So I joined a writing group recently, or more accurately I helped start a writing group recently. It's going well and there are four members, we have known each other for a long time but not through our writing so we are comfortable enough to critique each other honestly but not familiar enough with each other's work that we get caught up in the author's voice.
I had forgotten how nice it is to be critiqued by people who's opinions you respect while in a supportive environment. I enjoy having my beliefs and assumptions challenged, after all if I don't allow other people to challenge my ideas how can I know how strong they really are? This includes the ideas and application of those ideas that I put into my writing.
The problem, of course, is the supportive environment. It is ridiculously easy to be abused for thinking something by someone with a different view, the problem is that so many people seem to be less interested in having a discussion that challenges the beliefs of both parties than in having a discussion to prove the other wrong and convert their thinking.
Having different opinions is what makes life interesting, and I hope this writing group allows me to have these wonderfully challenging conversations and, as part of this, improve my writing and hopefully churn out something that may even be worthy of publishing someday.
Friday 26 April 2013
Tuesday 23 April 2013
American Travel Story: Part 5
Previously: I discovered that Washington salmon is delicious. Seriously, that and sleeping on planes was about all I got up to.
An early start for the first day of university related activities. Today's activities consisted of seeing many of Washington's monuments, which I was looking forward to, with the worst lecturer I have ever had as tour guide, which I most certainly wasn't looking forward to. Another factor that we were coming to terms with was the combination of two very important truths: First, Americans put sugar in everything, and second, sugar makes you pee. We were little worried that a day spent mostly on a bus before our bladders had adjusted to this diet could have become very messy very quickly.
The first stop on the tour was the Capitol, which involved us standing outside the security barriers in place for the presidential inauguration. As we were there for nearly twenty minutes we also checked out the nearby statues of James Garfield and Ulysses Grant.
The bus then took us past the Washington Monument, which is still closed due to earthquake damage, and around Tidal Basin. Despite stopping to take photos at several memorials the majority of what our tour guide had to say was how disappointing it was that we'd miss the Cherry Blossom Festival and how beautiful the Cherry Blossom festival is and that the Cherry Blossom festival is a great example of integration of cultures. He did give us some information about Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr, but given the reactions of others on the bus I am assuming it was mostly incorrect.
By this time my camera, which had been making weird noises all morning, decided that it didn't want to change focus at all so all my pictures had to be at exactly the right distance or they were completely out of focus. I had plenty of time to try and fix this, though, as we drove to Mount Vernon.
After God knows how long of our lecturer randomly announcing a fun fact he'd obviously just remembered, and remembered incorrectly at that, we arrived at George Washington's house. Having arrived we then got to wait in the tour bus while the lecturer went and booked tickets, because prebooking is not something to worry about when organising an international trip for just over 40 people.
Eventually we gained admission and were soon sitting through a 25 minute orientation film detailing the life of George Washington that everyone agreed we could have done without. After the film we had roughly 20 minutes left before we had to be on the bus again which meant that by the time the last group had made it through the house itself we were already running late.
After our rush to get back to the bus we drove back into DC for lunch at the Union Station food court, apparently a must for our US cultural experience. We spent as long in the food court as we had at Mount Vernon which seemed excessive but I find myself unable to complain about the stop as it included my first ever taste of Ben and Jerry's.
After lunch we headed out of DC again to visit Arlington Cemetery. Yes, for those of you keeping score we traveled from Maryland to DC to Virginia to DC to Virginia. Upon arriving we once again stood around waiting, this time for the bus that would take us to JFK's grave and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
I ended up at the back of the line for the bus back to the cemetery entrance and it was already full before I was able to get on meaning I needed to walk back to the entrance. This walk turned out to be the most moving experience of the entire visit to the cemetery, not just because I got a much clearer idea of the scale of the place than I did from the bus but also because of the quiet and peacefulness of the grounds.
After Arlington, we headed back to DC once again. Back, in fact, to within spitting distance of the Tidal Basin and the monuments we'd seen before heading to Mount Vernon. This time it was to see the Lincoln Memorial and nearby Korean War Veterans Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
We also found place where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his famous I Have a Dream Speech, but unfortunately the lighting wasn't conducive to my photos of the dedication there being in focus.
