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."
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Saturday, 25 September 2010
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.
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.
Friday, 24 September 2010
Using present-tense verbs state what the theological principle in this text is in a sentence or two.
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 ;)
Friday, 17 September 2010
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
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
Thursday, 16 September 2010
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]
Thursday, 9 September 2010
When I was 14 I wrote an incredibly long list about myself. Here are some.
06. My first boy friend was Ricky. I was 5. We used to play
school together. I stayed at his house every weekend and got jealous when he
got fish and chips for lunch at school.
07. I love languages and want to learn German. (I remember it being talked about that perhaps I would live in Switzerland during one of my high school years, with my aunt and uncle)
08. I am good at remembering phone numbers, but not much
else.
11. I’m afraid of the dark.
12. I stole a pair of scissors from my old school's cooking room 2 years ago. They are sitting on my desk in my
jewellery box.
17. I love inspirational quotes.
18. My grandparents have NEVER seen me being naughty. (They had commented on this, even, I felt so deceitful)
20. I hate New Zealand Idol. and American Idol. And
Australian Idol.
21. I love milk. and white wine. (At fourteen? My uncle was introducing me to this acquired taste)
24. I stabbed my best friend in the eye with a pencil when I
was 6. She scribbled in pink crayon on my worksheet. The teacher made me walk across the room blindfolded and
gave me a lecture on what life is like when you are blind.
26. I am the only person in my year who has had
a ‘moral detention’. (for forging my parents signatures on my homework diary. They rang the school. My teachers didn't care but my parents did. But everybody did it!)
31. I am obsessed with peoples middle names and they hate me
for it.
32. i really really really really want to bungee jump.
33. I love big earrings!
34. I want a souped up pink mini cooper. (How EMBARRASSING)
36. I get annoyed at people who think my career choice is
not brainy enough. (I don't know what this was)
37. I am a very random person. I am always get told that. I
change the subject all the time. You might have noticed.
38. I look crap in school uniform.
39. Today my teacher said to me...I found a person on the
weekend who could talk faster than you Sonya. She sounded surprised.
40. I hate lists (like this one) (I love lists!)
58. I pierced a second hole in my right ear with a safety
pin the weekend after my 14th birthday..
59. I cut my hair to shoulder length the day after my 14th
birthday. The next day everyone was saying...Did you cut your hair? I said How
did you know? They said. No i meant did you get it cut. Everyone knew before
too long.
60. Saskia said that her dad said that when girls turn 14
they turn into rebels.
61. I love yearbooks.
62. I have never seen my dad cry.
63. My Dad was a Quaker. and a Hippie. and a Hare Krishna.
and now he is 51 and laughs when I remind him.
71. I have never had a surprise Christmas present from my
parents and I like it that way.
77. I find 3rd form guys(and most 4th
form ones) really immature! (haha)
78. I talk more on the phone to guys than I do to girls.
79. I am in 9LT.
80. I do not have a certain ‘clique’ of friends. I never
have. I’ve had different people from different ‘cliques’ that are my best
mates.
85. I NEVER have an early night before a test/exam. Like
now. I have a math exam and a speech exam tomorrow. And what am I doing? not
revising or asleep. on the computer writing random stuff.
87. I want to live till I’m 100. Mainly to get a telegram
from the Queen. But not if I have Alzheimer’s or Dementia or Parkinson’s or any
old person disease.
88. I have a strong conscience.
91. Methylated Spirits is my second best friend. (What??)
101. I am often being told my name is weird, strange,
unusual, ‘different’ (in a sarcastic tone) and gay. always being told ‘no
offense’. Do you mind? Like I never said your name was gay. (I cannot stand the word gay being used in this derogatory way)
102. I am on the School Council.
105. After I leave school I am going to work. I don’t care
what you think. I do not want a humongous student loan-yet. Also I have no idea
of what I want to do for a career. (Even since I was young eh, haven't liked debt.)
106. I have very long toes.
115. My current nickname is Getty. Nick gave me the
nickname.
