Greetings from Bucharest!!!
Hi everyone,
Within minutes of clicking send in Debrecen, our plans had changed. It turns out Australians can’t actually get into either the Ukraine or Moldova without a visa. We investigated the consulate situation, and found a Ukrainian consulate at the almost-border town of Nyiergehaza, but the person there had no idea what it would cost, what documents were required or how long it would take; just that we had to wait till friday morning when the right person would be in. Spending the weekend and possibly more stuck in a town we’d never heard of really didn’t appeal, so we headed south instead.
Three rides took us to Oradea, a town on the edge of Romania which I remember fondly from 2005. We stayed in the same place, Hotel Parc, with its enormous spaces but hostel prices. It’s a great sprawling building which is hard to find as it has only a doorway on the terraced main street, albeit a grand, art nouveau doorway. Behind, however, there are rooms after hallways of rooms, around a huge black and white tiled courtyard which has been cleaned up from my recollection, but still stands unfindable and unused. When you walk into the rooms themselves, you find yourself in an entranceway that would fit a moderate sized bedroom, but which houses only a mini fridge. This leads into a ballroom, at least four times the size, with a slightly saggy bed, old fashioned closet and little table and stool dwarfed by their surroundings. Also off the entrance is a reasonable old bathroom, though the scale of the ceilings and the bath is offset by the dinky soaps, curiously cracked cup preserved in a little plastic bag and lack of a toilet. We were first given a room with what looked like a grand marble bathroom, but since it was up five enormous stairs we passed it up. Accessibility is a good thing. Our toilet was across the private hall; it also had the ridiculously high ceilings yet the toilet paper was held up by a metal skewer through the holder. It’s an interesting place.
The town itself is fascinating. There are stunning buildings everywhere, though many are covered up with fabric, presumably the first step in renovation. There is a wide variety of styles, Seccessionist coming up most often in those deemed notable enough for a little plaque. I was craving some kind of architectural guidebook so I could get the styles straight, find out why there are so many grand and inventive buildings, understand the development of the place and really absorb and appreciate it all.
Thanks to the gregarious hotel manager, we found out more about the town as it is now. It’s easy to find alcohol but hard to find food, and he tells us that drinking venues are a good place for the girls of the region to make money, now that the impoverished population has a taste of what others have. In that light, the town makes a lot of sense. people don’t actually use the beautiful centre of town except for an out of control nightlife, and of course it must be the leading place to buy wedding dresses and alarming evening wear. Still the place has been significantly updated in the last six years, though perplexingly the main feature seems to have been to get rid of the elegant wavy paving that captivated me before, and lay plain old modern cobblestones instead.
Unfortunately the morning manager wasn’t as friendly as the one at night, possibly because we hadn’t realised there was a time difference between Hungary and Romania and returned an hour late to check out – a fact we only discovered when we tried to take a train out, and found ourselves stuck on plastic train station seats for hours waiting for the next one.
The overnight train took us to Brasov, another town I’ve already seen. We were there because it was a highlight for Lisa, with Dracula’s castle and birthplace in the region. The fun started straight off the train, as the sweetly oversolicitous train guards handed us over to the somewhat comic porter in an official-looking but oversized jacket and cap, who insisted on lugging Lisa’s bag that was about as big as he was. We were lucky he helped, because neither finding our bus stop or buying a ticket was straight forward. He asked for money at the end, which is never fun, but it turned out to be only ten Lei that he wanted, which is barely $3. This is eastern europe.
The hostel was reasonable, the owner was wonderful and helpful, but her advice was a bit problematic. The first time we tried to go into town we were advised to try to buy a ticket on the bus for two lei. the driver waved us on without taking money, which seemed good until the inspector came and also wouldn’t take our money, instead wanting our passports and a 45 lei fine. luckily this is not the first time i’ve been in such a situation, and mutterings of ‘police, police’ don’t faze me too much. we got off the bus and for extra measure got the help of someone bilingual who had seen us try to pay. After a while all parties just wandered off.
Brasov is a pretty town with some city wall, two rival synagogues yet less than a plague of churches and plenty of old buildings in gelato colours, like everywhere else around here. I thought there were exceptions to the rule until I saw gelato being sold that I could swear looked like avocado. We took a good walk around dodging all the other tourists and didn’t have another run in with anyone until we tried to buy groceries at one of their mini supermarkets, and dropped the two litre carton of juice. i don’t really mind that i was asked to buy it, i’m just amazed how all the staff stared in a daze at the mess like they’d never seen such a thing before. their uncooperativeness lead to even more of a mess as we tried to drink a bit from the broken carton and bag it up safely, none of which works very well with such an audience.
The next day we got driven to Bran castle which is as cute as I remember it, and more curious for the evidence of the last owners than for any dracula connections. Queen Marie and her family lived there in the 20s, with gorgeous photos to record as they traipsed about in perfect shoes and white stockings under peasant skirts, 20s eyes and bobbed hair with traditional headdresses. By all accounts though, they did more than play fairytale princess and were good rulers. This time round we also had the pleasure of watching an international folk dancing competition taking place in the tiny little courtyard. The place realy does look like a 19th century fantasy rather than the real 14th century fortress that it is. That day we also attempted the fortress at Rasnov but didn’t make it much further than the ‘train’, a cart with seats attached to the back of a tractor which only pulled us two thirds of the way to the entrance. With the most important sight seen, we reluctantly trained it down to Bucharest, our last visa hope and one of my all time 5% of least favourite places ever.
Bucharest is a grim city, especially in comparison to the lush, green Romanian countryside. While there are indeed patches of abandoned concrete factories which have been bought cheap, run down and sold off for parts, waiting for a decade to be developed into something more commercial, there are also plenty of gorgeous towns and villages in vibrant colour. The capital is made of discoloured stucco and aged concrete. There is greenery many places but you wouldn’t notice, it’s too tired to lift the tone. I guess if you lived here you’d stop seeing it, like any place, and if on the other hand you look closer, there is evidence of much beauty to be found. There are stunning buildings nestled in the back streets of the city, and some up front too, but all need more excavation than renovation, before they can be appreciated on more than an intellectual level. I wasn’t even moved to photograph any of the details I wondered at; ultimately they would all turn out grey. The general feel of the air is worse than in Beijing and there are stray dogs everywhere. I wonder how it was in other times. Only 22 years ago there was a revolution in the streets; there is little direct evidence to be seen, but surely it is not only the pollution but the history and politics of the place that have made the entire city dark grey.
Here too we had quite the bureaucratic adventure. Never mind the extortionate taxi from the station; there’s more. The Moldovan consulate was a joy and gave me a visa in minutes, waiving many of the hoops we expected to have to jump. The Ukrainian consulate, when we found it, seemed surprisingly helpful too. Usually consulates are only open to visa applicants in the morning, but we were sent away to get a travel agent to make a hotel booking for a night and provide a stamp to make it official, and pay the fee at a particular bank. If we came back after 3, he said, and paid the expidited fee, he’d be generous enough to give us our visa that day instead of the usual week, or even the usual expedited 1-3 days. Amazing! If we can’t make it by 3, we ask, how late can we come? “we close at 6″, he says. “I just need a little time to process it.”
We ran off to do his bidding as fast as we could. Six hours later we had a booking from the first travel agent that could actually book hotels – the fourth we had found. I had gone through the bank registration process at two separate branches, withdrawn the money and finally managed to pay it in at the second, and our wonder of a fair, helpful taxi driver getting us back to the consulate at 5:50. I’m sure you can imagine just how much more running up stairs, questioning monolingual strangers and turning in circles was involved, for that to take six hours. At 8pm I got my visa. Most of that was spent arguing with the consulate who decided that his word was law, even words he didn’t speak. The stamp on our booking was from Romania not from the Ukraine – not that I know how the latter could’ve been achieved, we came back too late – though he was still there, we weren’t nice enough to him when I rushed in, panicked that I actually was too late. He had the power to delay and refuse on any of these grounds, and he tried each in turn, but all he really wanted in the end was two direct women to grovel and apologise and give him a little power trip. He could’ve done it in the ten minutes between me showing up and the end of his day; he must’ve enjoyed throwing his weight around for two hours. In the end I was shaking and experiencing a fun range of emotional reactions to being expected to bow my head to another’s patronising manipulations, but I had all the visas I needed to get out of Bucharest and never look back.
As that’s not a very cheerful ending, I’ll let you in on what happened next, in case you haven’t yet seen my shorter updates. On my birthday I drove out of town in Lisa’s very own Dacia, and we’re now enjoying Moldova, somewhere I’ve never been before…
I’d also just like to note that these travelogues are being typed, unedited, in internet cafes on computers that operate in different languages. Just so you’re aware.
