A Rant

A week of illness gives one time to be contemplative. Also, bored.

I've been surfing random LiveJournals. LiveJournal has a really nice update interface and all, but god, it has some morons posting there. Still, I thank them for using spelling options like "mah baybee" and so on; it's such a beautiful cue for "Hey! This person's a total fucking moron, and you should despise them and avoid contact with them!" Saves time.

#unisfa conversation has brought to mind a couple of things:

Post-primary school, teachers really shouldn't make students read things out loud. Those students who aren't good at it never will be, and those students who can do it smoothly and easily will find it really damned annoying.

Plays are fun, except when they can't pronounce the words in Shakespeare, or understand them, and whenever you do Romeo and Juliet some complete fucking moron always has to trot out that "wherefore art thou Romeo" "I'm over here" thing, and I'm sorry, people, but there's no comma in there, wherefore in less archaic terms translates to "why" not "where". Juliet's question is "why are you Romeo; a Montague and my enemy" not "where are you, and why are you STALKING ME".

Which brings us to plays I've hated: Romeo and Juliet I just disliked, because I found the protagonists to be not even vaguely sympathetic, I wanted to slap them both upside the head with a mallet.

Another one we did in High School was called No Sugar, by Jack Davis; I hated this one, too, for the following reasons:

- It's badly written, as a play. In terms of the staging requirements, it would make a passable film script, but as a play, it's impossible to do on a normal stage in the normal fashion.

- It's written as a historical play, but it's historically inaccurate. According to the events it references, there's a pregnancy in there that takes three years. My Lit teacher and I had long arguments about this; I still say that if you want to do a historical play, you're stuck with history, and it's incumbent upon you to DEAL WITH THAT.

- The plot is telegraphed and pedestrian. The characterisation is shoddy. The politics and general 'message' are unsubtle, where 'unsubtle' is defined as 'yes, we got it two acts ago, get on with it already'. Any kind of stylistic merit it might have retained is crushed by heavy-handed politics.

Another argument I used to have with my Lit teacher was about an Australian poet named Bruce Dawe. He loved Dawe; I scorn Dawe. He's written exactly two poems I think are well-written, and I still dislike one of those two a lot.

Damn it, just because we live in Australia, did we have to focus on Australian 'literature'? And if we did, why did we have to do the really shite stuff?

Especially "No Sugar". I have a lot of sympathy for the Aboriginal cause, but that play is positively counterproductive. After the second time we had to read through it, I was wavering on wishing Jack Davis' parents at least had been included in the massacre, just to save the world the pain of a bloody awful play that innocent people are forced to be exposed to out of sheer political correctness.

Really, I did hate it that much. Mind you, I hated Bruce Dawe, too, and not just because one of the two well-written poems mentioned above is extremely offensive politically. His. Poems. Suck.

I also didn't like reading Thomas Hardy. The Mayor of Casterbridge is one of the most boring books I've ever read; Tess of the D'urbervilles, ugh. I also hated Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and lamented long that he didn't follow through on his impulse to write in French rather than English.

So what do you actually like, Rae?

Let's do a county thing.

5 Playwrights:

- Arthur Miller
- Ibsen
- Willy Russell
- Aristophanes
- Shakespeare

4 Poets

- ee cummings
- Edith Sodergran
- Gwen Harwood
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

3 Plays

- A View From the Bridge (Arthur Miller)
- A Midsummer Night's Dream (Wm Shakespeare)
- Educating Rita (Willy Russell)

2 Poems

- somewhere i have never travelled (ee cumming)
- Ulysses (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

1 Book That's Worth Studying At School

- The Great Gatsby

(Explanation on that one: It's not too long for those with busy school or social schedules, it's a good and enjoyable book, and it's really easy to write about, because it's positively overloaded with symbolism.)

And there you go

Hello Kitty Psychoanalysis.

As long as I am in the natural environment, I will be peaceful to resolve any problem.

It's good to know.

Random thoughts

- I insulted Stephie wrong on Monday. I'm aggrieved about it. I told her I loved Jen more than her because she's prettier, forgetting that Stephie has relinquished So The Prettiest to Kadeton, and she is So The Shiniest. Sigh.

- I was talking to my ex earlier. For reasons which no-one else will understand and she'll hit me for, I'll refer to her as Jellybean. It occurred to me that being friends with exes is really, really cool, because you've got all this stuff in common that you don't have with other people. But I also recommend waiting a while before you try this. Jellybean and I only became friends again after cutting off contact for well over a year.

