Day 8 was quite easy. Called ‘Practising Stoicism’, this challenge involved offer a sincere compliment or expression of gratitude—to a coworker, a barista, or a stranger on the sidewalk. Stoicism has a reputation of being dour but there’s also the aspect of making other people’s lives better. I didn’t find it hard to offer a compliment to a fellow volunteer at the historical society: I did it first, then thought- “hey, I can use that for my challenge”. She seemed rather pleased at the compliment, and I felt pretty good about it too. I actually do try to compliment people just as a matter of course.
Day 9: Adventurous Listening required taking a walk in your neighborhood and choosing 5 sounds that capture the energy of where you live. I walk down to the museum every Monday anyway, through a long narrow park that was previously a golf course. The five sounds I heard were quintessentially Rosanna Parklands: 1. the loudspeaker from the Monday morning assembly at Rosanna Golf Links Primary School. In fact, there may have even been competing assemblies, because I think I heard the assembly at Rosanna Primary School as well, on the other side of the railway line. 2. A train going past. One of the things I love most about where I live is the easy accessibility of the train. 3. The crunch of gravel as people walked towards or past me. Rosanna Parklands always has people walking there, any time of day. It’s a very popular park. 4. Magpies. Being a decommissioned golf course, there are large expanses of open space which the magpies just love. Such an Australian sound. 5 The radio blaring from a builder’s ute. Because blocks are fairly large here, there is lots of redevelopment going on. For some reason, tradies HAVE to have the radio full volume to regale neighbours and passers-by with Bloke Radio.
I was listening for the sounds which best exemplified the park, and there was no surprise in any of them: I could hear each of them any Monday morning. However, sustained listening for quintessential sounds did make the walk seem faster.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 
Tradies and bloke-radio at high volume! I never thought of it like that, but yes, it is bloke-radio!