Guest Tweeter on Ten!!!

TGIF all! Good morning, and I have some exciting news for you all!

Network Ten is launching a new breakfast show next Monday, called "Wake Up".  It's hoping to be something a little different for your mornings...

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...I am super honoured to be on of the regular guest tweeters on the show!!

It's going to be quite exciting inshallah. They've given me pretty much free reign to tweet as I like during the show, commenting on all sorts of issues (even if the coffee they give me isn't up to scratch, and let's face it, nothing's quite as good as Brisbane coffee).  I'll be appearing on set with the hosts three times during the morning for some talk about what's trending on twitter and the news of the day (including, as I will ensure, socially conscious topics!!).

This is a little bit awesome, right?!

So your job is to watch the show (it starts at 6.30am on Monday morning), and I will be the guest tweeter on next Thursday the 7th!!!

Tweet/FB/Instagram with me about all the issues that are important to you on that day and I will make sure they get some airtime (as best as I can!).

DEETS THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

My handles: @yassmin_a - facebook.com/yassminabdelmagied - http://www.youtube.com/yassm1na - and I suppose I will have to get on that instagram bandwagon ;)

Their handles:

@WakeUpOnTEN - facebook.com/wakeuponten - youtube.com/wakeuponten :)

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This is going to be really fun inshallah, and I am honestly pretty proud of a commercial platform interesting in having a 'visibly different' voice on the show. Now, just to make sure that isn't a token voice and doing something with it (and hopefully, having this as only the start of a whole new wave of voices!).

Khair inshallah!!

Are you going to be watching? Pft, that's not even a question. You most definitely are inshallah ;)

Repping the Uni of Queensland!

A little while ago I was fortunate / blessed / someone was crazy enough to let me in front of their camera - to be a part of a University of Queensland Campaign.  Enjoy the video that came out of it! Special mentions to the Spark Engineering Camp crew and the University of Queensland Racing team, who are like my family, truly.

Country Music + Reflection for your Saturday morning?

On a recommendation by a fellow colleague, I have been making my through the TV series 'Justified'.

Not my usual show, and I find myself questioning how I can barrack for a protagonist who clearly acts as a the law onto himself. In that sense the show is not completely unlike Dexter, but I cannot abide that show at all! The moral grey area that inhabits does not sit well with me.

Nonetheless, Rayland, the old-school-Kentucky cowboy US marshall is an interesting character and the supporting cast is multilayered, intriguing and keeps you involved.

The show's soundtrack is (to my ears) true Southern country, but this particular song - You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive - caught my ear. Harlan, the town wherein the show is based, is an old coal town and this particular tune sings a sad melody around the trials of digging coal.

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This time last year I spent a little over a month in Houston, Texas, training for work. To be honest, travelling to the 'deep south' was something I had not really grown up wanting to do but I treated it like I treat everything: an adventure and an opportunity to learn something about the way other people see the world.

I took away a number of things from the experience, there is no doubt about that. One of the most unexpected takings however, was an appreciation for country music (did I really just type that?!). It was the first time I had spent time around people who listened to country regularly (almost exclusively!) and what was the draw card? The songs were about the lives, loves and dramas of life. There seemed to be a depth to the music that is not always present in the top 40 pop charts, and so I began to appreciate, just a little...

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But the times got hard and tobacco wasn't selling And ole granddad knew what he'd do to survive He went and dug for Harlan coal And sent the money back to granny But he never left Harlan alive

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Something about the song struck a note. Our parents, their parents, generations before us knew, seem to have known that life was hard and just worked through it, fighting for better but accepting that was how life was. The obsession with 'happiness' played itself out a little differently. Art and music of those days are drenched with tales of woe and sacrifice. What my own parents did, in leaving Sudan and traveling to the other side of the world! for the future of their children - that level of sacrifice is unimaginable.

So the question is this: is our generation different? Are we so caught up as a society in the pursuit of our own happiness that the level of sacrifice we have seen is no longer, or are we going to be alright? What does this mean for us as communities?

Only time will tell...

It could happen to anyone of us.

Salacious photos are not something to generally be given the time of day.  When the topic comes up as part of another 'scandal' in politics or a celebrity's life, I tend to shake my head and wonder what the person was thinking.

