I've decided that my song for 2009 is Regret - New Order.
Last night I deleted him from my FB friends list. This morning I wrote in my diary and cried. Then I walked to Bourke St Bakery, listening to Bananarama, and bought myself coffee, a dark chocolate and raspberry muffin and a loaf of sourdough. I ate my sweet treat in the park, with coffee, and a book. I enjoyed the open space, the air, the bird songs, the movement of people and traffic. And reading my book. I felt a bit more connected to the world out there.
I realise I'm experiencing grief. I realise this is necessary. I realise that it will pass. But until then I will try to be okay with my sadness and not be too hard on myself.
I realise that this may read like a dodgy self-help 'healing' narrative. Oh well.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
thick skin doesn't feel as good
i'm not really happy with this world i've carved for myself.
i just came from a meeting with the director and review panel chair to see if my marginal assessment can be overturned. they said no, but agreed to an earlier follow-up review in January. I wouldn't care only I believe my chances of university research funding have been hindered.
things said at the meeting that pissed me off:
- this (non-funding potential) is an unfortunate consequence of the review decision, but is nothing to do with the review panel
- this is what academia is about - it's a competitive world and often you don't get funding to attend conferences
- a lot of students self-fund their education
- we'd like you to concentrate on the work you're doing (conferences are good but sometimes they can be a distraction)
- we believe it's a two-way relationship and the student has to take responsibility
of course, not everything said was this fucked up. But it was fucked up enough for me to be sitting here now, blowing steam, thinking it unlikely that i'll go to tomorrow's xmas lunch.
i made a point of mentioning that my progress was barely discussed at the review panel, the discussion centring upon supervision difficulties. the director agreed and implied that maybe i should have talked more about my progress. i mentioned that i wasn't in a space to do so. i wasn't. i was fucking exhausted, seething, uncomfortable. i could only think one thing - "get me out of here". it's only been since the review, the annulment of that relationship, that i've been able to embrace the work once again. of course i'm fucking behind schedule. of course i'm willing to take some responsibility for this. but what about the centre, can they?
talking to malcolm on the weekend and he says there's an art to communicating and getting people to do what you want, or to come around to your perspective. he said it gets more difficult the older you get, that people can be forgiving of you when you're in your 20s, but not when you're a grown up. i thought he was referring to 'talking the talk' but said i'd much rather 'walk the walk'. he denied that this is what it is. i heard myself explaining that i've always invested much in the notion of honesty and open communication. i speak as i think. of course i try to give context and gently reveal that which might be confronting or read in ways unintended, but my policy has always been as much honesty as i can muster. and i've had a lot of practice with this, throughout my 20s, in collective organisations, in non-professional and creative working environments, amongst friends - whose communication is more valuable than a phd.
and at the end of today's meeting, like at the review panel, i exposed the way i felt about things. i tried to stop myself but it just falls out. i expose my anxieties, fears, weaknesses. but i guess that's not a good look in the professional realm.
it all reminds me of Paris telling me i need to play the game. in other words, talk the talk. but i'm resistant (a word my ex-supervisor often used to describe me) to giving myself over to that world. if academia is competitive and brutal then academia can just fuck off.
i just came from a meeting with the director and review panel chair to see if my marginal assessment can be overturned. they said no, but agreed to an earlier follow-up review in January. I wouldn't care only I believe my chances of university research funding have been hindered.
things said at the meeting that pissed me off:
- this (non-funding potential) is an unfortunate consequence of the review decision, but is nothing to do with the review panel
- this is what academia is about - it's a competitive world and often you don't get funding to attend conferences
- a lot of students self-fund their education
- we'd like you to concentrate on the work you're doing (conferences are good but sometimes they can be a distraction)
- we believe it's a two-way relationship and the student has to take responsibility
of course, not everything said was this fucked up. But it was fucked up enough for me to be sitting here now, blowing steam, thinking it unlikely that i'll go to tomorrow's xmas lunch.
i made a point of mentioning that my progress was barely discussed at the review panel, the discussion centring upon supervision difficulties. the director agreed and implied that maybe i should have talked more about my progress. i mentioned that i wasn't in a space to do so. i wasn't. i was fucking exhausted, seething, uncomfortable. i could only think one thing - "get me out of here". it's only been since the review, the annulment of that relationship, that i've been able to embrace the work once again. of course i'm fucking behind schedule. of course i'm willing to take some responsibility for this. but what about the centre, can they?