- I'm so going to fail this semester.

- I hope I'm wrong.

- Expansion packs for the Sims are getting just totally out of hand, and I refuse to drop more money on that game.

- I hate being sick.

- No, really.

So I'm hoping this is just a dose of 24-hour flu or something. Since I made the journey from "I have a vaguely sore throat and feel tireder than I should, but not enough that it actually affects function at all" to "barely conscious" in the space of an hour, and was at "I wish I were dead" within five hours of that, hopefully my recovery will be equally snappy. At this point I think I've reached "well, I could go to uni if I really had to, but I'd feel like shit" which is just as well, because tomorrow afternoon I really have to, even if I feel like shit.

At least the cats like having company for the day.

I found a quote from my last year's philosophy lecturer that I'd noted recently.

"No, really, I'm not prejudiced against the French. I'm sure there's a nice one."

Heh.

A Day in the Life

Monday, 6:40am.

Crap. I have to get up, we're due to leave in 35 minutes.

6:45am: Argh. I get up.

7:10am: I've breakfasted, I'm almost dressed, and my bag is packed. Standing in bathroom in trousers and bra, brushing my teeth, I hear Spike hiss. I look out of the bathroom, and he's just come in, and is hissing at Tabitha. As I hurry to keep him from killing her, I see him leap onto her back, claws extended. Tabitha wriggles free and bolts towards my bedroom. Murder in his eyes, Spike goes to follow. I jump to stand in front of him, blocking his path.

He lacerates my foot badly.

7:15am: The blood flow is staunched, a dressing has been applied, and I go to finish dressing. Unfortunately, I can no longer wear shoes today.

Note well: Going barefoot in winter is a very different proposition from going barefoot in summer. While the day was warm enough that my feet weren't overly cold, winter involves mud levels unknown in summer. I will say but this: yuck.

9:00am: Going through the Returns Box in fulfilment of my Librarianly duties, I find a ransom note for the Care Bear I left at StoryTime Village. The kidnappers demand "smootchies".

11:00am: Linguistics (Syntax). Adminstuff and some introductory lecture material.

Note: Chris, we love you. I know it's not much, but it's all I have.

12pm: The villain is identified as Stephie. Oliver aids me in intimidating her into returning the bear.

1pm: I have, supposedly, a two-hour lecture in Medieval English History. After fifteen minutes of admin stuff, Ernie releases us; effectively, the entire first week of this class is cancelled. I am not particularly impressed, even though Ernie seems cool.

Digression: Remarking on lecturers who let classes out early in the UniSFA room. Davyd opines that this is something to be celebrated when I mention in tones of disapproval the Maths lecturer I had last year who took about two weeks to develop lectures that lasted more than twenty minutes. I opined that if I've made the effort to get there at eight in the fucking morning, I want a decent lecture.

The thing is, though, regardless of how much I've had to put myself out to be present, I want a proper lecture always. This isn't high school. I'm at uni because I choose to be, I'm doing a given unit because I chose to do it, and I've made a commitment to learn. I'm not out to try and get away with doing as little as possible. If I want that badly not to be in a lecture, I'll skip it. (I skipped a lecture this very morning, but that's because I'm sick, not because I'm slack.)

Back to English History: Ernie made a big deal of using up-to-date sources. He explained that over time, things change; he used to teach the Tudors and Stuarts, and now everything they taught then is considered wrong. The basic facts were right, but the interpretations placed on them were wrong.

I seriously disagree with that. I've got some of the most interesting information I've ever had from eighty-year-old sources; and while the interpretations were different, I'm postmodernist enough to say that if you ask me they were just as valid, because that's what it is, interpretation. Yes, every few years we rewrite history according to changing modern prejudices and politics. What's your point? If you don't at least consider different perspectives, you're being foolish; and if you don't read any source, particularly secondary sources, critically, you're being positively moronic.

Anyway, my ankle was hurting badly, so I didn't go back to UniSFA, since my next lecture was at three. I used half an hour finding out I'm not allowed to get a parking permit this year (bastards), then read the textbook I bought that morning. Fascism, by Alan Cassells, not to be confused with Fascism, edited by Roger Griffin, our other textbook.

