You're Lucky You Didn't Cop One in the Chops!

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I haven't posted anything in ages. Sorry, team. I am now back in Oxford and my life at present is confined to College, more specifically, a bedroom, bathroom, loo, kitchen, library carrel and dining hall. I am working on my thesis, alright!? What are you looking at? Who asked? What do you want?

No, really, I have been feeling icky about my blog, not even wanting to open check up on it. In fact, there have been times when I have wanting to punch it four times really fast in the guts, quick jabs, and then one quick upper cut to the jaw.

By the time I have spent a full day revising my thesis and keeping myself self-motivated and focused (helping my pregnant friends - and there are many - select baby names seems like the most compelling and noble pursuit to me right now), I feel most of my typity sparkle has gone and I feel angry that my blog sits there, waiting for me like some half-man, half-ape creature who thinks I don't love it, but just can't understand all of my feelings.

Plus, most of the energy that could potentially go into a blog is taken up engaging with introverts en masse over dinner. You see, I live in the heart of College now so I have to look at and even sometimes talk to a lot of people. Once I start, my natural tendency kicks in and I find myself performing for them, like an undergrad with a background in theatre. All the while, the introverts give me nothing, just blink and, if I am lucky, blush. So I go home, brush my hair, and tuck myself into bed and tell myself that one day I will be a star, and then I think about how narcissism works, and then I think about my family, and then I think about what I will do when my thesis is done, and then I think about how I shouldn't think about these things, and then I try some relaxation exercises, and then I laugh thinking about Yoga instructors, and then I think of how much I love socially awkward situations and try to remember the last embarrassing thing that I was part of or observed, and then I turn on my computer and watch something great on You Tube, like this, and then I can't sleep because of photosensivity which, for our purposes, means too much screen time, which is particularly harmful between 10pm and 1pm when the adrenals work their hardest to repair and replenish the body.

I guess I wish that I could write more about things that naturally suit my thinking, like relationships, and social psychology and behaviour etc, but I am not sure whether I can put these sorts of ramblings under the title Academic, Hopeful. I was going to ditch my blog altogether, but then I read some of Penelope Trunk's views on this - Her opinions seem to be like garden pots on a doorstep, just sitting there; There's a brusqueness or at least unrelenting bossiness to her writing that I quite like. Having said that, I'd be lying if I said I was a follower of hers. I was, in fact, sent these specific links earlier today by a pal who is trying to help get me over my blog malaise and I have, in fact, just spotted right now that she announced her miscarriage over Twitter. Hmmm...I guess there's an element of, 'Guests, either take my projectile vomit all over the fully laid-out table and your new outfits or else you can choose to leave' to her communication at times. In any case, said friend is a social media whiz and rates her stuff highly, and people deal with things differently, and I don't feel too strongly about it (but still - not really my way of going about the world, I've got to say). Anyway (ahem), my mate Penny, who is doing her best, thinks you should stick at your blog and let it grow, as an evolving conversation. But, she also insists that each post should link to an overall theme for it to be worthwhile. At the moment, I am not entirely sure how to link my interests to academia, except that I am, at present, living one part of the academic life, the writing 100 000 words on your own in a College carrel part.

I think my blog dismay-anger also arose from my bubbling resentment towards fear-mongering posts, those treatise on how there are almost no academic jobs, how competitive it is, what you need on your CV to succeed, and all this nauseating, go-hard-or-go-home crud. I got a heavy dose of these over the course of a few days a while back - I kept on clicking on random academic blogs to find these vast nuggets of shining smug, leaving me partially blind and without feeling in my right hand. I recognise that my acute reaction is in part a function of the ways these posts enact my own uncertainty and anxiety about the future, but it's also partly because I think the people who write like that aren't people I'd want to hang out with, so why would I in cyberspace? There's some genuine, school yard disagreement there. Just to be sure, I think it's very healthy to identify and discuss academic issues and debates, and to share knowledge about how the academic job market works, which can be otherwise quite a mystical thing, but I don't like the uptight (usually postdoc) blogs that are all about reminding outsiders over and over just how high the barriers to entry are, but how they managed to hurdle them. At least give me some little wink to make me know that you don't take yourself or academia too seriously. I just want a wink. We should be confident enough to do that. Anyway, I also don't want to find myself writing these sorts of blogposts, ever, and, in the final stages of this liminal state, the options to branch out in another direction, seem few. Besides being a whingebag about my thesis, a process that is the classic: set a task, halve it, then fail, try again, repeat, I am not entirely sure which academic themes I could shed light on in a way that would excite me as well as add value to your transferable skills, and I am all about transferable skills.

