intention of going back to TextMate now. The best thing was when i did some coding at home at the weekend and was just so happy to have the exact same coding environment to work with at home.

Another lesson in slowing down is when coding with someone else. I tend to find my brain goes much faster than i can form words to explain what's going through my head. It can be a frustrating experience at times. But today i made the effort to slow down, take the time to ensure that my colleague was still following my train of thought, rather than rushing ahead at full speed. It actually was quite a calming thing to do, like an exercise in mindfulness.

I have mentally renamed the toilet as the prayer room. Turns out it's a great place to say a quick prayer, assess how i'm feeling, recenter myself, pray for peace and mental inspiration, wish blessings upon my colleagues … I have been wanting to be more aware of God in my everyday life, and this is a great way to do it.

I'm feeling great at the moment – really happy! People say that God makes a positive difference in their lives. Whether a divine being is really at work in my personal daily activities, or whether it's my enhanced state of mind that comes from focus and prayer, i don't know and i don't really care. I just know that it's working out well for me at the moment! :)

Most of my life is spent coding Ruby on Rails, but occasionally i venture into the world of PHP. When i do, i sometimes need to configure Apache because, unlike Rails, it does not happen automagically! To save myself always looking things up on the Internet, here is a little summary of the things i have learnt.

Don't do this!

When i very first started using Linux, i discovered that you could put files into /var/www and access them through http://localhost. This is a very bad idea because you don't have permissions to the /var directory (for good reason!) so i used to end up chmodding everything. Also, keeping anything outside your home directory is bad news because you're liable to forget to back it up before you do an upgrade! WHOOPS!

A perfectly good solution

The next thing i learnt was symlinking, or creating shortcuts. So you can set up a shortcut from the /var/www directory to an appropriate place in your home directory. For example:

sudo ln -s /home/aimee/websites /var/www/html

Now if i have a directory called mac2 under my websites directory i can go to http://localhost/html/mac2/index.php. Nice!

More advanced: VirtualHosts

Later on i started experimenting with Apache's RewriteRule and RewriteBase for nice 'pretty' URLs. You'll soon find out that the symlink method is no longer suitable because you're not using relative URLs anymore. It's time to learn about VirtualHosts, so that i can access my local files with a URL like http://mac2.aimee.

Apache2 keeps a list of available configurations under /etc/apache2/sites-available. I have one called aimee.conf because i am egotistical like that!

sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/aimee.conf

It must start with this line:

NameVirtualHost 127.0.0.1

Then, for each site that i want, i add a VirtualHost like this:

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1>
  ServerName mac2.aimee
  DocumentRoot /home/aimee/websites/mac2
  CustomLog /var/log/apache2/mac2.log combined
  DirectoryIndex index.php
</VirtualHost>

It really just needs to know where to find the source files. The log and directory index are not especially important. It's probably fairly obvious why i added them. There are plenty of other options you could use if you wanted to, but this is about all i use.

Next we need to enable the configuration. It's as simple as symlinking the file from the sites-available directory. You only need to do this once per .conf file (and i only use one for simplicity).

cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled
sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/aimee.conf .

The next step is to configure the hosts file such that when i type http://mac2.aimee into a browser it knows to look on my actual computer rather than on the Internet.

sudo vim /etc/hosts

I enter a line like this:

127.0.0.1       mac2.aimee

Finally, restart Apache and all should be very well!

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

The best of both worlds

If you want it both ways (and hey, why shouldn't you?!) it is quite simple to set up another VirtualHost for localhost. Just add it in like this:

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1>
  ServerName localhost
  DocumentRoot /home/aimee/websites
</VirtualHost>

Restart Apache again and now the same site is accessible at both http://mac2.aimee and http://localhost/mac2/index.php.

Happy day! :)

Disclaimers

This is how i made it work on Ubuntu Linux in a development environment. Other operating systems may behave differently. I have no idea about setting up production servers!

If Apache is in a different place on your computer, you can find it like this:

whereis apache2

To find your hosts file:

locate hosts

I am not an Apache expert, so if you have any questions, chances are i can't answer them! Scroogle is your friend! :)

I have always liked this poem which my grandad wrote in nice calligraphy for me when i was young. Since i have never found it attributed anywhere on the Internet, i assume that my grandad wrote the poem. I think it's time to let the Internet know of it! :)

God bless your year
giving you –
Time for the task
Peace for the pathway
Wisdom for the work
Friends for the fireside
Love to the last

Philip William Carter 1921 – 2004

Approximately a year ago, you may have wished me a happy 2008. If you did, thank you! I had a pretty awesome year!

Reading back in my blog, it feels like a long year. In fact, i noticed a stark contrast between the two halves of the year, pivoting on the moment i got my new job. I was amazed by how much of a difference it made in my perception: the first half of the year feels much longer than a year ago, but everything since my new job feels very recent. Yet the two halves are separated by just one weekend! I also noticed how many more blog posts i made in the earlier half of the year compared to the latter.

