Moving on…

The best thing about doing the MA is that I’ve really exorcised a lot of identity issues I had…In the same way I can’t pick up an English language memoir about the cultural revolution because I read every single memoir that came out in the 90s and early 00s, I can’t go near migrant or refugee stories.
I’ve overdosed.
I’m reading the same story.
People are telling me the same story. I’m telling the same friggin’ story.
I’ve become desensitized and cynical.

Do I really have anything original to say? No.

Demidenko performing Ukranian folk dance is no different to me pretending to know more about Chinese culture than I do. That non-Chinese guy Pai Kit Fai who wrote Catherine Lim’esque novel “Red Lotus”. Good on him. But really, he should have given himself a pin-yin translation of his Chinese name. That may have sucked me in.

Of course, it is human nature to categorize according to looks. Ted Chiang’s short story explores this idea.
In the Night Garden…a surrealist children’s TV show is also about Othering. Why does Makka Pakka have to give his stones to the bourgeois Upsy Daisy. Why does he have to sit alone and clean everything in the Night Garden?

Maybe I’ll do a PhD on In the Night Garden…

Red the latest Ben Elton book. I wish I could write like Ben Elton. I love the black humour. It was really nice to read for pleasure.

I’m learning Chinese again.

 

John Lennon – Hapa?

I’m just putting this one out there, since it’s not out there on the internet yet – or at least it’s not Googlable.
I’ve always thought John Lennon looked Eurasian. I don’t think it’s just because of his Qing dynasty glasses or his love of Yoko and May Pang, or that he is a father of a hapa kid. I’ve just always thought he looked mixed race.
I’ve been reading about Liverpool’s Chinatown and how it’s the oldest Chinatown in Europe – established in 1860s by Alfred Holt & Co, first steamship from to China. The Chinese men who worked these ships (I don’t like calling them seamen. I don’t like calling anyone seamen. It makes me giggle and blush like a 10 year old boy) married and had kids with Irish women. They didn’t import brides into Liverpool. Guess it was a long way for a woman to travel. California was just across the Pacific. There’s other theories such as the fact in California or at least in San Francisco records of people were lost in the fire, thus people were able to claim citizenship and bring their women folk over. Anyway, there was a growing Eurasian population. After the war, these Chinese fathers were repatriated and that’s all I’ve read thus far. I’m wondering whether John Lennon could be a descendant of one of these hapas and not even have known it himself?
There was a Chinese laundry that Lennon’s mum used in Penny Lane.

Okay I know this is how conspiracy theories begin. I think Sean Lennon would be a cool “Who do you think you are?” subject.

 

Low net usage

It really is a different way of being. Though I have to go back on line in a few weeks time.
Am a bit shat off with the kitchen. It looks fine except the Gen Y cabinet maker and his Gen Z side-kick (where are master cabinet makers these days?) fucked up one corner….so now we either have to get him back to replace the whole thing (another week of disruptions and a waste of resources)…or come up with another idea.
I think we need to get him back anyway to get an off cut and to glue it in.
grrrr it’s so annoying.
We have a weird shape kitchen. But geeze I know how to cut the templates.
These kids were kind of sloppy with their work.
But I mean the experienced guys can pick and choose.

 

Happier without the internet

I’ve so far stuck to me no facebook, no random emails, no stream of consciousness, diarhhea out of my finger tips bitchin’ and moanin’…I’ve been a lot happier and calmer, and have more space for people.
I’m not sure how realistic all of this is since I live in 2010, not 1910, but am hoping that I can limit my net usage to just meaningful emails and research, and okay a little bit of trash surfing.

I know eveyrone has an internet self, and I think my internet self is a little bit too unhinged at times. Sure it’s me, but it’s not really me…

 

An off line life is a life worth living

My computer blew up. I feel great.
It’s going to take a month to repair so I’m limited to writing my thesis by long hand and one hour per session public library net access.

I think that someone should do research into on-line personas.
Seriously. If I had the internet as a kid, I probably would have developed into a v. different human being.
Watched a v. good documentary about copyright. Wouldn’t have done that if I had net access…i’d still be wasting time on line viewing and reading things that distract. I’ve been on line since 1994 and communicating in this medium for nearly 16 years. That’s nearly half my life.
One day I will open a luddite yoga retreat. I think this is my dream.

Other resolutions
1. Finish draft by March so I can submit by July.
2. Yoga regularly.
3. Limit net access @ home to research/work stuff.
4. use public library computers for personal emails/blogs.
5. set up blog under real name – not a spontaneous prose blog.
6. try not to talk about my research with people who don’t really understand why or what i’m doing.
7. think before i speak/email/blog. though obviously i’m not doing it here.
The problem with typing is that i type as fast as i think.
so
final resolution – type slower.
breathe.

 

Good and Evil Net usage

Evil
- crap blogs
- facebook
- Googling random people.

Good
- good blogs
- access to academic papers.

Am going to limit internet time.
Facebook is really horrible.
I’m going to try and get back onto regular email.

