This is I.

I AM SO EMOTIONAL WHAT

I'm passionate about simplicity and the minimalist lifestyle.

Dear

You're okay. You're okay. You really are okay.
You are anxious. That is okay. But you don't need to be anxious.
You are okay.


I can't remember what it feels like to write for two and a half hours. Can I fill all those pages? Yes, girl, you can. You can. You have done so many times. You have a lot of knowledge. You really do. You do. You do.


You do know how to adapt information to questions. You're good at it. You have studied more than most kids in your class. Really. You understood everything they said. You did. You understood everything you read. You did strategies to learn things. You did wide reading, which wasn't even really necessary.


You got an A+ on a challenging second-year paper in your first semester at university as a first-year student while dealing with a serious disability that meant you couldn't write or type and lived with pain. You are capable. You are.


I need to believe all this.
I need to go back to the counsellor.


I think I try and be too strong and fine.


You're sitting on just under an A average for this paper. You really are going to be fine no matter what happens tomorrow.


Sonya. It's okay.

Cured!

Hi blogging world - Sonya is 98 percent cured of RSI and back on the internet with force! Yes, I tried a bazillion  physical therapies like trigger pointing, stretching, chiropractory, physio.. but the thing that actually fixed it, and was legit was the magic book: The MindBody Prescription by Dr. John Sarno. If you have any sort of chronic pain - back, headaches, RSI.. please read the book. It's super cheap. It changed my life from not being able to click a mouse or make breakfast or carry anything to being able to type thousands of words without pain.I got the book from this website: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Mind-Body-Prescription-John-Sarno/9780446675154 - free shipping worldwide, and super cheap! Now my spiel is over, back to life.

I have a wonderful life. I analyse it a lot, and sometimes ponder at how serious I seem to be becoming, but, I have a wonderful life.

I'm neither culture I'm stuck between, I'm forging my own path.

(This post comes to you via Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition software) :)

Tonight, I discovered a determination I didn't know I had. Tonight, I discovered that stamina I didn't know I had.

Tonight, I swam and I swam and I swam. And most of the time, I didn’t use my legs, but just forced each arm over the other arm to drag me to the end of the pool. Every time, I felt that long long stretch in each arm.

Each length I swam, I revisited 10-year-old Sonya. When I was 10 years old, I was part of a swimming club, and my family also had a key to the pool. I remember nights, when it was dark, just me and my goggles swimming around and deep into this giant pool, not swimming front crawl/freestyle, but just kind of living in the pool like it was my home, underwater.

Sometimes I wonder how life would have been different, if I had done dancing and swimming from a young age. I think I was made to dance. Maybe my body is not a dancers body, but I have always danced, my whole life. For about three years, the dance team at my old church continually nagged me to join. I can't remember why I declined, but it was something to do with fear. Sometimes, even now, at 19, I will meet older people in the street, and they will say, "I remember when you used to dance at the front at church, when you were a little girl.”

With swimming, I wasn't overly good, but I felt free and good in the water. I could swim lengths fine, just not do any of the other stuff. I still can't dive, or tumble-turn, and I used to embarrass myself every single day at primary school, because I couldn't dive. In year 10 health, at age 15, some boys in my class mentioned the time they "rescued me" in the swimming pool at primary school. I had started to swim a width of backstroke, but ended up going crooked and found myself in the middle of the deep end, with about 60 kids yelling at me, but I couldn't hear them until I realised and panicked. I was definitely not the coolest kid in primary school.

But tonight, every stroke, it was like I finally found it in me to just keep going, even though I ached, even though I had no one to motivate me but myself, even though I have always struggled with exercise, because I've never been good at pushing through the pain.

This morning I remembered the giant life motto I painted on my desk, which in the last two months, I have definitely forgotten. It reads,

“So many people believe in you; believe in yourself. Trust in your God, who has proved himself faithful. Pursue wisdom and discipline."

I will beat RSI, through

1. Faith in God, prayer, positive thinking and attitude and will and determination.

2.Exercise, and stretches, and swimming, walking, and frequent exercise.