So it's new year's eve again, the time when i get all retrospective and nostalgic. I actually quite like staying in on new year's eve and blogging. Here is a summary of the year.

(more…)

I have been enjoying the church and the home group so much lately … it is great to feel that i belong somewhere. The people are lovely. I've tried other churches in Winchester, but i've never found such a warm welcome as i have at the Harvest Church.

So i have become a Christian. Well, you could say, i've always been a Christian. But i've had so many doubts and questions, as many of my readers know so well. I have been agnostic in the extreme, refusing to make up my mind about anything. It was tough! It was also not very comforting in the long run. I still believe that all major religions have their merits, and i'm not saying that i suddenly understand everything, or believe everything that Christianity teaches. But it feels good to have made up my mind to follow one path and feel accepted on it.

Here's the verse that converted me:

For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

1 Corinthians 8: 5-6 (New International Version)

That was it, that bit in bold. Other people can believe in other gods. That is perfectly valid, and more power to them for having their beliefs and understandings. Yet for me, this is what i have decided to believe.

It probably comes as a bit of a surprise, after my determination that the church members were not going to convert me! I actually feel a little bit embarrassed, having to come out as Christian! But it feels right. I feel a weight has been lifted. I was searching, and i found what i was looking for. I now have something to believe in. I now feel loved by God. It wasn't a naive decision; it was "Okay, this sounds good. I'm willing to believe it might be true, and if it is, i had better do something about it."

I promise i'm not going to become a bible-bashing evangelical Christian! I know as well as anybody how important it is to follow your own path and make up your own mind. However, i am perfectly willing to talk about my experiences with anyone who wants to know.

I guess i won't be doing NaBloPoMo then, haha! National Blog Posting Month, make a blog post every day for the whole of November. Presumably for those of us who can't be arsed to write a novel! I did vaguely think about doing the blog posting, but here it's the 4th of November before i get around to making my first post of this month! Never mind, hey!

I have been thinking in some detail about my spirituality and what i wish to gain from attending a church. I have come to the conclusion that, for an agnostic, i have a surprising number of beliefs and opinions about God, religion and spirituality. I have also decided that i have absolutely no need to share them with anyone. I don't need to explain myself to anybody, nor try to convince anybody to believe the same things as i do. I can happily attend a church to enjoy the music and the fellowship. I can smile and nod when people are sharing their beliefs with me. So long as they are not hurting anybody, i shall have no need to contradict them or disagree with them. I think this is the best way to play this game. We can all get along and nobody need feel offended.

Songbird 1.0 (release candidate 1) is available for testing!!! (just thought i'd throw that in there!)

I shall not be staying up until stupid o'clock to find out the result of the election. I'm sure i will not be able to escape from hearing the result the moment i awake tomorrow morning. Let me just say that, whatever the outcome, i hope that it turns out to be the very best thing for America and indeed, the world. For now, i have taken my sleeping tablet so … nighty night! :)

Today was my third visit to the church. It's a good place – i like it. The people are nice, and the music is great. They play quite modern tunes, lots i've never heard before, and also a few of the good old songs. They did the dreaded 4/4 version of Be Thou My Vision this morning – the version that sounded great the first time i heard it (in about 1998) and has been steadily annoying me ever since! You know what would be really awesome and innovative? Try playing Be Thou My Vision in a slow 3/4 as it was intended!

There was one song that i could not sing. I just could not agree with it in the slightest.

One way: Jesus
You're the only one that I could live for

You are the Way the Truth and the Life
We live by faith and not by sight for You
We're living all for You

Umm, no, sorry. I do believe that Jesus is one way, but not the way. Jesus is not the only way that people can know God. I am sure of this because i know plenty of people who have a wonderful, admirable relationship with God, without the need for Jesus. Ever had a chat with a Muslim during Ramadan?

You will never ever change
Yesterday today the same
Forever till forever meets no end

This idea that "God never changes" is dangerous, in my opinion. Change is good and healthy. If God never changed then we would still be stoning our daughters and women could still not be priests. Oh, wait …! Society changes and religion has to adapt or die. I think that's pretty obvious.

There was one song that i really liked. It was about God, and mindfulness. It was quite mystical, like something from St Francis of Assisi.

God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping
God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything

That is such a nice song. No surprise, it is written by Tim Hughes, one of my very favourite Christian artists … and not just because Tim Hughes is exceptionally cute! ;)

I spoke to someone afterwards about this thing i have about Jesus not being the only way. The response was something along the lines of: "Ask Jesus to reveal himself to you. I'm praying for you. There's nothing worse than not knowing."

There's nothing worse than not knowing.

I agreed with that. I'd love to have something to believe in. But the more i think about it, there is something that i believe in. I agree wholeheartedly with something that a dear friend told me a long time ago:

Christians have not got everything right, and non-Christians have not got everything wrong.

