A little bit of life

What not to do for the terminally ill 1

2011-12-29T13:41:00.000+11:00

Do not visit every day. While it seems that you should -- after all, the number of visits you have left is limited -- don't. The person is dying. They are tired. They want at least a moment a day to be along to ponder their thoughts and do things for themselves.

My mother's siblings are in contact every day. No sooner does one leave does the next one turn up, or phone, or do something well-meaning but which is utterly exhausting for her. She doesn't need to hear the minutia of your life - that's the bonus of death being imminent: none of it matters anymore! Just as she is about to sit on the couch to rest and the door bell rings again. And they just never seem to get it. They stay for so long and her sigh of relief upon their departure is huge. She thinks she can relax. But then, someone else turns up ...

People, I understand it's hard for you, but your visiting and incessant anxious small-talk WILL NOT CURE CANCER. It will not give your loved one energy, and to be honest, they won't enjoy it. How much would you enjoy constant visitors when you are so exhausted that you can't think of anything other than sleep?

On picking your battles

2011-12-06T20:11:00.007+11:00

Is it okay to have an argument with one of your boyfriend's friends, who you don't know, on the bf's Facebook page?

Usually I would say no. But today I did. And it's because some things need to be called out for what they are, no matter where this takes place. While we all have grand virtues, we can't shove our opinions down the throats of others ALL of the time. For instance, my friend's grandmother is convinced that the Stolen Generation is a myth. It took the whole family a long time (and a lot of futile arguing) to just accept that this is what she thinks. While they purposefully avoid the subject, when she does mention the issue, they've learned not to bother with the argument, but to quickly change the topic. It what's frequently referred to as: 'agreeing to disagree'.

Today my boyfriend posted a photo of a car in so narrow a park that to fit in it, there was just a breath of air between the car and the concrete pillar next to it. The car had a 'P' plate on it. My boyfriend had wittily captioned the picture: 'And who said "P" platers are bad drivers?'. A bunch of people commented on the photo, with the general sort of banter one would expect. And then came this gem from a former colleague of my partner:

'There's absolutely no way out of that park driving forward or backing out without it scraping down the side. I'll go out on a limb here and put my money on it being female ;) Sorry to all the females out there but it's true!'

'The same way it's true that all men are sexist pigs?', I replied.

There were so many things that infuriated me about his comment that I didn't know where to start. While I wanted to write a detailed rant about how useless the meaningless apology was, I figured that it was a Facebook photo, not an academic blog. I also suspected that someone who writes comments such as that above was more likely to label me as the insane feminist who can't take a joke rather than be remotely reflective on his outright discrimination.

You see, the 'Sorry to all the females out there but it's true!' was more annoying than the moronic generalisation it followed. What is it that you are sorry for? You see, I don't think that you're sorry for offending people with your discrimination. Nor do I think you are sorry that you wrote this down. In fact, the only thing I think you are sorry about is that it's actually not politically correct to discriminate against women.

And that exclamation mark at the end of your apology, what's that about? Are you trying to pretend that if you add this overused piece of punctuation you'll make people laugh? Because I didn't laugh. I thought you were patronising. I thought that it's people like you who perpetuate gender discrimination. At a basic level, perpetuating this myth about women drivers is why men frequently abuse and bully women on the roads - because it's the women that can't drive, don't we all know that?

And at a more complex level, this is part of the gender discrimination that sees women disadvantaged on almost every measure. And which contributes to the gender inequity which means that women aged between 15-44 are more likely to die at the hands of a man than of any other cause. What's the link between your harmless comment and domestic violence? Let me spell it out:

Attitudes such as yours encourage the idea that women are inferior drivers
This leads to bullying and intimidation on the roads
Women feel unsafe as they are likely to be alone, and smaller in stature, than those who are bullying them
This means that women feel less safe than men do
It also means that there's a somewhat accepted culture of it being okay, for men to bully women
This manifests into other parts of our lives, where the bullying and intimidation can, and often does, lead to violence against women

So when you're at dinner with your partner's stubborn grandmother, you may do well to bite your tongue, but at other times, we have to speak up. You have to call something out for what it is. Because sometimes, our silence is enabling discrimination and abuse.

Update, 10:30pm
I didn't even realise that today marks the 22nd anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre where 14 women were killed by a man who declared he was 'fighting feminism' and who himself had been the victim of abuse at the hands of a man. May we not forget what we've lost and sacrificed in a fight for a more equitable world. This post is for those 14 women.

Gay marriage and the ALP: A rundown

2011-12-06T12:47:00.001+11:00

So the Australian Labor Party have changed their party platform as being in favour of gay marriage. Which would be great were they not avoiding the corollary action of legislation. It's been determined that potential legislation is to be left open to a conscience vote. So here's the catch:

The ALP policy is the no member can cross the floor (i.e.: Vote against a Bill in parliament which is in accordance with party policy).
Therefore, if the party policy is in favour of gay marriage, were the ALP to present a Bill, in parliament to legislate marriage equality, all of its members would have to vote in favour of it, irrespective of personal preference.
Given that the PM has become increasingly conservative and nonsensical, a conscience vote is the only way that the ALP can have an official platform which members can vote against.
A conscience vote is the exception. A conscience vote allows members to vote with their personal conscience rather than tow the party line.
There are 150 seats in the House of Representatives. In order for a bill to be passed, 76 of the 150 members must vote in favour of the bill. The ALP only have 73 seats in the House of Reps. Therefore, all members of the ALP, plus the Green MP - Bandt, as well as at least two of the three Independents would need to vote in favour for the Bill to be passed (presuming no Liberal party member is prepared for career suicide by crossing the floor as the Libs policy is against changes to the Marriage Act).
For a conscience vote to lead to legislative change, it would need all three Independents and Bandt to vote in favour as well as 72 of 73 ALP.
It is widely known that there are several Labor MPs who are against same-sex marriage. Therefore, unless they vote against their personal conscience, we will not see any change to the Marriage Act.
Julia Gillard has made calls for Tony Abbott to offer his party the opportunity of a conscience vote. However, this is political game playing. Essentially, she is forcing Abbott into a position where he will come across as unreasonable if he denies the conscience vote to his party; also, she can shift the blame of marriage inequality to Liberal MPs not having the opportunity to have a say on the issue.
While I am all in favour of both parties offering their members a voice on the issue, the fact remains that Gillard has the power to put forward a formal Bill in parliament, which ALP members are not allowed to vote against.
This Bill would also have support of Wilkie and, I suspect, Oakeshott and Windsor. The Greens are unanimously in favour so Bandt would vote for, and the Greens balance of power in the Senate would see it passed.
Consequently, Gillard is creating a loophole to jump through which doesn't undermine her party's contentious policy of members not being allowed to cross the floor; nor does it force her to effect change. She has satisfied her party by changing the official platform without having to legislate accordingly.
Gillard must also take responsibility for being the Prime Minister who ignored her Party's views. More importantly, she won't ever be remembered for being the leader who undid two hundred years of discrimination.

Sigh. Another sad day in Australian politics.

Pork, prawn and egg, rice paper rolls

2011-12-01T23:21:00.001+11:00

Makes 10

Ingredients
130g of fresh prawns chopped into small pieces
200g pork mince
2 eggs
2 sticks of celery, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
A handful of beanshoots
1 red chilli, finely chopped
2 spring onions, finely chopped
½ a small red capsicum, finely chopped
(If your partner isn't allergic to them, it would be highly delicious to also add some crushed peanuts)
Handful of coriander
10 sheets of rice paper

Method
1. Whisk eggs and cook in a frypan like an omelette. Once cooked, roll up and chop into small pieces. Set aside.

2. Cook pork in wok, once browned, add prawns.

3. Add all vegetables, stir through

4. Add coriander

5. Add pieces of egg and stir through, turn off heat and set aside.

6. Prepare a large bowl with hot water, but not so hot that you can’t put your hands in it

7. Place a sheet of ricepaper in the bowl for about 20 seconds. Remove, place on chopping board, spoon in some of the meat mixture, wrap and place on a plate. Repeat.

Serve with sweet chilli or fish sauce. (FYI: Asian supermarkets have 'Hot and Sweet Chilli Sauce'. It's similar to sweet chilli but with more hot, less sugar. I prefer it muchly.)

Is a PhD hard?

2011-11-11T15:38:00.000+11:00

I've been asked this question a couple of times of late. Probably because it's the end of the year and at the end of one year, and at the beginning of another, people like to stop and take stock of where they are at. In my experience what happens between October and February is that there are major relationship changes. Some people break up, but many, MANY, people get engaged or married. Last year, over a period of six days in December, I knew of eight couples who became engaged. That's right, more than one a day. And for reasons mostly to do with weather, there's many a wedding from November through February.

At the same time that people are considering their relationships, they also tend to think about their careers. And increasingly, postgraduate study is a thought within this. And this is where I end up being frequently asked about a PhD. These questions often come in a very cautious tone. To which I reply, 'it's not as hard as people would have you believe.'. Contentious, I know. So contentious that I have avoided writing about this as I am slightly scared of receiving the hate mail Jacinta Tynan was inundated with after she wrote an article declaring that motherhood was easy (see: here).

Here's some points that I make when asked about the PhD

If you don't enjoy it, something's not right

You should enjoy the PhD. Not every single day, but most days. With every good job, there's tedious stuff. For instance, when I was working in a youth alcohol and other drug clinical service, I LOVED most of my work. I can't imagine I'll ever experience job satisfaction to that degree again. But that's not to say that it was all a blast. Some days were sad, many days were trying and occasionally I left work feeling totally disillusioned. And writing case notes and other administrative tasks were akin to tearing off my toenails. But mostly, I loved my work. A doctorate should be similar. I think that this is especially so given that you pick your own topic, methods and theoretical framework. (Literature reviews are the toenail tearing part for me.)

It's a pretty privileged position

Four years, to research a topic of your choosing, at the end of which, you will have become the expert in that field? It's a pretty luxurious position. Many a single mum doesn't get four hours to indulge in researching something of their own choosing.