This blogging blockage connects to the fact that I really want to follow an academic career for so many positive, honest reasons, but, like most people, I have all these other dream careers. For instance, I'd really want to be a pop, non-fiction writer and by night enjoy some stand-up or zany performance art gig. These desires feel irreconcilable and almost unachievable and kind of ridiculous, which then translates, to some degree, into fear of putting anything in a blog post. I can't really state my case in life at the moment. Suspended on ropes in my carrel. In transition.

Am I nutty and alone or do most academics experience this kind of funny stasis (excitability but little movement) during the final few months? And do most academics, generally, have this whole fantasy career going on in parallel even when they have a job on the go? What kinds of things can I write about during this final burst or should I just come back later? Ideas and thoughts about any of this greatly appreciated. I am off to brush my hair.*

Blogging pals - I will definitely have a good catch-up with you over the week. I have been reading, I assure you! I am as loyal as a digger.


*Might I remind you that this blog is part fiction, especially the bit about my hair, and I'd also like to say that I like pretty things that have sparkles and/or teeny stars or flowers on them.

College Burns Night

photos by: ccgd, g.naharro, mike138

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to give the reply to the toast to the lassies at the College Burns' Night that was held this week. Robert (or Rabbie) Burns, born 250 years ago, is a Scottish, Romantic poet and lyricist and national treasure, celebrated not least for being the "Ploughman Poet" and a womaniser. You might know him from the NYE song, Auld Lang Syne, but he also wrote some cracking poems, like A Man's A Man for A' That, Tam O'Shanter and Ae Fond kiss.

At the time I wasn't feeling too inspired by the idea, but I felt obliged to accept in part because my College paid for my trip to visit my mother in hospital late last year. Plus I figured I would probably like the attention when it came to it. The aim of the reply is to present in a playful, bawdy way some of the shortcomings of men using evidence from Burns' life and one's own experiences (and in response to the equally cheeky toast to the lassies).

I put the task aside until a couple of days before, but again, I wasn't feeling especially witty. So I emailed some of my family and friends to help me out. One of my sisters pointed out how men think that simply acknowledging that they are the father counts as sufficient contribution to the marathon that is parenthood. Another brother mentioned how one of our cousins uses the promise of ocean views to attract women to his apartment (it faces Redfern).

Apart from their substantive help (much of which made it in), it was the the accompanying e-chat that sparked me up, and in the process reminded me that coming from a big family and community has its massive ups. One of my brothers was mildly irritated by another whom he called a "tool" for not "replying all" with his suggestions as he had done. Then that brother emailed me to say that he would understand if I used another brother's suggestions verbatim "as pay back for [undergrad] University" (when I regularly assisted him with his essays and exam preparation). And then, in reference to the programme of the evening, there was a whole litany of remarks about how on earth I tolerate living in such a nerdy environment. One of my friends said, "We never had anything like this at North Sydney TAFE."

In the end, the 200+person supper was grand- the Scots language address to and frenzied knifing up of the haggis by a (Scottish) senior fellow was a highlight - and the toasts went down well. There was ceilidh afterwards - Celtic group dances (four couples in squares, or bigger groups in lines or rings) to a band and caller. This (shameful, but great) activity truly does make you feel as though you could end up engaged to someone on the basis that he or she can step, turn and swivel in time to a fiddle. I ended up with a bloody lip rather than a proposal - this guy in front of me in the tightly-packed ring dance (I am not sure those words should go together...) turned his partner the wrong way, that is, backwards and into my oncoming face.

Here is the final version of my toast: (Thanks team!)

Toast to Lassies - Reply

Good evening Ladies and Gentleman and thank you for allowing me to exercise the right of reply on behalf of the Lassies.

Robert Burns knew what every woman wants at the end of a hard day - a rollicking poem, some scotchy breath and most importantly, a firm ....caber.

A [College] man, like most men, is only capable of one of these things at a time. And by far and away most often, it's a scotchy breath.

Robbie knew this and therefore was not writing the Selkirk Grace for the Earl of Selkirk, but rather for the women in the room at the time. And for women down the ages.

I tried to imagine Rabbie as a [College] student today and I must say I can barely picture it. As a more senior lady, I have noticed over the years that [College] men tend to fall somewhere on the spectrum between:

Evil Genius Nerd who wouldn’t know how to flirt if it stole the spokey dokes of his favourite bike AND

Smart but simple Jock who wouldn’t know a poem if it stood up and slapped him on the arse with an oar.

From personal experience the evil genius nerd knows poetry, but his idea of flirting consists of shoulder charging you in the breast on the way to the bar, making a noise like “DER” at your failure to kick the hacky sack, or saying something offensive about your clothes or make-up, such as “you look like you’ve been punched in the eyes.”