Kate
6-7/7/11
greetings from debrecen!!!
hi everyone, it’s a long time since I’ve done a greetings – probably about seven years, but i’m at a computer and would like to tell some of you what i’m up to. it’s been an interesting and varied trip so far.
first off was six nights in beijing. the temple of heaven was in some ways the highlight for me, a big park with thousands of people doing early morning tai chi, many kinds of dancing, floor calligraphy, diablo, singing, marching, clapping, amplified harmonica, hackysack and a million other intriguing activities, surrounded by beautiful buildings and gardens. the great wall was amazing as was the added benefit of getting out of the city, tiananmen square was confusing and i only got as far as the gates of the forbidden city before being overwhelmed by heat and crowds. the art precinct was worth very much worth the journey, but i’ve never seen a place as polluted as dongzhimen, which was a bit out of the centre, where i had to change transport several times. the beijing opera was both interesting and hilarious, but hard on the ears. otherwise much of my time was spent wandering the hutongs, interacting with people, getting my feet stared at even when i wore shoes and haggling for fruit, dumplings and other things. qianmen hostel made everything easy, it was a comfortable and helpful, and i met many amazing travellers, which is always especially helpful on my first stop, as i acclimatise to being a traveller again.
next stop was london, and we took off to wales almost immediately, giving us one good day in cardiff and one in caerleon. cardiff is a pleasant town, with a nice castle full of incredible details, such as the little cherubs bearing names of philosophers, painted at intervals along the walls of the library above the elaborate patterns and below the elaborate border and the elaborate cornices with individually carved monkeys amongst the carved trees and above the elaborate arched doorways with elaborately carved doors. then there’s the frieze of moses and his tablets right next to an egyptian woman with tablets of heiroglyphs and three others from different cultures, just to make clear this lord’s opinions on traditions. not to mention the ornate wooden bookcases, the desk with gold patterns stamped into the leather, inside an inlaid wooden border, inside a carved wooden edge and you might be getting the picture. there are many centuries of details overlaid and updated until it’s hard to detect what belongs to when. then there’s the roman artificial hill with a ruined fortress which you can climb for several floors, and the zulu wars reenactors hanging around outside and participating in the military day march that paraded through the city, complete with goat with silver tipped horns!
outside the castle, cardiff was having a busy day with louts in red and white making noise about a speedway, teenagers congregating in the mall with fancy haircuts and elaborate costumes including two separate tiger jumpsuit and hood ensembles, the military happenings and refugee week, where we got to listen to storytelling and african drumming, and find out about wales’ politics and immigration situation by talking to representatives of various refugee-related organisations.
the next day we drove to caerleon, a small town with roman ruins including an amphitheatre, barracks and baths and a spectacular small museum full of the artifacts of daily life around the area, from hairpins and scabbard and belt finals to engraved jewels to surveyors’ tools, as well as helmets and weapons and burial artifacts. we also had lunch on the grass at the amphitheatre as a brass band set up, took in the little sculpture park and wandered the pleasant streets of the little town, before returning to the modern world of cities and airports.
the next day was a little more of a challenge. we missed our flight at luton, and had to find a new one while 25 people clamored for the manager as they were told that it was their fault that they hadn’t heard the boarding call for their flight to riga. yes, all of them. don’t fly wizz air if you can help it. we ended up with an easyjet flight to budapest, which went smoothly once we found a wheelchair. since we didn’t ask for one in the whirl of rebooking and checking in, the airport couldn’t seem to find one further through the process. one was found, however, and it was up to me to push it at a run from security to the gate. this was particularly fun down the many ramps! at the end we got to sit down and wait long enough for my breathing to regulate, which makes me wonder what the rush was… but that’s airports for you. in hungary the airport drama continued, as we discovered we couldn’t book a car as we’d expected to in romania. we couldn’t find an automatic, we couldn’t take it out of the country, hungarian prices are just more expensive than romanian, and besides, there was a rave happening out of town and all the companies were booked out. eventually we got help at the taxistand and heard all about how this taxi company was founded in 1913 and the first taxis anywhere were in 1906, while we were taken to an easyhotel in the city.
this is the fourth time i’ve been through budapest, and the most notable feature is still the aging grandeur of the buildings; it feels like in a million years budapest will still be standing just as it is, with a little more wear to the details around the edges of the buildings. we rested, we ate, we stocked up on travellers’ food of fruit, cheap chocolate, pear juice, musli and yogurt. we walked a little and we got amazing help from the hotel staff. the final verdict, however, was that the hitchhiking websites say the ukraine is a good place to hitch, so to the road it was! it’s wonderful to be hitching again; even with too much luggage, this is what life is about. lisa says she’s never seen me smile like this.
after a meal of asparagus, duck and strawberry risotto, we found a road at about 2pm and by dinner time we were three hospitable rides further, eating well with our last ride’s family in debrecen, which is by all accounts a beautiful city. i happen to agree, we’re staying in university dorms – ensuite and all, very flash – with a forest of a path next door, on the way to some mineral baths and the town’s only tramline, which has taken us into the centre today.
tomorrow we plan to hitch to the ukraine, to lviv then kiev where we can get me a moldovan visa. then to odessa and through moldova, out to romania, particularly transylvania, from where lisa will probably fly back to london while i continue to copenhagen. it’s not quite the original plan, but it’s good!
kate
29 june 2011
christian spam
aww, i feel special. someone is putting a lot of effort into trying to either convert me or annoy me. it’s not like regular spam, i don’t feel my computer or my data is under threat, so i’m torn between ignoring, investigating this strange world of online christians, and writing them all nice letters to let them know that they’ve got someone maliciously using their services for purposes they presumably don’t intend. and i’d seriously go for the latter if i was sure their ridiculously cheery and welcoming tone would continue once they heard that i’m an atheist. as it is, they’re christians. i can’t trust them to not turn out bigoted once it’s clear i’m neither one of them nor any kind of prospect for them.
the first was from ‘got questions ministries’, they’re american of course. subject: “welcome to question of the week”.
Thank you for subscribing to our Question of the Week.
You will receive your first edition on the first Friday from today.
God bless!
friday hasn’t yet come, but while i was oh so avidly waiting, another three gems turned up. this one’s from allaboutgod.net, which sounds pretty boring. the mustn’t think so though, since they take the opportunity to use their name no less than eight times. and i just love that capitalisation, i wonder how they can take such a thing seriously – but then i’ve never seen the site and i doubt i ever will. subject: “Verify Your Email on All About GOD!” at least i won’t be getting further mail from them.
Hello,
We need to verify your email address before you can sign in to All About GOD.
Please click on the link below to verify your email address:http://www.allaboutgod.net/?vkey= [...]_x&xg_source=msg_verify_email
All About GOD
This one is more amusing, subject: “[wholename] Your ChristianDatingForFree.com Registration Information”. i like the nice touch of the password, not so much using my whole name.
Dear [wholename] ,
Thank you for registering at http://www.christiandatingforfree.com
Please click on the following link to activate your account and confirm that all of your information is correct:
http://www.christiandatingforfree.com/reg_activation.php?id=[...]
If you CANNOT click on the above link, please copy and paste it into your browser.
Here are your login details- make sure to type them in EXACTLY (including capital and lowercase if you have any):
—————————
Username: [wholename]
Password: atheists
—————————Should you have any questions or comments about anything, please send them to ChristianDatingForFree.com <admin@christiandatingforfree.com>
The Christian Dating For Free team
unfortunately, this one didn’t stay dead. subject: “Your Account has been Activated”
Dear [wholename],
Thank you so much for registering at Christian Dating For Free!
I wanted to personally welcome you and also sincerely apologize if you had any difficulties receiving your activation email. We have had a couple of problems with people not receiving their activation emails today and I wanted to make sure you were not having this problem.
I have gone ahead and manually activated your account so you will not have to deal with this if it is in fact an issue.
Your sign in details are:
Username: [wholename]
Password: atheists
Thank you again for signing up. We hope that you will have a wonderful experience on Christian Dating For Free.
God Bless,
CDFF
not impressed. activation codes are there for a reason, and this is precisely that reason. now here’s a curious one, subject: “needhim.org: Praise Him!!” i really really don’t need any hims. note the praise bit, complete with exclamation marks, comes from a gratuitous comment by my anonymous giver of stupidity. why would anyone write things like that? it doesn’t say anything. or that’s what i think, as a rational person…
Kate,
This is to confirm that we have received your request for personal assistance. Please do not reply to this e-mail.