3.  Discipline and life, rest, sleeping, good eating, lots of water (lubricates tendons?).

4. Adaptations to my living: using food processors and bigger knives instead of small vegetable knives, wearing wrist guards/bandage supports, ASKING for help, using note takers for lectures, using the reader writers for exams, using my book seat for reading (seriously, could not do life without this, thank you Taylor's mum!), Cooking dinners that do not require a lot of stirring - I will have to start using the oven more! Being honest with my new flatmates, when it comes to cleaning, I really can't do those fiddly jobs, or vacuuming either, USING DRAGON

5.being smarter in my living-this means ergonomics! Slowly learning to touch type, when my wrists and arms allow it; finding a joystick mouse, or similar; finding an office chair that is good for long periods of sitting (trusting God on this one, for finances); not doing long periods of sitting!; Always watching my posture.

Wisdom and discipline, eh..., trusting God, eh.., believing in myself, eh.. 

ALL i want do is write poetry and prose

but i can't, right now\\

why am i doing law?

My faith is very strong right now.

I will not settle for shallowness in my relationships.
The world opens its arms to me.
There is great beauty in intellection.

I'm on my way

Tomorrow, I'm leaving this world for the next one.
I don't really need to elaborate on my feelings, or say any more, for most of it has been said.

before long, before anybody notices, I'll be gone from here.

Trusting God through pain

I am currently having a lot of pain in my wrists, fingers, arms and hands. I'm pretty sure its RSI, from typing.

It has been frustrating. I miss blogging. But the other day I was looking through my old textbook for 'Introduction to Pastoral Care' and I saw what I had written on the front page:

'I know I can trust Him through pain.'

He is  what I am holding onto. I can get through these assignments. He has always looked after me. I have always been provided for. 

I know I can trust him through pain.

I'm not really a Christmas person, or expect/get presents, but if I was to, here is my wishlist. Or, just things I want in general.

1. A New Zealand Prayer Book
2. A watch. I haven't owned one since my grandma brought me back a red one from Switzerland when I was eight.
3. A white duvet cover.
4. Perfume. I have never ever owned my own perfume.
5. A good office chair. Adjustable, good for long periods of study. I think this is what my parents are going to help me buy this Christmas.
6. Driving lessons.
7. Practical things.
8. Good, sturdy, beautiful black leather heels with a hearty strap/buckle.


Never ever buy me


1. Photoframes. 

Lord, it is night.

The night is for stillness. Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day. What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be.

The night is dark. Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you.

The night is quiet. Let the quietness of your peace enfold us, all dear to us, and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn. Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.

In your name we pray. Amen.

-From The New Zealand Prayer Book

I'm ashamed to be a New Zealander.

For my non-New Zealand readers, Paul Henry is a prominent New Zealand TV current affairs host, known for his controversial remarks. He has just been stood down from his Breakfast show for the latter of two incidents: first he pronounced Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's name, despite being told it is said "Dixit". He also said the name "Dick Shit" is "so appropriate" because she is Indian. He repeatedly called her "the dip shit woman" and "Dick Shit", going on to state that "it's so appropriate, because she's Indian, so she'd be dick-in-shit wouldn't she, do you know what I mean? Walking along the street... it's just so funny." He mocked her relentlessly, laughing and saying it over and over over. 

Secondly, in an interview with NZ Prime Minister John Key, he asked him if Indian-origin Governor-General, Sir Anand Satyanand, was "even a New Zealander" and whether the next governor-general would "look and sound like a New Zealander". This provoked hundreds and hundreds of complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Authority. There were protests and multiple online groups set up both praising and opposing Paul Henry, and people saying they would boycott TVNZ until they sacked/brought back Paul Henry to TV.

Soon after the incident was publicised, TVNZ, and a lot of (white) NZers, bombarded the internet saying

'He is only saying what we are all thinking. Get over it.'

Since when did Paul Henry speak for me?

If the majority of New Zealand thinks you must be WHITE to be a 'real' New Zealander, then I am ashamed to be a New Zealander.

If being a New Zealander means mocking non-English names, then I am ashamed to be a New Zealander.

if being a 'New Zealander' means believing and vocalising that people of other races and colours are not New Zealanders, even if they are born and raised here, then I am really ashamed to be a New Zealander. 