Eventually we headed back to the bus and on to dinner at a 'traditional' Italian restaurant where the meal included, confusingly, a Greek salad. Soon enough, though, dinner was over and we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before our introduction to American education tomorrow.
Culture shock for the day: Marinara pasta sauce. In America this is equivalent to a napolitana back home and includes exactly zero seafood. Weird.
Next time: More statues at the University of Maryland!
An early start for the first day of university related activities. Today's activities consisted of seeing many of Washington's monuments, which I was looking forward to, with the worst lecturer I have ever had as tour guide, which I most certainly wasn't looking forward to. Another factor that we were coming to terms with was the combination of two very important truths: First, Americans put sugar in everything, and second, sugar makes you pee. We were little worried that a day spent mostly on a bus before our bladders had adjusted to this diet could have become very messy very quickly.
The first stop on the tour was the Capitol, which involved us standing outside the security barriers in place for the presidential inauguration. As we were there for nearly twenty minutes we also checked out the nearby statues of James Garfield and Ulysses Grant.
Our lecturer/tour guide informed us that the statue atop the dome is "Lady Liberty" but Wikipedia assures me that it is the Statue of Freedom, confirming my belief that the Statue of Liberty is on Liberty Island in New York after all.
James A. Garfield Ulysses S. Grant
The bus then took us past the Washington Monument, which is still closed due to earthquake damage, and around Tidal Basin. Despite stopping to take photos at several memorials the majority of what our tour guide had to say was how disappointing it was that we'd miss the Cherry Blossom Festival and how beautiful the Cherry Blossom festival is and that the Cherry Blossom festival is a great example of integration of cultures. He did give us some information about Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr, but given the reactions of others on the bus I am assuming it was mostly incorrect.
The Jefferson Memorial
Apparently Jefferson single-handedly wrote the US Constitution according, once again, to our lecturer
The Roosevelt Memorial is the only presidential memorial to feature a statue of a First Lady or Presidential Pet
I found it ironic that the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial was made from white granite but I was quickly informed that the type of stone used was one of the least controversial aspects of this memorial.
By this time my camera, which had been making weird noises all morning, decided that it didn't want to change focus at all so all my pictures had to be at exactly the right distance or they were completely out of focus. I had plenty of time to try and fix this, though, as we drove to Mount Vernon.
After God knows how long of our lecturer randomly announcing a fun fact he'd obviously just remembered, and remembered incorrectly at that, we arrived at George Washington's house. Having arrived we then got to wait in the tour bus while the lecturer went and booked tickets, because prebooking is not something to worry about when organising an international trip for just over 40 people.
Eventually we gained admission and were soon sitting through a 25 minute orientation film detailing the life of George Washington that everyone agreed we could have done without. After the film we had roughly 20 minutes left before we had to be on the bus again which meant that by the time the last group had made it through the house itself we were already running late.
The house itself, no pictures were allowed inside unfortunately
As you can see my efforts to fix my camera resulted in it randomly giving a fish eye effect to almost all my photos
After our rush to get back to the bus we drove back into DC for lunch at the Union Station food court, apparently a must for our US cultural experience. We spent as long in the food court as we had at Mount Vernon which seemed excessive but I find myself unable to complain about the stop as it included my first ever taste of Ben and Jerry's.
After lunch we headed out of DC again to visit Arlington Cemetery. Yes, for those of you keeping score we traveled from Maryland to DC to Virginia to DC to Virginia. Upon arriving we once again stood around waiting, this time for the bus that would take us to JFK's grave and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
I ended up at the back of the line for the bus back to the cemetery entrance and it was already full before I was able to get on meaning I needed to walk back to the entrance. This walk turned out to be the most moving experience of the entire visit to the cemetery, not just because I got a much clearer idea of the scale of the place than I did from the bus but also because of the quiet and peacefulness of the grounds.