The smart but simple jock will have flirted before, but his idea of poetry is sitting in the Common Room in a shiny tracksuit with his legs far open without any awareness of how startlingly unattractive it is or cultivating a form of facial hair that only two or three people on the planet can pull off and these include Wolverine, and Tom Selleck.

Perpendicular...or possibly parallel to this spectrum, leaning against the wall outside the Bar having a smoke is another set of men who can effectively combine poetry and flirting, but who toss their cabers to the other end of the field.

The other reason I became a little perplexed thinking about Rabbie or Robbo as he would be known in Straya, in [College] was that I figured he would probably be the only man actually having sex in [College] besides of course the one man who we know is having sex and in great detail courtesy of his lady friend.

So I did some further thinking about Robbo. I wondered what he would have done at the Freshers’ Fair. Certainly, despite his weakened constitution, aka man cold, he would have homed in on a few young beauties and here he had an ingenious card up his sleeve: bestowing the honour of muse.

Male artists, like Robbie, love talking about the importance of a muse, but, let’s face it once the seduction is done, the creative process actually happens at their desks leaning back on achair.

Indeed, Robbo said that he worked [Scottish accent] “in the solitary fireside of his study.”

You never hear about women and their muses, really, do you?

So basically, men don’t need a muse to do their art – some basic warmth, a chair and desk are fine. Essentially, I’ve figured out that the whole muse thing is a brilliant cover to have additional sex with young, beautiful women.

And you can just imagine the Jerry Maguire scene in the Haldane Room, the young woman, body a'trembling, saying to Robbie, you had me at [Scottish accent]:

The snowdrop and primrose.... our woodlands adorn,
and violets bath in the wet o’ the morn.

In any case, Robbo had a back-up plan: if you can’t get the beauty, go for the servant or less attractive friend.

Once the muse was selected, Robbo would have certainly bipassed the condoms on the Student Welfare desk. Much like the men of today Robbie considered contraception a woman’s issue, and in the era when the prophylactic earned its modern name, he clearly was not a fan of the animal tissue sheaths preferring instead to leave bulging bellies in his lusty wake.

If he were alive today, I’ve got to say with his enviable levels of fertility he could supplement his Arts and Humanities Research Council grants and modest royalties as a regular donor at fertility clinics.

But, be sure, [College] men, there is much to be learned from Robbo. The use of song and verse to seduce women, for instance. Despite our differences, we women are all after the same thing: a funny, sensitive, articulate man who’s great in bed.

Two hundred and fifty years ago it was our mate Robbie.

And, despite what I have said about [College] men, and about Rabbie….. we women certainly don’t want our men to be exactly the same as us.

We don’t want a man whose idea of flirting or poetry is brain dumping his daily struggles and childhood traumas to us over Facebook chat.

We want the Evil Genius Nerd and the Smart but Simple Jock. We even want the gay guys, they just don't want us. We want a man who could write the following:

Henpecked Husband by Robert Burns

Curs'd be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
The crouching vassal to a tyrant wife!
Who has no will but by her high permission,
Who has not sixpence but in her possession,
Who must to her his dear friend's secrets tell,
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I'd break her spirit or I'd break her heart;
I'd charm her with the magic of a switch,
I'd kiss her maids, and kick the perverse bitch.

* * *

So for that we cheers the men of [College], we thank Rabbie Burns, and we give three cheers: to verse! to scotch! and to firm cabers!

To the lads!

Dr Moi

James Nash (aka Cirrus)

I am back in Oxford. I have successfully commenced my new work timetable that I devised while I was away as part of my self-imposed Get Real Challenge. In the likely case that you are more sophisticated than me and missed that allusion, Dr Phil put sad people on Get Real Challenges in the early noughties.

I don't like Dr Phil. I haven't watched him or Opes in ages. Actually, I don't watch much TV at all. I no longer have a TV. I watch Stephen Fry shows on BBC iPlayer, and sometimes I watch Strictly Come Dancing, that is until I recognise that it's the jingle in between each segment that is making me feel mildly anxious. I was into The Wire for a bit, now it's 30 Rock.

I have recently read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg. I was a bit late on The Kite Runner train - all the hype made me think it might be of the same texture as the Da Vinci Code: vomity. But it wasn't at all. It was epic, gripping and sentimental (if a little heavy-handed at times). I felt a little emotionally manipulated at the end, but I went with it, snot bubbles and all.