More than anything, I am ashamed to be a white New Zealander. My ancestors came to New Zealand on a boat from England in the 1840s. Whether your parents came to New Zealand on a plane twenty years ago makes you no less of a New Zealander than I am. You call New Zealand home? Cool. Same. 

I believe in freedom of speech, I do. So it makes it worse that Paul Henry is on a publically-funded channel, where many New Zealanders of all colours and races and background, pay him to spawn his remarks.  Once I was picked up by a racist as guy when hitchhiking. He ranted at me and Wilbur about killing immigrants. But that was in his own car. Still sickening, but not PAID FOR BY ME. NOT endorsed by government. The fact that TVNZ would defend him makes it more the worse.

In the last census, where it asked for my ethnicity, I didn't tick 'NZ European/Pakeha' like a white-girl-with-English-ancestors-way-back girl is meant to do, instead I ticked 'other' and wrote 'New Zealander'. People said I was being pretentious. But this whole 'what a New Zealander is' topic needs some discussion. I, nor my family, feel no affiliation with England. (I personally think NZ should become a republic, but that is a whole other discussion) I am a New Zealander. Where my ancestors come from, I see, is irrevelant. I was born here and educated here. So was the Governor-General. Oh, he looks Indian? Cool. We both call New Zealand home. 

(I met the Governor-General at the NZ Schools' Debating Champs last year, and he was also surrounded by ignorant racism. In the 'thank-yous-and-memories' speeches at the end, one high-school debater gave a speech full of racist, embarrassing comments.. personal stuff too, about his Middle Eastern coach being a terrorist etc. and worse. We were in the House of Government, entry-by-security-list only, in the presence of the GOVERNOR-GENERAL (higher than the Prime Minister) and this happened. In the end people started ringing bells to stop it. There were a lot of shocked faces. It was bad, bad, bad.

After this happened, I was standing in a small group with Udayan, my debating coach, who is Indian , and the Governor-General, Sir Anand, who is Fijian-Anglo-Indian also. From what I recall, Udayan asked Sir Anand, or apologised about it, or something. I have never forgotten what he said.

'Well, if you permit freedom of speech, you have to be prepared for the smörgåsbord that comes with it.'

I was surprised by how well he took it. But that racism was coming from a 17-year-old high school student, not an established TV host being funded by the public and government of New Zealand.)


NEW ZEALAND SORT IT OUT.

Note to self.

Do not live alone, in the suburbs, without a car, ever. 


This weekend all my flatmates are away. I am pretty much living alone. Two days. Whatever. But it just gets a bit crazy. Like Luke said: 'There is a quiet happiness that comes from having other people nearby.' When others aren't around I don't eat, just fill myself up on corn chips and snack food (which I never do, otherwise) and sit online and get sore eyes. That's actually my life. How sad. I suppose the thought of boring assignments makes this time alone more depressing. A few months ago I had a weekend alone and drank a bottle of wine over two days and wrote sad stories about alcoholic old women and fell asleep. Perhaps if I lived alone for  a long time I would become an alcoholic. No. But. These things make me wonder.


It's funny, because I really enjoy being alone. Perhaps it depends on the environment, as to whether being alone is constructive or destructive. I enjoy being alone in my room. All night, even. I do find my room an inspiring environment whereas the rest of this house I do not find inspiring. Being alone I can be super energetic and creative and thoughtful. I dance around. I write and read. I paint poems. I plan things. I plan my life. I am ambitious and encouraging (if only to myself) I like solitude. Even for a long period of time. Perhaps it is just destructive this time because I have work to do and so the alone time is always procrastination, which is always bad and destructive. Yes.


I say do not live alone, without a car, in the suburbs, because that is a lot more isolated than living alone in a city. I am a person of extremes. I love solitude and I love crazy packed social times. I hope I get into my planned hostel for next year because I will be able to walk out my door and be in the middle of the city. Wander to Cuba Street and meet up with a friend. Or find some strangers or homeless people to sit with. See?