You should receive a personal response by e-mail within the next several business days.Sincerely,
Response Centers staffP.S. Your Question/Comment was:
Praise Him!!
and an eager three hours later, subject: “Re: needhim.org: Praise Him!!”
Dear Kate,
Hello and thank you for visiting needhim.org! My name is Sue.I’m excited that you made the decision to accept Christ as your Savior. This is the most important decision you will ever make! I know that I have never regretted it!
When you asked Christ to be your savior, several things happened.
-Christ came into your life (Revelation 3:20)
-You became a child of God (John 1:12)
-Your sins were forgiven (Col 1:14)
-You now have the gift of eternal life (1 John 5:11)These are just a few of God’s amazing promises to those who follow him. Do they make sense to you?
Becoming a follower of Christ is just the first step on a fantastic journey, and most of us need help on that trip. We are completely committed to helping people find God, and then grow in their relationship with Him.
Do you know of a strong Bible-believing church in your area? Finding and getting involved in a good church is critical to growing in your walk with God. There you hopefully will find people who have followed Christ for a long time, who can help guide you in your new faith.
The Bible says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17). I would love to hear the circumstances that led to your decision, and then answer any questions you might have.
Also, please check out www.LookToJesus.com for a whole bunch of great resources that can help you get started off on the right foot in your walk with God.
I look forward to hearing back from you. Please e-mail me any time with questions — or let me know how I can pray for you. Have prayed for your country because of the cyclone that moved on shore and the damage and injury from such a huge storm. I pray that you and your family are safe.
God bless you today, and welcome to God’s family!
Sincerely,
Sue
so i thought that was it, but i got this the next day; subject: “Completing your profile on ChristianCafe.com”. this one’s all pretty; the banner reads “Welcome to ChristianCafe.com All Christian. All Single.” fading into a sepia image of a man’s hand with a ring on the middle finger, writing with a gold pen next to a teacup, a pair of wire and tortiseshell reading glasses and an envelope.
Getting started on ChristianCafe.comDear [Wholename]hkb,
Thank you for creating an account the other day. You’ve made the first step towards a healthy relationship with another Christian single!
The next step is to complete your profile so you can let others know what’s important to you. This also gives you access to the Members section – complimentary for up to ten days! – where you can search for interesting people, send and receive email and instant messages, see who’s online when you are, post photos, and much more!
Completing your profile in one easy stepGo to www.christiancafe.com and enter your username and password:
Username: [WHOLENAME]HKB632
Password: [WHOLENAME]HKB632541Be sure to enter your full username and full password as listed above. Your password consists of your username as well as numbers.
wow, my username as well as numbers. the outtake is even funnier, beside a small picture of a laughing couple at their wedding reception, white strapless dress, suit, flowers, tall candles:
“My lovely wife Hailey and I met on ChristianCafe.com. It has been wonderful and we are extremely blessed as we have furthered our walks with the Lord as a couple.” – Jaron and Hailey, Married
Get started now and find out who’s waiting to hear from you!
Thanks!
Cafe Staff
Want to unsubscribe from ChristianCafe.com? Remove my account
(C) 1998-2010 RealCafes.com Inc. All rights reserved.
and then the next day, subject: “AlphaLife Registration”. someone wants to send me mail for free it seems. of course they’re the church, so we’re all already paying for the drivel.
Dear Kate,
Thank you for registering online to receive the AlphaLife Newsletter which is produced quarterly. We send out the newsletter quarterly via postal mail. While we also do occasional email updates, the Alpha Life Newsletter is our main way of sharing news, updates and information about Alpha, courses, testimonies, resources and events. If you would like to receive this quarterly newsletter, please forward your postal address so that we can send you the latest copy.
Blessings
Emily.
___________________________________________________________
Emily White
Customer Relationship Management Coordinator
Alpha Australia National Office
PO Box 10, Kerrimuir VIC 3129
Email: emily.white@alpha.org.au
Tel: (03) 9899 8050
i wonder what tomorrow will bring??
vegetarian acting
despite my appreciation for vegetarian food and my support for vegetarianism, veganism and most other thoughtful, humane approaches to consumption, i am not, nor have i ever been, vegetarian.
so why do people keep apologising for eating meat in front of me?
this generally happens while i’m wearing my full length leather coat, not that i’m seen without it all that much. this marker of my less-than-rigorous-vegan status might be a bit subtle for some, but it does suggest to me that people are pretty certain of where i stand if they don’t even look for clues before they speak.
but that’s not all. at a friend’s party, standing around the barbecue, the all-meat barbecue. talking to the cook who is supervising said barbecue and surely knows he’s cooking no vegie patties. sausage on fork, twixt plate and mouth. surely that’s a bit more than a subtle sign that i eat meat. why does the cook ask me how long i’ve been vegetarian?
i don’t really mind, i guess they’re displaying some consciousness of what they’re eating and that it’s not entirely value-free. besides, of all the assumptions people make about me, this one is hardly unflattering. i’m just confused.
do i look like a vegetarian? what does a vegetarian look like?
have they seen me eating fruit or vegetables? haven’t they gotten past hating spinach yet?
is it that i know vegetarian people? is vegetarianism catching?
is it because i’m political and try to live by my principles? what, vegetarianism is a principle they’ve heard of so it must be one of mine?
is it because they saw me refuse leftovers because i couldn’t store them in the vegetarian house i once lived in? did they forget both that i was offered that dish because i’d been eating it, and also that they had been so fascinated by the situation that they got me to explain it in detail?
is it because i’ve mentioned that i like vegetarian food, or that it tends to be a safe option? have they never had a good meal without meat in it?
can anyone shed some light on this for me? i suspect there may be further consequences of this phenomenon, and i just don’t understand.
my mother
there are some things that i need to admit.
one reason i haven’t been writing here much is that several things in my life have shifted in recent years, and not everything is suitable for public consumption. it’s not that they’re personal. nothing of the sort. i have no problem telling the whole world about the crazy, different and sometimes quite intimate interesting details of my life. i have in my head a vague picture of who might be listening, who would possibly read this, and i have no problem telling them how strange i am. they already know, and that’s probably why they like me.
but now, the things that i feel the need to tell people are not those things. i’m not quite normal enough to be understood quite well enough by the nice friendly straight normal people around me; i can discuss the exciting parts of having a house at length, and it’s great, but the just don’t understand why i’m embarrassed about it. but that’s the theme of several half finished posts, not this one.
what i’m going to admit today is that, while i’ve built my life on academia; doing higher degrees and working in research, i can’t do any of it alone.
sometimes i wonder how independence has become such a big thing. we’re social creatures, can’t exist in isolation, and indeed, teamwork is the thing to be able to do, these days. but i keep doing study where i need to write essays that compete with everyone else’s, where you have to prove it’s your own work, where it’s risky to even discuss your work with your classmates. at least it’s not quite as much of a competition at uts as it was at mac, where everything was norm curved.
i also work alone on my project at work. in fact i work on most projects somewhat alone. i naturally gravitate to the projects that noone else is doing, the ideas that aren’t current, the minority populations. multiple minorities, no less. i find niches for myself, where i can do my own thing in my own way, without the same competition or scrutiny that you get running with a pack. there are several disadvantages to this, but a big one is that i often have too little support.
in academia i have always had my strategies and ways of coping. i learnt early to get to know my teachers, both so i could learn more from them, and so i could get the extensions i couldn’t live without. more time to work, and adjustments to the question until it made sense for my life, my priorities and my brain.
one strategy i have always fought against, however, was needing help with the actual writeup. tooth and nail. i remember in year ten, refusing to hand in my commerce assignment that was probably ninety percent paragraphs of gibberish that my overenthusiastic father had written. they weren’t on topic, they didn’t always make sense and they most certainly didn’t follow eachother and they just weren’t my work, but i was made to hand it in, or i wouldn’t have gotten my school certificate. i can see it now, a thick wad of zigzag folded paper with tractor feed edges still attached, chunks of dot matrix text ranged sporadically its length, interspersed with empty white fields of shame.