126. I write a lot of poetry.
127. I am very dramatic.
128. I was born at Christchurch Woman’s Hospital.
135. Whenever I’m trying to save, or have no money, someone
will ask me to go to the movies with them. Guaranteed.
137. I cant wait till I am 18.
138. I really want to get Dux. (DON’T DISS! DISSING IS NOT
COOL!) if you get dux of your school you automatically get a 10,000 dollar
scholarship to Otago university. (I stopped caring about this a few months later)
139. Dissing is not cool. (The word dissing was quite common in Year 9)
142. I sometimes wish my name was spelt Sonja.
143. Whenever a guy rings me up, my dad goes, Theres a
‘young man’ on the phone for you Sonya. He then comments on whether their voice
has dropped. And asks their age. (This was never in an intimidating way. He would just laugh.)
147. I love cross country. (I did, with a passion.)
148. It seems like the teachers know everything about me. (It's 'cause I talk too much)
154. I like to debate. And argue.
160. I want to get married.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Dear God.
Hi, God. I have slept little this past week. I am hungry, and once again I cannot sleep. It is like all I think about is culture, and New Zillund, and what makes everything the way it is. I plan university timetables and analyse the sexual politics of strangers at 3am. I read North and South and get progressively worse at empathy. This last week I have slid down hills in the dark, watched a boat in the middle of the ocean and thought it looked very much like a house. I have drunk cocktails from teapots and ran so fast I felt like I couldn't breathe, just to avoid paying a ten dollar door charge. I have even been abrupt to strangers! Well, one stranger. And he was drunk. But I normally find it very hard to be abrupt to strangers.
God, it is not that I am sick of thinking about the world. It is that I have been analysing how this thinking is sometimes detrimental to my interactions. My thinking is going so fast that my mouth cannot keep up with it. It has been suggested I talk so fast that it is clear I do not actually want people to understand me, and I have been told, repeatedly, that that is a very rude thing to do, young lady. I think so fast that my pen cannot keep up. In turn, my handwriting is so bad that even high school boys scorn it, and teachers have suggested I would fail because of it. I think so fast and so much that I cannot sleep. This is why I am on here. I also think fast and find everything so interesting that I have a bad attention span and get easily distracted. Focus is an issue. I am not saying any of this thinking is overly brilliant (there's my kiwi disclaimer, I don't want to be a tall poppy, now) but that it is just a consequence of a continually ticking brain. A lot of my thinking is menial, so very very practical, things to do and orders to do them in, but more so it is thinking about a lot of stuff to do with the identity and culture of New Zealand. I especially think a lot about how I want to speak better, to talk properly, but I am not quite sure how, as I am so entrenched in my own culture.
It frustrates me that I am so obsessed with my own country, God. It does because it means I could do the same to anywhere else. It frustrates me, a little, that I have not really left it, yet, and while I am the master of my own soul, external factors have also contributed to me not having really experienced the wider world, just yet. There will be a time. I just feel like it needs to be soon in order to not lose perspective. I fear doing a degree that is inherently Kiwi because I am so interested in it, when really I am just as fascinated with American culture, but it is slightly more far away. I am intrigued with everything, and my world, but my reality is very New Zealand which means I tend to pursue it relentlessly.
If I were honest, and I try to be, I would admit that I think a lot about myself. New Zealand is a part of myseld, and by understanding New Zealand, I understand how I am, well, me. I am constantly seeking to understand. I want to know! Everything! But I am so fascinated with identity and culture that it becomes self-obsessed. What makes us human? What makes me a New Zealander? What is cool? Elysia and I had an amazing chat about the concept of cool the other day. But my constant thinking, the daily grind of the mind doing this can be self-destructive, even self-obsessed. That is an embarrassing thing to admit on the internet.