I feel like the contemplative experience is lost thanks to the fish eye effect
After Arlington, we headed back to DC once again. Back, in fact, to within spitting distance of the Tidal Basin and the monuments we'd seen before heading to Mount Vernon. This time it was to see the Lincoln Memorial and nearby Korean War Veterans Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
The Korean War Veterans Memorial
Every service and support role is represented pictorially on the sandblasted wall
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The name of every soldier either killed or missing in action during the conflict is etched on the wall
The tribute to the women who served in Vietnam, mostly as nurses
The Lincoln Memorial
The statue's hands make the ASL signs for A and L The Gettysburg Address is reproduced in full
We also found place where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his famous I Have a Dream Speech, but unfortunately the lighting wasn't conducive to my photos of the dedication there being in focus.
Eventually we headed back to the bus and on to dinner at a 'traditional' Italian restaurant where the meal included, confusingly, a Greek salad. Soon enough, though, dinner was over and we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before our introduction to American education tomorrow.
Culture shock for the day: Marinara pasta sauce. In America this is equivalent to a napolitana back home and includes exactly zero seafood. Weird.
Next time: More statues at the University of Maryland!
Thursday 18 April 2013
Less work, more time
It feels, somehow, like I have less free time this year, even though I'm doing fewer subjects at uni. Sure I've been filling some of that time with job searching and the like but it still seems like it is taking me more time to do less work.
Some philosopher with a name said that the size of any task increases to fill the allotted time. My uni work this year is certainly living up to that statement and it surprises me.
I've always been a busy person, with far too much on my plate at any one time and for the first time in my memory I should have time to really have a good relax and enjoy the peacefulness of having nothing to do. Despite this it seems that there is still always something that needs to be done and I'm still putting fun and personal things off.
Perhaps I don't know how not to be a busy person.
Some philosopher with a name said that the size of any task increases to fill the allotted time. My uni work this year is certainly living up to that statement and it surprises me.
I've always been a busy person, with far too much on my plate at any one time and for the first time in my memory I should have time to really have a good relax and enjoy the peacefulness of having nothing to do. Despite this it seems that there is still always something that needs to be done and I'm still putting fun and personal things off.
Perhaps I don't know how not to be a busy person.
Tuesday 9 April 2013
Interesting?
The other day I was reading a request for bloggers with interesting blogs to get in touch, it finished with the following statement "be honest, you know if you're interesting or not."
The problem is, I don't. I find my writing interesting, but I am well aware that different people have different tastes. An example of this is my undying love of blue brie, a taste I am well aware is not shared by a great many people.
I believe I have mentioned before that I have social phobia. This manifests in many ways, often intermingling with my anxiety disorder, but the most common is that something as simple as "you know if you're interesting or not" makes me overanalyse everything I know about myself and how people view me.
The thought process goes something along the lines of:
Do other people know if they're interesting?
They must or they wouldn't say that.
So other people know what is interesting and what isn't?
Am I somehow defective for not instinctively knowing this?
Maybe I just shouldn't say anything.
I have absolutely nothing to contribute to this situation.
I have absolutely nothing to contribute to any situation.
And eventually:
I try to avoid feeling like that through mental and behavioural control techniques, and I try to avoid talking about it because acknowledging that I have this thing hanging over my head which could cause me to break down in tears and thoughts tending towards the macabre at any given moment.
I like to think that on the whole I tend to present myself as fairly happy and upbeat and as people are often surprised when I tell them I have social phobia I assume I do that reasonably well. However, I am never sure how much faith to put in other people's responses because they may just be humouring me.
So I don't know if anyone other than me thinks I'm interesting, I don't know if anyone else wants to read what I put here. But I'm going to keep doing it because I enjoy it and I'm hoping that others will as well.
The problem is, I don't. I find my writing interesting, but I am well aware that different people have different tastes. An example of this is my undying love of blue brie, a taste I am well aware is not shared by a great many people.
I believe I have mentioned before that I have social phobia. This manifests in many ways, often intermingling with my anxiety disorder, but the most common is that something as simple as "you know if you're interesting or not" makes me overanalyse everything I know about myself and how people view me.