Several people have helped me write over the years. cross legged at the computer on the floor at my boyfriend’s place. flat on the bed with my hands stretched above my head to the keyboard on the desk in a late night skype session with my long distance girlfriend. side by side at a desk in a stuffy room with my father’s friend’s wife who we paid to help, until my next essay is on aboriginal education and it turned out she was racist. study groups and emailed draft exchanges with a few amazing classmates. at the top of my voice with my father, ‘what are you crazy? that doesn’t make any sense at all, why would i want to say something like that, it’s ridiculous, it goes like this – scribble scribble scribble – shut up don’t break my concentration i’ve got a sentence.’ and in random social situations with several wonderful friends who let me ramble on about my topic until i found a bit more clarity and enthusiasm.
it was all a bit embarrassing and made me wonder about my self worth, but i gradually began turning in a better standard of work, and all in my own voice, whatever help i’d needed in order to get there. what i really became worried about was the interaction with my father. i let him get me so frustrated with his strange ideas, stranger articulation and relentless ‘help’ that i was screaming the house down, and somehow i could get past the blocks in my brain and get the right words out, in the appropriate format. would i always have to experience that level of anger to be able to write anything? how did that even work? it seems illogical, untenable and downright insane.
unfortunately it hasn’t much changed. he can somehow break the block if i’m in such a panic that i can barely function, but i never want to be in that position ever again. with my mother, however, things have changed. originally she would complain if i asked her anything about anything. she would say she hated philosophy, and would complain if anything had big words that she wasn’t comfortable with. post modernism. epistemology. she was perfectly capable of working with them, of course, but she wasn’t willing to be a person who wasn’t threatened by something she didn’t know. i never figured out why it was important to her.
some time when i was taking less theoretical subjects, she started doing that final edit for me, the one where you’ve seen your words so many times that you no longer notice typos so need someone else to do it. it wasn’t with particularly good grace most of the time, but i can’t complain when i was forever late and emailing her in the middle of the night, or hoping she was free to drop everything at some unspecified time so that she could look through it in the ten minutes before i had to be out the door to hand it in a little less late that it could’ve been. and of course much of the time i couldn’t even manage that, and went without; trusting that the fact that the paragraphs were evenly shaped meant there were no sentence offcuts or notes left in.
now, however, she’s been really helpful, and i’m so grateful. i can make a time when she’s free, to email her a copy of whatever i have, and sit on the phone as we hammer it out. the setup is important; trying to be comfortable and stay still in their dining room as we peer at a screen is uncomfortable for both of us. each making ourselves comfortable in our own homes, with a copy each, a speaker phone and google chat open for me to pass sentences to her for appraisal, just seems to work. i don’t want to do it, to bother her when i don’t feel i have enough to show, to rely on my mother, to take up her time. i really need to get over that though, then maybe i could manage to initiate contact more than three days before the absolute final due date, and make it easier on both of us.
she’s a good editor, as pedantic as i am about grammar, style and punctuation, and we’re learning how to disagree. there are times i just want to stand by my long sentence or marked forms, especially when there really is no time left to contemplate non essentials.
she’s also very good at suggesting vocabulary when i’m stuck, i know what the next sentence needs to say but i can’t explain it in under five hundred words. the snippet i type to her might not actually make sense, but it’s logged and won’t float away in my colander brain, and slowly we can shuffle in words, reorganise clauses and finally smooth edges. then i get inspiration and go silent for a while as i work on a totally new sentence using half the old material yet being twice as long and bridging the gap to the next thought. that’s good too.
i can’t express how grateful i am to have help, to not spend any more time sitting alone in absolute meltdown and paralysis. but possibly even more, i’m overjoyed that we’re communicating. i’ve rarely gotten a sense from her that she loved me all that much. or even liked me, for that matter. she’s not the warmest and most open person in the world, though it has been improving. yet when we sit on the phone, i think we’re both trying. we understand eachother on a certain level. we both need that word to be right before we can move on, because it affects what the next one has to do. i can go on for ten minutes about the fine details about why that word just doesn’t express the full implications that i need it to, and she will listen, digest and come up with a suggestion. even if it’s about post modernism or epistemology.
and then we slide into chatting about something, and find out what’s really going on in eachother’s lives. like i like to do with my friends. fancy that!
i still wish for a day when i can write easily enough to it alone. but maybe i shouldn’t worry so much, and should appreciate the opportunity i’m being given. thankfulness is so much more worthwhile than shame.
to my beloved mattress
to my beloved mattress, i hope you enjoy your retirement. you will be sorely missed, no other mattress will ever be quite the same.
i remember the day i found you, on the side of the road somewhere in ryde. kat and i tested out the selection of three mattresses and two bases available on that street, and decided on you despite not being part of a set. we loaded you onto the top of the bug, and a base on top of you, legs in the air. it was starting to sprinkle.
on the way home to epping with you, it started to pour and we sheltered under the roof of a closed petrol station for a while, but eventually made a break for it. when we made it home, one end of you was wet but most was protected by the base. we left you on top of the car in the garage until the next morning, when we took you down to spend a couple of days in the sun.
then it was back onto the car for the long slow trek to kat’s place in silver st, st peters. i’ll never quite forget the feeling of driving oh so slowly up the gladesville bridge and having you trying to lift off at the front. kat was holding you down through the window, and i must’ve been doing the same when i could, while i drove. we got there with only one stop to retie.
you were the best thing in that cockroach infested house, and i was very glad to not have to sleep two of us on a nasty single mattress on the floor. and when kat left the country, nick took over both the room and you. it was only after i had left epping where i had the owner’s bed, and spent another semester overseas, that i reclaimed you from wherever nick had ended up, and took you to breakfast point to be my bed. i didn’t stay there long, but you now went with me wherever i went in australia, staying with my parents when i was overseas and joining me in newtown, back at my parents’ and now here to marsfield.
moving in to this house you got put down in the rain by removalists, but you made it, unlike your base who didn’t fit up the bend in the stairs. you are quite bendy, so you fitted well. you stayed on the floor for a bit, before i found a magnificent bed frame for you. it was a bit damaged and i had to fix the functional issues, but that didn’t take long. i enjoyed having you raised on a beautiful frame, even if your slats were bowed, and they creak.
thank you for six wonderful years. you have been so comfortable that you’ve lured me into spending much too much time on you, trying to do all my work on your softness. for the last few years i’ve noticed a few places where i can feel your springs a bit, and even some sharp points sticking out the ends that only get found when i turn you. sometimes you feel a bit flat in parts, but turning you always made all the difference. however i have been increasingly scared of the day when flipping you over will no longer work and i would have to search for your replacement. maybe even buy one and open a whole new can of worms.
today i saw someone putting out a mattress for the council cleanup, right outside my house. i talked to her and she offered to help bring it to my place if i wanted it. it was in plastic, and she said it had been held hostage by her ex and he’d finally sent all her stuff down, but she’d replaced everything already, so she didn’t need it. it felt quite solid and new, from what you can feel as it stands up. it even stood proud, not that i mind that you bow and sag in the middle if you’re not flat on a surface. you only need to perform when you lie flat.
i had to go, but when i got back a couple of hours later it was still there. i started dragging it, but it’s very heavy. someone tried to help, but her little boy didn’t like being put down. someone else came up, who had been out for some exercise, and was more successful. the choice was made, she helped me bring it all the way in, and take you back out again, to the side of the road. you were much easier to handle, the new mattress doesn’t bend half so well, and is a touch wider too, so it barely fits in the frame. i’m sitting on it now, while you lean by a pole outside. it’s very solid, not nearly as giving as you and your ‘chiropractor approved’ springs. it says it has an extra firm spiral care centre zone designed for maximum support, and i guess i have to trust it, and get used to it. i shouldn’t give in to the impulse to run back out there and pull you in and lay you on top, as much as i want to.
i wish someone else would take you in, but i know people rarely do that, and the reasons this has happened are genuine. it’s not as if you were a young mattress even when we first met. i find this very difficult, but i guess i have to let you go.
so thank you, for six wonderful years. you have given me, and several others, comfort and good sleep. you have met every single one of my partners, and several of my good friends. you have worn my dozen pillows and hand patchworked doona cover with pride. you have been there when i had nothing else comfortable, in a dodgy little purple room with mould on the walls, you have waited for me and my uncertain futures, and you were with me as i spent most of this year establishing myself in somewhere that i actually plan to settle for a while.
i don’t know about your history before ryde, but you’ve been from ryde to epping to st peters to randwick to breakfast point to gladesville to newtown to gladesville to marsfield; from the side of a road to side of a different road not too far away.
i never wanted to have to make the decision of who my mattress is, but it can’t be helped. it’s a natural process that we all get older and our springs start to show a little. i’m not sure that anything good happens to mattresses after they leave, if they don’t get picked up before the end of the cleanup. but we humans also just go to landfill, as much as we sometimes don’t like to say it.
i’m sure that after six years it’s the right decision, and i’m sure i’ll get used to the new mattress, no matter how different it feels. i always have all those pillows to help me forget who’s underneath, if i need to, and ease me gently into the difference. and you’ll still be out there for a day or two in case i panic, even if one corner is sitting in the dirt. i guess if i hadn’t come along six years ago you would’ve gotten rained on right then and that would’ve been that. so is the cycle of mattresses. well, at least on the rare occasion when people look past their mistrust of roadside mattresses.
so thank you again, my mattress. you will live on in memory and be sorely missed. but hopefully not too sorely.
six hours later i come home to find the decision is final. you have been taken home by someone else. i am impressed, you must be an exceptional mattress to be taken home off the roadside twice in this climate of mattress distrust. enjoy.