You'll never get job flexibility like this again

My personal life has fallen apart since I started my research. My brother has died, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and then my mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness. All of these things took their toll. But as far as timing goes, it was rather fortuitous that they've happened while I have been PhDing. I have been able to work from home, or at night, or on the weekend. I can skip work on days I need to be at the hospital and make it up some other time. When I am sad I can throw myself into my work - or I can go for a run and come back to it later. When I need more money I can do extra paid work on top of my PhD. In fact, so long as I get some progress done each six months, and have a thesis after four years of candidature, nobody really cares when or where I am working. What other job is comparable to this?! (Admittedly, having nothing due for four years can make it very easy to get sidetracked with other things. You do need to remember that you can't do an all-nighter the day before it's due like you did with your undergrad essays.)

Hard work isn't a bad thing

Now I should qualify all of the above with the caveat that I am starting from the premise that working hard doesn't make something difficult. And I think that's where the confusion lies. People ask if a PhD is hard, when what they mean to ask is whether it is difficult. So when I answer that no, it's not, I am actually saying, it's not difficult. But it is hard work. And you need to be dedicated and committed. But with anything in life, you will only ever feel a sense of achievement when you have worked hard on something, And when I say it's not difficult, that's not to infer that it's easy; but simply that with hard work you can get a PhD (perhaps not always a good one, but a PhD nonetheless).

At the beginning of my research, my second supervisor said to me: the big question isn't about if someone will pass their PhD, it's whether or not they will finish it. I think that's true. I haven't seen anyone fail their doctorate, but I have seen plenty fall by the wayside.

Keep your perspective

Getting caught up with stress and anxiety takes up energy which could be used for working. So try to keep on top of your work to prevent that overwhelming, and debilitating, anxiety that is frequently looming in the background just waiting to pounce.

There's other things you need to consider to ensure that you can stay on top of your work and prevent stress and distraction. I've written about them elsewhere and you can find them under the PhD and PhD Advice tabs respectively. But is a PhD ~~hard~~ difficult? No. Not really.

List(s)

2011-08-22T12:19:00.002+10:00

Okay so I write lists. Well, no, that's inaccurate. I don't write lists for everyday things like shopping. I just go to the supermarket and guess what I need and then get home and realise I've forgotten the chicken for this evening's chicken casserole. So I don't actually write useful lists. I write a single list, in many places. It's like my life to do list. I am not sure why I write it - what, in case I forget? Surely if something is so important to make my list of things I want in life, it isn't something I am going to forget. But give me a pen and a piece of paper and inevitably I will start writing out my list. Which goes something like this:

Finish my PhD

Travel

- New York

- France

- Italy

- Maldives

- Vietnam

New job

- Security

- Flexibility

- Autonomy

- Good remuneration and other benefits (superannuation, parental leave, work from home etc)

Buy home

- sometimes I then go into detail about all of the things I want in my home: type of dining table chairs (I already have my table) , closed-plan, close to walking paths, colour scheme, kitchen appliances, style of artworks, flooring, front door, security, location etc ...)

Then sometimes I write in other things I want out of life. Like relationship goals, marriage and children. I often leave these out though, not because they aren't important, but because they're things which aren't totally within my control. And like everything else on the list, it's not as though I don't have very clear views which I am going to forget should I not write them down! It's just that writing down these goals, which I may not be able to fulfill, leaves me a little vulnerable to never being able to cross them off my to-do list. So these ones I keep close to the heart.

So in every notebook I own, there's this list, often several times over, reiterating what I want in life. Well, what I want in the next five years. I wonder if I do it in false belief that writing it down is going to make it happen now?

(I don't understand my logic either.)

Why are women still changing their names?

2011-07-20T20:32:00.001+10:00

Okay so I am in a hospital while my mother has neurosurgery. I’ve been here, alone, for seven and a half hours. I am very tired and emotional. Why am I telling you this? Because I need to preface what I am about to say with something that will make you compassionate towards me and hopefully make you forgive me for what I am about to admit to.

Five hours in, I was broken. I couldn’t summon the concentration to read my book – sick people everywhere, exhausted, terminally-ill mother in significant discomfort next to me – so I … entered a debate on a thread on a Facebook page.

Yes, I know. I know it’s stupid. It’s just like when people read the comments section at the end of online newspapers and get outraged. Why on earth would one read the comments?! (Perhaps because they are in a hospital desperate for entertainment away from the misery?)

So let’s accept that this is what I have done and now allow me to vent about the experience here.

Women’s Health Australia asked, would you take your husband’s surname when you got married? If so, why? If not, why not?

Oh dear. There are so many ~~stupid~~ naive people in the world. Here are some of the highlights:

‘I am proud of my man’ was a very common sentiment. The inference here is that you demonstrate pride via change of name. The ironic logic of this is that he is not proud of you because he has not taken your surname. So the conclusion of this claim for name-change? You are proud of a man who is not proud of you.

Here is another gem: ‘Yep! He is my man and I love him enough to become a part of his family and have a family of Smiths*’. So if I take the surname of the person sitting opposite me in this shitty hospital cafeteria am I a part of his family? And if I married my partner and did not take his name, am I not part of his family? Further, he hasn’t taken my surname, so is he not a part of my family? Is it that he doesn’t love me enough to do that for me? (This section has so many questions because the logic of the reasoning left me thinking, 'WTF?')

Another very common comment was that ‘I am changing my name because I am old fashioned’. What exactly does ‘old fashioned’ mean? Because I think it’s the scapegoat for women not owning up to what changing their name is really about. You see, people tend to be very selective about what they are old fashioned about. This was best highlighted with this comment:

‘I’m not married yet (but) I’m old fashioned in that you marry him, you have his name, and I’d like to have the (same) surname as our son’

That’s right, her son. She is old fashioned so she’ll take his name; but not so old fashioned as to have a child out of wedlock.

But by far, the quote of the day: ‘If you aren’t going to change your name, what’s the point of getting married?’. Now obviously there are endless lines of rebuttal here, but remember, you’re dealing with a simple mind, so instead of offering debate, I find it’s best to ask a counter question. One that came into my mind, ‘if you only want to change your name, what’s the point of getting married?’.

Now, to the heart of the issue.

The vast majority of commenters were in the ‘a real wife changes her name’ category. The most frequently cited reason for changing one’s name was that ‘I want to have the same surname as my kids’. The selfless martyrs, doing it for the children. Now, I wanted to write a comment pointing out that changing your name is like being branded – you were previously owned by your father and now you belong to your husband. Well, for now you do. Because, let’s be realistic, 50% of you will end up divorced and facing the dilemma of what to do about the surname that you were oh so proud of. There were a couple of older and wiser women who commented about this. Most, even those who were still married, regretted changing their names and expressed the sentiment that they wished they had of been married in a time where it was optional.

Let me go back to the children. Women are changing their name as they have got to have the same surname as their kids. Well, instead of me asking whether marriage was a partnership or a patriarchy, I suggested that women give their kids their own surname at birth and you’ve got it sorted – kids have the same name as you and you don’t have to change your name! Now, I was being rhetorical. I knew that the kids were an excuse. One commenter retorted , ‘then you’d have the same issue with the man wanting the same name as his kids’. The infinite problem solver that I am, I suggested that the husband could take the wife’s surname should this be the case – problem solved!

But no, this was never about the kids. The kids are an excuse. Women know it’s embarrassing to admit that they are marrying a man who expects them to change their name and wouldn’t take theirs. Women know it’s not an equal partnership and are embarrassed to admit it so they use the, ‘I want the same name as my kids line’ which really makes no sense. Sure, in an equal world, half the population would have their dad’s surnames and half would have their mum’s. But, it’s not an equal world. So let’s wonder about a proportional world: many marriages will end. When they end, more often than not, the kids will spend most of their time with Mum. So, looking at these odds, I argue that there should be more kids taking mum’s surname given that Dad is more likely to become an absent figure whose name won’t be carrying much pride.

People think I am totally radical and man-hating when I tell them I am vehemently opposed to the idea of changing one’s surname. I don’t hate men, but I certainly don’t think that they are more special than women or that I should be proud of them and them not of me. I don’t think that I should do anything to demonstrate to any future daughter of mine that she is less of a person because she is female. I don’t want to be seen to make up embarrassing excuses for what I contribute to perpetuating gender inequities. I won’t shift blame of my actions onto my children. Your children have the name you give them; you have the surname you choose to take. Fuck, why don’t you and your husband invent a surname and start from scratch?

So why do women change their names? Why don’t men? It’s not about the kids, it’s about power. It’s one of the last forms of patriarchal oppression that is still the accepted norm in modern society. And women are buying into it in droves. And they know it’s hard to reconcile professional careers, education, high-paying jobs, home-ownership and other things with the old school gender inequity that is implicit in taking a man’s name. I give her my name. I have branded her. She is mine. My property. She is now somebody’s Mrs. FUCK THAT!

So quit saying that you’re changing your names for the children or because it shows that you’re proud of your man and start saying out aloud that you have changed your name because you want to contribute to a culture where women are less than men and where heteronormativity reigns supreme.

*name changed

Research: it's all in the numbers

2011-07-08T13:38:00.001+10:00

And I am not speaking about quantitative methods - the strength of the numbers there is obvious.

There's often debate in the social sciences - how many interviews is 'enough'? Should we aim for fewer, more in-depth interviews or many interviews which only scratch the surface? 'You will have too much data' is a common accusation that's thrown my way. And I will have too much data. But while a bit messy and difficult to manage, it's a far better predicament to be in that not having enough data.

So far I have done about 45 in in-depth interviews on a project exploring young people's pathways into problematic substance use. I am hoping to get to about 80. It's a life history approach and yes, there will be more data than I use for the thesis. But the thing is, the more interviews one does, the more one can grapple with the patterns which emerge.

Early on in my interviews, there were some very distinct patterns - lots of child abuse and homelessness. Lots and lots of poverty. There was also a very striking finding among the young women I had interviewed. A pattern so consistent and articulated so similarly from to participant to participant that I knew that this was a story. This was a thesis chapter. The more interviews I did, the better I understood this pattern and how it came about. While there was evidence of a pattern very early on, lots of interviews gave me the story of what the pattern meant; how it was experienced.