The thought process goes something along the lines of:
Do other people know if they're interesting?
They must or they wouldn't say that.
So other people know what is interesting and what isn't?
Am I somehow defective for not instinctively knowing this?
Maybe I just shouldn't say anything.
I have absolutely nothing to contribute to this situation.
I have absolutely nothing to contribute to any situation.
And eventually:
I try to avoid feeling like that through mental and behavioural control techniques, and I try to avoid talking about it because acknowledging that I have this thing hanging over my head which could cause me to break down in tears and thoughts tending towards the macabre at any given moment.
I like to think that on the whole I tend to present myself as fairly happy and upbeat and as people are often surprised when I tell them I have social phobia I assume I do that reasonably well. However, I am never sure how much faith to put in other people's responses because they may just be humouring me.
So I don't know if anyone other than me thinks I'm interesting, I don't know if anyone else wants to read what I put here. But I'm going to keep doing it because I enjoy it and I'm hoping that others will as well.
Monday 8 April 2013
An All-Female Panel
Tonight there is an all-female panel on QandA, a trend that appears to have recently started again on a number of panel shows. Now I have no problem with an all-female panel on a show, so long as it doesn't happen too often, but it annoys me that the media doesn't seem to feel the same way about an all-male panel. How is this equality?
I'm not for one moment suggesting that "the pendulum has swung too far" or that "the scales have tipped" or any of the other annoyingly oversimplified expressions that are often applied to this viewpoint. Personally I think that there are many areas in which more work needs to be done to achieve equality despite equality already being reached in others.
I don't think it's right for companies to have a policy outlining the minimum number of women on staff but not the minimum number of men. I don't think it's right for all male support groups to have to justify their exclusivity while all female groups don't. And I especially think it wrong for issues to be labelled the exclusive territory of either women or men.
I choose not to call myself a feminist, even though I believe in the ideals of equality that feminism originally stood for, because too many feminists seem to have lost sight of those ideals. Also too many people seem to view the empowerment of women and the disempowerment of men as the same thing and call that feminism. While the ideals are good, the term feminist has acquired too much baggage to be effective, not least of which is the fact that the term emphasises the female - useful when the inequality was at the extreme level of the early 20th century, but not so useful now. Masculinism (which unlike feminism isn't recognised by spell checkers) follows the belief that for equality the recognition and redress of discrimination against men is just as important as the recognition and redress of discrimination against women. Despite this, though, I have trouble with masculinism as well, again the name emphasises one gender over the other. Perhaps a better term would be equalism.
The whole premise that equality is a single issue is still problematic for me, though. As I stated before, the idea that a pendulum swings or scales tip may be a nice visual but it oversimplifies the broad range of issues involved in equality in the worst possible way. As long as equality is viewed as a single issue, rather than a set of problems requiring a range of solutions then it will be forever beyond our grasp because applying a blanket solution has never, and in all probability will never, work.
I understand that this is a touchy issue, but if what I've written offends you then tough. I am merely stating my viewpoint and if you disagree then you are welcome to let me know your viewpoint in the comments. I am thoroughly sick of being told that I'm wrong without people having the courtesy to justify their position or that I don't understand the issue and then have no attempt made to help me understand it.
I'm not for one moment suggesting that "the pendulum has swung too far" or that "the scales have tipped" or any of the other annoyingly oversimplified expressions that are often applied to this viewpoint. Personally I think that there are many areas in which more work needs to be done to achieve equality despite equality already being reached in others.
I don't think it's right for companies to have a policy outlining the minimum number of women on staff but not the minimum number of men. I don't think it's right for all male support groups to have to justify their exclusivity while all female groups don't. And I especially think it wrong for issues to be labelled the exclusive territory of either women or men.
