Talk

That's my good deed for the day done. I joined a walk around Kobe to raise awareness for T.E.L.L., a voluntary support organisation for English speakers in Japan with mental health problems. This outreach walk takes place ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day on 10th September. To be honest, I don't think we raised very much awareness of T.E.L.L. on our walk, but it was useful for me to find out more about the organisation. I was particularly interested to learn of the training programme which they run twice a year for volunteer telephone counselors. I have an intense phobia of telephones; I hate talking on the telephone. My brother is the same. I thought it might be useful for me to take the training course to help me overcome this phobia and then help to counsel people who have mental health issues. I could take the training course during next year's summer holiday, perhaps.

While walking around Kobe I saw an interesting display of manhole covers from the region and, by taking part in a short quiz, I won two coasters of manhole covers. They are on the bag. I was also given a fan decorated with some of the manhole covers. I wanted to add the photographs I took of the manhole covers to my Blipfolio, but it seems as if that cannot be edited anymore. Still, I have an idea for a little art project using those manhole cover designs so I will keep them for future blips.

I was interested to learn this morning that today marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Gary Numan's The Pleasure Principle. That man is pretty much the soundtrack of my life. But, continuing with the suicide prevention theme, here is a link to a song which Gary Numan and Officers recorded to raise awareness and money for C.A.L.M., another suicide prevention organisation - Petals. (Warning - it ain't pretty.)