Back from conference

Left Toowoomba at 6.15am to drive to conference at Virginia (that’s Brisbane – Queensland – Australia – not USA). Arrived 9am after mad traffic on Western Freeway. It looked like a parking lot. Sitting in the traffic, it occurred to me that our urban sprawl is a manifestation of collective insanity. Given the general reliability and efficiency of communication technology, we’re barking mad to live in the conurbations we do, wasting time and resources in moving around. It makes living and working in the bush look very rational.

Was great to meet old mates at the conference. At one point I found myself in a room of fifteen people of all ages. I’d worked with eight of them during the past thirty years, and in the case of four, had a major influence on their lives – recruited one to his first job in Mt Isa, was the first principal for another in Townsville, wrote a submission that gathered funds to employ another (a therapist) who began a career working in schools in the eighties and is still doing so, and encouraged another who was a teacher into consultancy work which she continues to enjoy immensely. Getting grey has its compensations.