I choose not to call myself a feminist, even though I believe in the ideals of equality that feminism originally stood for, because too many feminists seem to have lost sight of those ideals. Also too many people seem to view the empowerment of women and the disempowerment of men as the same thing and call that feminism. While the ideals are good, the term feminist has acquired too much baggage to be effective, not least of which is the fact that the term emphasises the female - useful when the inequality was at the extreme level of the early 20th century, but not so useful now. Masculinism (which unlike feminism isn't recognised by spell checkers) follows the belief that for equality the recognition and redress of discrimination against men is just as important as the recognition and redress of discrimination against women. Despite this, though, I have trouble with masculinism as well, again the name emphasises one gender over the other. Perhaps a better term would be equalism.
The whole premise that equality is a single issue is still problematic for me, though. As I stated before, the idea that a pendulum swings or scales tip may be a nice visual but it oversimplifies the broad range of issues involved in equality in the worst possible way. As long as equality is viewed as a single issue, rather than a set of problems requiring a range of solutions then it will be forever beyond our grasp because applying a blanket solution has never, and in all probability will never, work.
I understand that this is a touchy issue, but if what I've written offends you then tough. I am merely stating my viewpoint and if you disagree then you are welcome to let me know your viewpoint in the comments. I am thoroughly sick of being told that I'm wrong without people having the courtesy to justify their position or that I don't understand the issue and then have no attempt made to help me understand it.
Sunday 7 April 2013
The Pretense of Adulthood
So I've decided that I should probably stop pretending that I'm a responsible adult type person and admit that for all intents and purposes I'm still roughly eight years old.
I have good reason for this conclusion, I spent most of yesterday playing board games, watching cartoons, reading comics and playing video games and eating almost every variety of food that is guaranteed to give you either diabetes or a heart attack. Also, but I did all of this with a group of friends, all roughly my age, who also claim to be adults, some even responsible ones.
These are all things that I am regularly told are for kids and I should have grown out of it by now and, oh my absolute favourite, that I "should act more my age" which I'm starting to understand just means be more boring. I don't, however, intend to let anyone else tell me what I should and shouldn't enjoy doing at what age - if I'm not hurting anybody and I'm not breaking the law then butt the hell out.
So I've decided not to bother pretending that I'm an adult with adult sensibilities. I like YA fiction, I like wasting summer afternoons playing with water pistols and winter afternoons playing with nerf guns, I like my music too loud and my drinks too strong, and I enjoy awkward jokes about various bodily excretions more that I should.
I'm going to try and be more confident about it and not try and hide that I have the maturity of a squirrel with ADHD. Except in job interviews.
I have good reason for this conclusion, I spent most of yesterday playing board games, watching cartoons, reading comics and playing video games and eating almost every variety of food that is guaranteed to give you either diabetes or a heart attack. Also, but I did all of this with a group of friends, all roughly my age, who also claim to be adults, some even responsible ones.
These are all things that I am regularly told are for kids and I should have grown out of it by now and, oh my absolute favourite, that I "should act more my age" which I'm starting to understand just means be more boring. I don't, however, intend to let anyone else tell me what I should and shouldn't enjoy doing at what age - if I'm not hurting anybody and I'm not breaking the law then butt the hell out.
So I've decided not to bother pretending that I'm an adult with adult sensibilities. I like YA fiction, I like wasting summer afternoons playing with water pistols and winter afternoons playing with nerf guns, I like my music too loud and my drinks too strong, and I enjoy awkward jokes about various bodily excretions more that I should.
Source is probably somewhere on Tumblr
I'm going to try and be more confident about it and not try and hide that I have the maturity of a squirrel with ADHD. Except in job interviews.
Tuesday 2 April 2013
American Travel Story: Part 4
Previously: A highlight of my final day in Hawai'i was seeing the place World War II ended, a lowlight was being abused by the English.
This was a day mostly filled with not knowing what time it was. I boarded a plane out of Honolulu at 9:30pm and flew to Seattle. After six hours on the plane I arrived at 5:15 in the morning and having adjusted to Hawai'ian time my body was trying to tell me it was far too early to be waking up yet. I don't know whether my stomach thought it was breakfast, dinner or something else entirely but I had a smoked salmon bagel with Washington Salmon at the airport.
Two and a half hours later I boarded another flight during which I tried desperately not to sleep because I knew that I would be arriving in the other Washington at the end of the day local time and the very last thing I needed before the first day of actually needing to be in a university work frame of mind was having my time zones completely muddled.