Maybe it is just in this suburb I feel isolated. The majority of my good friends in Auckland are not accessible by good public transport, and at least a fifteen minute drive away. But I do not drive, see. This is another thing I have been thinking about. I WANT TO DRIVE. On Sunday, my friend Paul gave me a driving lesson in his manual car around the suburb of Waterview. I DROVE A MANUAL IN AUCKLAND. The first time I have driven in suburbia. I enjoyed it, because I really enjoy learning new skills, being practical. Perhaps I am looking towards wholeness, to be some sort of Renaissance man. Woman. That. I am going to grab random driving lessons where I can because I do not really have one consistent teacher I can depend on. So ask a lot of people for a little lesson. 


Conclusions:
1. Days of aloneness without structure involve self-neglect and laziness. Don't live alone because of that.
2. Not having a car increases isolation by a lot so learn to drive.
3. Living in the suburbs, without a good community around you, suck. So don't live alone because of that. Or, rather, live in a good community.


In my lifetime I would like to live in
1. A rural commune. Just for a time. The combination between the opportunity for rural solitude and community everywhere is quite appealing.
2. Flat. Multiple flats. This is kind of a flat but not my ideal. But not too much in suburbia.
3. Lots of other places too.


I suppose my key thought is the importance of friends. I am good at having lots of good friends, in an individual sense. But I think it is important to have a community of friends who care for you and each other. I haven't really been so good at that. Gonna work on that. Note to self, again. That requires commitment to an area. I am writing about that for my essay on Wellington, entitled: 'What I learnt.' 


I love people. I like people. I really really really do. I have been thinking recently about the topic of dating and marriage, which is kind of uncommon for me, but a topic for someplace else.


My fingers have been quite painful lately which worries me because Taylor has tendonosis and can't really type without pain and I DON'T WANT THAT. Poor Taylor. The conclusion of that matter is to type my assignments quick before my computer and fingers die. 


I told my parents about my law enrollment  and of course, like my parents are, they were just like 'oh okay'. I like that about my parents. We have never really talked about education and I like it that way. I couldn't ask for parents less reactant when it comes to my educational decisions. I can't even emulate the conversation on this blog. They didn't even say 'oh okay'. They just.. metaphorically nodded and asked what the degree was called. 


A Bachelor of Laws. Did you know, Mum? 
Oh, that's nice, Sonya. What's the other thing you're doing called? The one with English?
Bachelor of Arts, Mum. Don't worry, I'm not dropping that.
Yes, Arts. If you're in Wellington for five years it means if you met a nice young man you could commit to a long-term relationship. 
Yes, Mum. 
Well, that's nice. 
Yeah, I suppose it is. It'd be nice to be someone's one and only.


I love my Mum.

Snapshot of a Stressed Sojas

1. My computer is dying. Constant spazz attacks, error messages and refusals to turn on are driving me mad.This is more than a slight problem. If it dies for good I will be more than mildly screwed. I have four weeks left of semester. This problem is heightened due to college's bad computers which don't even have Microsoft Word.


2. I am behind on multiple assignments. (See above) I had two due last week which I have not done. I should never blame my lecturers but it would help if they cared more about deadlines. I say the assignments were due, but my grades are not affected if they are late. This is bad for me because I am a future-minded person who constantly analyses history and how it will impact the future. I can see the last few weeks being madness. 


3. My funds are going down. And down. If we wanted to be technical about it, I am in debt, but because we are not being technical, I am just worried. This is also a problem due to problem one. If computer dies I have no money to replace it. 


4. My room is a tip. This is more of  a problem than the rest because it impedes my mental state. Severely. If we wanted to be anal we would explain this by using the enneagram. I am a 7 (optimist) When under stress I become a 1 (super perfectionist) and when healthy I become more of a five (Thinker) I sit on the floor of my bedroom and just freak out. Because I would want to clean every part of it, from all the books, to my filing folders of important documents, to my make-up. I am not normally this bad but when under stress it drives me crazy. Most of today I just wandered around like a zombie feeling overwhelmed by my bedroom.


Today I put on full make-up under the guise that this would motivate me to be productive. Instead I found myself drinking green tea and lying on my bedroom floor swearing to myself.
Am I crazy? Arg. Arg. Arg. This computer is sooooo slow. One tab at a time.


