What's everybody's first thought when you hear the words intellectual disability?  I've worked at a day centre this year, and it's interesting when we go to a park for lunch how people nearby will pack their things and move somewhere else.  When we're on the bus or at a cafe other people just stare as though they've never seen a human before.

I don't know whether people think they're dangerous or just don't know how to react to them.  The problem is for people with intellectual disabilities (moreso the severe kinds), even though they can't talk (when i say this i mean the ones i work with) they know people are moving somewhere else because of them; they know people act differently around them because they're 'outcasts'.  And it hurts them...everyday of their lives.

Well this is my Friday night, working on a newsletter.  But it's finished.

I was thinking about what to do this summer:

1.  Catch up with friends

2.  Go to the beach many times

3.  Long rides on Sunday morning

4.  Another skydive

5.  The Portsea Twilight

6.  And a friend wanted to go water skiing.

Oh yeah, and it's official.  In February i'm off to Ethioipia on a missions trip.  Can't wait.

Last Sunday Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie broke the marathon world record in Berlin in an incredible 2:04:26!  This was 29 seconds faster than Kenyan Paul Terget's previous record.

I ran the Melbourne Marathon on Sunday.  All i can say is, it hurts hehe.  I love it.  There's something truly different about this race.  It's a beautiful feeling running for a long time on a road with people everywhere, wind, heat and adrenalin.  It's a gift from God.  Robert DeCastella (former Olympian) described the marathon as a romance.  I think that's a perfect term for it.  There's emotion at the end.  Despite the tank like legs, pins and needles in the arms and the everlasting desire to sit down it feels so good when you cross the line.

So the results i came 150th out of, i think, 3,000 people in a time of 3:01:58.  So close to a sub 3 hour but i'm pleased with what i got.  The photos will be available on Wednesday.

Now i'm very sore.

"In the 5,000 and 10,000 metres you are running against the clock and the opposition.  In the marathon you are running against the distance itself."

Haile Gebrselassie.

After ten years i've seen it again.  It's brilliant.  I love it.  You have to be so thankful for beautiful music.  A friend said that in an interview Anthony Warlow said that after ten years he plays the phantom much more comfortably this time.  I agree.  I was so drawn into the performance.  At times i could feel the phantom's pain and loneliness.  The tone of his voice had such sadness at times.

The effects were great, especially at the end with the phantom disappearing behind the chair, leaving the mask behind.  The costumes as well were magnificent.

I woke up this morning and the songs were still in my mind.  The music is so captivating.  My favourite part lasts only a few seconds but it's a single violin that plays just before Christine Daae sings Wishing you were somehow here.  It's intoxicating.

When Gaston Leroux wrote the original novel - which i'm halfway through now - he based it on a true story.  A French opera house with a labyrinth of cellars and a subterranean lake at its base had some unusual manifestations and events taking place.  The people there devised the concept of a ghost, but further research indicated a man of flesh and blood lived in the cellars and was responsible.  He lived as a phantom would.  Christine Daae really was kidnapped; the Vicomte de Chagny really disappeared and his older brother, Count Phillipe, was found dead on the bank of the lake.

Wonderful.