There was not such a clear pattern among the boys. But this week, there was a breakthrough - the boys' story began to show itself. It was one of the light bulb moments you have as a researcher. It confirmed to me the benefits of collecting 'too much' data: it makes one really understand their data. So while I may not 'use' it all in the thesis - it has contributed to me understanding it all.

I could have, potentially, written a thesis with 20-30 interviews. But I wouldn't have been able to grasp the patterns, as you need them to emerge on their own. It's all in the numbers.

In fives

2011-06-21T14:46:00.000+10:00

... that's what I have been doing. All of my usual tasks, in daily sets of five.

I've been missing from the blogosphere for a while. I'm busy. But then I got to that point of busy where you are too busy. I know when I have hit the too busy point not when I find myself working constantly; but when I am procrastinating constantly. Ironically, I know I am too busy when I find that I am not really doing anything. That's because I have gotten to the point where the to do list is too long and seems totally insurmountable and the accompanying anxiety prohibit me from doing anything productive.

Knowing that this can happen, I do try and prevent it, but it still sneaks up on me occasionally and before I know it I am in over my head with things to do; am making zero headway on any of them, and the anxiety that comes from wasting my days means that I can't sleep and then can't do anything the next day because I am too tired, which makes me more anxious and makes me not sleep again ... and well, before you know it I am a zombie.

So accepting that doing something is better than doing nothing, and that setting big goals is setting myself up for failure, I am currently doing things by fives.

Here's my list of daily things to do:

Mark five essays
Read five pages
Write 500 words
Iron five items of clothing
Run five km's
Transcribe five pages of interviews
Reply to five emails

And it's not completely rigid, but a guide. So some days I do yoga or a dance class instead of running. And, well, I usually run at least 6kms, but I like to keep things consistent. And running more than five km's, or marking more than five papers makes me feel super-productive as I have surpassed my daily requirements.

Now of course I always read more than five pages, but I don't always read 50 pages, so best I stick with five as a minimum.

I haven't actually completed all of these things in any one day, but getting some of these things ticked off is getting things done AND subsiding some of my current out-of-control anxiety.

So why five?

Well, for a few reasons. My favourite number is four, and much of my life is based around four. For instance, the volume of the TV or car radio needs to be a number divisible by four. And 16 is preferable as its square root is four. I set my alarm to times that are evenly divisible by four (6:32, 7:04, 8:24 etc etc) and I stop the microwave not when the time is up, I don't like the beeping noise, but when there is four seconds remaining. When I purchase something I like to take the one fourth from the front and, well actually I am starting to sound a little OCD so let's just leave it there, I am sure you get it ...

In any case, I didn't pick four. Because an odd number is easier. Once I get to the middle, I am more than halfway and therefore, on the home straight. This tricks me into feeling close to the end of the task and gives me some motivation to plough through. Five is probably the highest number that still seems small and manageable. It's one hand of fingers, only a couple more than three, and it's the same as musical stave - five lines is the highest number that is clearly identifiable, more than that and it's confusing on the eye. So my friends, this is how I arrived at five.

So, well, I am back to it. By five.

What supervised injecting facilities will do to people who don't use them

2011-05-27T15:12:00.011+10:00

Nothing.

But, you probably want a more convincing argument because: a) you are convinced that a SIF will spread disease and addiction and encourage drug use; or b) you say that a SIF will benefit you as it will prevent you from being exposed to injecting drug users. (I am working from the assumption that if you don't care either way about SIFs then you probably won’t be reading this post - at the least, you're probably not going to be offended that I've excluded you.)

So here's why neither of these schools of thought have much nous.

Supervised injecting facilities encourage drug use

Premier Baillieu said in parliament today, 'I don't want to be in the business of sending messages to kids … that it's okay to dabble in drugs'. Baillieu is opposed to SIF 'based on observation and a detailed look at all of these issues'. Now, I'm not sure what he's had a detailed look at but it isn't the evidence. Or even today's news (see here ).

I'm not going to regurgitate all of the statistics which show that SIFs are good on pretty much every measure. Because if after all of the years of these figures being made public you still have such an absurd view, you obviously don't respond too well to evidence. So I'll tell you a story, an example.

Supervised injecting facilities look like this:

(picture from Peter Rae at Nationaltimes.com.au)

Do you think this environment looks attractive to kids? Do you think that they would look at this and think, 'Hey, I wanna go shoot some smack?'. No, I didn't think so. And this is when the place is empty! Imagine it with five or so smelly, homeless, sad-faced individuals sitting on those chairs - do you think it would become more or less appealing? Do you think that this image glamorises injecting drug use?

But not all injecting drug users are homeless and smelly you say. I KNOW. But the ones who aren't homeless are really unlikely to stroll down to the supervised injecting facility to hang out in this clinical environment when they can shoot in the comfort of their own home. That's the point - the people who access SIFs aren't just drug users, they're typically homeless individuals with nowhere else to use. So why use at all? Well, as one welfare worker I've interviewed put it, '... I would far rather be sleeping on the streets stoned than sleeping on the streets straight'.

And while we're on this point, think about the smacked-out homeless people you've seen in your time - do they glamorise injecting drug use? Do you think young kids see them and think 'that's what I want to do when I grow up?'. I doubt it. But you know what, even if you think that this is what happens - that kids see drug users and are influenced to become a drug user - irrespective of the failure in your logic, it's another reason why you should support supervised injecting facilities - it keeps the drug use behind closed doors.

And here's some other points - most people are scared of needles. The idea of injecting anything is not appealing. Facilities like that shown above won't change that. And there's that other issue - people who don't use the facility are unlikely to know what it is, or where it is, or why it is.

And really Baillieu, you don't want to send off the message to kids that it's okay to dabble in drugs? Then make all government events alcohol-free and ban alcohol sponsoring and advertising.

Then there's those of you who support SIF and really push the it improves the community point.

Well, yeah. But, er, no.

Yes, certainly, it's better people use in supervised facilities than in public toilets, and it's certainly good to prevent the public from stumbling upon the body of a person who has overdosed in such circumstance. But, given how infrequent it is that a member of the public stumbles upon a body it's probably not the best selling point, it's not an experience most members of the electorate can relate to.

But I don't think a SIF needs to have benefits given that it poses no harms. I also don’t think that we need to see people reducing their drug use to measure the success of SIFs. We can't expect a reduction in drug use while we are not addressing the issues that have lead to the drug use. The role of the SIF is first and foremost to provide a space, with medical supervision, where injecting drug users can avoid death, overdose and blood borne viruses.

I also don't think that SIFs will eliminate public drug use entirely, but I think it will reduce the number of people using alone in public. And given that accidental overdose is far more likely to happen when one is alone, this is a good thing. But, it may not benefit you. For instance, a group of people who hang out in a public housing estate on weekends and sneak behind the cars to use before returning to the communal area to friends are probably going to keep on using like that. You see, they feel safe. They have friends there to monitor for overdose and keep an eye out for police, so they don't have to go anywhere. So, if you're a tenant in those flats who feels uncomfortable walking through this area, that's unlikely to change. On the upside, these people are very conscientious about safe disposal so you needn't worry about standing on dirty syringes. And given that there's a group of them, you won't be left to find a dead body.

Another reason that we will keep on seeing 'drug users' on the street is that, as I've pointed out, the minority of injecting drug users who would access a SIF are those people who are homeless. So while their drug use may be moved indoors - they are not. Homeless people will still be homeless and you will still have to reconcile how we live in a country that is so inequitable (oh, you don't think that when you see homeless people? Cold hearted person you are.).

****

So while I am not here telling you how you will personally benefit from supervised injecting facilities, here's the facts:

They won't harm you either

They won't encourage drug use

They save other people lives

They prevent police telling a mother that her's child's dead body was found in a public toilet

They prevent the spread of disease through provision of clean equipment and advice on safer using

Ambulances are limited. Less ambulances attending street overdoses means more ambulances able to respond to you.

If they don't affect you, but they might help someone else, why not support them?

From here on in

2011-05-25T22:44:00.004+10:00

I caught up with an old friend today. We spoke about depression. Not in the clinical sense, but in the, life's-a-bit-hard-at-the-moment-but-I-really-have-to-get-out-of-bed-each-day-to-prevent-it-getting-worse kind of depression -- an extended period of feeling pretty ordinary I guess.

I've been really anxious about lots of things lately. Getting old, my PhD, publications falling through - do I still know how to write? Conference presentations lacking preparation, my mother's ill health, missing my brother, teaching, marking, house refurbishments, washing, shoes in the wrong size, being late to dinner, not helping my international students enough, getting fat, getting thin, dying my hair, what to cook for dinner, not being a downer around my boyfriend, cleaning the house, exercising enough, not being stressed at home - yeah, you get it ... generalised anxiety.

So, I think the self-pity and helplessness is passing and so I am beginning to be slightly more productive. I've spent much time trying to figure out whether or not I will be able to finish my doctorate. Not the 'I am not good enough' crisis that will probably come later; but the 'how can I afford to' crisis that comes with running a house and mortgage on the minimum wage that a PhD scholarship affords you. Now, I am not here to discuss either of these dilemmas. Instead, talk about some recent motivations that I hope will see me through.

The first goes to the questions of, what gives your life meaning when you are left alone?

My family has always been Mum, my brother and I. My brother died a couple of years ago, and since then Mum and I are closer than ever – she’s my best friend. But now she’s dying and I am facing the prospect of being alone. Now, I know that if one is to be orphaned it’s much better at age 26 than at 16, but I am still going to miss her terribly. Really miss her. That heart wrenching missing that I know will take me a long time to recover from but which I cannot prevent.

One thing I have learnt through various life tragedies is that no friendship can parallel with family – and no other place is home but where your family is. So if I’m to be soon without family, and no place to go ‘home’ to – how will I cope?

