Sunday, June 16, 2013

Death throes

Sometimes you can spend an entire weekend doing something by not really doing it.
The 3 people who still read this blog know that I'm very very close to the end of my PhD. I'm actually at that point that I know other PhD students have reached where they chuck a hissy and submit it.
'Good enough!' they cry, dropping into the mail chute. Or giving it to the office. Or whatever ceremony goes along with it. I generally like to imagine an office admin pulling out a bell and giving it a few shakes. Nothing massive, but something out of the ordinary. Then we could all use a community-shaping euphemism:
'You rung the bell yet?'
'Nope, still got my conclusion to tidy up.'
That kind of thing.

My obstruction to 'ringing the bell' (maybe it'll catch on!) is the abstract. 500 words, what's the thesis about.
Easy, right?
Sort of.
It's a summary of a summary of a summary of my thesis.
I'm sure, once I get the wording right, I'll be asked to summarise it again. Maybe I'll just remove everything that's not a noun or a verb:

Thesis. 
Class. Literature. Metaphor. Australia. Power. Novel.

At least I won't have to spend long on it when that time comes.

I spent the entire weekend thinking about it and not very much time actually doing it. Even less productivity came out at the end. I'll get there. Go, me. Go.

And, of course, the final absolutely last bit is (I think) the acknowledgements. I'm thinking of doing it year-book style with little portrait photos of everyone and awards underneath. But that could just be the procrastination talking ...

Monday, June 3, 2013

Racism

Something I've learned in the last week: The only thing a white Australian seems to hate more than being called a racist is seeing a black Australian being told 'sorry'.

It's the same objections that came up before, during and after Kevin Rudd's Apology. All these people rumbling away in the background how it wasn't them, it wasn't their ancestors, why should they have to feel bad?

I think there's some specific white terror that, if we say sorry, then we'll have to give everything back. I think the fear of apology is borne of an implicit knowledge that, boy, did we whites really get away with absolutely everything. And it's so close to the surface, that the merest suggestion that, perhaps, we should all take some responsibility for the current thinking on race in Australia, suddenly everyone's throwing up their hands and wagging their heads and generally behaving as though white privilege does not exist.

An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test

Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.

Have you heard of the band Joy Division?

Chinese food, not Chinese Internet!

Champions of Guess The Header

  • What is Guess The Header about? Let’s ask regular “Writing” reader, Shippy: "Anyway, after Franzy's stunning September, and having a crack at 'Guess The Header' for the first time - without truly knowing what I was doing mind you - I think I finally understand what 'GTH' is all about. At first I thought you needed to actually know what it was. Don't get me wrong — if you know what it is, it may help you. I now realise that it's more Franzy's way of invoking thought around an image or, more often than not, part of an image. If you dissect slightly the GTH explanatory sentence at the bottom of his blog you come up with this: “The photo is always taken by me and always connects in some way to the topic of the blog entry it heads up.” When the header is put up, the blog below it will in some obscure way have something to do with it. “Interesting comments are judged and scored arbitrarily and the process is open to corruption and bribery with all correspondence being entered into after the fact and on into eternity, ad infinitum amen.” Franzy judges it, but it's not always the GTH that describes the place perfectly that gets it. “The frequent commenters, the wits, the wags and the outright smartarses who, each entry, engage to both guess the origin and relevance of the strip of photo at the top (or “head”) of each new blog and also who leave what I deem the most interesting comment.” It generally helps if you're a complete smartarse and can twist things to mean whatever you feel they should mean - exactly the way Franzy would like things to be twisted." - Shippy Blogger and GTH point scorer.
  • Nai - 1
  • Lion Kinsman - 2
  • Will - 2
  • Brocky - 2
  • Andy Pants - 2
  • The 327th Male - 3
  • Mad Cat Lady - 3
  • Miles McClagen - 4
  • Myninjacockle - 4
  • Asheligh - 5
  • Neil - 5
  • Third Cat - 5
  • Adam Y - 6
  • Squib - 6
  • Mele - 6
  • Moifey - 7
  • Jono - 8
  • The Other, other Sam - 14
  • Kath Lockett - 15
  • Shippy - 19
  • River - 32