GOOD THINGS.
1. I skyped ALEX FELT last night and as usual we talked feminist feminist feminist. SKYPE worked. Kind of. Kept crashing but I could call.
2. I'm getting feet things. Orthotics? Yeah them.
3. I must be mad because I called my parents but forgot to tell them
 a)I have dyed my hair (almost) black and
 b)have enrolled in a law degree.
These things must be unimportant.
Oh girl.
Come on now.
Get it together.


Really I just want to learn to drive! I like driving! Arg. Arg. Arg. 

Staring down the university and the world in the core of their bones and their dark black retinas and saying, loud and clear:


"I can do this."

moments

My Wednesday afternoon podiatrist visit,
the slam poet my old high school teachers have been posting all over their facebook pages,
the walk home at five thirty. I thank God for the breeze on my shoulders.


I can feel my fear as I cross the park, when I pass the lone man sitting in his car, sitting in the corner, staring in his rear-view mirror. Each time I stop, and get angry at myself. There is no reason to give in to this fear of the other. He is human. If he kills me in that secluded park then at least I will not have diminished him to a crime profile on some crappy late-night crime show. He is just a man sitting in a park. In his car. Eating his snack. Wearing a hi-vis vest and taking a moment. I still walk swiftly.

Using present-tense verbs state what the theological principle in this text is in a sentence or two.

Think of a room. A small room. The floor is wooden and scratched. A single bed fits against the window, three drawers underneath. There is no wardrobe, but there is a significant sized windowsill. What would you fit in this room? Could you live in this room? What would you keep in this room? 


A girl sitting at a long table.
An empty glass of blackcurrant cordial.
A pair of old glasses with scratched lens.
A dead cat. A bucket of water.
Her hair is long. Her arms are long. Her legs are long.
Her feet are flat.


There are twenty dead whales at the foot of my window. I fill the bucket over and over and over. Run to the ocean. Cry to God. Is God real? And if he is, does he hear the whales? The white paint is peeling. My skin smells of salt and sea. I do not like the smell of dead whales but I like the smell of salty skin. Have you tasted it? 


If you float to the top of the summer, you will see the lone wolf at the end of the wharf, drinking a bottle of warm beer. If you walk closer, you might see he is fishing. 


EDIT: Just had to say hello to my newest blog follower, Mr Ben Christensen, who when I told him, about age fourteen, that one of my favourite smells is the smell of skin after swimming in the ocean, then told me that was creepy ;)

Good notions and sleeping potions. Work. Money. Self-analysis again.

It is 1.20am and I am blogging. I am at my parent's place for the week, and even with dial-up internet I am here. That means I have a a 1m cord attaching me to the kitchen phone. No more sitting in bed with the internet, no-no. The internet may cut out at any time. I can not upload any photos at all to dailybooth, or look at Google Reader, or watch youtube, or any of that stuff. Yet I am here. To be disciplined I usually leave my laptop unplugged which means a maximum of 30minute internet time, until my battery dies. Nope. I'm plugged in, too. An insomniac AND an internet addict.


The other night I was up until 4am. Last night I went to sleep at 10pm. If we ignore the fact I took THREE melatonin tablets last night to help me sleep, I can probably tell the difference. Screens and thinking and books greatly decrease my ability to sleep. Tonight, I.. what did I do until I wanted to sleep? I can't remember. But also I slept during the day. When I am at my parent's house I find it hard to not sleep during the day. Mum does. Kids do. It is quiet and the leather couches are so soft and the sun is warm and whatnot. Anyway I ended up half-asleep-asleep somehow between one and three, when I had PLANNED to get WORK done. I woke up to two men in the house being crude/immature about an energy drink called 'Helen's Melons' with a badly-drawn cartoon of this massiveboobed chick in not much clothing holding watermelons. Oh and it was all red-themed, like Labour, like politics. And they were sharing this drink, and telling me I didn't understand how funny it was because I was a woman. Glad to have an affirmation there of my womanhood. sarcasm. I have been a bit frustrated this week how that sentence is used as a reason for a lot of things. You don't understand because you are a woman.