Cassells is boring as all hell (our lecturer even warned us about it) but contains much information; Griffin is an absolute wanker (I've read The Nature of Fascism, which he wrote, and wherein was held much bullshit), but this is an Oxford Reader containing a great many primary and secondary texts on fascism, which is useful, interesting and cool.

Then I went to my Fascism lecture. Rob, my lecturer, "the last of the Marxists", remarked that he almost wished he could have fascists in the class, as it makes tutorial discussions more interesting. Since our culture (and certainly he, as a Marxist) tends to be strongly anti-fascist, Rob explained that the biggest challenge in this unit tends to be finding a way to comprehend that fascist mind-set at all.

I actually don't have a problem with that, myself. I don't agree with fascism, but I can sort of see why someone would, taken in the context of the cultures and time periods in which fascism tends to happen.

But I'm drifting into material no longer for this blog.

After that, I ran into a couple of people and got the other textbook (which I hadn't been able to find, because it was in the Political Science section rather than the History section), stopped by UniSFA to retrieve Rainbow Bear, and went to fetch my parents.

Then rapidly degenerated into feeling like absolute crap, so my interestingness ends there (or possibly earlier, I don't know). My memory of last night is actually rather patchy.

Favourite phrases from Cassells:

"virtual manhood suffrage"

"nineteenth-century synthesis" (which he uses a lot in the first chapter or so)

Was going to blog. Have material. Even made notes during boring adminbumpf lecture.

Am sick. I make a sound like a punctured bagpipe bag thing when I inhale, my throat hurts, and I keep coughing. Coughing hard. The blood rushes to my head, I feel my blood vessels swell, and get genuinely worried I'm going to pop one.

Will be interesting tomorrow.

Oh, the guilt of abusing one's cat without intending to.

I moved my chair slightly - slightly - so that I could turn and get something. I heard a yelp of pain, and Tabitha dashed away - leaving a chunk of hair beneath the wheel of my chair. Alerted by her cry of agony, Spike came in to harass her, making it worse.

I cringe.

I did stay up all night; I didn't stay up all day. I napped from six a.m. However, I think I'm on track to being able to function tomorrow after getting up at 6:30am, so that's sorted.

I was reminded of the first time I tried to stay up really late. It was New Year's Eve about ten or twelve years ago, and I, my sister, and a couple of other kids at the camping club we were at were given permission to see the New Year in.

So between being excited about that, and the fact that we were just running around a lot anyway, and the fact that we weren't used to staying up that late - naturally, we were all of us unconscious by ten or eleven o'clock.

I watched TV tonight - this is unusual for me, but I'm actually rather fond of the show Harry's Practice. It's engagingly simple, generally cheerful, intermittently adorable, and I swear I want to marry Dr Katrina when I grow up. It's not just because she's cute - I love the way she goes completely gaga over all the animals. It's fun when she's glancing from the animals, to the camera, to the animals, to the camera, because her voice when she addresses the camera is just a speaking voice, but her tone shifts and goes all gooshy when she's looking at the animals.

It must be hard for the poor woman to have to say goodbye to animals she's encountered on the show, considering the way she seems to fall in love with all of them. There was one special episode they showed where her own cat had kittens. Curiously enough, when she was giving the kittens to their new owners, we never actually saw Katrina; one presumes that somewhere off-camera she was absolutely bawling her eyes out.

One of the interesting things in that episode was the explanation that at a certain phase in kittens' development, they form their primary socialisation behaviour thingies, and it's important for them to interact with humans and play with them then, because that makes them friendly cats when they grow up. I think Spike wasn't played with when he was a kitten, because he rejects human contact and affection even when his behaviour shows he craves it.

We've learnt how to stroke and cuddle Spike while still allowing him to pretend he's enduring it only because we're bigger than him. His ways of suggesting he wants it aren't very subtle - if you're hanging up laundry outside, for example, he'll wander over and lie down three feet away from you. If you move, he'll get up, follow you, and lie down three feet away from you - just casually hanging around outside, of course, not suggesting he wants to be spending time with you at all...

Of course, the humans around Spike at the time saw fit to dump him in a rubbish bin, so I hardly think they were nice people.

Tabitha, mind - Tabitha's well-socialised. A little affection and she's anyone's.

The war between them rages unabated. I actually sent a thingie to the Harry's Practice people asking if they could give tips for integrating two cats. (Hey, they're vets, and Harry achieves interesting things.) I haven't had a good night's sleep since we got Tabitha - I'm desperate.