The one thing i cannot stand with Christianity is this superiority thing. It's been three weeks and already i feel under pressure to go along with what they believe. There seems such an urgency to make up my mind that Jesus is the only way! I must conform, i must agree. I'm sure they think they're trying to help, but this is the very thing that puts me off.

I once left a church because they prayed that Muslims would "find Jesus" during Ramadan. I once left a prayer group because the leader was actively praying against the Muslims being allowed their own prayer group. I am very intolerant of intolerance!

The more i think about it, the more i believe Neale Donald Walsch has it right:

We are all one. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.

I have always wanted to go to a multi-faith church. I think that would suit me perfectly. The trouble is, where's a multi-faith church anywhere near Winchester?!

I like church. I think church is, on the whole, good for me. It's nice to feel i belong somewhere. I enjoy collective worship. I enjoy getting to know people and making friends with people. I just hope that they can accept me as an agnostic, not expect me to immediately jump to their way of thinking, and not expect me to want to run out and convert everyone.

People will all follow their own path. There is plenty of good in this world, and there is evil. There will always be a balance. God is good. Jesus is one way to God, other ways are also available.

PS. Here's a link to that wonderful song by Tim Hughes.
PPS To be fair, here is also a link to the One way: Jesus song.

I am waiting for some inspiration to occur to me about what to do for the rest of the afternoon. I know i have some chores to do (don't i always?!) but not too many today. I might watch The Bill which my sweetie kindly recorded for me in the week. I might work on the MyChores API a little bit … or i might just continue lying in bed. Blogging from my bed is the best thing, haha!

I went to church again this morning. It was perfectly fine. I met a few more people, including many of the musicians. I keep dropping hints that i'd like to join their band, but i haven't yet spoken to the people i would need to in order to join! I felt very content this week, and happy to be at the church. I love it that there are so many South Africans at the church. They are friendly and kind … and i love their accents! I'm probably going to pick up a bit of Afrikaans if i keep on going!

Work was good this week. I did a good job and i knew it. There's no doubt that the work i'm doing now is the hardest i've ever had to do. I'm not used to finding my job difficult. But hey, it's so rewarding to overcome a challenge and know i did it really well. I feel proud of myself. It's tiring, though. I had a lovely relaxing day yesterday, but i still feel like i need a bit more time to relax before going into another busy week of hard work.

Yesterday afternoon was spent with nyecamden who came to Winchester to meet me. We had a good time together. Visited the library to have a go on their wifi with our netbooks! :) Went to my favourite cafe, The Sanctuary for a delicious hot chocolate. We walked down to the cathedral green to idly pass the time. On the way we found several messages written in chalk on the pavement of The Square. I don't know who started it, but they were interesting to read. Many of them began with "This is …" and contained recollections of Winchester and happy memories.

I added to the messages, with "This is my favourite place to live". It's true, i love Winchester. Such a beautiful city, steeped in history and culture. I am very happy to live here.

Thank you Nye for the picture! :)

I must say, this is one of the best impulse buys i have ever made! I am at my aunt and uncle's house, connected on their wifi. It is so nice to have my own computer, with all my settings, and my email and calendar, just ready to take around with me wherever i go. It picks up wireless networks effortlessly.

I had a nice evening with my cousins, playing with their gogos and reading stories. My plan for the rest of the evening is to write a few blog posts, watch Heroes on the iPlayer, and maybe read a bit of "The Pragmatic Programmer" which i'm intending to finish by the end of the month.

Church was quite fun on Sunday. There was over an hour of singing and worship at the beginning – wonderful for me! :D It felt good to be in an environment where i could contemplate God much more than i have done for a long time. I had a nice chat with a few people, and i was impressed by how many people there were of all ages – loads of kids, some young people, teenagers, young parents, middle aged and elderly people. There was also a nice diversity of nationalities represented there … though about half of them are South African! :)

I even went to a home group last night. It was convenient – just across the road from me. If nothing else, it feels good to be getting to know a few more people locally. They were friendly and tolerated my questions. They answered from their hearts, thinking about what was true for them, rather than giving me any standard drilled-in "Christian" answers. I admire that. I shall probably go again, both to the church and to the homegroup. It seems a good time in my life to be getting involved with a church again. Whether or not i will call myself a Christian remains to be seen. I might just be an agnostic who goes to church!

The thing that got me was this: okay so maybe there are many routes to God. Maybe every religion has something to offer. But that doesn't mean i shouldn't follow any religion. If i find one religion particularly beneficial, by all means i should follow it. I like many aspects of many religions, but after all, Christianity still feels the most comfortable to me, since it's what i'm used to. Yes, i have my problems with a few of its followers – the ones with the more extreme beliefs – but in its essence, Christianity itself is not such a bad religion.

And then i thought – What if it's all true? Obviously i can't make myself believe something, but maybe if i hang around with these people for a while, if i go to church and take part in the worship and the customs … perhaps i'll learn to lose some of my doubts, and let it sink in a bit. Maybe then it will become true for me personally, and maybe i'll find my peace with God. We'll see.