My good notion for the night is of course that really I shouldn't be watching screens or any of that rot after like 9, or sleep is just bad. I don't quite know what to do about this. It is like the doctor telling Taylor not to type for a month. In this world.. it's not really gonna happen. On top of bad sleep, my study regime also disappeared this last while, and I'm going to have to work hard and fast to get the desired A+s. Good notions and sleeping potions. I would rather opt for sleeping potions, but I actually don't like screens anyway. But I do feel like I have an addiction. A legit one. Not even addiction. Just that..life.


So I've been doing a lot of thinking. This is not news. I came up with a brilliant quote today, but I forgot it. Something about.. this year started off to be about others but it has ended up as a reflection of self. Which some days I like and some days I hate and feel self-obsessed, but in the end I will look back and this year and say I learned a lot about myself, and got to do some honest reflection. Really, this knowledge of self means I can better assist others, knowing my strengths and weaknesses a lot better. And a lot of the self-reflection and analysis and psychological stuff has definitely helped me understand others, especially when you work alongside them. Of course this is good too.


I've been thinking a lot about work. Work as in the wages and shift type. I have done a bit of work in my life. I have waitressed and bartended (both experiences led to sexual advances/attention, sighs) and sold hot chips from a caravan and scooped ice cream and marketed ice cream and supervised other girls selling ice cream and been the girl in the supermarket who nags you to try her free samples of ice cream.. etc. etc. I have babysat and lifted lambs into docking chutes and packed peaches and plums and apples and nectarines into boxes. None of this work is overly skilled. My favourite was marketing. Basically I got to go to fancy events e.g tennis matches, food expos, fancy home and wine trails, wine days, and sell ice-cream. I call it marketing because I was normally by myself, and I often had to really persuade people to fork out their money. I liked it because I was a) alone (I'm fine with working in a team, but being your own boss, having no one over your shoulder, is quite wonderful) b) got to talk with strangers, either persuading them to buy a fancy product, or, talking to them about the wonderful Hawke's Bay and New Zealand, and ask them about their travels etc. c) be persuasive d) better-paid etc. 


But while I have done this work, I have a confession to make. I have never REALLY liked work. This doesn't mean I am a generally lazy person, but it does mean when it comes to that sort of work.. after school high school jobs.. I never could understand when people LOVED going to work. I pretty much always dreaded it. If I had work at 4-8pm, then in maths class at 2 I would be apprehensive, pondering how I would ensure the shift went well and the girls worked hard and all the cleaning was done in time etc. I much preferred learning about books and thinking etc. Which of course is how I am more inclined, but a girl has to work to eat, and all of that. My grandma always said to me: 'It's just a means to an end." And it was. I worked so I could go to university. So while I was happy to work, and a hard-working reliable worker (just ask me for the reference letter ;) I never was fantastic at making work my life, or looking for jobs. 


Most of this is because I hate feeling incapable. I think I am a capable woman, yet the first day, the interview, the first while, you are the newbie. You don't know anything. No one cares how smart you are or that you can write poetry and write a damn good essay, they just know you are the new kid, and that means you suck. They assume you will suck. Secondly is I am very in tune with the emotional environment, and I just hate how most workplaces (I'm talking about high school jobs here) are not very friendly. I take all the emotions of everyone on board. I take them to heart. This doesn't work well in waitressing which is a stressful environment and everyone's yelling and swearing. I'm a big softie. Words make or break me. Words is my number one love language, above all else. It is true and I have accepted it. But I just hate feeling incapable and when they're all yelling I feel very very incapable even if it's nothing to do with me, they're just yelling at you 'cause you're the closest front-of-house staff.


I did love the marketing, see, because by picking me as the girl to do the independent marketing jobs, my boss made me feel very capable. She made me feel like I wasn't just your average sixteen-year-old, but she trusted me to handle money (even take it home after a day out, then bring in the next day) alone, to represent the company well. I could use my abilities (read: talking to strangers) in a more skilled role. I lapped it up. I liked the independence, to do things, arrange the presentation as I saw fit. Man I loved that boss. To be firm and clearly in charge yet warm, friendly and wonderful with your staff is a hard, hard balance to find.