The Little Virtues is more my thing: eleven essays, part memoir, part fiction. It's imbued with (post-WW2) moralising and nostalgia, a wonderful self-deprecating wit and perfect, often prickly observations (especially about the English, which made me feel like her friend).

Here is some preaching:

And the story of human relationships never ceases for us; because little by little they become all too easy for us, all too natural and spontaneous - so spontaneous and so undemanding that there is no richness, discovery or choice about them; they are just habit and complacency, a kind of intoxicated naturalness. We believe that we can always return to that secret moment of ours, that we can draw on the right words; but it isn't true that we can always go back there, often our return there is false; we make our eyes glow with a false light, we pretend to be warm and caring towards our neighbour and we are in fact once more shrunken and hunchen up in the icy darkness of our heart. Human relationships had to be rediscovered and reinvented every day. We have to remember constantly that every kind of meeting with our neighbour is a human action and so it is always good or evil, true or deceitful, kindness or a sin (Human Relationships).

And some funny:

The English rarely show surprise. If it happens that someone faints in the street, everything is provided for. In a few seconds a chair is found for him, a glass of water, a uniformed nurse (England: Eulogy and Lament).

I am trying to widen my range of extra-curricular material to include some more current affairs coverage. I realised again when I was hanging out with my brother who asked me for my opinion on multiple public issues just how very insulated and self-obsessed one (has to) become during the last phases of write-up (and maybe even during the whole damned thing, at least in Oxford). I read about the strife in Gaza and the current financial crisis, and I try to get my head around some of the range of issues, but as soon as I am finished, I simply click on another webpage or go back to the Old Bastard and my thoughts. I connect certain themes together, but I don't feel nearly as passionate or even concerned about the people or places involved as I would normally. I don't like that really.

But charity starts in the home (right internet?) and I had the rather unusual experience today of having two man pals seek my advice about Love. I have experienced emotional males before, just not two in one day and both in such self-conscious, advisor-advisee situations. One of them was gushy and needed assurance that his sentiments would be reciprocated, the other was teary and overwhelmed about possibly giving up an old relationship for a new one. I have noticed that at the beginning of every term here, there are heightened feelings; intense fearfulness about losing and gaining - people, things, achievements, careers, and places. I listened, validated, shared and made suggestions where appropriate, as I would with my lady friends.

I really do give out a lot of energy when people ask me for advice. I wish the Old Bastard were a real person stretched on a couch, simply listening to my wise words and appreciating my charm. He's not like that.

Am I a True Boatie?

I experienced my first race as a cox on Saturday. It was the Nephthys Regatta on the Isis. I was in the cockpit for a women's novice crew and, quite stunningly, we made it through four races against various other Colleges to reach the finals (only to start a mexican wave of crab catching and lose by half a boat length).


The races themselves were pretty thrilling, and the outcome was clearly positive for the College boatie comunity. It was a lovely, bright day on the river and a really nice way to spend time with some new friends I have made.


But, (and I bet you knew that was coming), not gonna lie, I am still unsure of my status as novice cox. Do I want to hand my identity over to the boathouse? Subject myself to hierarchy, hugs and hand gestures?

Plus, it can be a pretty angry sport, the old rowing. In fact, I found the rage of the marshals the most challenging part of the day. Having been waiting politely out of the way, and now well and truly past scheduled start time and with the chill setting in, they would suddenly megaphone things like "[College] cox spin now or you'll be disqualified!" "You have to move now!" as though somehow you had been insolent and incompetent. They would then repeat these commands over and over until you were so flustered that you managed to get yourself sucked into a current of death (for instance) and instant disqualification seemed merciful and even fair.


There are more races this week. I think if I could be airlifted or otherwise transported to the start of the race, and thus by-pass all the nonsense involved in getting the boat out of the boathouse and to the start line, I would be perfectly happy to be a boatie for a while.

Freshers' Week

HckySo

After a long sojourn au countryside, I have finally returned to my College, to a new room overlooking pretty things, which is important. As I type this, in the corner of my eye there is a golden tree being lit up by soft morning light and copied in the rippling water. I am reacquainting myself with matinal lawn-mowing. The College policy is to excessively trim and blow. The leaf-blowing can make me want to crush things. But there is no leaf-blowing today. It is crisp and promising. I am feeling peaceful and ready to work.

It's the start of Noughth Week or Freshers' Week, a week that ends when everyone has Grotty Flu. I went to the College Bar last night to rebond with friends who have returned from various trips, fieldwork stints and write-up caves. I became embroiled in rowing and Australians v New Zealander banter, which didn't thrill me, but the rest was most enjoyable indeed [wobble chin]. We asked about each other's holidays, relationships, research and plans for the year. There are many lovely 'freshers' (new students) and, as a group, they seem ebullient, if a little hyper. Every year has a personality, you see. Since I have been here it has been: eccentric, brutal, earnest, and close and cliquey. It's too early to say for sure what this year's is.