Callout for participation in research into pubs and clubs as noisy workplaces
Hi everyone, this research should be very worthwhile for participants, but it’s hard to find the right people. So please talk to me if you work in a bar, pub or club, and send this on if you know anyone else who does.
Thanks,
Kate
Entertainment venues as noisy workplaces: Facilitating staff to find contextual solutions to Music Induced Hearing Loss
We all know that loud noise can damage our hearing, but not many people understand what is or isn’t dangerous and what to do about it.
While research has found out all about how loud and how damaging, little has been done about hearing loss prevention in the entertainment industry. Entertainment workers are often exposed to at least as much noise as workers in factories or building sites, but don’t want to use the same old solutions. Imagine barstaff in earmuffs and soundproof barriers over the speakers! To protect entertainment staff appropriately, we need to know what entertainment staff think. What do you want and what do you think will be effective in your own workplace?
The National Acoustic Laboratories are conducting a study of staff who work in noisy environments in the entertainment industry, and how your workplaces can be improved. This research has been approved by the Australian Hearing Human Research Ethics Committee. The first stage of research will be a series of focus groups about workplace noise, hearing protection and possibilities for change within your workplaces. Participants will then be invited to be involved in the second stage, which will implement ideas produced by the focus groups.
To be eligible to participate in this research, you must work in a club, pub or similar venue where loud, amplified music is played throughout your shift. For the first stage we are looking for people who are not musicians, DJs or managers, for example bar and security staff.
Focus groups will take place in Sydney at convenient times and locations, decided mutually between the participants and the researcher. Participants will receive $20 to contribute to time and travel expenses.
To express interest, or for more information, please contact me by email at kate.alway@nal.gov.au or phone 0417450802.
I’d be very grateful if you could pass this information on to others who you think might be interested in the research.
Thank you for your support,
Kate
–
Kate Alway
Research Assistant
National Acoustic Laboratories
A Division of Australian Hearing
126 Greville Street
Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia
E kate.alway@nal.gov.au
P +61 2 9412 6754
F +61 2 9411 8273
M 0417 450 802
Entertainment venues as noisy workplaces: Facilitating staff to find contextual solutions to Music Induced Hearing Loss
it’s done, it’s in, it’s a pretty decent job i think, which is good because i now have to do the research. it’s also 5am past my birthday; my belated birthday present is to get my life back. first order of business is sleep. i can wonder what i used to do with my spare time, later.
Entertainment venues as noisy workplaces:
Facilitating staff to find contextual solutions
to Music Induced Hearing Loss
Contents
· Background and Significance
o Hearing Loss
o Noise Exposure
o ONIHL and Leisure Noise Research
o The Entertainment Industry
o Entertainment Staff Research
· Research Perspective – Critical
· Research Question and Objectives
· Research Locations
· Research Participants
· Research Approach – Participatory Action Research
· Research Methods – Focus Groups and Interventions
· Ethical Considerations
o Risk
o Benefit
o Consent
o Deception
o Privacy and Confidentiality
· Table of Acronyms
· References
· Attachment – Application for Adjustment to Ethics with Brief project description, Participant information form and Participant Consent form
BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE
Hearing Loss
Hearing loss is one of the most common disabilities in Western societies (Rogers et al. 2009) and it is on the increase. One in six Australians suffers from some degree of hearing loss, and this is forecast to grow to one in four by 2050 (Hear Us 2010, p. xiii). Impacts for the individual include not just the world seeming quieter, but feelings of isolation, withdrawal from society and depression as sufferers have difficulty hearing accurately in groups or where there is background noise. Furthermore, tinnitus, which is little understood but is linked to hearing damage, can range from mild and intermittent to constant and devastating (Cowan 2010).
A person’s hearing loss also affects everyone else around them, from miscommunication and having the TV up unbearably loud, to partners becoming carers and sharing in isolation. Economically, The costs of hearing loss to Australia were estimated at $11.75 billion in 2005, which represented 1.4 per cent of Australia’s then Gross Domestic Product, (Hear Us 2010, p. xiii) which includes hearing aids, implants, education, carers and support as well as lost earnings, tax forgone and welfare payments (p. 26).
Hearing loss can have many causes, for example congenital factors, age, accident, infection, disease and noise (p. 11). Noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) represents 37% of all hearing loss (p.104) and is entirely preventable (p. 105).
Noise Exposure
Noise levels, as they affect the human ear, are discussed in A-weighted decibels (dB(A)) and exposure times. Australian regulations state that exposure of more than an average of 85 Decibels over eight hours (LAeq of 85dB(A)) is a dangerous daily noise dose (NOHSC:1007(2000) 2004). 85dB(A) can very roughly be described as the noise level in which one cannot have a conversation without shouting.
Furthermore, an increase of 3dB, though barely detectible, represents a doubling of sound power which means an average level of 88dB is only safe for four hours in a day. One’s daily dose can be exceeded by a mere 15 minutes at 100dB, or an instant at 140dB.
When the ear is exposed to excessive noise, it may experience a Temporary Threshold Shift (TTS) which reduces the ability of the ear to hear quiet sounds. This can eventually translate to a Permanent Threshold Shift (PTS), as cilia, the fine hairs in the cochlea which register different frequencies, never regenerate once damaged (Maassen et al. 2001).
Previous studies of bar, nightclub, discotheque and music club staff cite average noise levels between 89dB and 107dB (‘Entertainment Noise in Western Australia’ 2005; Fleming 1996; Gunderson, Moline & Catalano 1997; Lee 1999; Sadhra et al. 2002) with staff being exposed for an average of six to twelve hours per shift (‘Entertainment Noise in Western Australia’ 2005). This suggests that staff in this industry are regularly exposed to unacceptably dangerous noise levels.
ONIHL and Leisure Noise Research
Within noise research, the two established areas include Occupational NIHL (ONIHL) and leisure noise. Much work has been done on a variety of topics in ONIHL, including measurement of noise levels in workplaces such as factories and building sites, assessment of equipment for how loud they are and how long they can be used. Studies have also investigated Hearing Loss Prevention education programs, which can involve many factors such as noise monitoring, hearing tests, training, policy, incentives, noise dampening, signage and earplugs or earmuffs (Daniell et al. 2006; Rogers et al. 2009). All this is fuelled by Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) laws which impose the 85dB rule. Exposure reduction is taken seriously, especially in many large companies which have comprehensive hearing protection programs run by OHS officers. Workcover enforces the rules and can give out fines, and there is some awareness that workers can sue companies for not protecting them.
ONIHL research focuses on the industries considered to be at highest risk, including manufacturing, construction, transport and storage, mining and electricity, gas and water supply. (Hear Us 2010, p. 15) The hospitality and entertainment industries are starting to appear as a priority, but the research is limited. The entertainment industry is usually addressed with respect to the general measurement of noise within venues, as appropriate for patrons, rather than the specific exposure of the staff. Even the few studies that concentrate on staff consider the impact on them only through the measurement of their noise levels, exposure lengths and TTSs. Unfortunately, once researchers have discovered the dangers to hearing in these workplaces, very little is done to address the problems and lessen the impact.
The Entertainment Industry
The entertainment industry, while bound by the same laws as other industries, is notorious for non-compliance and rules are rarely enforced. When such workplaces consider noise levels, they commonly think only of the limits which are enforced in the Liquor Licensing Laws. These levels, however, are calculated only to protect the neighbours from noise irritation, and can be far above safe levels for those inside the venue. Another likely reason for the disparity between this industry and others is the overall perception of noise. Rather than seeing noise as, at best, an unimportant but undesirable by-product, there is a common perception of high levels of music and crowd noise as an indicator of a venue’s popularity, quality and success. Volume is one of the main commodities that a pub or club sells and, whether true or not, is often considered synonymous with ‘fun’, an essential part of a ‘good night out’.
Little is known about how these attitudes affect workers. More research on the entertainment industry has taken place within studies of leisure noise, alongside work on such noise sources as MP3 players, shooting, concerts, motor sports, power tools and playing musical instruments (Maassen et al. 2001; Neitzel et al. 2004). These studies of music venue noise focus on patrons, rarely looking beyond issues of noise exposure and threshold shift. This body of research therefore only glosses over the impact on staff and their particular situation. Many questions remain largely unexplored, regarding the specificities of workplace cultures in this industry, whether casual and brief employment involves significant exposure time, whether staff in these environments are likely to also engage in equally loud leisure noise as patrons are (Binge Listening 2010) and whether this should be allowed for in regulations for the workplace, the consequences of being unable to come and go as patrons can, and the common resistance to earplugs by staff and management.