This is all irrevelant, what is relevant is that I have been thinking about jobs. Part of the reason I haven't got a part-time job this year (apart from transport, safety etc) is this fear of incapability, of the long process it takes to be recognised as a good worker. That's all I want, generally, is to hear a supervisor/boss acknowledge I am a good worker. Especially when I was was like sixteen, man, I just wanted to scream 'Let me prove I am not your average ditzy boy-consumed texting-under-the-counter lazy sixteen year old girl." Man, this is a very confessional. It is hard, you know, to be confessional of this nature when it all sounds very self-consumed. I WANT TO BE RECOGNISED WA WA. Also, a lot of minimum-wage jobs are not happy environments. It is sad but true. Often the adults who work there are working long hours to pay the rent and they have full-time families and they're supervising a bunch of young people and they assume you will be bad. And treat you accordingly.


Tonight, lying there in my not-sleeping state, I was thinking about why one should work. Because, next year (like this year), I don't absolutely have to work to live. We have this lovely government who will pay the rent because I will be studying hard for some arts degree. If I don't work, I will be extremely poor, but I will be alive. Better yet, I will even be able to eat. And not just toast. But not much else. You get the drift.


I am at my parents house this week, as I have mentioned. And I was thinking about how I prefer not to live at my parents house. My preferable option is to never live here ever again. They're lovely people and all, it's just the way I prefer to live. And I was thinking about why I have to live here this coming summer. And of course it comes down to not being afford to live anywhere else. Lack of money equals lack of independence. Mum and Dad charge a lot less than the market does. I am planning to find work next year. I am thinking a supermarket is my number one option (easy to get work off, lots of people to talk to, decent hours) and I was just thinking work to make life a bit more comfortable next year. Bus fares, a few books, the odd bottle of wine, POSTAGE STAMPS, postcards, money to help others I come across, maybe the odd flight to Auckland/Christchurch/Dunedin/Australia if I can find cheap ones. My life would be a lot easier with a bit more money. Of course, everyone's would. (Well not the extremely rich, but I don't really know any to compare)


But tonight I was also thinking about a text from Wilbur, who had said my only 'real option' for next summer was to hitch and poetry-busk and dumpster dive and live off friends-of-friends-of-friends, which of course sounds wonderful. So I thought, okay why can't I do that? No money for accommodation there. And of course, the answer then was, lack of finance. Because I would need money over summer for the following year's accommodation/bond/textbooks/even fees. etc. A bit of security in the bank means I feel much more likely to be spontaneous and risky. (Let's remember I hate debt, with a passion) So once again, lack of money deems me dependent/not independent to do these free and easy things. 


Therefore, working during the tertiary year turns from not just being about 


a) a bit of comfort during an otherwise poor student year, but also 


b) more independence and choice over how I spend my summers, which frankly is a much more attractive reason to work, for me. 


I don't really mind being a poor student, but I do mind feeling stuck at my parent's home when I would rather be 


a) living and working in Wellington over Summer (but I would need to work a lot more during the week because the government would not be paying my rent, would they, and I would need to be working super a lot, AND have savings already, in order to save any money for the following year, which is the purpose of working over summer, when you could be gallivanting in the sunshine) 


b) living and working in Wellington and doing one random interesting paper at university over summer. I would need to work a lot, and find a job to fit around university = highly unlikely, UNLESS I could live with a proper family, which is pretty much always cheaper. Or some cool random adult church-ministry friends.. yes I have ideas. And contacts.


c) gallivanting and hitchhiking around the country, preferably the South Island or even the West Coast/Northland of the North Island.


d) gallivanting and working in the South Island. (Could be cheap if I could live with people)


e) gallivanting.. anywhere. Living in the back of a car tenting on beaches swimming in the sea. etc.