When we found out about Mum’s health, the first phase – after the sadness and the anger – was, what’s the point of writing a bloody doctorate? I’ve previously argued that one should prioritise relationships with family, husbands, wives and children over their PhD as it those people you would want to celebrate finishing your PhD with. After all, it’s your family you go to in times of need – not a pompous degree that has little significance to anyone but you. But the problem with this argument is that if I am to be left to finish this PhD with no one at the end to celebrate it with – is there much point in struggling so much to finish the damn thing? I’ve been juggling this question for some months. But on the weekend, I realised that I have to. You see, I have no control over the fact that I will be alone; so I better make sure that I can do it, life that is, on my own.

So I thought about this some more – what do I want out of life? What do I want in the next five years? The next ten? I asked my partner, 'do you have a five year plan?', 'To be content' he replied. I thought to myself, how can one best position themselves for contentment? And so, in my usual style, I made a list. Not necessarily my dream list, but a feasible list – a list that I can achieve on my own. What I think was significant about making this list was realising how rapidly the next decade will pass. I’d not made a five year plan. I’d positioned myself in a way that I didn’t need to make plans. I didn’t like definite plans. It was a form of commitment and committing to anything is something I’ve traditionally approached with much caution.

But I’ve been put into a situation, in circumstances somewhat beyond my control, where I have serious commitments. A mortgage, a PhD, and the realisation that everyone around me has grown up. So I made this list. And suddenly, I was sitting on a plane with the next decade written down in front of me and I didn’t know how I was going to get this stuff done. And what was more frightening was that this decade, that was now sketched out before me was going to pass so quickly and at the end of it I was going to be closer to 40 than 30. And oh my, I better get my shit together! But more importantly, I think I can do this coping on my own business.

Don’t get me wrong, the prospect of finishing my PhD without Mum there brings me to tears. I always thought it would be something to celebrate but now it’s something that will be bittersweet. Similarly, my ideas about marriage went from ‘celebrating marriage with a wedding is a lovely thing’ to ‘Mum wants to see me marry more than anyone else so how could I ever do it without her?’ (Which I recognise sits really uncomfortably next to my recent post about not living with people before you get married - so I didn’t map out any of this. Mostly because it’s stuff that is beyond my control, but also because I couldn’t find a logical solution to my conflicting positions and figure there’s not much point spending time theorising hypotheticals.)

But I have to finish my PhD – because it will help me in this world alone and because it would make my mum so proud.

I also know that while I am busy now, the five years straight after finishing my PhD will be the busiest years of my career. All senior academics iterate that life as an early-career researcher is much more exhausting, and the workload much more significant, than that of the PhD student. So while I am busy now, I do know that this will only get more so over the next decade. So, recognising this, I have a lot of work to do!

I made a list of things I want out of life; things I want to possess; things I want to experience; and things I want to do. I didn’t put down children because while creating a family is the one thing I want most, I didn’t want to include things that I couldn’t make happen and I also didn’t want to start listing ages at which I need to reproduce (although, I am very mindful that the 7 years between now and finishing PhD and establishing career do take me into the late window of fertility, sigh – but focus on things you can control, Kathryn!)

So, the list: I have to finish my doctorate and I want a home. I can’t keep my Mum alive to call her place ‘home’ so I really want to create my own. It has to be secure and it has to have a garden. I want to be part of the community and I want it to be warm. I want it to be bright but closed-plan and I want to fill it with books and clean linen and fresh air. The lounge room won’t have a TV, but instead couches, a coffee table and lots of books. There will be pictures of my mother and my brother and their favourite things. My home will be my solace, my escape, my comfort. It will be a space that I create, and nurture, and can go home to.

I’ve also got plans for a career post-PhD. Things I need in a job, the non-negotiables and the ideals. I’ve thought about the pros and cons of consultancy, the compromises I’d make if I worked for the state, the absence of frontline work that happens in academia. But I am more interested in job security, maternity leave provisions and flexibility. I listed what things I must have and what things I’d like.

I also want to travel. Not the live-overseas type of travel, but there’s places that I really want to go to and I want to do this while I am still young and fit and childless.

I made some career plans: international conferences, publications – all things to do as soon as the PhD is done. All while working enough to make sure I am always financially secure. If there’s one key thing being raised by single mother has taught me is that I never want to struggle like that.

So there’s been some obstacles and I am still trying to balance paid work with full-time study and major financial commitments, but I need to remind myself – yes I will be alone, so I must be able to make it on my own. And as my supervisor tells me - finishing the PhD will be a major achievement that nobody can take off of me.

Best I get to work and revisit this post on days I feel blue.

**Sorry about the self-indulgence, I find documenting this stuff helpful. I will get back to posting more substantively soon.

Why I should finish my PhD

2011-05-05T22:44:00.000+10:00

These are the following arguments my thesis supervisor has put forward for why I must complete my doctorate:

"You need to be able to look after yourself. You need to make sure that you never need a man"

"Nobody can take a doctorate away from you. No matter what path you take in life, it's a safety net that you can always fall back on"

"You would be a terrible housewife, can't do a trade and would hate admin. You need to stay in academia for a lack of other options."

"If you end up as a single mum it's a flexible and well paying career"

"Because I said so."

... he keeps me entertained. And probably keeps my partner a little insecure.

Relationship status

2011-05-02T19:22:00.004+10:00

A friend of mine has recently started dating a new man. She's been on the single scene for a while and before that has had two relationships that I'd say qualify as significant. She's got plenty going for her and has never been in want of male attention. Given all this, it's probably not surprising that she's also not the sort of girl to settle. She isn't one of those people who need to be in a relationship solely to avoid being alone. She's more than happy to entertain herself and enjoy the dating and casual sex on offer to an attractive, professional female in her 20s.

But now she's met someone she's sticking with. I found this out when she recently uploaded pictures of her recent holiday and there was this man in all of the photos. Then when I reactivated my Facebook account after taking a break, it told me that she was in a relationship. I suddenly felt anxious for her.

The changing of relationship status and corresponding couple photo as your display picture is a big and public move which makes official the union. It's not just the big and the public parts that make me anxious; but the official union part too. We all know the risk of declaring your relationship open: one day, you may have to declare it officially closed in an equally big and public manoeuvre when you don't feel very big nor like being very public.

I've never been listed as 'In a relationship' on Facebook for several reasons: I like to hedge my bets and prevent the public break-up announcement; I've not ever dated anyone who has wanted a public relationship status (hmm, what should I make of that?); but mostly, it's because I've not ever been married. Marriage, perhaps engagement also, is the only time I'd feel confident that the relationship's real enough, and serious enough, for a public status.

Before you label me a cynic, it's not entirely because I am sceptical about relationships; but because of the meaning I accord marriage. I don't feel that a serious long-term relationship and marriage are the same thing, and my sense of security about a relationship differs accordingly. Now I'm not saying that this is the one right way to view relationships. Mostly because I am acutely aware of my hetero privilege and I do not seek to further exclude same-sex relationships by diminishing their significance. Nor do I seek to undermine defacto relationships or any other kind of relationship you are in. I am saying that, to me, marriage is a relationship status in which I'd feel part of a union; serious relationships are dating, in a serious, committed and monogamous way but I don't see them as unified. (I should further add that I don't seek to undermine serious relationships either - for marriage to carry the significance I accord it, couples mustn't rush into it and the serious relationship comes first!)

I would view a husband differently to a boyfriend. I would live with a husband; depend on them in times of crisis; and I would aspire to start a family with them - I wouldn't do any of these things with a boyfriend. While certainly, there is divorce, I think that couples should go into marriage assuming, preventing, and doing everything possible to avoid this ever occurring. Given this, once married you don't need to pre-empt the 'who keeps this if we break up' questions when buying household items, you don't ever have to go through the horrific experience of moving out of a shared home, or being left in the shared home that's no longer shared.

When you are married, you have a partner in life who you depend on without ever feeling like a burden, and you have someone who you know will always be there, no matter how awful your fights are. Marriage is when the two of you go through a tough time and separating is not a possible solution to your dilemmas - you have to sort it out. You have to stick with it.

Given my desire for my children to have both parents in a strong, stable and loving relationship, I want to do as much as possible to ensure a sturdy foundation - only then would I contemplate the prospect of raising a child with someone. For me, strong and sturdy is inextricably linked with marriage.

So yes, in a time where the popular thing to say is that marriage is 'nothing more than a piece of paper', it is probably a bit old fashioned to see marriage as something more than formalising an existing union - but I do see it as something more. And given that so many people still go through this whole business of getting that piece of paper; it seems to me appropriate that I give it such consideration. I know that lots of people have babies out of wedlock or as single parents and it works out grand. And while not many of my married friends have done it, I know that many a couple live together before they ever discuss an engagement - we all walk different paths. The thing is, I'm just not sure people contemplate walking the rocky path so publicly when they put their relationship status on Facebook, one month into their meeting when they're all loved up and feeling on top of the world. Call me cautious.

Some tips for writing

2011-05-01T17:05:00.002+10:00

I've probably done this post before, but here's my latest tips - based on what irks me most in my undergraduate students' essays.

The apostrophe: If you're not sure where it goes, don't use it at all. I tweeted this tip and received a reply from Sffarlen_net with a link to this handy guide: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

Avoid metaphor in academic writing. A student recently told me in her introduction that, when discussing her main claim, she would 'pull it apart'. I couldn't help but think about those pull-apart loaves of bread that Baker's Delight sell.

Format things well. It makes a difference.

Write in the first person, it gives you authority. But writing in the first-person doesn't mean write informally.

On that last point, on writing with authority, you don't 'think', 'feel' or 'believe'; you 'argue', 'contend' or 'claim'.

When writing an essay, ask yourself the following questions, as these are what your reader will be asking:

1) What is my take-home message?

2) Do I mount a logical sequence of coherent and logical claims?

3) Do I support these claims with credible, relevant and sufficient evidence?

4) Are the assumptions that I make about the topic and its concepts reasonable?

5) Is my written expression clear?

While beautiful writing is obviously much more pleasurable to read, the upshot is that even if your mastery of the English language isn't ever going to win you any awards, so long as you write clearly and follow these steps, you can produce decent essays.