The literature is almost silent on the ways to remedy the situation, instead focussing on the problem at the most basic level. Therefore, there is a gap in the literature, as the good work on programs within the ONIHL studies is unlikely to be directly transferable to the entertainment industry, even with the added insights from leisure research. Workplaces in the entertainment industry are “special and different” (‘Entertainment Noise in Western Australia’ 2005, p. 4). While studies of entertainment staff can learn from both sources, this research gap needs to be examined directly.
Entertainment Staff Research
This is not to say that no work has been done on entertainment staff. Four reports are available of studies in England, the USA and Singapore from 1996 to 2002, which focus solely on entertainment industry staff. Of these, all measure noise levels in the venue, two examine audiometry and two administer questionnaires limited to questions of risk perception, attitudes to risk, availability of personal hearing protectors and information, hearing and symptoms. They all come to the same simple conclusion: these workplaces are dangerous. (Fleming 1996; Gunderson, Moline & Catalano 1997; Lee 1999; Sadhra et al. 2002).
The two Australian documents cover more ground. A study from Western Australia (‘Entertainment Noise in Western Australia’ 2005) and one from Queensland (Groothoff 1999) stand out as covering more ground, including some discussion of changes that venue managers can effect. However, most of the reports’ suggestions cannot be taken up by workers, without external resources. Moreover they are successful in conjunction with enforcement, but may not be adequate in New South Wales, where enforcing bodies do not yet focus on this issue.
Despite the paucity of targeted research, progress is being made. The recommendations and associated funding of the Hear Us report (2010) and the media attention surrounding the Binge Listening report (2010), both of which do mention entertainment workers, have recently made NIHL topical locally.
The proposed research will hopefully make some contribution towards building the momentum, which will put pressure on the industry to take more responsibility, thus attracting more research and cyclically improving workers’ conditions and capacity to control their hearing health.
RESEARCH PERSPECTIVE – CRITICAL
While there may always be scope for measuring more venues and testing more ears, approaching all noise research in this way would leave many questions unanswered. The questions raised in this research regard not just levels, but people, their attitudes and motivations and the social contexts in which they live and work. As the goals of this project are significantly different from those of most of the discussed literature, a different approach is also required.
Epistemologically, a critical perspective believes that knowledge cannot be separated from its context and ideology (Crotty 1998, p. 157). This includes the researcher, who therefore needs to acknowledge bias rather than attempting to be value-free. In this study the researcher is employed in a research organisation, rather than an entertainment venue, hence this will be acknowledged and addressed by working cooperatively with people who actually do live within the latter context, teaching them research skills so that it becomes ‘our’ research, not ‘mine’.
Nor does critical research attempt to be directly generalisable, as it considers truth to be relative and knowledge to be political and require interpretation. Instead it attempts to make real change in people’s lives, including the power inequalities they are subject to, and the dominant ideologies they accept. Following this principle, this project does not expect to uncover, for example, the statistically largest barrier to ONIHL prevention in the targeted industry. Rather it aims to provide an outcome that makes the physical, behavioural and attitudinal changes required for it to work well in its physical and social environment, and to publish an account that can be used and interpreted by others for their own contexts.
Critical research focuses on qualitative outcomes, unlike positivist research which values quantitative data over qualitative. Another common perspective, Interpretivism does value qualitative research, yet an interpretivist study of this topic would only answer half the questions; one of Critical research’s greatest improvements over Interpretivism is its insistence on praxis (FASS 2010, p. 85). This mix of theory and practice, or resarch and action, is essential for this project to delve beyond what people do and what they think they would do in an appropriate situation, to making that situation.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES
The primary research question for this study is:
How do people working in noisy entertainment industry environments look after their OHS and how can they learn and organise to protect their hearing?
As the research is integrated with action and further questions will be framed by the participants during the course of the process, the following objectives will further guide the process:
1) To gain a greater understanding of knowledge, attitudes and behaviours about OHS, noise and hearing loss prevention of staff working at noisy entertainment venues.
2) To create positive changes to noise exposure, attitudes or protection within participants’ workplaces, through successful and sustainable interventions with the potential to spread beyond the targeted workplace.
RESEARCH LOCATIONS
The time and place of the focus groups will be decided to accommodate the participants. The venue need only be accessible, quiet and not affiliated with any of the participants’ workplaces. This will prevent dropout for logistical reasons, and encourage participants to feel involved in the process.
Interventions will take place at the relevant workplaces, and any other location deemed necessary, with data analysis and storage at the National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL), 126 Greville St, Chatswood 2067.
POTENTIAL PARTICIPANTS
Participants shall be employed to work in dangerously noisy amplified environments in the entertainment industry, such as pubs, nightclubs or similar venues where the LAeq, 8h is expected to regularly exceed 85dB. Pre-testing of workplace noise levels will not be necessary, with verbal evaluation alongside comparison with available data from other venues sufficient to determine eligibility. Preference will be given to staff of venues with highest expected noise exposure if any selection becomes appropriate.
Participants will be general staff, in such roles as security and bar staff. Musicians and DJs are excluded from the first stage of research as they have been more extensively studied than general staff, and are anticipated to hold different attitudes about noise and hearing health to staff who are not directly engaged in music production. Managers will also be excluded.
As the social context is under examination, eligible participants will be drawn from communities of practice of entertainment industry workers. Managers are therefore excluded, as their engagement in workplace dynamics is expected to differ from their staff’s. This will also reduce the possibility of restricting discussion, breaches of privacy or commercial interests interfering in the process.
Optimally each participant will know and work with other, if not all participants in their group, to increase the possibility of collective power for making changes in their workplace.
As the research is to work with real contexts rather than a simulated, average scenario, participants will not be controlled, for age, gender, education, hearing knowledge, hearing health, hours worked or length of time in the industry.
Research participants will be recruited through a variety of methods in order to access as wide a variety of people as practicable, possibly including personal contacts, any available contact lists from previous research or unions, approaching staff at workplaces and through agencies with management permission. Interested parties will be encouraged to tell other friends in the industry. Notices will be put up on notice boards and leaflet stands in universities, entertainment districts and any other favourable places. Emails will be sent out on accessible email groups which cater to an appropriate demographic.
6-8 people will be sought for each focus group, with a minimum of three groups. Further groups will be optional, and may include a wider selection of people, possibly including OHS officers, external union representatives, managers, DJs, musicians, former staff or staff in related workplaces if their input becomes considered useful.
Participants in the second stage will be drawn from the first, along with others from their workplaces according to the parameters decided by those implementing the intervention.
RESEARCH APPROACH – PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
Participatory Action Research (PAR) is an approach which intergrates research and action in a continuing cycle of planning, action, observation and reflection. While this is not so new – “There is always a new action resulting – even if it is just the same as the old” (Wadsworth 1998). PAR specifically acknowledges the cycle and doesn’t try to fit it into a linear form.
PAR requires a community of participants to take an active role in all aspects of the action and research. PAR aims to even up the power imbalance between the researcher and the participants as much as possible by valuing and trusting the participants’ ideas and opinions on their own situations. Eventually the researcher will assist in implementation of the participants’ ideas and train them in research so they can control it themselves (Dick 1997).
This approach is particularly appropriate for this project as the complex attitudes and social structures it deals with appear to be resistant to existing procedures for creating change. Staff are expected to be more likely to implement and sustain concrete and attitudinal changes when they own the process and don’t rely on external resources.
RESEARCH METHODS – FOCUS GROUPS AND INTERVENTIONS
This research is planned in two stages, with scope for further continuation. The first is a series of focus groups. A short presentation will be given on current knowledge about noise and hearing loss prevention, then a series of questions will encourage participants to discuss a range of topics such as attitudes and knowledge about OHS, noise and hearing health, workplace culture, the kinds of solutions they think would be feasible in their work environments and what they would be able and willing to do to implement these ideas. The discussion will be recorded and notes taken. Beforehand, participants will fill out a consent form and short survey about demographics, knowledge and attitudes, which can be repeated further through the project. At the end participants will be encouraged to participate in the second stage of the research and their contact details recorded for this purpose.
The second stage will involve facilitating participants in staging interventions of some of the ideas generated in the focus groups. Few details can be specified until the focus groups as, in keeping with PAR, all content and methods will be planned, carried out, evaluated and reflected on collectively between the researcher and the participants. Data shall be collected from observation of the programs and examination of their sustainability, participant reflection, repeating the questionnaire from before the focus groups and any other method decided on by the participants.
