In Lockdown, Time Has No Meaning

by cjharris | Aug 31, 2020 | current affairs, life, mental health

Today is Monday. I know because I checked my diary and not because it is any different to yesterday, when I had two work meetings on what was apparently a Sunday. People keep asking me how long we’ve been in lockdown now in Melbourne and the answer is truthfully, I...

Good Habits I Want to Keep When the Nightmare of 2020 Is Finally Over

by cjharris | Jul 19, 2020 | current affairs, life, mental health

We are 10 days (ish? I lost count) into our second lockdown of 2020. That’s if you’re not counting the voluntary lockdown over the hellish summer when we were all confined to our homes because smoke made the air unfit to breathe. Remember when we thought the bushfires...

Will a Pandemic Make Us Realise How Privileged We Are?

by cjharris | Mar 28, 2020 | current affairs, equality, life

I think we can all agree that it has been an exhausting week. And month. And year. Australia was only just beginning to recover slowly from the horror show of the worst bushfire season in history, when we — as everywhere else — were struck with a global pandemic. It...

My First Foster Dog Experience Ended in Heartbreak

by cjharris | Feb 4, 2020 | activism, justice, life

Up until a couple of months ago, I would not have considered myself a dog person. But my partner had been talking about fostering for a while and he is allergic to cats. So we decided on the closest thing to a cat that is actually a dog: a greyhound. As far as dogs...

In Australia, It’s Impossible to Think About Anything Except the Bushfires

by cjharris | Jan 6, 2020 | current affairs, environment, life, politics

I woke up in Melbourne this morning, not just to the smell of smoke — I’m used to that — but the unmistakable odour of burning. It was so strong that I actually checked my partner hadn’t left the stove on, before I realised that it was coming through our closed doors...

It’s Okay to Admit That You’re Not Okay

by cjharris | Sep 13, 2019 | life, mental health

In Australia, September 12 was ‘R U OK? Day’, a national day of action which encourages us to check in with friends, family and workmates. Coming two days after World Suicide Prevention Day this year, it is a reminder that people who can appear to be functioning on...