The conversations I wish I could have had …

2011-04-21T16:22:00.001+10:00

So on the weekend, I went to a wedding. Weddings are one of those events when you must be polite and courteous and gracious and partake in the conversation that is happening around you. Which is, very often, about marriage and relationships, and rings and weddings. While in the moment I nod and smile, I now need to debrief. So here is what is likely to be the first post of many about the responses that dare not pass my lips.

Conversation one

Guest I’d met that day: ‘I know somebody who would die to date you’

Me: ‘I have a partner’

Guest: ‘Oh, sorry, of course you do. What on earth was I thinking?! So when are you getting married?’

Me: ‘Oh no, he’s my boyfriend. We aren’t engaged’

Guest: ‘But when will you be?’

Me, increasingly frustrated: ‘We haven't discussed marriage'

Guest: ‘You’re not sure if he is The One?’

Me: ‘No, we are very happy together, but we haven't discussed marriage'

Guest: ‘So if you know you’re right together, what are you waiting for?’

Me: ‘Now’s just a really busy time …’

Guest: 'It sounds to me that you're not sure you're ever going to discuss marriage'

What I wanted to say (WIWTS): Well actually, my only family member is terminally ill. So apart from the stress that that brings, the idea of getting married, without any family there, especially without my mother there, seems so unimaginable that I suspect that it will take me many years before I could contemplate it. But sure, feel free to make grand assumptions about the strength of my relationship based solely on the forty-five seconds of this exchange from which you are basing it on.

Conversation two

Unknown guest to my female friend and I: ‘Ask him for a diamond. He will do it. A man would do anything to keep either of you’

What we wanted to say (WWWTS): You are working from the assumption that all women want to get married as soon as is possible and that we aspire for diamonds more than a solid marriage. Do you realise that diamonds are frequently mined by the world’s poorest people in horrific conditions using practices that are of abhorrent detriment to our environment? Your assumption that we would have some interest in overlooking this fact for a sparkling finger is offensive.

*Let’s pretend that it hasn’t been months since I updated this blog.

Life IQ

2011-02-13T18:55:00.000+11:00

In recognition of Valentine’s Day tomorrow, in today’s Age, the Sunday Life magazine is entitled: The love (and lust) issue. Weekly columnist Mia Freedman, talked about Life IQ (available on her blog here). Essentially what she was saying is that lots of people don’t have their shit together and that when someone does, it’s really attractive. I agree.

You know, when people can’t manage to pay their bills on time because they only rarely open their mail (or their mail still goes to their parents' home because they never changed their address)?. Low life IQ people are those who hyperventilate when something goes wrong with the car instead of just taking it to the mechanic. Or people who don’t need directions, but a chaperone, to get from A to B. When I meet these people I feel a need to look after them. I usually do. I used to drop everything to assist my friend who’d call me mid panic attack after her train had too many passengers on it and she really, Just. Couldn’t. Cope.

Low life IQ people aren’t people who ask for help – it’s okay to not know how to do something you’ve never done before. And I don't expect you to know how to deal with the stuff beyond the everyday. For instance, I know the process of police and detectives and coroners and funerals and eulogies because of some very tragic circumstances. I know what happens at the hospital when someone attempts suicide and I know the effects of the legal system on those who have been raped because that's what I've seen in my line of work. I know how to negotiate the overly-complicated Australian health system and I know how to call 000 while doing CPR. But I don't think you've got low life IQ if you can't do these things. Some of these things I'd prefer to have not have to have learnt myself. These things are not everyday and these are not things which I expect anyone to be able to just get on with.

But it’s really unattractive to not be able to problem solve the basic everyday life tasks: like how to do your tax return. I help these people, but I don’t see them as equals. I help them because I see them as infant children, who need to be looked after. Which is probably what they think they want. I mean, being looked after is kind of nice, albeit unrealistic. What these people probably don’t want, is to have to realise that people can’t actually classify their children as friends; we can’t depend on infants to support us emotionally in times of crisis. So, the low IQ people might be able to find people to look after them, but it’s one-way friendships and, well, the one-way friendships are the ones that have no reciprocal value.

I wouldn’t date someone with a low life IQ. I couldn’t. I am too impatient. I need a partner who can get on with life. Shit happens sometimes, I don’t want someone who finds this surprising. I don’t want someone who can focus on one thing only at the expense of their mail being left unopened or their underwear not ever being replaced.

On the last page of the magazine is an interview with the singer, Chris Isaak. He says,

I remember being a 15-year-old kid and saying, “Mom, where’s the food?” or “When will dinner be ready?” Only as I got old enough to realise just how much she was juggling to keep the family together did I back off from being so demanding. Now I realise how hard it was for her and it taught me that women, especially mothers, like you to be able to fend for yourself. She would give me this look of: “You’re pathetic; you can’t even make yourself any food.”

This tied nicely with Freedman’s article. It is pathetic if you can’t look after yourself. Some men might like being the knight in shining armour, and some women might like to make sure their partners are fed and with clean underwear. But what happens if one of you gets ill and you’ve never taught your husband how to use the oven or your wife how to put air in the tyres? You’re both helpless.

So, if you’ve got low life IQ, I suggest you get your shit together. Being dependent is leading you to a life of very unequal footing.

FebFast

2011-02-13T17:57:00.000+11:00

I am halfway through FebFast.

What is it?

Stop drinking for a month to raise awareness of alcohol-related harm; while being sponsored to raise money for services working with young people experiencing said harms.

Why February?

It's on the back of the December/January gluttony; it is also the shortest month of the year

Why am I doing it?

Because I think that Australians drink far too much and underestimate the extent of the damage that alcohol causes. Not drinking is seen as unusual, despite that alcohol is synthetic and, to put it bluntly, poisonous for your body.

Further, youth alcohol and other drug (AOD) services receive very little donations. I am all for keeping society secular, but a problem with this is that the Church supplements a lot of charitable agencies where the government under-funds them. Youth AOD services who have no religious affiliations face an extreme shortage of funding because of this. FebFast money is extremely valuable to further the good work that these organisations do. Therefore, I like to support that.

Why you should sponsor me

Because of all of the reasons listed above, but also because I need to reach my target so that I don't look like a loser without any friends. I did it two years ago, but then there were horrific bushfires in Victoria and everyone had donated their money to help out with that and I was nowhere near reaching my target. Fortunately, my ex-boyfriend-turned-best-friend came in on the last day and donated the money needed so that I felt a little better.

This time, Australia's been struck by horrendous floods and everyone's giving their money to that so I am back in the same dilemma. (Maybe me signing up for FebFast causes natural disasters?) But this time, the 'ex-boyfriend-turned-best-friend' is now just the 'ex-boyfriend' and I figure that it's probably not cool to contact your ex who you haven't spoken to in ages to ask for money. So you should give me money, here.

Current work

2011-01-28T15:21:00.000+11:00

Currently planning/preparing/writing articles on the following topics:

The ethics of interviewing traumatised young people
Sexual abuse, self injury, and substance abuse among young women
The role of formal school exclusion in young people's substance abuse
When disclosing abuse falls on deaf ears: the long-term effects of suffering in silence

Focusing on all of this makes me increasingly confused as to what life is like for the 'mainstream' adolescent.

So much sorrow

2011-01-13T17:16:00.001+11:00

Unless you've been dead for the past week, you'll know that the Australian State of Queensland is pretty much now under water. There's plenty of imagery around if you've missed it. I won't link to it because I just can't bear to see another thing about it - it's too distressing.

Yesterday, sitting in the waiting room of the radiation department of a hospital, the rolling coverage of the crisis was playing on the television. 'How bloody depressing', I thought: a bunch of people with cancer, or people who have a loved one with cancer, sitting around watching footage of another bunch of people who are losing their homes and businesses, and in some cases loved ones, to horrendous flooding. Couldn't we just put on Seinfeld re-runs or something?

I hate being in that place at the best of times and sitting there yesterday, watching the devastation in Queensland, was just awful. I tried to distract myself by reading the Huffington Post on my phone but to no avail. There's no mobile reception three floors under the ground. I took out my notepad to get some work done. But I am working on a thesis about abused children. That wasn't cheering me up. Still avoiding eye contact with the television, I picked up the extremely outdated magazine on the table next to me. That too was depressing - all of these beautiful things in there that I wanted but can't buy. But at least that was the superficial kind of depressing. A first world problem. So I kept my head deep in that magazine.

But then some people came and sat next to me. A tall man and a tall woman. One of them pushing a pram. As they sat, I looked at them and smiled. And then I saw their little boy, probably about four years old. His skin was grey, his eyes were bruised black, and there were texta lines over his face and arms. He was the one there for radiation. I could hear him breathing. There was a deep and frightening rattle in his chest that sounded like nothing I've ever heard before. That right there was my tipping point. I'm sure the last thing this poor couple needed was another face looking at them in pity but I couldn't keep the tears in.

This life can be just awful.

****

With regards to the floods, please, if you can, donate something, anything, here: http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html

For cancer research: http://www.petermac.org/Foundation/DonateNow

Hello 2011

2011-01-10T10:33:00.000+11:00

It’s a new year.

I probably wrote last year about how I think that it’s a rather arbitrary demarcation of time and went on about the futility on new year’s resolutions. If I wasn’t so lazy (busy?) I would go through the archive and check.

In any event, the changing of the year is as good a point in time as any to take stock of what you’ve been up to and where you’re going. I think doing this about things is important. Like relationships – anniversaries aren’t solely about Hallmark profiting, but a time to stop and acknowledge something important in your life. It (hopefully) is one way to not take it for granted. Doing this about your life is also important, albeit on a slightly larger scale.

But my years have rolled into one another without me stopping to think about them. And when my friends make Facebook statuses about their achievements in 2010 and their hopes and ambitions for 2011, I try not to look. I don’t particularly want to think about the next twelve months; and I certainly don’t feel as though there’s been a pause between one year and the next.

I probably need a break. Even just a week. Not a week off of one job to fulfil the tasks with another; and not a week to go and have a round of tests or to catch up on ironing or cleaning or to run errands. Just a week, without having to cook and clean; without having to go to work and without having to think about the deadlines passed and feeling the anxiety that accompanies them.