Further research may be required to support the findings of the focus groups and interventions beyond the targeted workplaces, however these will only be considered further into the process. Methods may forseeably include questionnaires to establish wider appeal of ideas, ideology critique of government and workplace policy and implementation, hearing tests, workplace noise measurement, interviewing management, further focus groups with different groups of participants, or other options generated by the process.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
This research is a sub-project of the National Acoustic Laboratories’ “Barriers and Enablers to Noise Exposure Reduction”. Attached is the Variation of Ethics application to allow contact details to be kept for the duration of the project.
Risk
As the project will involve participants intervening in their own workplaces, close attention will need to be paid to not jeopardising the relationships between employees and management, including not releasing identified information from the focus groups without explicit permission, even when that information is the reason why the other parties are involved.
Excluding managers from the research would not be an acceptable solution to the privacy issues. Not only can their co-operation greatly increase access to the workplace, but boundaries between barstaff and management are not always clearly demarcated, managers generally have even higher exposures than their staff (Ong & Govan 2010) so would also benefit from learning about and taking control of their hearing health, and solutions found by participants may very well involve interaction with managers.
While hostility from management is always a possibility, the project is not intended as a threat to the workplace. Even if an organisation is profiting by endangering its staff, the solutions found by the participants are likely to be healthier for the organisation than fines and legal proceedings which, though less common to date than in other industries, will become more common as awareness grows throughout society.
Benefit
Benefits from participation will include increased understanding of NIHL and ability to control their hearing health. Those involved in both stages will also gain research skills, the possibility to see their ideas realised and effect change in their workplace, as well as gaining concrete improvements to their workplaces.
Incentives may also be offered for participation in focus groups, such as a meal, $20 or a pair of high fidelity earplugs.
Consent
Consent will be sought from all participants in each stage of the project. A draft information sheet and consent form for the focus group is attached.
Deception
No deception will be practiced.
Privacy and Confidentiality
Information such as contact details and test results will be stored in an appropriate secure manner at NAL until completion of the project and then destroyed. The information will not be used for any other purposes.
All data will be de-identified, except for details for contacting participants, which will be kept separately and destroyed at the end of the project.
Table of Acronyms
dB(A) Decibels, A-weighted to approximate the human ear’s reception
LAeq Average level
LAeq, 8h Daily dose, level averaged over eight hours
NAL National Acoustic Laboratories
NIHL Noise Induced Hearing Loss
OHS Occupational Health and Safety
ONIHL Occupational Noise Induced Hearing Loss
PAR Participatory Action Research
PTS Permanent Threshold Shift
TTS Temporary Threshold Shift
Reference List
Binge Listening 2010, Australian Hearing, Chatswood, Australia.
Cowan, R. 2010, ‘Tinnitus and Intelligent Hearing Protection in the Workplace’, paper presented to the Getting Heard Symposium, Sydney.
Crotty, M. 1998, The Foundations of Social Research, Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd, St Leonards.
Daniell, W.E., Swan, S.S., McDaniel, M.M., Camp, J.E., Cohen, M.A. & Stebbins, J.G. 2006, ‘Noise exposure and hearing loss prevention programmes after 20 years of regulations in the United States’, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, vol. 63, pp. 343-351.
Dick, B. 1997, ‘Participative Processes’, Resource Papers in Action Research. http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/partproc.html
‘Entertainment Noise in Western Australia’ 2005, paper presented to the ACOUSTICS 2005, Busselton, Western Australia.
Fleming, C. 1996, ‘Assessment of noise exposure level of bar staff in discotheques’, Applied Acoustics, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 85-94.
Groothoff, B. 1999, ‘Incorporating effective noise control in music entertainment venues? Yes, it can be done’, J Occup Health Safety – Aust NZ, vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 543-550.
Gunderson, E., Moline, J. & Catalano, P. 1997, ‘Risks of developing noise-induced hearing loss in employees of urban music clubs’, American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 75-79.
Hear Us: Inquiry into Hearing Health in Australia 2010, The Senate Community Affairs References Committee.
Lee, L.T. 1999, ‘A Study of the Noise Hazard to Employees in Local Discotheques’, Singapore Medical Journal, vol. 40, no. 9.
Maassen, M., Babisch, W., Bachmann, K.D., Ising, H., Lehnert, G., Plath, P., Plinkert, P., Rebentisch, E., Schuschke, G., Spreng, M., Stange, G., Struwe, V. & Zenner, H.P. 2001, ‘Ear damage caused by leisure noise’, Noise & Health, vol. 4, no. 13, pp. 1-16.
National Standard for Occupational Noise NOHSC:1007(2000) 2004, in The Australian Government National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (ed.) 2nd edn, Canberra.
Neitzel, R., Seixas, N., Olson, J., Daniell, W. & Goldman, B. 2004, ‘Nonoccupational noise: exposures associated with routine activities’, J. Accoust. Soc. Am., vol. 115, no. 1, pp. 237-245.
Ong, A. & Govan, C. 2010, ‘Workplace Noise’, paper presented to the Getting Heard Symposium, Sydney.
Rogers, B., Meyer, D., Summery, C., Scheessele, D., Atwell, T., Ostendorf, J., Randolph, S.A. & Buckheit, K. 2009, ‘What Makes a Successful Hearing Conservation Program?’ Continuing Education, vol, 57, no. 8, pp. 321-335.
Sadhra, S., Jackson, C.A., Ryder, T. & Brown, M.J. 2002, ‘Noise exposure and hearing loss among student employees working in university entertainment venues’, Annals of Occupational Hygiene, vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 455-463.
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences 2010, 013952 Research Learning Guide, University of Technology, Sydney
Wadsworth, Y. 1998, ‘What is Participatory Action Research?’ Action Research International.
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/ari/p-ywadsworth98.html
Australian Hearing Human Research Ethics Committee
Application for Variation
Project no: R 4.1.3a
1. Title of project :
Barriers and Enablers to Noise Exposure Reduction
2. Principal investigators:
W Williams, M Gilliver, K Alway
3. Section:
Prevention
4. Location in which proposed study is intended to be carried out:
Data to be gathered at various undecided sites with data analysis and storage at NAL, Chatswood.
5. a. Describe briefly the aim of the project:
This is a sub-project of the total project previously approved. The overall research objectives of the project are to i) increase the awareness of noise as a hearing health hazard;ii) engender a hearing safety culture; and iii) reduce actual noise exposure.This sub-project will work with individuals who work at noisy entertainment venues as described in the attached project description.
b. Proposed commencement date: July 2010
c. Projected completion date: December 2010
6. Classification of project:
o Class 2: Project with low risk
7. Description of requested variation:
The variation to this sub-project is to gather and retain personal contact information of participants so that they may be re-contacted after the focus groups for involvement in an intervention process, and after the interventions for pre/post comparison purposes.Gathering such information as is indicated by Information Privacy Principles of the Commonwealth Privacy Act No 119 of 1998 (as amended) shall be limited to only what is considered necessary; stored in a safe, secure and private manner and destroyed when no longer required at the completion of the project.
8. Does the study protocol require that “informed consent” be obtained in writing from the participant or from the person who is legally responsible for the participant’s welfare?
Yes.Copy of information and consent form attached.
9. What information will be given to participants in order that the request of “informed consent” is met?
Copy of information and consent form attached.
10. What measures will be taken to protect the privacy of individual participants in terms of the test results and other confidential data obtained in the study?
Information will be stored in an appropriate secure manner at NAL until completion of the project and then destroyed. The information will not be used for any other purposes.
11. Will direct benefits accrue to the participants from data obtained in the study?
Yes. It is anticipated that individuals will be more effective in being able to reduce their noise exposure at work.
12. Will there be benefits to the community at large from this study?
Yes. It is anticipated that as a result of the intervention overall exposure of individuals working in this industry will be reduced.
Application submitted by (name) W Williams
(Signature)
(Date) July 01st 2010
Attached:
- Brief project description
- Participant information form
- Participant consent form
Entertainment venues as noisy workplaces:
Facilitating staff to find contextual solutions to Music Induced Hearing Loss
This project aims to reduce the incidence of hearing loss of staff in the entertainment industry by discovering and understanding the barriers and enablers that may exist to staff looking after their hearing health, and to devise, implement and evaluate specific interventions to address the issue.
Outcomes:
1) A greater understanding the knowledge and attitudes about OHS, noise and hearing health for staff working at noisy entertainment venues.