You see, God, I am ashamed of myself this year. Especially when talking to you. Because, at the start of the year, I feel, I think, that my eyes were re-opened and re-reminded about others, others, others, poor, love, disenfranchised, marginalised, alongsiding, others, others, others. That stuff was deep in my heart, I cried! I cried in that lecture. And the next one. Now it sits in the back of my head, my 'back brain' as Marty liked to call it, the subconscious. Instead of being so pressing, pressing, pressing, like I feel it was to Jesus, it just is this good knowledge I have about what I ought to do. I could reason for hours, to myself, that I have little opportunity for it, at the moment, due to a million different factors. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps it is not true. Either way, it is an excuse.
God, I feel like this all will be okay if next year I apply this theology proper. Right now I am studying applying theology. Is real life when I apply it? I feel like this is not real life. But I cannot rest with the promise of next year. Next, next, later. Shakespeare said: 'I do not know why yet, I live to say, this things to do, since I have cause, and will, and strength, and means to do it.' That quote lives in my head. I do worry a lot. But it is always about myself. My own future, my own money issues, housing issues, job issues. How pathetic.
I do not like this post because I have not come to any conclusions. One of the things I loved about exams was the buzz of speed-writing that conclusion, going, HECK YES I NAILED THAT ESSAY and that conclusion is so true because it has been argued. Conclusions conclusions.
I am ashamed to post this but I will anyway.
Going to Hawke's Bay is good for me because its not about me, at all. It is all about the family unit, and the church unit, and the town and the society unit and the pack mentality. The talk is of the Hawke's Bay unit. There is no space for thinking about myself. I don't remember thinking about myself much until this year. I can hear my grandfather saying 'the devil finds work for idle hands.' Yeah, idle hands leads to busy brains. Whatever.
God, why was there an earthquake? Why did I not talk to the sad-faced man sitting on the fence with a trolley and a sleeping bag? Oh yes, God, I smiled at him, and he smiled back. I gave him a really big smile with teeth and crinkly eyes: I wanted to make him happy! But God, why did I just walk home and not talk to him? Have I succumbed to the 'there's nothing you can do' bullshit? Maybe I have. Sorry, God. Tomorrow is a new day. God, they say you speak in the stillness. So God, I'm going to have to ask you to turn off my brain. God, why do you keep providing me with finances? God, I would like to go to college in America. Not funny, Sonya. God, I'm sorry for not trusting You. But I have such a part to play.
I'm so selfish. Bye God. I'll see you tomorrow? I think we need a proper date. Let's just pretend we're a daily couple going through the daily grind and getting a bit self-centred. No, not you of course! You probably don't even have a word for self, in whatever your language is. Do you have a language? But say we were a couple, and that a date is what we need to remind each other (Read: me) of the beauty of the OTHER. I know this is a terrible analogy, cheesy, incorrect on a theological level and horrible. But I am human, God. And I'm sick of thinking.
Okay, God, I'm out. I'm sorry for being selfish. It's all about you, and others, eh. Oh I can write those words so easily.
God, it is not that I am sick of thinking about the world. It is that I have been analysing how this thinking is sometimes detrimental to my interactions. My thinking is going so fast that my mouth cannot keep up with it. It has been suggested I talk so fast that it is clear I do not actually want people to understand me, and I have been told, repeatedly, that that is a very rude thing to do, young lady. I think so fast that my pen cannot keep up. In turn, my handwriting is so bad that even high school boys scorn it, and teachers have suggested I would fail because of it. I think so fast and so much that I cannot sleep. This is why I am on here. I also think fast and find everything so interesting that I have a bad attention span and get easily distracted. Focus is an issue. I am not saying any of this thinking is overly brilliant (there's my kiwi disclaimer, I don't want to be a tall poppy, now) but that it is just a consequence of a continually ticking brain. A lot of my thinking is menial, so very very practical, things to do and orders to do them in, but more so it is thinking about a lot of stuff to do with the identity and culture of New Zealand. I especially think a lot about how I want to speak better, to talk properly, but I am not quite sure how, as I am so entrenched in my own culture.