talking to malcolm on the weekend and he says there's an art to communicating and getting people to do what you want, or to come around to your perspective. he said it gets more difficult the older you get, that people can be forgiving of you when you're in your 20s, but not when you're a grown up. i thought he was referring to 'talking the talk' but said i'd much rather 'walk the walk'. he denied that this is what it is. i heard myself explaining that i've always invested much in the notion of honesty and open communication. i speak as i think. of course i try to give context and gently reveal that which might be confronting or read in ways unintended, but my policy has always been as much honesty as i can muster. and i've had a lot of practice with this, throughout my 20s, in collective organisations, in non-professional and creative working environments, amongst friends - whose communication is more valuable than a phd.
and at the end of today's meeting, like at the review panel, i exposed the way i felt about things. i tried to stop myself but it just falls out. i expose my anxieties, fears, weaknesses. but i guess that's not a good look in the professional realm.
it all reminds me of Paris telling me i need to play the game. in other words, talk the talk. but i'm resistant (a word my ex-supervisor often used to describe me) to giving myself over to that world. if academia is competitive and brutal then academia can just fuck off.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
good cake, bad cake
i think i'm a really bad administrator. today i've been organising funding and reimbursement for research expenses, finalising interview participants, finding a transcriber, filling up my diary for the coming weeks, clearing the decks.
each time i do this i feel a sense of achievement. yet i suspect that what equates to 2 hours work for many people is a day's work for me. i haven't written a word of thesis.
but i did swim.
and i did have ex breakfast.
he's 'kind of seeing somebody'. up until this revelation the air was tense, the conversation stilted, and there was lots of pause in which to eat my strawberry crumble. i asked what he was doing for xmas. he couldn't tell me. he questioned whether it was worth us meeting like this. i said probably not if we're not allowed to talk about anything aside from our past. and then he released the elephant. i told him i suspected this from earlier conversations we'd had. i reminded him that he can't keep secrets.
anyway, i feel relieved. conversation was easier after this. i'm not sure if relief is a typical emotion when you find out that your ex is seeing someone. but maybe, once again, it wasn't a typical relationship. and maybe no relationship is.
today is also about not paying for things: my library fines were cleared (it's amnesty week), i'm getting money for research costs, i got a free slice of cake.
the woman said of the carrot cake: "because it's the 2nd last piece, you get 2 pieces". great. except it wasn't. she offered to heat it up. i said no. she insisted that she heat it up. the man insisted that it was only 3 degrees in the cake cabinet. he said it many times and eventually took out the temperature gauge to show me. he was right. i gave in. she heated my cake, icing and all. and actually, it was probably better heated as it wasn't so fresh. and it wasn't so great.
i ate it now, whilst typing this, and in no time it was eaten (bar a very dry corner). now i'm feeling heavy, overly-sugared, and anti-cake.
each time i do this i feel a sense of achievement. yet i suspect that what equates to 2 hours work for many people is a day's work for me. i haven't written a word of thesis.
but i did swim.
and i did have ex breakfast.
he's 'kind of seeing somebody'. up until this revelation the air was tense, the conversation stilted, and there was lots of pause in which to eat my strawberry crumble. i asked what he was doing for xmas. he couldn't tell me. he questioned whether it was worth us meeting like this. i said probably not if we're not allowed to talk about anything aside from our past. and then he released the elephant. i told him i suspected this from earlier conversations we'd had. i reminded him that he can't keep secrets.
anyway, i feel relieved. conversation was easier after this. i'm not sure if relief is a typical emotion when you find out that your ex is seeing someone. but maybe, once again, it wasn't a typical relationship. and maybe no relationship is.
today is also about not paying for things: my library fines were cleared (it's amnesty week), i'm getting money for research costs, i got a free slice of cake.
the woman said of the carrot cake: "because it's the 2nd last piece, you get 2 pieces". great. except it wasn't. she offered to heat it up. i said no. she insisted that she heat it up. the man insisted that it was only 3 degrees in the cake cabinet. he said it many times and eventually took out the temperature gauge to show me. he was right. i gave in. she heated my cake, icing and all. and actually, it was probably better heated as it wasn't so fresh. and it wasn't so great.
i ate it now, whilst typing this, and in no time it was eaten (bar a very dry corner). now i'm feeling heavy, overly-sugared, and anti-cake.
Monday, November 16, 2009
today and tomorrow (without beach)
today it's just me and lottie at home. she's good company. she puts herself in my periphery, makes sounds when i walk past her. shifts herself from bed to floorboards, all stretched out and hot. and i'm hot. and thoughts of the beach rise here and there. david bowie sings about modern love.
i'm contemplating my role as the keeper of secrets. another interview today. i'm excited and exhausted by this, depending upon how i think of the interviews. when it's 'data' (which it is) it's exciting. it's rich. it's the flesh and bone of a thesis. i get pangs of excitement at points of discussion that shimmer, revealing themselves as something important to this thesis and this argument, connecting to theory and the words of other participants.