2) To create positive changes to noise exposure, attitudes or protection within participants’ workplaces, through successful and sustainable interventions with the potential to spread beyond the targeted workplace
Description of Research:
The first stage of this project will consist of a minimum of three focus groups of people employed in dangerously loud music venues such as nightclubs. Participants will discuss a range of topics such as attitudes and knowledge about OHS, noise and hearing health, workplace culture and the kinds of solutions they think would be feasible in their work environments. Beforehand participants will fill out a consent form and short survey about demographics, knowledge and attitudes, which can be repeated further through the project. At the end participants be invited to participate in the second stage of the research and their contact details recorded for this purpose.
The second stage will involve facilitating participants in staging interventions of some of the ideas generated in the focus groups. This will run according to Participatory Action Research, which requires participants to take an active role in all aspects of the action and the research, and a continuous cycle of planning, action, observation and reflection. Interventions will be planned, carried out and evaluated collaboratively between NAL who are experts in the topic and the participants who are experts in the context, and reflection will offer the possibility of new interventions or ways of proceeding which can be explored in a further cycle of research and action.
[on NAL letterhead]
[20/7/10]
Entertainment venues as noisy workplaces:
Facilitating staff to find contextual solutions to Music Induced Hearing Loss
Information for Participants
This study is being conducted by the National Acoustic Laboratories as part of Project R4.1.3(a) Barriers to Noise Exposure Reduction, to explore knowledge, attitudes and behaviours about occupational noise induced hearing loss (ONIHL) in the entertainment industry, and possibilities for action to address the situation.
We will be asking you to participate in a two hour focus group, at a time and place appropriate for the participants. Attendees will subsequently be invited to participate in the second stage of the research, involving implementing and evaluating solutions generated by the focus group in participants’ workplaces.
Although we value your participation, you are free to decide whether you will participate, and to withdraw at any time.
Research outcomes may be published in appropriate academic and peer-reviewed journals. Privacy of information will be strictly observed. Personal information or data collected will be treated in a confidential manner. Information to be released on the research will not allow you to be identified. Under no circumstances will personal information or data that could lead to identification of the individual be released to your employer without your explicit permission.
If you have any concerns about this project at any stage, you are welcome to contact the Research Assistant, Kate Alway on 02- 9412 6754.
The ethical aspects of this research have been approved by the Australian Hearing Human Research Ethics Committee. If you have any complaints or reservations about any ethical aspect of this research, you may contact the Committee through the Secretary, Dale Treglown on 02- 9412 6862. Any complaints will be treated in confidence and investigated, and you will be informed of the outcome.
Kate Alway
Entertainment venues as noisy workplaces:
Facilitating staff to find contextual solutions to Music Induced Hearing Loss
Consent form for participation in
Entertainment venues as noisy workplaces
Date: ______________
I, ____________________________, have read and understood this Information and Consent Form. I am willing to participate in this research.
Signed: _______________________ (Participant)
Signed: _______________________ (Researcher)
Comments:
back to school
tonight i went back to my old high school. it’s been thirteen and a half years since i left, and though i went and visited a few times in my first year out, since my friends were still there, it’s still been a very long time.
the evening was a mocktail night, a chance for the senior students to hear from old girls and get career advice. there was a speech from someone who chucked in first year law yet became the youngest director at stacks law firm, and ‘speed networking’, which was amusing. with a complicated history like mine, i really didn’t have enough time with each group to tell my story, answer questions and actually give them the advice i needed to, but i think i managed to give a bunch of girls some tips that might make the transition easier when they get out there and realise the hsc really didn’t matter that much.
the place has changed significantly. not just that the hall really didn’t feel as big as it used to; north sydney girls’ now has both a gay straight alliance and a students against homophobia group. not only is that wonderful and amazing, but it suggests there’s an awful lot more going on, too.
still, i hear the place is now 90% ‘asian’, yet it was only the few white faces who bounced over to me and stayed to talk, wanting to know about student politics rather than straight tracks through law. i’d like to know whether it’s about the way i present, my name tag that said ‘scientific research’, something about parental pressure still being a strong feature of those ethnic groups… either way, it disturbs me.
nevertheless, there must be involvement in the good stuff across this reported ninety/ten split, since things are thriving. my sample size was small, even though everyone was supposed to be there. it was late in the evening, and half the girls live in hurstville, i hear. despite st george girls’.
coming back, with my thank you gift of a nsghs mug, i feel conflicted and emotional. it always was a strange place, and i have lots of not so good memories of it. but mostly i feel happy, reassured. the school looks promising, what that says about school education is promising, and what that can do for the world is promising. there is a new generation coming up, with good people amongst them, who are getting a better start in life than i did, without losing their fire.
oh, and they changed that awful blazer – the new one is still black watch tartan, but it has a bit of shape, and collars. that would’ve made a difference, too.
…and the other one
well i’m pretty embarrassed to be putting this up, but it’s my record, so i’ll deal with it. after the last article review, i got a fail/resubmit so i could put this one in too. turns out i was supposed to do this within a week, but noone told me, so i got an extra week. till now. well, an hour and a half ago. i counted down hours from midnight last night, i got something done in the morning before breakfast, then ended up asleep for another few hours; cross them all off the list. by evening i’d gotten something done, but of course not enough. i talked to lisa on chat for a while, explaining all about the article, and a bit about the questions – it was good to focus my attention, enthuse me and get my brain working a bit, but didn’t really help me with the more technical questions. a bit more got done hour by hour, but i think the last hour before my midnight deadline was spent exclusively on quiet panicking and procrastination. once the time had passed i got it together for a while again, and managed to answer some of the questions in point form. that’s good, got it nearly to the minimum word count, but i really don’t think that was all the questions – maybe it was all the small, specific subquestions, but not the overall question. i don’t know, i was at the point where i couldn’t understand the questions anymore, so i submitted it. it looks good, nice footer, no longer lacking my name! maybe, had i waited till the next hour, i would’ve been able to take things in again, see what was missing, match my remaining scraps of notes to their appropriate paragraphs or questions, and maybe even make sentences of them. maybe, but maybe not. and i’ve missed too much work that i have to make up already, i have to go in in the morning. i need my sleep, and it’ll already take too long to calm down after the distressing experience of clicking send.
i still don’t understand why i’m quite so bad with this. tonight lisa suggested motor neurone dyslexia. seems i have more to learn about dyslexia, apparently it’s not just about getting letters mixed up. maybe there’s something in that, and i’ve just always been thrown off because i can spell just fine. hmmm.
Koori Action Research In Community Health
Hughes, I., Goolagong, P., Khavarpour, F. & Russell, C. 1994, ‘Koori action research in community health’, Action Research Electronic Reader, viewed 1/6/10 .
I chose this article because I’m interested in learning about critical perspectives and Participatory Action Research.
1. What is the problematic that is addressed in the research?
The problematic of this article regards the health status of Koori people on the Central Coast of NSW, which is significantly worse than the general population, the non-uptake of mainstream health services by Koori people and the lack of health services that are culturally acceptable for Koori people.
As Action Research, this project works to both understand and change this situation.
2&3. What are the outcomes from the research and how/why are they significant? What evidence does the researcher present in support of the conclusions? What has been included and what has been omitted in this report of the research, and how does this represent strengths and weaknesses in the author’s knowledge claims?
As an action research project, there are a variety of different kinds of outcomes planned. The aims of the Aboriginal Health Action Group involve assisting and promoting the development of Aboriginal health services (Hughes et al., p6) and documenting ways of doing research suited to the special needs of Koori (p6) as well as actually conducting action research in Aboriginal health and community development (p6).
Evidence of the former is outlined, including supporting and validating overworked staff of Aboriginal organisations (p8), supporting the mobile dental service (p8) and making representations to the Area Health Service on behalf of the Aboriginal Community (p8).
Ways of research are discussed throughout the article, addressing the need for research that does not demand pure objectivity (p12), Koori community control (p13), consensus decision making (p10) and an understanding and use of Koori knowledge and views of the world (p7).
At the time of writing, concrete research outcomes were underway, including a community profile, a handbook for Koori action research and a statement of local Koori health goals. When complete, these will contain much evidence of both research and action.
4. What kinds of theoretical assumptions are embedded in the article?
· Ontological assumptions: Critical – power relations can be seen at the base of things, past injustice and the dominance of others’ systems have created how the world is today. Also, indigenous worldview different from any western categories. Distinction not drawn between culture and nature (p10)
· Epistemological assumptions: Critical – the important things are making change, working for and with the affected population, seeing past the dominant ideology. There are different truths, non-positivist. Koori knowledge.
· Relationship of researcher and researched: The researchers are the community, though others are welcomed too, including University students, local doctors and Government representatives, none of whom control proceedings. The group is not exclusively Koori, but has Koori identity (p6).