It’s probably the same complaint that every PhD student has, balancing study, with supplementary casual work and other life commitments. But it does take its toll. I haven’t had a week off in a few years – I’ve planned to, but stuff always interferes. My last break was wonderful – I went to Vietnam two years ago. I had just finished my Honours year and it was a couple of months after my brother died. I’d just been offered the PhD scholarship and knew it would be my last break for a long time.

Before I left for Vietnam, I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and there was so much pleasure in having no commitments – save for the flight there and back. I hadn’t booked accommodation or tours or bus trips. I just landed in Saigon late one night and figured it out. I slept and I read books and I wandered around and talked to locals. I ate a lot of food and walked some more. I got a chest infection – my body probably cleansing itself after a horrific year. I found small towns where there was very little English but lots of friendly smiles. I met up with a colleague who works in an orphanage there a couple of months each year. I bought a lot of silk scarves. I found my way back to Australia in one piece.

That all feels like a lifetime ago now. I look forward to another Vietnam. Better finish this bloody doctorate then ...

Wishing you all a very safe and happy 2011 xx

Year 12 results

2010-12-13T21:41:00.000+11:00

Today, Victorian students receive their results from their final year of school. Each receive marks for each subject, as well as an overall number (ENTER*, Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank) for the past two years of their studies. Despite the common assumption that this number is indicative of intelligence, it is actually a ranking, comparative to all of the other students who received a result for that year. That's right, ALL. Because they are all, of course, equal; and their results were all, of course, obtained through their own individual merit.

Right. Because we're all born into a vacuum free of any sort of class/structure differences.So, this number is the number they need for university entrance.

The minimum score for entry to various degrees depends on how popular the course they apply for is. So for instance, the psychology/social science undergrad that I endured has about 1300 applicants for 40 places. This drives the minimum standard up quite a lot, so school-leavers need a score of about 90. The psychology/applied science undergrad at the same university has about the same number of places, but far fewer applicants, so entry requirement is at about 65. Both of these degrees comprise EXACTLY the same psych courses. Talk about arbitrary entry requirements.

So now that results are released, universities rush to sort out the scores of those who've applied for their degrees (students apply before they actually know their results). The first round of university offers come out in January. When that happens, we hear a lot about the students who just missed out on courses, and lots of stories about the schools who have lots of high-~~achieving~~ ranking students. A couple of years ago I got sick of the bourgeois discourse and reporting of the topic. So I angrily penned off a letter to the editor of the Melbourne newspaper, the Age. Surprisingly, they ran the angry rant. So in anticipation of the impending rubbish that'll be printed this time around, here's what I said then:

The uni myth

RE THE article on what students should do if their VCE results are not as rosy as they had hoped (The Age, 15/12), suggesting a switch of preference from Melbourne to La Trobe University after receiving an ENTER score of 94.05 is offensive. It invalidates the very real experience of those for whom university is not a viable option.

It perpetuates the notion that academic qualifications are prerequisite for success and fails to acknowledge the huge milestone that the successful completion of year 12 is for many. We would be wise to not confuse middle-class privilege with universal entitlement.

Kathryn Daley

----

*Please note, the equity admissions unit of my university refer to to ENTER as nothing more than a rank of 'educational privilege'. I couldn't agree more.

Body image -- what's important?

2010-11-30T00:55:00.001+11:00

Above is a picture of my hairdressing salon's contribution to women's obsession with the external self

A few years ago, say, maybe five or six, I stopped buying magazines. Not because I'd yet discovered sociology and the offensive ideology that marketers and advertisers depend their incomes on; but because I thought it dumb to buy things that made me feel ugly and in need of items and in need of love and boyfriends and eating disorders. Giving up mags was on the back of living with two girlfriends with whom I worked full-time in nightclubs. When I was living with these two lovely ladies, we didn't do much but drink banana smoothies and read magazines all day.

The Boyfriend at the time laughed at my decision to never buy another magazine (between the flatmates and I, we were buying THEM ALL). But he shouldn't have laughed. (Like he shouldn't have told me that only sluts have playboy bunny stickers on their cars.) And so that was the end of the magazine purchasing.

In the past year or so, I've bought a couple of mags. Generally at airports. But I shouldn't have, because when I did, I became the strange lady on the plane who did this to her magazine*

I did this partly because advertisers and marketers HAVE NO MORALS and that pisses me. (I also did it because working in academia is slowly taking over my ability to be superficial, and thus sending me insane.)

So I've recently been spending copious amounts of time in a hospital (with the patient, not as the patient). I've also not been able to sleep much. Between being in a cancer hospital, and being seriously fatigued, reading anything of substance is pretty much beyond the realms of possibility. So to escape the seriousness of my environment, I've found myself buying A LOT of magazines. (Though I do refuse to buy anything with Jennifer Aniston on the cover - we've seen enough of her in a bikini already.)

All of these magazines tell me the same things, and ALL of them have articles on body image issues. I can't help but wonder if people had so many body image issues before we were talking about body image issues all of the time.

I've not ever really had major issues with my body. I mean, sure, I've never thought my body perfect - but that's not bothered me. Over time, my perceptions of my own body have changed greatly, when my body hasn't changed much at all.

When I was in my early teens, I was uncomfortable in my body. I'd always look for bras that made my boobs look smaller. My breasts just grew, seemingly from nowhere, overnight. (Although it wasn't actually overnight. I know that because I remember how much it hurt while they were growing.) I also went to a school where our uniform shirts were white. Yes, white. What do teenage boys do to girls in white shirts? Yes, they really do throw water at you.

Once I got a bit older, I was more okay with my breasts. I was still dancing and performing so they got in the way a lot (ballet costumes rarely accommodate the bigger bust), but I was more comfortable with breasts as part of my body. Then I went a bit funny with them again. It was probably when I was working in nightclubs. I would get quite upset with the open sexualisation of my body. Men in the clubs trying to touch you or talk to you. Footballers thinking it okay to ask me my cup size. And another reference to the Cougar Bourbon ad in my lifetime will be greeted with violence.

Then there was my legs. I never loved them, Too muscly, not long enough ... that line of thought was pretty much a constant. It wasn't that I hated them, I've always appreciated their strength, but I do also like looooong lean legs. Which I don't have. But what I found odd was that while I thought my legs my worst feature, on the occasions I dare wear a mini, they were always subject to many a compliment. Go figure.

My perception of my stomach is a weird one. For the most part, I've always quite liked my tummy. It's always been quite flat and generally toned. But it's changed. Not just my perceptions, my tummy has actually changed. You know how women's belly's usually are slightly roundly protruding underneath their belly button? My never was. Ever. I also never really got periods. But then, a year ago, it turns out the flat belly and the no periods were related. The tumor in the brain had played around with my hormones and hence I didn't have a menstrual cycle. I didn't get bloated or sore backs or bleed. And when I found out why, that my future baby-making hormones were stuffing up, I felt like less of a woman.

But then one day, a few months into treatment, my belly started to swell in that under-the-navel area, and alas, my uterus was working! I was so happy to get a period that I went downstairs to tell my 62 year old male thesis supervisor (who was equally happy for me). So while my belly is still pretty flat, there's one week a month when that lower part swells and when it does, I rub it like I am rubbing my womanhood directly.

My arms are another part where my view has changed. I used to like really toned arms. Really really skinny, really really toned arms (which I never had). But now, the thought of that makes me squirm a little bit. I don't like that look. I like soft lines. Maybe it's part of me, idealising fertility after my infertility scare. I do like strong arms, I like doing push-ups. But I don't ever want to resemble Madonna.

So I suppose the other main part of the body is the bum. I never hated my bum, but I always got teased a bit about having such a small arse. Yes, I spent my adolescence slightly insecure about a having small bum and big boobs. (Proof that those magazines keep you unhappy even if you have what they tell you is desirable.) Having a small bum wasn't too much of an issue. But I tell you what, it was difficult to find a bikini.

Then there is weight. People weigh themselves, but what does that figure mean? I stopped weighing myself years ago. I saw my specialist a few weeks ago. Upon greeting me, he asks me if I've lost weight. 'Don't think so', I reply. He weighs me regularly to see if my meds are affecting my weight. Sure enough, he's right - I've lost a fair bit. But it doesn't really mean much. I might put it back on before my next visit, I might lose some more. A weight in kilograms is arbitrary. It's not that I don't care about my body, I do. I eat very little processed foods, generally don't drink, no fast food, I exercise regularly, drink heeeeeaps of water etc. In fact, it's probably because I do all of this that my weight in kilos is of little concern to me. I don't exercise to weigh a certain amount; I exercise to be fit and strong.

While always appreciating and respecting my health, nearly all of my perceptions of the body have been around what I thought I should have, based on fairly trivial influences. I saw other teenage girls without boobs so therefore hated my own breasts; models had long sticks for legs, and I deemed my own legs short and stumpy; pretty girls were tanned, my milk-like complexion was obviously unattractive and on it went. Health and body image were separate entities in my mind.

Now it's only recently, as I've read about body image while sitting in the wards of the cancer hospital, that I've realised just how little we base our ideals of good bodies on what actually matters: health. When I think about my body now, I think about it not in terms of body parts, but instead of body functions. A flat stomach pales in comparison when prioritised next to your fertility. When I sit in the cancer hospital, I am happy that my body is strong, because at some point in the future, I'm going to need that strength to be able to physically carry the sick patient from her bed to the bath. Those leg muscles I disliked so much? Now I love them. They help me move, and walk, and dance. What about my breasts? Well, having recently discovered that my aunt had breast cancer in her twenties, I am less concerned with making mine look smaller and more concerned with checking them regularly for abnormal growths. My bum? Least of my worries. My energy is much better invested into ensuring my health than stressing about how my arse looks in a bikini.

The biggest irony in all of this is that we never discuss our brain. Without which, we'd not be. I realised how much we take our brains for granted when the growth in my own was discovered. The mere thought that it might grow, that it might impact my sight, or my thoughts, was frightening. I'd been wandering through life in this body, forgetting about it's central control -- without which I wouldn't be able to wander nor have memories or thoughts to forget in the first instance.

All of these magazines ar talking about the body and not one talking about who we are or what it is that our bodies do.