but there's another side where i dig and unravel people's thoughts, words, feelings, and i'm exposed to some raw, fleshy material. and i feel an urge to apply bandages, to touch, to reassure. but i can't. and this makes me uneasy. i guess 'participants' may not want this anyway, and it probably does create a better environment for people to divulge and shed things. but i shed nothing, just take it all in.
these discussions aren't dissimilar to those i have with friends. yet they're exempt from my input and my stories. maybe this is part of my struggle. it's a onesided dialogue in which only they divulge. i'm left with secrets, both theirs and mine. friendship discussions of this nature can be exhausting too. but they form part of something larger, a continuum, another chapter in a book unfinished. the interview is finished. as is my relationship with the interviewee, in most cases (some are attached to broad social networks, so it's likely that we'll have further contact down the track).
anyway. i'm feeling hot and exhausted. i didn't sleep enough hours last night. i'm thinking about a few guys that currently intrigue me, and i don't know what to make of this. i think it's probably just a reaction to feeling lonely, and therefore imagining potential futures where i'm at the centre of someone's thoughts. i don't want a boyfriend, yet i do. i don't want to see my ex tomorrow, yet i do. and the thought of meeting him blurs my perspective on all of this stuff. i want celibacy, but i don't. i want intimacy, but i don't. i want to stop thinking about the words of interviewees and applying them to my own situation. i can't help feel that they're educating me in matters of sex, love, and desire, despite them being younger, and seemingly (but not) less sorted.
to do tomorrow:
i'm contemplating my role as the keeper of secrets. another interview today. i'm excited and exhausted by this, depending upon how i think of the interviews. when it's 'data' (which it is) it's exciting. it's rich. it's the flesh and bone of a thesis. i get pangs of excitement at points of discussion that shimmer, revealing themselves as something important to this thesis and this argument, connecting to theory and the words of other participants.
but there's another side where i dig and unravel people's thoughts, words, feelings, and i'm exposed to some raw, fleshy material. and i feel an urge to apply bandages, to touch, to reassure. but i can't. and this makes me uneasy. i guess 'participants' may not want this anyway, and it probably does create a better environment for people to divulge and shed things. but i shed nothing, just take it all in.
these discussions aren't dissimilar to those i have with friends. yet they're exempt from my input and my stories. maybe this is part of my struggle. it's a onesided dialogue in which only they divulge. i'm left with secrets, both theirs and mine. friendship discussions of this nature can be exhausting too. but they form part of something larger, a continuum, another chapter in a book unfinished. the interview is finished. as is my relationship with the interviewee, in most cases (some are attached to broad social networks, so it's likely that we'll have further contact down the track).
anyway. i'm feeling hot and exhausted. i didn't sleep enough hours last night. i'm thinking about a few guys that currently intrigue me, and i don't know what to make of this. i think it's probably just a reaction to feeling lonely, and therefore imagining potential futures where i'm at the centre of someone's thoughts. i don't want a boyfriend, yet i do. i don't want to see my ex tomorrow, yet i do. and the thought of meeting him blurs my perspective on all of this stuff. i want celibacy, but i don't. i want intimacy, but i don't. i want to stop thinking about the words of interviewees and applying them to my own situation. i can't help feel that they're educating me in matters of sex, love, and desire, despite them being younger, and seemingly (but not) less sorted.
to do tomorrow:
- breakfast with ex (i hope you're not reading this)
- return that overdue library book
- write several pages about condom technologies
- book tickets to xavier le roy
- swim
Thursday, October 15, 2009
queer discomfort
last night i saw a film at the red rattler about an intersex teenager living in uruguay.
then i went to the sly fox hotel.
a drag queen was performing on stage, but later revealed her breasts. and spoke about her 'plastic' vagina. a post-op trans woman performing drag, as a woman, to a crowd of mostly lesbians. it was a queer moment.
then she made a racist joke about young lebanese men stealing cars.
then a person from the audience took to the stage, and to the microphone, to highlight that this was a racist joke.
people cheered. a non-lebanese queer yells out "it's not only lebanese who steal cars", suggesting their own potential civil disobedience.
the drag performer gets defensive and slags off the rebuttal. she says that because she's greek she's not being 'racialist'. she makes a quip about it being like hey hey it's saturday.
a bunch of anarcho-queers line the front of the stage with their backs to her.
it's a bit hostile. and strange. and still very queer.
there are murmurings of a walk-out, hints of 'an action' being planned. someone tells someone who tells us about the walk-out. the queers leave, discretely, undefiantly. they probably had to finish their drinks.
