when disaster strikes...

We Kiwis are a funny bunch.
News breaks of a tsunami on its way and a bunch of us head to the beach for a nosy.

Some take surfboards.

Idiots, the rest of us say, shaking our heads.

But what did the rest of us do?

When Civil Defence told those living on the East Coast to start gathering bottles of water, tinned food and clothing and head inland, how many listened? How many threw off the duvet covers, screamed at their sleeping partner to start packing, and ran through the house collecting their non-waterproof treasures before heading for the hills?

At home in Tirau, some 50 minutes from the nearest coast, I got out of bed and ran. And ran home again. Like I do every morning. I actually forgot about the tsunami alert until I was eating breakfast. By then, warnings about a "massive wall of water" had been downgraded to "waves measuring 20cm high".

Hardly worth getting out of bed for.

To be fair, most people were probably still snoring soundly when that first news bulletin hit the airwaves. It was Sunday, after all. The rest, I suppose, either yawned and made a cup of tea, or cracked a few eggs into the frying pan, or just changed channels.

She'll be right, we said.

It makes me wonder: how would the average Kiwi cope in the face of real disaster? We seem to hear about some part of the world devastated by tsunami, earthquake, bush fire, terrorist attack every few weeks now. And sure, we've had our share of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in the past, but nothing compared to Haiti or Chile or even the Aussie bushfires. Events where 'she'll be right' wouldn't quite cut it.

It just doesn't seem quite real.

And, to be honest, every time another disaster strikes, our memories of the preceeding one fade a little more quickly. We hear the numbers of dead and injured and missing, and we despair; then we forget.

Like Fredd Dagg said, "we don't know how lucky we are, mate."

But maybe there's something to be said for living in the moment. Sure, we can sympathise with those whose lives are torn apart and we can fill our basements with tinned baked beans and decks of playing cards in preparation for Doomsday. We can practise fire drills and earthquake drills and build ourselves a bomb shelter complete with flush toilet and home theatre system.

But, in the end, if a freak wave or a cyclone is on its way, there's sweet Fanny Adams we can do about it. It's gonna happen, whether we're 'ready' or not. The best we can do it is live each day as it comes.

And maybe have a surfboard on hand.

running out of excuses

I'm rarely described as an emotional sort of person.

But on Friday night, as I sprinted down the home straight towards the bellowing crowd at the Matamata Domain, I did feel something of the warm fuzzies.

Not just because the Tower Run was finally over and I hadn't a) died, or b) come last, or c) repeated my primary school performance of crying bitterly at the finish line because I was too tired and slow and all my friends had finished ages ago.

It was something to do with being a part of a community event; one that I'll admit I never would have dreamt of doing otherwise. I've lived in Matamata most of my life and have had friends who have run the Tower Run religiously in the past, but not being a 'runner' myself, I laughed off any notion of joining them. Seven kilometres? Stuff that. What is the fun - or point - of running somewhere; much less trying to beat a bunch of other people on the way?

I suppose my dislike for public sporting events stems from my memories of school sport as a kid. I hated PE. I hated netball. At the Hinuera school cross country - and worse, the inter-school cross country - I would invariably come dead last, stumbling and gasping my way towards the finish line while teachers called out encouraging things like, "good girl... not far now... oh, you're doing so well!"

I was not sporty. I was a nerd. I spent my primary school days in the library or under a tree reading Enid Blyton. And, despite growing up on a farm and running all over it with my brother and sister, I did not perform well when it came to running races or playing sport.

But, after packing on a few kilos at university (I blame stodgy hostel food and cheap wine) I packed myself off the to the gym and slowly developed quite a love affair with fitness. After finishing my degree, I even did an Outward Bound course and ran a half-marathon; something that would have been quite beyond the comprehension of my dumpy 10-year-old self. Now, I run or work out nearly every day.

Still, getting fit on your own is one thing; comparing your ability to other people - especially people you have to face at work - is quite another. It took a bit of coaxing from my colleagues to convince me to join the team for this year's Tower Run. Even then, as the day drew nearer, I admit there was a tiny hope that I'd trip over a shoelace and break my leg or contract the latest form of swine flu and find myself bed-ridden.

But as I dragged my weary body away from the time-keepers after crossing the finish line on Friday, it wasn't just the big sloppy "9" marked on my hand in vivid that had me eurphoic. It was the fact I'd done it; I'd broken down a wall of "I can't" and replaced with a "wow - I damn well can."

Cheesy? Totally. Inspiring? Maybe.

And apparently, the Hamilton Round the Lake race is in three weeks' time...

introducing: that girl from the Chronicle

And so begins my first blog.

Actually, this is but one in a long line of blogs I have begun - and abandoned - over the last few years. Like many millions of others out there, I have previously been drawn in by the novelty of seeing my ramblings published online, only to lose interest after the third or fourth post. Why? Laziness, most probably. Or simply not enough to say.

I realise this confession will not instill much faith in my readers. But this blog, I feel, will be different. Working at the Matamata Chronicle means I spend much of my day chasing news, interviewing people, taking photographs and writing stories. Newspaper writing calls for certain rules and a certain kind of style; which, depending on the content, can be fairly strict. Personal opinion is a definite no-no.

Blogging, on the other hand, is (quite literally) another story. No rules, no guidelines, no expectations. Just whatever you feel like writing about. For a journalist - however big or small a fish they are in the media world - that can be almost cathartic.

My reasons for creating "In Katie's Words" are far from selfish, though. Over the past year, we at the Matamata Chronicle have worked hard to get closer to our readers. Through our Facebook site, we have discovered a whole new way of connecting with our community. And now, through this blog, I want to step that up.

"In Katie's Words" will be my own online column: the thoughts, musings and observations of a born-and-bred Matamata lass. I promise to keep it light; after all, the less time I have to spend in front of a computer, the better.

So. Here's to my latest venture into Matamata's online community - and to introducing you to the other side of "that girl from the Chronicle."