Images out there

I'm usually hesitant to share images on this blog. Let me clarify. I am hesitant to share photographs of myself, my partner, my children, my family and my friends. I'm not really au fais with how this internet thingo works but I am kind of becoming pretty aware that whatever you post on this big webby thing is permanent. Even if you delete something people are able to access cached files somehow and gain access to what you no longer wanted them to see.

I know that sounds so very naieve, the way I have described it....but I'm a wordsmith, not a computer programmer, mathemetician or scientist......which reminds me.....did I ever tell you about the time I got 4% on a Maths exam once???

That's for another day.

But yes, I am very aware of what I post because I know that there are people out there who think nothing of right clicking, Saving As and then using my precious images for their own means... And I am no longer a firm believer in the goodness of all mankind. There are some nasty people out there. Go have a look at GOMI if you don't believe me....but then again....no, don't.

The fact that people can use your own images without permission for their own means came screaming out at us in technicolour this weekend. My eldest daughter became aware that her image was being used on some kind of health information website. The image is a nice one, don't get me wrong, but the point is, somehow someone Right Clicked on one of her photos from back in the day when she wrote a blog, saved it and then used it to add to their rather dodgy information about dwarfism. I'm not going to link it here because the information isn't accurate at all. This image is being used without her permission.

She then Google searched the image and found it has been used in other places as well as being someone's Avatar on a not so very nice forum which seems to dedicate itself to bashing Christianity.

Wow.

So...what to do?

Personally, I'm rethinking the images I will post here. I'm asking my loved ones if it's ok to post their images and how they want me to edit them. I'm considering just head shots that reveal very little of people's conditions. Although we like to think we live in a world that embraces difference I am very aware that living with a physical difference, particularly dwarfism, can still evoke the worst in people and making fun of people with dwarfism seems to still happen on an alarming level.

I'm still learning. I wish I didn't have to be shocked to learn though.

Mind over matter

Yesterday I did it. I smashed my 12km goal. I ran a total of 12.11km. The first 7km felt great, the next 3km I started to wane, the last 2km were hell.

But I did it. I ran 12km. It may have taken me 1 hour, 48 minutes and 4 seconds, but I did it - at an average pace of 8:56/km. Not bad, considering I dragged the dogs along who, for some part, we're not the most cooperative companions.

In some ways I can't believe it myself. Me, who once upon a time couldn't even run one lap of the school oval. Twelve kilometres! I can't even...what?

I'm setting my sights further now. My mind is already contemplating 15km. Not yet though. I want to be able to run twelve comfortably first. I thought I'd arrived when I hit ten...but now...the sky seems to be the limit and I have fantasies of one morning donning my running shoes and running across Casey county...then to the other side of Melbourne...then back again to the coast...then turning around and running clear across the country to Fremantle...a'la Forrest Gump. Now that would make the news. 

I can see the headlines now:

Woman with Dwarfism runs to promote awareness!

Oh boy, that's got me thinking for Dwarfism Awareness Month - October 2014. Do I dare even contemplate it?

Do I?

I mean, my 2014 theme word is ACTION. 

Why just think about it when you can put it into ACTION?

But first, I think I'll mull this over for a bit.