today we're talking about nationalism in class and one student gets worked up about what 'we' give to aboriginal people - free education, housing, and everything. she suggests that black issues are still a problem in the US, but they're not here. it seems she's making a comparison between african-americans and aboriginal-australians. other students are looking uncomfortable. they're looking at me. i cut her off. another student starts asking her to justify her arguments. i cut him off too. i make a short statement about their being current and ongoing discrepancies in aboriginal health and... something, i can't remember exactly. a summation, in order to move back to where we were. i try and take the 'us/them' example to relate back to nationalism, and how this divide might be utilised in terms of race/gender and other difference. but she gets defensive. i assure her that i'm not referring to her, but to the ways in which we all speak (and indeed had been throughout the entire class) in terms of 'us' and 'them'.
she doesn't get it. it's uncomfortable. i'm losing my way. nobody has done the readings. i'm writing words on the whiteboard, but they may not make sense. a student jumps in and saves me, saying what i'm trying to, but with more clarity. but she still doesn't get it. she wants to talk about hey hey it's saturday.
i'm going now, to drink beer and play music trivia. if anyone mentions hey hey it's saturday, i might be compelled to slap them.
then i went to the sly fox hotel.
a drag queen was performing on stage, but later revealed her breasts. and spoke about her 'plastic' vagina. a post-op trans woman performing drag, as a woman, to a crowd of mostly lesbians. it was a queer moment.
then she made a racist joke about young lebanese men stealing cars.
then a person from the audience took to the stage, and to the microphone, to highlight that this was a racist joke.
people cheered. a non-lebanese queer yells out "it's not only lebanese who steal cars", suggesting their own potential civil disobedience.
the drag performer gets defensive and slags off the rebuttal. she says that because she's greek she's not being 'racialist'. she makes a quip about it being like hey hey it's saturday.
a bunch of anarcho-queers line the front of the stage with their backs to her.
it's a bit hostile. and strange. and still very queer.
there are murmurings of a walk-out, hints of 'an action' being planned. someone tells someone who tells us about the walk-out. the queers leave, discretely, undefiantly. they probably had to finish their drinks.
today we're talking about nationalism in class and one student gets worked up about what 'we' give to aboriginal people - free education, housing, and everything. she suggests that black issues are still a problem in the US, but they're not here. it seems she's making a comparison between african-americans and aboriginal-australians. other students are looking uncomfortable. they're looking at me. i cut her off. another student starts asking her to justify her arguments. i cut him off too. i make a short statement about their being current and ongoing discrepancies in aboriginal health and... something, i can't remember exactly. a summation, in order to move back to where we were. i try and take the 'us/them' example to relate back to nationalism, and how this divide might be utilised in terms of race/gender and other difference. but she gets defensive. i assure her that i'm not referring to her, but to the ways in which we all speak (and indeed had been throughout the entire class) in terms of 'us' and 'them'.
she doesn't get it. it's uncomfortable. i'm losing my way. nobody has done the readings. i'm writing words on the whiteboard, but they may not make sense. a student jumps in and saves me, saying what i'm trying to, but with more clarity. but she still doesn't get it. she wants to talk about hey hey it's saturday.
i'm going now, to drink beer and play music trivia. if anyone mentions hey hey it's saturday, i might be compelled to slap them.
Monday, October 12, 2009
swim therapy
the first few laps of the pool were awakening. my arms pushed forward, then down through the water, strenching along the length of my body. pursed lips push out air at a metered pace. unconsciously counting. my legs move up and down in a gentle sway. my head points downward, moving sideways every three strokes, to take in air. my body expands itself beyond itself.
towards the end of the swim i'm feeling my shoulders, as though heavy and water-logged. i'm hearing my breath. i'm slowing down, but ocassionally finding reserves of energy to push on. and i push on.
i sit in the steam room and my shoulders melt. my arms feel like they're no longer there. my lungs take in the heat. my pulse slows. sweat trickles down my chest, my face, my everything.
i walk back to the desk, some photocopying on the way, and the purchase of a sandwich. i feel upright, walking with ease, eyes meeting eyes. this feeling grants me departure from where i was this morning, when things seemed impossible, too much, as though another kick to my stomach.
it's late, but i think i can write something now. and mark some essays. and point myself towards tonight, my bed, and a nice long sleep.
towards the end of the swim i'm feeling my shoulders, as though heavy and water-logged. i'm hearing my breath. i'm slowing down, but ocassionally finding reserves of energy to push on. and i push on.
i sit in the steam room and my shoulders melt. my arms feel like they're no longer there. my lungs take in the heat. my pulse slows. sweat trickles down my chest, my face, my everything.
i walk back to the desk, some photocopying on the way, and the purchase of a sandwich. i feel upright, walking with ease, eyes meeting eyes. this feeling grants me departure from where i was this morning, when things seemed impossible, too much, as though another kick to my stomach.
it's late, but i think i can write something now. and mark some essays. and point myself towards tonight, my bed, and a nice long sleep.
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