After hours – Corpus

Medical musicians: the New Zealand Doctors’ Orchestra

17 June 2019 1 Comment

Tim Wilkinson

The New Zealand Doctors’ Orchestra is playing at the Dunedin Town Hall on Sunday 23 June at 2pm, with all proceeds from ticket sales going to the Otago Community Hospice. Medical musician and NZDO co-founder, Tim Wilkinson, talks about how the orchestra came to be:

The New Zealand Doctors’ Orchestra is one of several orchestras around the world made up of medical musicians. There is an Australian Doctors’ Orchestra, a European Doctors’ Orchestra and a World Doctors’ Orchestra. There are also many local medical orchestras, for example in Christchurch, Auckland and Melbourne. The New Zealand Doctors’ Orchestra (NZDO) gave its first concert in 2012. Since then, the NZDO has given annual concerts in various parts of New Zealand.

The orchestra was founded by myself, my wife Lynette Murdoch (a GP and teacher for Otago University), and our son Tom, a medical registrar. I play double bass, Lynette plays violin and Tom plays trumpet. We decided to form a national doctors’ orchestra for several reasons. There are many doctors who are very able and/or keen musicians, yet sometimes the pressures of work mean their musical talents are not realised. The NZDO provides Kiwi medical musicians an opportunity to play in a high quality national orchestra, encourages collegiality and enhances work-life balance.

Lessons of Life from World of Warcraft

8 October 2018 1 Comment

Katherine Hall

Much has been written about how the arts and humanities can contribute to our understanding of life, but little (if anything) about the positive effects of video games. Having been an avid player of World of Warcraft for ten years I would like to write about the lessons of how to live well that I have gained from spending my time in this activity (as of this moment: 224 days, 19 hours, 20 minutes, and 40 seconds on my main character or ‘main’).

World of Warcraft (WOW) was released in 2004. It has over a hundred million accounts but only a small number of these – about five million – represent active players. Still, this means an awful lot of people around the world are playing it.

Essentially, you construct a character which is either of the Alliance or Horde faction. This is a fundamental distinction, as there is only very limited communication possible between the two factions – waving hands, farting in their general direction or similar bodily movements. Almost all player-to-player interaction occurs within your faction, and especially within your Guild. A Guild is a group of players admitted by a designated player already in the Guild. Your Guild is your WOW family, the players you chat with and get to know best on a daily basis. [Read more…] about Lessons of Life from World of Warcraft

The capacity to be fully in the moment: a visit to Iran

9 July 2018 2 Comments

Annette Rose

“You are welcome to put your feet on my eyes but I’m worried my eyelashes will bother you.” This is an Iranian folk-saying that conveys how hospitable the Persians are towards visitors, who are seen as a gift from God.

My daughter and I have slipped out of our hotel room and are hitting the streets of Kashan. It is just on dark and a stream of white cars is heading into town. All along the sidewalk free soup is being stirred in large vats and ladled into bowls which runners carry on trays to revelers in their cars. It’s like a giant soup drive-in. We are instantly folded into these proceedings, handed a tasty bowl of thick green soup – which tastes of mint, beans, pasta and chickpeas – shown a place to sit, and an English-fluent explainer fills us in on the details. It’s “falling in love with the last Imam” soup he tells us. What a lovely name for a soup.

A big yes!

21 May 2018 1 Comment

Clare Fraser

African drumming and African dance are my happy place. Everyone’s presumably got something: for some it’s gardening, for others it’s motor racing and for yet others it’s nature walks. Isn’t it neat, and also, somewhat strange, that we have these specialised passions? Weird animal.

West African rhythms feel good to me in a way that nothing else does. They’re the basis of much of the pop music we listen to today, having travelled to America with slaves, then evolved. They are complex polyrhythms – some beats are off the beat and placed in between others – and that gives them their groove.

[Read more…] about A big yes!

The therapeutic art of weeding

19 February 2018 4 Comments

Lorraine Ritchie

Weeding is the unglamorous part of gardening. It doesn’t produce anything, Rather, it un-produces. Weeding makes things disappear, dissolve. Weeds do not end up in vases on the table to add colour and fragrance to the household, and weeders do not get their own columns in the daily papers and magazines. But, believe me, weeding is good for your health, especially if you derive the same level of satisfaction as I do from pulling, tugging and digging them out on a regular basis. Both physical and mental health is well served here.

18 Days in the Axis of Elegance

13 November 2017 Leave a Comment

Annette Rose

Recently my husband and I visited Iran (pronounced ‘Ear-on’) for an 18 day immersion tour in the ‘Axis of Elegance’. We were drawn by its ancient history, and curious as to its present-day culture and lifestyle. What we found there was a treasure box. Persia is sexy, sexy because she hasn’t sold her soul to the bottom-line.

Iranians are proud of their heritage and deep-time archaeology. Its people identify as Persian, rather than as Arab. Most Iranians are Shia Muslims, not Sunni Muslims. Most of Iran today is modern, but pockets of traditional lifestyles remain. For example, tribal nomads still traverse the Zagros and Alborz mountains.

While we saw all too many shahid (martyr) images of dead boys lost in the Iraq-Iran war lining the streets, our overwhelming impression was that Iran was a country whose message to the world is Peace. As one man in a shopping mall put it: “We think all humankind are the same and we respect all and believe in dialogue between all nations”.