So, this conclusion has led me to reason that I really should be working during the year. It is hard to find work. I see getting a supermarket job as competitive as a top academic scholarship. It is that hard. This is also why I am not good at being motivated about these things. It can make you feel a bit silly if you see yourself as intelligent and can't even get a simple, minimum-wage job. Of course this sounds arrogant but it is the truth. I know there is a high chance of rejection, and I hate feeling rejected. Constant rejection is hard. I have sometimes had a problem with this. Like in Year 8 I didn't run for Class Councillor because I couldn't handle the thought of the fear of no one putting their hands up for me. This probably wouldn't have happened.  I wasn't that unpopular. I must have gotten over this by the latter part of high school because I ran for and succeeded in a) Deputy Head Girl b) a scholarship where I was interrogated for half an hour by five top-notch women b) A free trip to Christchurch. I did a ten minute speech to the mayor and councillors on why i was amazing and they should send me. I eye-balled them HARD. So clearly my rejection complex has SLIGHTLY gone but it doesn't make job hunting any easier. 


I fear this is too honest for the Internet. Forgive me. It is almost three in the morning. On Tuesday I am giving my life story to Intermission, my class who I have journeyed with this year. I find that honesty easy. I can detail my life experiences, good, bad, embarrassing, explicit, whatever, and self-reflect and say what I have learned. Mainly because I have had plenty of practice.  I have told parts of my life story to many people. I am an open book. But to say that you have a fear of job hunting because getting rejected constantly makes me feel stupid because I think I have good intellect and THEY DON'T THINK I'M GOOD ENOUGH TO FLIP BURGERS?.. i.e I think I am too good for bum jobs (not true, but it sounds that way if you try to explain it) that is a different sort of honesty. That is an honesty that is a bit more vulnerable, because people will respond with a judgement call. I haven't yet 'owned' that part of me, whereas other parts of me, that could perhaps be more embarrassing on the details but less so because I have accepted them and figured out how to tell them well.. I have owned. I have not owned that I tend to dislike shift jobs because I hate being treated like I'm less smart than I am..


Also, if I link you to my good friend's blogs.. it's because they are worth reading. Like this blog and this blog. If you have even got to this point then I would say you would like Taylor's blog because he thinks about stuff and you would like Wilbur's blog because he thinks about stuff. In turn, they make me think about stuff. I think I make them think about stuff. In general, we are three who like thinking about stuff. Perhaps this is why they both study Philosophy and I study Theology. Big stuff in those two subjects to think about.


I really need to stop talking now. It is late. I am no more tired! (Blogging generally wears me, but instead I am typing fast and frantic and happy) and I'll end up being far too honest, again. This self-analysis, man. 


Today's Mental Checklist 
1. Things I know for sure - quite a few 
2. Things I don't know for sure - quite a few more 
3. Things I'll discover I don't know as I go along (only a rough estimate) - about as much as things I currently don't know 
4. Things I tell my children that I don't believe myself - lots, but now they're older I tell them I'm making it up & they can believe it at their own risk 
5. things that make sense if you stop to think about it a. in daylight - lot unless there's media or government involved b. late at night - almost nothing, so it's better to just go back to sleep 
6. Things I believe that people a thousand years ago believed, too - quite a few but I lived in L.A. when I was younger, so I have a good excuse - StoryPeople

BRILLIANT, bloody BRILLIANT.

Social critic Neil Postman contrasts the worlds of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He writes:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

Journalist Christopher Hitchens, who has himself published several articles on Huxley and a book on Orwell, notes the difference between the two texts in the introduction to his 1999 article "Why Americans Are Not Taught History":

We dwell in a present-tense culture that somehow, significantly, decided to employ the telling expression "You're history" as a choice reprobation or insult, and thus elected to speak forgotten volumes about itself. By that standard, the forbidding dystopia of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four already belongs, both as a text and as a date, with Ur and Mycenae, while the hedonist nihilism of Huxley still beckons toward a painless, amusement-sodden, and stress-free consensus. Orwell's was a house of horrors. He seemed to strain credulity because he posited a regime that would go to any lengths to own and possess history, to rewrite and construct it, and to inculcate it by means of coercion. Whereas Huxley ... rightly foresaw that any such regime could break but could not bend. In 1988, four years after 1984, the Soviet Union scrapped its official history curriculum and announced that a newly authorized version was somewhere in the works. This was the precise moment when the regime conceded its own extinction. For true blissed-out and vacant servitude, though, you need an otherwise sophisticated society where no serious history is taught.^[21]