*I did actually buy this magazine because it was the Marie Claire edition with Jen Hawkins naked on the cover -- see post about that here.

Update between posts

2010-11-18T21:23:00.000+11:00

I am too busy to post but here's some news:

The draft of the 2010-15 National Drug Strategy has been released. Comment is due by the 10th December. Here's the link.

I gave a paper on research ethics today at the Australian Ethics Network conference. It seemed to go well. People said kind things to me afterwards. One man made it his mission to tell me that I have 'a very sharp and analytic mind, well done'. I liked him. Compliments on something of substance are appreciated. (As too are compliments about my shoes, but it's different ...)

I submitted a rushed chapter abstract for an edited collection on youth research ethics. Heard back today that there were 70+ submissions. Mine got in. *beams* Evidently the side distraction that was my first foray into ethics seems to have become a specialist area.

I don't have to see my specialist for FOUR MONTHS. Excellent. The whole brain tumor thing is really starting to tire me.

State election next weekend. I refuse to vote for either of the two major parties, and given the bizarre preferencing arrangements, voting Greens will be futile. Sighs. I was going to teach politics next semester. But I think, perhaps, this years rubbish in Australian politics has actually turned me off of politics. And if the Republicans win the next US election, I might actually die.

Anyway, I am currently marking. But seriously, how many consecutive papers on the same topic can one person read?

Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School: Where white elites encourage discimination

2010-11-11T13:58:00.000+11:00

For those of you in Australia who somehow missed the story here's a link, or a crass summary below:

Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School (IGGS) prohibited one of their year eleven students from taking her partner to the year level school formal. Which, given that everybody else was allowed to take a partner, seems a little unfair. Why was she discriminated against? Well, that depends on who you ask. The school says it was an age thing - Hannah's partner was in year ten and it was a year eleven event. They also said it's a gender thing - they wanted the girls to have an opportunity to mingle with boys. Oh yes, it seems I should have flagged earlier that Hannah's partner is female. (I didn't flag it earlier because it really shouldn't matter.)

So yes, Hannah's partner, Savannah, is too young, and her femininity is sure to totally disrupt the desired gender balance of the whole event. Interestingly, had she been a boy, her age would not have been asked. It's not a requirement for entry. Kind of ironic that the ALL GIRLS school is particularly concerned about the gender balance at the school formal, and not at all concerned about the out-of-touch with reality all-girl environment they inflict upon their students all year round. Anyhow, maybe it's more the age thing that they are concerned about. Maybe they think that a year ten girl is far too immature for the formal (but a year ten boy, presumably not ... now this line of reasoning is more absurd than one can digest).

So as John Birmingham has pointed out today, the school really ought to admit that they do in fact have an issue with same-sex couples and be done with it. Sure, they'd look stupid. But nowhere near as stupid as they currently do.

At present, they can't seem to state what everyone else can see (that their values are consistent with old white middle class fools from the stone age). Further, IGGS's ability to articulate any sort of reasoned reply has been an utter failure. The school principle should not have fronted the media: she couldn't be clear if it was the age, or the gender, or maybe both, which meant that Hannah couldn't bring her partner. Were I a parent of a child at that school the principle's inability to seem remotely intelligent would have me withdraw my child from the school immediately. Who would pay for their child to attend a school where the principle appears a fool?

So the girls have finished the academic year and have both enrolled at Swinburne Senior Secondary College (SSSC) for next year. It will seem quite a leap for them: SSSC has girls AND boys, gays and straights, open attitudes and an adult environment. I'm impressed by Hannah and Savannah but not at all surprised about the school. I am, however, eternally surprised that people choose to send their children to institutions such as these.

Old friends

2010-11-05T22:37:00.000+11:00

I've got a lot of friends. At present, Facebook tells me that it's 489. Now obviously, knowing 489 people does not mean that they are all your friends. But Facebook doesn't have an 'acquaintances' tag, so everyone you know is your friend. But that's okay -- share the love! Anyway, That's all kind of irrelevant. I'm writing about old friends. I've had some of the same friends since I was in kindergarten. Now, we don't all have a lot in common in terms of professional interests or political conversation or whatever. But a lifetime of shared experience creates a bond which is difficult to rival. All of my old friends have built lives very different to my own. But these friends, the ones who are still around after all of these years, they are like a second family.

A few weeks ago I went to see Powderfinger's final tour. We missed tickets to the Melbourne show, so we were travelling down to Bendigo for the night to see it there. I've loved Powderfinger for years and the gig was great. I was a bit anxious about it though - one of their songs was played at my brother's funeral. I hear it on the radio from time to time and can usually refrain from crying, but I suspected that hearing it live would be different. And it was.

We got through the whole show and encore, and the song hadn't been sung. But then there was a second encore, with just that one song. Fortunately I was there with Mel. I am extremely uncomfortable being emotional, well, being vulnerable, in front of people and they frequently feel as though I have pushed them away. (Yes, I realise that this is what awkward 14 year old emo's are like. I also realise that I am not 14 or an emo, so it's a far less endearing trait.) Anyhow, these old friends of mine have learnt not to take it personally.

So Mel and I have been friends for 20 years. She knows me well. Better than most. When you're friends with people this long, especially through childhood and adolescence, you experience each other's triumphs and tribulations. You know each other's sensitivities. You know their family dynamics and what foods they don't like. You know their moods and can pretty much predict how they will respond to certain situations. But some things are still shocking. I was shocking for Mel, the day of my brother's funeral.

A year after the event, when talking with another old friend - Linda - about how surreal life had been through the grief, she told me about the outsider's version of the funeral. When Linda arrived to the funeral home, Mel was in tears. The service hadn't started. Linda asks, 'Mel, why are you so upset?' Mel replies tersely, 'You clearly haven't seen Kat'. I'd not long walked past and been escorted into my place in the front row. I'd avoided eye contact with everyone - I was too scared to cry. Apparently not crying didn't cut it. My whole demeanour had brought my friend to tears.

So Mel was with me at Powderfinger. And as they played These Days, Mel held me. And we both cried. And she held me tighter. And the song ended, and we applauded the show. We didn't discuss it. We went back to shivering in the five degree temperature of the outside show, and as we trenched through the sludge that was the ground, we were appreciative that we'd worn gumboots. In those few minutes, during that song, I was so grateful to have my old friend there. I was so grateful that I've had old friends when terrible things have happened.

Can straight guys be best friends with straight girls?

2010-10-07T15:15:00.001+11:00

... most will say no but I disagree. I have to disagree – I’ve never been without a straight male best friend. But there are different parameters on guy/girl best friends. Here’s a few:

1 – No sex (or kissing, or warm embraces, or holding hands …)

I don’t have sex with my male best friends, just like I don’t have sex with my female best friends. That’s because you don’t have sex with your friends. You have sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend and if you’re into casual sex with randoms you do that too. But with randoms; not with your best friends.

Commonly, people may fall in love with their opposite sex best friend. This is problematic as it often leads to sex. I won’t say don’t explore your feelings; but I will say that exploring those feelings will lead to one of two outcomes: you both fall in love and live happily ever after and all of your other friends will say that they always knew the two of you were going to get together. Or the other outcome is that you will not fall in love and not live happily ever after and you will not be best friends anymore. Be prepared for worst case scenario.

Admittedly, it’s not as simple as this: what if you’re in love with your best friend, and want to give it a shot, but aren’t prepared to lose the friendship? Well you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Because even if you don’t make a move on your mate, the friendship’s going to change by virtue of the fact that you’re no longer going to be able to hear about their sexual exploits with other people without feeling crushed -- so the friendship may well fade out anyway … sorry.

2 – Rules of communication

Generally, I don’t contact people after dinner time. I’m at an age where most of my friends are partnered and we tend to respect that people spend their evenings and weekends with their partners. So I don’t interfere with that. Now there’s obvious exceptions: my close girlfriends and I have contact at all sorts of times of the day. But not my close friends that are boys. That’s crossing a line. A self-imposed line, but a line that has worked my whole life in keeping guy/girl friendships going, and going in a healthy functional way where our respective partners feel no jealousy about the other man/woman in their partner’s life. Here is my guide to communication with your opposite sex bestie:

• No hugs or kisses at ends of texts/emails/Facebook messages except in group emails where the platonic meaning is obvious. X’s and O’s are also acceptable in times of emotional significance (condolences, congratulations etc.) or on the person’s birthday

• You don’t say I miss you and you don’t say I love you. The only exception to the former is if the person is away for an extended period of time. Even then, think twice. However, in some contexts it’s okay. e.g.: ‘Hope you’re having an awesome time, miss you giving me shit’ to your best mate who is on an overseas trip with his girlfriend is quite different to a midnight message to him, when he is still in the country, saying ‘Hope you had a great weekend. Miss you.’ I also end all phone conversations with my girlfriends with ‘I love you’; but I would never, ever do that with my guy friends

• Communication is kept to business hours (some room for exception)

A guy I did my undergrad with says that a message from the opposite sex after 9pm is a sex message. I used to disagree – I don’t anymore. The only exception to this is if you are out clubbing with the friend and have lost them in the club and you send a text saying ‘where are you?’

3 – You do not get changed in front of opposite sex best friend

(even if they have seen it all before when you had some awful wardrobe malfunction at that party a few years ago)

4 – You do not catch up intimate spaces.

I might go to my girlfriend’s and sit on her couch and watch DVDs all night. You do not do that with opposite sex best friends unless it’s a whole group of you there.

5 – You don’t sleep in the same bed as that friend.

Last year I went to Sydney with a girlfriend of mine and the hotel stuffed up the bedding arrangements and gave us a room with a queen size bed rather than two singles. We didn’t bother switching; we just slept in the same bed. Earlier this year I was contemplating a trip to Japan with my guy best friend. If that had have happened, we would have got them to put us in a room with single beds. Sleeping with someone is an intimate experience and even when there’s not any feelings there, you need to keep the boundaries clear. Especially to respect each other’s partners.

6 – You must treat their partner with the utmost respect.