This was harder than it may seem as my body was still insisting that it was sometime before six in the morning and that I hadn't had a proper sleep in over 24 hours. Being completely out of whack with sleep also makes waiting at airports less than serene, a fact which I discovered when the flight got in early but the luggage made it to the carousel late and again when the hotel shuttle company told me to wait in their competitor's bay. In any event it took me over two hours from exiting the plane to leaving the airport.
I eventually got to the hotel and met up with Roomie, whose name has been changed to protect the innocent. I felt that we'd get along pretty well from the start and he never complained about my snoring so that was a bonus. A group of us got together and went to the Applebee's next door to swap stories about our trips so far and start bond as a group of displaced Aussies, specifically the horror stories of our plane trips, a topic that I was thankfully unable to contribute much to.
After dinner it was back to the room for a discussion about alarms, showers and all the fun stuff related to cohabiting. All in all a fairly short day, I could probably work it out and I'm guessing it would come to, at most, two thirds of a standard day and most of that spent on aeroplanes.
I guarantee tomorrow will be more interesting.
Culture shock for the day: I got talking to a fellow Australian on the trip from Seattle to Washington and he asked me what team I supported. Now I was assuming that he was talking about AFL, seeing as he came from Adelaide, so I answered Hawks. Strangely this made approximately half the plane adore me and the other half loathe me. Turns out I was on a plane full of NFL supporters heading to DC to see the Seattle Seahawks play the Washington Redskins. Turns out just because someone is an Australian doesn't mean they follow Aussie Rules, Rugby or even Soccer.
Next Time: All the monuments of ever and a train station food court.
This was a day mostly filled with not knowing what time it was. I boarded a plane out of Honolulu at 9:30pm and flew to Seattle. After six hours on the plane I arrived at 5:15 in the morning and having adjusted to Hawai'ian time my body was trying to tell me it was far too early to be waking up yet. I don't know whether my stomach thought it was breakfast, dinner or something else entirely but I had a smoked salmon bagel with Washington Salmon at the airport.
My experience of Washington State: an airport with a surprising amount of fish artwork
Two and a half hours later I boarded another flight during which I tried desperately not to sleep because I knew that I would be arriving in the other Washington at the end of the day local time and the very last thing I needed before the first day of actually needing to be in a university work frame of mind was having my time zones completely muddled.
This was harder than it may seem as my body was still insisting that it was sometime before six in the morning and that I hadn't had a proper sleep in over 24 hours. Being completely out of whack with sleep also makes waiting at airports less than serene, a fact which I discovered when the flight got in early but the luggage made it to the carousel late and again when the hotel shuttle company told me to wait in their competitor's bay. In any event it took me over two hours from exiting the plane to leaving the airport.
Taken a little before midday, meanwhile my brain insisted it was closer to midnight.
I eventually got to the hotel and met up with Roomie, whose name has been changed to protect the innocent. I felt that we'd get along pretty well from the start and he never complained about my snoring so that was a bonus. A group of us got together and went to the Applebee's next door to swap stories about our trips so far and start bond as a group of displaced Aussies, specifically the horror stories of our plane trips, a topic that I was thankfully unable to contribute much to.
After dinner it was back to the room for a discussion about alarms, showers and all the fun stuff related to cohabiting. All in all a fairly short day, I could probably work it out and I'm guessing it would come to, at most, two thirds of a standard day and most of that spent on aeroplanes.
I guarantee tomorrow will be more interesting.
Culture shock for the day: I got talking to a fellow Australian on the trip from Seattle to Washington and he asked me what team I supported. Now I was assuming that he was talking about AFL, seeing as he came from Adelaide, so I answered Hawks. Strangely this made approximately half the plane adore me and the other half loathe me. Turns out I was on a plane full of NFL supporters heading to DC to see the Seattle Seahawks play the Washington Redskins. Turns out just because someone is an Australian doesn't mean they follow Aussie Rules, Rugby or even Soccer.
Next Time: All the monuments of ever and a train station food court.
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