I told Kiwi Fresher, who called me 'Dingo' and kept on mimicking my voice that he had a week to get over me being Australian. He said to give him two days. Deal.

You can already see the grip of College Neurosis over the freshers in their striking need for attention and acceptance. For freshers, Michaelmas Term means an almost constant drive to give sound bites, to make sure everyone knows just how carefree your personality is (It's so carefree, don't you think? Don't you think? Tell me!), to make absolute claims about what you're about and how much you know, to link arms with people you met 30 seconds ago, to give freebie rubs and strokes to everyone - even the catering staff - en route to the toilet or the tray rack, to be involved in every dinner plan (like the international dinner which apparently took place last night), punting session or dress-up activity.

In this kerazy environment, things are often misinterpreted. Last night, for instance, Outrageous 'I drink red wine every night' Fresher completely missed the ironic tone of an admittedly fairly poor (but nonetheless objectively harmless) joke I made about freshers. I didn't think it would bring the house down, but I thought it might elicit a bit of a chortle [cross/ rejection noise from Family Feud].

When I caught Outrageous Fresher alone, I told her that I think she had misunderstood my intentions. She agreed. But it was silly of me, really. Freshers' Week is no laughing matter. There are a lot of exuberant faces, wild hand gestures and petit scandals, all of which come to a crescendo at the Saturday's 'Uniform' (with a hint of slag) bop or College party, but it's all too fresh for the freshers (haha, see what I did there?) to laugh at right now.

Self-presentation Through Facebook Photo Albums

The other night I was in an insipid bar with fellow graduate students. The mood was grim with the heavy weight of exams, thesis write-ups, and general alcohol and college food-related sluggishness. We self-consciously and frantically cheered each other up with drinking games (throwing a penny in a glass to enforce skulling), grisly dentistry and burn stories, unsubtle sexual comments and by re-enacting happier times together; what have become our collective myths.

But we rode home on our cheap town bikes with flashing LED lights feeling desperate, undignified, wanting, calculating who had received the most attention, why our jokes and anecdotes were not indulged but, rather, taken as challenges for someone else, why no one cared about our academic progress, our families, our dreams and goals since these seemed to get in the way, to be incomprehensible and dull, or to be seen as bait for the insecure and competitive.

Let's face it, most graduate students at elite universities would be more likely to share verbal gun shots than anything else if there weren't the threat of collegial sanctions, and of course if there wasn't some chance that these verbose frenemies would soon become the next leader of one's country, one's boss, a celebrity campaigner with a rainbow family, end up in statue form.

What has become a prevalent way to release envy, tension, boredom, to make things right, to restore a sense of wholesome fun, egalitarianism and community is the immediate creation and posting of Facebook photo albums. Often these albums are created seemingly at the same time that the creator is moaning about their supervisor and necking their house red. Through the creation of online albums, one can present all of those moments where one's social group is together, giggling, leaning on one another, touching breasts, intensely pouting, making silly faces, tipping beer on someone's head, cuddling, smiling crazily. This is where one can erase all those moments only seconds before the photograph was taken where we wondered what on earth we were doing with these people, again, when we wondered whether things would become more interesting if we stayed, when we anxiously hoped that we would be accepted, validated, understood, made to feel clever, funny, popular, astute and special.

Facebook is, as Alice Mathias has said:

an online community theater. In costumes we customize in a backstage makeup room — the Edit Profile page, where we can add a few Favorite Books or touch up our About Me section — we deliver our lines on the very public stage of friends’ walls or photo albums. And because every time we join a network, post a link or make another friend it’s immediately made visible to others via the News Feed, every Facebook act is a soliloquy to our anonymous audience.

Mathias was in all likelihood drawing on Goffman's (1959) dramaturgical analysis. Goffman sees social life as though played out by actors on a stage. Most of our social lives can be divided into the front stage - where we act our formal roles in our encounters with people - and the back stage - where we assemble props and prepare ourselves for these "onstage performances".

This feature of Facebook allows for a curious and disturbing form of self-performance. The photo albums we present to ourselves and to the rest of our online world can eclipse the actual experience (indeed the very act of taking the photographs can engender a sad competition to be included amongst friends). The albums allow us to deceive ourselves and each other that the past was glorious, that we are celebrated.

But sometimes we're not celebrated. I'm still waiting for one of last night's photos to include my exuberant face.

[photo courtesy of mrquicknet under Creative Commons license]