User:Yahya Abdal-Aziz
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Tongues
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Born in Melbourne, Australia, I have family all over the country (and some in the USA). Now enjoying life in the sunny city of Mildura, the heart of the Sunraysia district, a place as beautiful as it sounds!
The bio below is adapted from one I wrote in 2004 for Bohème Magazine Online (Contents of last available issue is archived at [1]), which has published some of my work. Last minor update: January 2018.
Some of the creative roles that I have fulfilled over the last few decades include: software designer, mathematician, musician, composer, song-writer, poet, visual artist, gardener, technical writer, systems analyst, business analyst, process and form designer, statistician, teacher, mentor, parent, conlang designer. My current interests include all these and more.
Computing and the arts: I organised and led Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in Graphics and Music for the 'Melbourne PC User Group' (MelbPC, 10,000+ members) from the mid-80s until late 2014. My aim was always to learn new things and share what I learnt. Also involved with Unix, New Users East, Turbo Pascal and Programming SIGs, and coordinated training for MelbPC in the late 80s. Served from time to time on the MelbPC management committee.
Writing experience: In the late 60s I was active on the radical Lot's Wife student newspaper at Monash University, where I learnt sub-editing and some rudimentary writing skills. This was great experience - particularly when I only escaped penalties for being present in the crowd that locked the university's Vice-Chancellor and the nation's Prime Minister in the Admin building for several hours, by pleading that I was exercising the right of the press to report on events of public interest. For Royal Insurance for two years in the 80s, I set up, edited and published an in-house "Effective Personal Computing" magazine. I also wrote many tutorial articles for it. For my most recent employer, I created writing templates and styles, and taught effective writing skills. My practical experience with student and professional papers and publications should be useful - particularly in proof-reading :-). And I've never stopped writing poetry.
Learning: My major formal studies were in pure maths, minor in physics, and philosophy. While studying for a post-grad teaching diploma, I tried to synthesise multi-valued formal logic with the philosophy of education and the psychology of learning. I've always tried to take a whole-of-life approach to learning and the arts, because life is so short that specialists forget what they're missing.
Motivation: I believe that for each of us, anything is possible … with a little help from our friends! Collaborative editing on wikis, particularly Wikipedia, supports this. And I also believe that each of us, being unique, has a unique contribution to make. So I'd like to help others find a voice, encourage them to the particular excellence that only they can achieve.
Languages spoken and written: English (Australian); Malay (Bahasa Melayu), including dialects; some French, German, Esperanto, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Western Cham (Cam Beniyai), Kadazan and Temiar (Seroq). Sundry computer languages (many now extinct) also used effectively over the last few decades.
Last movie (2018): Beauty and the Beast Watched it again yesterday - for the music!
Listening to … mostly the music I make myself. Sorry if I haven't had time to listen to your latest yet!
Last book read (2004, many since): "Mysterious Skin", first novel by Scott Heim. Are alien abductions really just abductions by that other alien, the human male sexual predator? Simply told, in the words of several of its protagonists, this story compels belief. The emotional complexities are convincingly real, but their final resolution is left to the reader. If this book has a message, it is that while knowledge may shock, it is the only path to healing. (Now in 2018) Re-reading Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift; shockingly, it's all still true. Just finished reading the Elon Musk biography by (Ashlee Vance) - there is somebody who's going places! (Mars, if he has his way ….)
Favourite author (forever): Ray Bradbury - the most poetic prose writer of the last 100 years!
Favourite singer (2004, still in 2013): silverchair's Daniel Johns. (2017): so many new talented singers are now actively recording, I can't choose just one.
Opinion: Too much money making too many decisions! What's good often doesn't get an airing because it's not commercial. Pretty much like "news" isn't the new stuff we need to know. Ours is now a "take-away" culture. We need to see the possibilities of a "bring-to" culture. There are pockets of resistance. Tune into, say, 'PBS FM' to get a public radio station for under-represented music. But we need more of this, much more.
Right now: At present (2017) I am restricted by a long illness. I can no longer work, even part-time. I continue to hope that this will all be over one day before I turn 80! At that time, I could probably make a regular effort to contribute to Wikipedia, and I would welcome the chance to do so. Meanwhile, I get up most days long enough to potter around the garden. I try to read and answer email at least once a month, to keep in touch with change.
The future: You're ALL invited to my 200th birthday party! And I want to walk on Mars - just maybe, I will run into some of Bradbury's original Martians? (See especially: "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" in The Martian Chronicles.