It frustrates me that I am so obsessed with my own country, God. It does because it means I could do the same to anywhere else. It frustrates me, a little, that I have not really left it, yet, and while I am the master of my own soul, external factors have also contributed to me not having really experienced the wider world, just yet. There will be a time. I just feel like it needs to be soon in order to not lose perspective. I fear doing a degree that is inherently Kiwi because I am so interested in it, when really I am just as fascinated with American culture, but it is slightly more far away. I am intrigued with everything, and my world, but my reality is very New Zealand which means I tend to pursue it relentlessly.
If I were honest, and I try to be, I would admit that I think a lot about myself. New Zealand is a part of myseld, and by understanding New Zealand, I understand how I am, well, me. I am constantly seeking to understand. I want to know! Everything! But I am so fascinated with identity and culture that it becomes self-obsessed. What makes us human? What makes me a New Zealander? What is cool? Elysia and I had an amazing chat about the concept of cool the other day. But my constant thinking, the daily grind of the mind doing this can be self-destructive, even self-obsessed. That is an embarrassing thing to admit on the internet.
You see, God, I am ashamed of myself this year. Especially when talking to you. Because, at the start of the year, I feel, I think, that my eyes were re-opened and re-reminded about others, others, others, poor, love, disenfranchised, marginalised, alongsiding, others, others, others. That stuff was deep in my heart, I cried! I cried in that lecture. And the next one. Now it sits in the back of my head, my 'back brain' as Marty liked to call it, the subconscious. Instead of being so pressing, pressing, pressing, like I feel it was to Jesus, it just is this good knowledge I have about what I ought to do. I could reason for hours, to myself, that I have little opportunity for it, at the moment, due to a million different factors. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps it is not true. Either way, it is an excuse.
God, I feel like this all will be okay if next year I apply this theology proper. Right now I am studying applying theology. Is real life when I apply it? I feel like this is not real life. But I cannot rest with the promise of next year. Next, next, later. Shakespeare said: 'I do not know why yet, I live to say, this things to do, since I have cause, and will, and strength, and means to do it.' That quote lives in my head. I do worry a lot. But it is always about myself. My own future, my own money issues, housing issues, job issues. How pathetic.
I do not like this post because I have not come to any conclusions. One of the things I loved about exams was the buzz of speed-writing that conclusion, going, HECK YES I NAILED THAT ESSAY and that conclusion is so true because it has been argued. Conclusions conclusions.
I am ashamed to post this but I will anyway.
Going to Hawke's Bay is good for me because its not about me, at all. It is all about the family unit, and the church unit, and the town and the society unit and the pack mentality. The talk is of the Hawke's Bay unit. There is no space for thinking about myself. I don't remember thinking about myself much until this year. I can hear my grandfather saying 'the devil finds work for idle hands.' Yeah, idle hands leads to busy brains. Whatever.
God, why was there an earthquake? Why did I not talk to the sad-faced man sitting on the fence with a trolley and a sleeping bag? Oh yes, God, I smiled at him, and he smiled back. I gave him a really big smile with teeth and crinkly eyes: I wanted to make him happy! But God, why did I just walk home and not talk to him? Have I succumbed to the 'there's nothing you can do' bullshit? Maybe I have. Sorry, God. Tomorrow is a new day. God, they say you speak in the stillness. So God, I'm going to have to ask you to turn off my brain. God, why do you keep providing me with finances? God, I would like to go to college in America. Not funny, Sonya. God, I'm sorry for not trusting You. But I have such a part to play.
I'm so selfish. Bye God. I'll see you tomorrow? I think we need a proper date. Let's just pretend we're a daily couple going through the daily grind and getting a bit self-centred. No, not you of course! You probably don't even have a word for self, in whatever your language is. Do you have a language? But say we were a couple, and that a date is what we need to remind each other (Read: me) of the beauty of the OTHER. I know this is a terrible analogy, cheesy, incorrect on a theological level and horrible. But I am human, God. And I'm sick of thinking.
Okay, God, I'm out. I'm sorry for being selfish. It's all about you, and others, eh. Oh I can write those words so easily.
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