Notwithstanding this, a subplot running through this week's 'The Newsroom' episode was cause for reflection, particularly around this idea (or myth!) of privacy in today's world.

The subplot in question was explosively introduced in the opening scene. Nude photos of one of the characters, Sloan (a respected TV anchor), had been posted up on a site.  These photos quickly went viral, and the channel is left to deal with the results.  The interesting thing about these photos was that they were taken with her consent by an man she was dating and trusted implicitly at the time.  When she dumped him, he took the due 'revenge' he felt was 'owed' to him through by utterly humiliating her.

'I am feeling something very I don't know how to describe right now', Sloan says on the show.

Betrayal perhaps?  Insecurity? Utter helplessness?  One can only imagine what it must feel like to have a truly intimate moment be broadcast online.

Her confidante at the time said it was rage - or will quickly turn into rage.  Sloan finishes the episode in the boardroom of said jilted lover, punching him out and getting a little revenge of her own.

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There are a number of interesting readings of this plot.  Sloan's character is a genius; she's a well respected economist and commands audiences of hundreds of thousands.  Surely, a thirty year old highly educated woman wouldn't put herself in this situation.  Surely she would think to delete identifying photos if they were taken, even if she had consented?

Well if recent history is anything to go by, people do very silly things with cameras and phones without seeming to think about the consequences (or in the case of Anthony Weiner, even seeming to care). In this case however, Sloan wasn't doing anything technically 'wrong', so that argument is less substantial.  It does raise the question about the line between an individual's public and personal life though, particularly in an age where this is becoming increasingly blurred.

She sights her implicit trust in this guy as the reason she didn't expect this sort of revenge. 'It wasn't a bad breakup - but even if it were, would this be okay?!', she asks, and rightly so!  Humiliation and the essential defamation can regularly - and do regularly - annihilate reputations.  We all know that reputations are the easiest things to damage and the most difficult to repair.  So the act of distributing the photos we can agree, is immoral.

Is it criminal?

Whose responsibility is it to ensure these things don't happen?

Is your privacy always your individual responsibility or should is there an implicit trust in relationships with people - and institutions - that should also bear part of the burden?

It feeds into a larger question about an individual's right to privacy, particularly with the exposing of PRISM, the actions of the NSA and even the likes of Google implying that privacy online is a myth.

Unfortunately, it is increasingly difficult to effectively operate in this society without being online.  So how does one walk the line?  Are we all to always be on-guard and take precautions, accepting that being selective about what we share - even to our closest friends - is never really actually private?

What will happen when people growing up in this online society become leaders of state?  Will there never be any surprises because everything is already online? Will our moral appetites change because we become accustomed to every single infraction being displayed and obsessed with the world over?  Or will there be an industry based around the erasure of online profiles to give people an opportunity to 'start afresh'.

What do you think?

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Video: My Room while on the Rigs!

I'm trying out something new and venturing into video territory :) Here's a little clip of a typical room that we are housed in as oil and gas workers...

It's actually not too bad, all things considered!

Cosy right?

What do you think...?

Grass Roots Sudanese Inspiration (ARABIC)

A good friend of mine recommended this TEDx talk performed in Sudan and I simply love it. It talks about ambition, gumption, examples of Sudanese who have defeated the odds and 'made it'...and is a great grass roots video for young Sudanese to watch and be inspired by. Note that it is in Arabic, and pretty Sudanese Arabic at that!

Enjoy.

Interview with Radio National - Life Matters!

I had the honour and privilege to be on Radio National for ABC today, talking about life on the rigs and such... It is a bit of an honest conversation, and reflects my tone in the Griffith Review piece.

Thank you also must go to the wonderful Natasha who interviewed me :)

Natasha herself is such an inspiration - and as a female engineer, she knew exactly where I was coming from!

Have a listen!

(Click on the screen shot, then once you are at the site just press "Listen").

4 Videos: 2012 Revisited

I am a sucker for video compilations.  Here are my favourite four video compilations of the year that 2012 was…enjoy!

Zeitgeist 2012: What the world searched for in 2012, made by Google

DJ Earworm does amazing mashups of the year’s top 25 Billboard hits. 

A great filmography. Very US/Hollywood centric but evokes great feelings nonetheless.

What brought us together, 2012…

Do you have any favourites?