 

New Years Resolution

1. Spend less time on-line. Tonight is an example of what happens when I stay on-line for too long. I was “researching” hotel accommodation and then went off on too many tangents. I really can’t deal with random information over load. Now I’m suffering from insomnia, know too much about people I don’t want to know that much about and have a very sore back. The two hours of granny yoga (I went to a class run by my yoga teacher at her house and it was full of geriatrics) I did this morning – the calm I achieved…gone!
2. Do Pilates as well as Yoga. Was reading an article about how Pilates lengthens your limbs. Or at least creates the illusion of having longer limbs.
3. Reduce carbon footprint.
4. Be less suburban. Going to granny yoga today made me realise I really should go to the city to do yoga. I want more moves damnit.
5. Have a better sleep routine. I go a bit wacko when I don’t sleep.
6. Learn Chinese again. I have a Chinese tutor (former student). I have to call her in the new year. Maybe I’ll send her a text tomorrow.
7. Not worry about turning down play dates. L starts school soon. He will meet other little people.
8. Avoid buying stuff. I have a lot of stuff. I have way too much stuff. I’ve culled 4 bags of stuff. I am going to empty the junk room and keep it as a guest room.
9. Set up a blog. A real one. Under my real name. It’ll force me to think before I write.
10. Write this friggin draft of an exegesis by March so I can move onto other projects.
11. When i’m feeling fragile, I will avoid conversations with conservative naysayers.
12. I will drink more water and eat more blueberries.

 

Block – must exorcise ghost of degrees past…

The voice inside my head is very different to the voice I need to write in for academic component of my MA.
What I’ve realised is this. Those who love academic writing have a flesh and blood self that is closer to the projection of the academic self. My sister is one of these people. She speaks in structured full sentences. She thinks before she speaks and she speaks in grammatically correct sentences. There are no unfinished sentences or utterances that lack the conviction and confidence of a sentence you might find in an academic essay.
Me on the other hand? This blog voice is pretty much the voice in my head. It rambles, it’s insecure, it tests out hypothesis before the thought is complete and it has no respect for structure and the discourses I must engage in, in order to finish this friggin’ MA and get that piece of paper.
And I tell myself, well yeah sure I can write without being in an MA degree, but I like the support, the structure and that space I get to write when I have enrolled in a formal course.
But now that I sit down to write this friggin exegesis I’m thinking – what the fuck is an exegesis? Is it just a load of navel gazing wank that gives those who can’t write creatively an outlet to explain what they’ve tried to say in their creative component?

I know I must find this voice. I must channel my friends who have this voice. Those who can say, “A is A and B is B” with conviction and believe that what they have to say is important and matters. (Even if it doesn’t).

I’m so scarred by my last experience of formal academic writing that I consciously discarded, mind dumped and then blocked out that voice for fear of triggering PSTD.

That supervisor said, yes writing is painful.

Which is why I started to write creatively, to prove that it wasn’t painful and writing creatively isn’t painful. It’s like yoga and breathing. It’s a joy and you don’t notice time passing. The research component has also been a pleasure. I don’t notice time passing.
Taking notes, writing in short hand and dot point – also not taxing and quite enjoyable.
Filing also fun.

ARghhhh how do I begin this??

 

Flu

flaked out.
have learnt a lot about the tori amos/courtney love/trent reznor triangle this morning.
apparently courtney is the villain of the whole thing. courtney killed 90s music according to some websites.
listened to some more recent NIN music on ITUNES. Don’t like it.
I guess there’s only a window in musician’s lives where it all comes together.
started listening to chilli peppers in my 90s nostalgia. I really like “my friends” and “otherside”. Not sure what they did after Californication.
That’s a nostalgic CD for me. Even though by the time it came out, I’d already been a road trippin’ across the western deserts.
i really like sarah slean (canadian chanteuse) and her cabaret style shows.
ahh the 90s.
I really hope vit c and echinaceas can help me ward off this flu. it’s been a really long week with a sick toddler.
today he said to me when I gave him some juice.
“What does this taste like? – It tastes like honey. What does it taste like? It tastes sour..”
He surprises me with the things he comes out with.
I guess he’s quite eloquent and has a very advanced vocab because I didn’t know how to do baby talk and have always spoken to him like an adult. I just felt a bit retarded and self conscious when I tried baby talk. Also, he doesn’t see a lot of little people. He’s around big people most of his life.
i’m really not sure what the purposes of this blog is. I guess it’s a mind dump. i keep thinking i should turn it into a mummy blog.
i have a very sore throat. eating chocolate probably didn’t help.
i also am not sure what to do about a letter i received this week.

 

Lullabies, kitchens and time challenged.

I was dumped once because I was time challenged.
Dumped by a boy,
who now that I think about it,
is like a big dump,
down the S-bend and into the oceans.
It’s kind of horrible to think of what we’re doing to the waterways
Algae blooms, disintegrated bread and plastic straws.
Bread is okay
It’s organic.
An apple is most unnatural when accurately sliced.