Success & Failure

Success first: I have started working at church! I am very excited about this, even if it is technically only for 10 hours a week. I will be coordinating the 10.30am service from now until April 30th by which point the aim is that I will have given it direction and the job will no longer be needed. Kinda crazy cos it is the first time since uni (for definite, possibly longer) where I've actually been doing something that I care about, want to do and think is important! There were points in PCT-land when I thought what I was doing needed to be done but that didn't necessarily mean I wanted to do it! There were other points when I cared about it (usually individual patients) but didn't necessarily think it important! So. There we are. I'm not sure I could really explain what the job involves yet as it seems to differ with every person I speak to as to what they feel it involves. However, I have put out a request for EVERYONE to come and talk to me and tell me what they think of the service so after that it should become apparent what needs doing.
Failure then: For the first time ever yesterday I felt moved enough to send a comment to the BBC website after reading an article. There were already many, many comments and I read them all and still felt I had something to write. So write I did. But to no avail! My comment has not appeared and the story has gone from the front pages. *Sigh* There have been many times in the past, on many different subjects, that I have almost written to the BBC website but never before have I been tipped over the edge and compelled to write. So what was the topic? War? Religion? Education? Health? Oh no, far more important than any of those things...Dirty Dancing! The article was about the West End stage show of Dirty Dancing that opens next week and what is so wonderful about the story anyway? The article cited lines such as "Nobody puts Baby in the corner" and "I carried a watermelon" as reasons for the greatness of the film. Lots of people had written comments from both sides of the argument. But no one, it seems, had my experience of Dirty Dancing as a child. You see, it came out when I was 7 and was first on telly around a year later. And we were *desperate* to see it! We couldn't possibly wait any longer or be any older before we saw it! So the mums in the neighbourhood got together and agreed a censored version of the film for us all. So there they sat the night it was first on TV with all of us banished to our bedrooms for the evening and cut out every bit of abortion story line and most hints of sex leaving us with a film that was basically pretty songs and dances. And we loved it! I watched it sooooo much (though not quite as much as The Sound of Music). I knew it had been censored (not all my friends did) and there were bits that didn't make sense but it really didn't matter. And then we left America and returned to the UK and my video didn't work anymore. I was bereft for five years until it next came on TV when I was 14. This time I was allowed to record it uncensored. I was shocked! I had had NO IDEA what the rest of the film was about! It made a whole lot more sense now but was no longer the purely happy go lucky song and dance fest I'd watched for two years. It didn't take long to get over it and I remember clearly in the weeks that followed walking round and round Parkside at lunch time (as we did) reciting various scenes with people I no longer know..."I scared of who I am, of what I saw, of what I did...but most of all, I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you!"