Which means following the above rules. A female friend of mine has said that she probably wouldn’t go out with a guy whose best friend was a straight single girl. I can see her concern: as the new partner, she essentially comes in as the other woman. There’s already a girl in his life that knows everything about him – and knows all the dirty secrets that he’s never going to tell you. But what the girlfriend always has on the friend is that the boy loves the girlfriend, and thus, will treat her in a way which makes her know that she is number one. Plus, boy has sex with girlfriend not with friend (see rule 1). Sharing something as intimate as making love is a connection that only the girlfriend has with the boy and that’s something special. I’m not saying sex is always special, but sex with a partner, who you’re in love with, has an emotional intensity to it that nothing in friendship is comparable to.

7 – Be okay when your opposite sex best friend couples up and goes through the honeymoon period.

I don’t get shitty when my best mate goes off the radar when he falls in love. He doesn’t get shitty when I fall in love and talk incessantly about the new man. He asks about all the little details. My girlfriends do it too. It’s normal. It’s lovely when your friends are this happy and you should be happy for them! If you are getting jealous, you may like your friend more than you should …

8 – Get along with your best friend’s partner, even if it’s difficult.

You not getting along will only make things more difficult. I’ve never had this problem; my guy best friends have always dated fabulous women. My problem is that when they break up I lose a friend too.

9 – re: number 8, I lose a friend too because if your best mate doesn’t speak to their ex, neither do you.

It’s the way it works. Which was particularly difficult when the lovely lady of a long term male best friend called to tell me she’d walked in on him with someone else – would I still be at her birthday party? Oh shit. He had (clearly) been an ass. But the thing is, you gotta stick by your friends even when they act like tools. (I did tell him he was a tool.)

My current boyfriend has recently come into contact with my boy bestie through work. When I asked the bf how it would be to work with the bestie if we broke up, he promptly said he’d give the account to someone else from his team. Not because the bestie would make work difficult (although, if the bf had done something terrible to me, then maybe he would), but because it would just be weird to go to work with your ex’s best mate.

10 – Be totally transparent about your guy-girl friendship(s).

When you start dating someone, you talk about your friends. Be aware of how this can be perceived. My best friend is a boy, therefore, he gets mentioned quite a bit. Therefore, I pre-empt any concern by making clear that no, he’s not in love with me. Nor has he ever been. Nor have I ever been. Nope, we’ve never been together – ever. That way, it’s pretty clear that it’s platonic. You see, the guy I’m dating will reason that if my boy-bestie and I were going to hook up, we would have already.

But what if it’s not this simple? What if you did hook up? Or if you’ve got an opposite sex friend in your group and there has been something there? Or there was almost something there? Or, even if you feel conceited to admit it, there was a friend who was really were quite fallen for you? Well, here it all gets blurry. Some people don’t want to know this stuff because it runs the risk of planting those pesky seeds of doubt and concern. But that’s not me. Even if I wanted to keep something in, I couldn’t. I’m all for total transparency.

If I’m going out for a group dinner and there’s a guy there who’s got a thing for me, I’d tell my boyf so he behaves tenderly and sensitively toward said boy. Though, if the boy with the crush didn’t respect that I was not interested, I’d make it pretty clear that his unwelcome flirting is totally NOT OKAY. It may be phrased such as ‘Stop being such a sleaze and fuck off because I like him and not you’. It is necessary to be so forthright because my Number One is my partner and I need to make it clear to him that I am happy to cut ties with friends who cross boundaries. He shouldn’t have to worry that when he’s not there that I’ll be letting the sleazy mate make moves on me.

My guy bestie says all sorts of profanities to girls that openly flirt with him despite knowing that he has a partner. Even if they are in his friendship group he has no qualms in making it blatantly clear that not only is he not interested; but that he’s lost all respect for them for not respecting him. It doesn’t mean that he’s ditching his friends for his girl; it means that his friends weren’t acting like friends anyway.

So yes, if you follow these ten easy steps, straight girls can be best friends with straight guys!

****
These rules are only valid for hetero's. Gays are much better at negotiating opposite sex, same sex, and sex with friends. Probably because they communicate much better. (Yes, I'm an endless pit of stereotypes).

The endless advice you get while you’re doing a PhD …

2010-10-06T23:27:00.000+11:00

When I first started my PhD, my second supervisor said to me, ‘Be selective on the advice you take, being a PhD candidate is like being an out-of-form athlete – everyone’s got an opinion on what the best way forward is’. Too true.

Women with children might liken it to pregnancy – all women who even know someone who has been pregnant feel it quite within their purview to tell the pregnant woman what she should do, needs to do, shouldn’t do etc. The reality is that pregnancy will almost always look after itself so shut up with all the conflicting advice already.

My advice to the athlete, the pregnant woman and the PhD scholar: do what’s best for you. This often means it best that you leave some of this advice at the door.

The problem with endless advice is that, inevitably, one piece of wisdom conflicts with the words of wisdom imparted by someone else, or by that same person at a different point in time. Here’s some examples:

Supervisor one: Do not take holidays while you are doing your PhD

Supervisor two: Take as many holidays as possible – the more breaks the better

Twelve months later, with an overseas adventure with the boyfriend on the horizon, I contemplate how to tell Supervisor One about the plan. Turns out I needn’t have worried, he’s changed his mind. He likes the bf and is strongly encouraging of romantic liaisons in exotic locations. Says it’s okay, he’ll be on holidays at the same time, so I can have the leave. However, he does reinforce that pregnancy cannot be an outcome at any point during the PhD. 'I know, Chris, it's not part of the plan', I say. I then tell him, that since he’s been young, there’s been a new development, it’s called contraception (he appreciates my ageism).

So this leads to the next point: pregnancy during a thesis? Is it the ideal time or the absolute worst time to contemplate children? Well, like everything else, that depends on who you ask. While the government scholarship I am on does have very good maternity leave provisions – 12 months paid leave – there’s more to consider than that. Namely, that the scholarship is in line with the minimum wage so if that’s your only source of income, 12 months paid leave probably won’t be enough money - well, if you want to eat something more than beans and rice.

Secondly, and more importantly, while you do get a nice long year to have off and play Mum, you do have to come back and finish writing a doctorate while you have an infant. Now, I’m not a parent, so I won’t profess to be an expert, but that seems like an unnecessarily ambitious task. Writing a thesis is a selfish task; infants are also selfish. I’m not sure how one can adequately meet the needs of both without placing unnecessary stress on all involved. Plus, how can you be interested in a thesis if you have a cute little person at home to play with?

So if you’re like me, and have the privilege of having a full scholarship and the opportunity to work on your thesis full-time, – and prior to mortgages and children – I’d advise you to hold off on these things. Even if the maternity leave seems generous. But there’s conflicting advice on that too. I’ve seen lots of pregnant bellies among the postgrad offices and know lots of people managing mortgages just fine. So, as per above, do what works best for you. But if you are going to take on huge commitments, plan for worst case-scenario (e.g. your thesis running over time and your scholarship funding running out …).

Other advice often pertains to what you should be doing at different points of your candidature. The widely propagated, but extremely fictitious and very damaging myth is that the first year doesn’t count. ‘You don’t have a question yet? Oh, it doesn’t matter – you’re still in your first year’; ‘ You don’t need to work on the PhD everyday, the first year is really cruisey’; ‘You should teach in your first year, you’re not doing much on your thesis then anyway’; ‘Why are you writing already? You shouldn’t write in your first year’. WRONG WRONG WRONG. WRONG.

It’s not wrong to not have a question; nor to work on the thesis five days rather than seven. It’s also not wrong to teach (a little bit). (I would argue that it probably is wrong to not be writing something in the first twelve months. But most people tend not to, so what do I know …) What’s wrong is that all of these sort of statements denigrate the importance of the first twelve months of your candidature.

Because if you listen to these lines of thought, you suddenly find that you’re in second year, without a question, overloaded with teaching commitments, have no routine for keep up pace on your thesis and haven’t written a word. Then you get stares of concern, and you start to feel anxious. Shit. You’re in your second year and you’ve made no progress. Shit, where did time go? Fuck, I haven’t written a word? How am I going to taking four tutes a week? How can I go and do fieldwork? I need to be in the classroom three days a week? Aaaaah! I’m doomed! I should drop out! My progress report will be abysmal … and so goes this thought cycle, so loud and destructively that the stress of it can be so all-consuming that you are precluded from dealing with any of it.

So value your first year and work hard. Really hard. Establish a really strong foundation for your project. Refine your question so explicitly that you have no doubts about it; refine your methods so explicitly that you have no doubts about how you will answer your question. Finish your first year knowing exactly what you are doing, why you are dong it, how are you going to do it, and a clear plan for how you will manage it.

So I’ll now choose to ignore the fact that in criticising the endless advice I am now dishing it and go back to my contention about conflicting advice:

Advice on methods: how many interviews is enough? Don’t ask this question. The answer is: as many as you can get. But people will try and quantify it. I was told by some, no more than 30 interviews. In fact, 20 is probably best. Anything more will be too much to manage. But I did almost 30 in my Honours thesis, which is a LOT smaller than a PhD, so that seems odd. They tell me I shouldn’t have done that many for an Honours thesis, that it was too much to manage. But I got a H1? And a PhD scholarship? And a publication? What’s so wrong with it? Anyway … just go out interviewing and get as many as you can and hope and pray that you can get enough data. I’m aiming for 120. That way, if I fall short, I should still have plenty.

Advice on writing is often helpful and often useless. Take advice from someone you want to emulate. But emulate someone realistic – so if you’re doing empirical work, taking advice from a political scientist may not be so useful. You need to emulate someone whose writing will also be stunted by the data collection process. Likewise, if you are writing some sort of historical analysis, don’t aim to write like the applied social researcher. They’ll be out ‘in the field’ for at least 12 months that you should be spending reading and writing. My advice on writing is to write as much as you can as often as you can and don’t worry if it’s rubbish. Worry if you’ve got nothing.

Then there’s other advice: spend longer doing the PhD to get publications along the way, or to publish once you’ve done the thing? Teaching is helpful or teaching is a hindrance? Work on campus or off? Full time or part time? Write in the morning or write in the evening? Go to an overseas conference; network, be strategic, know you’ll have to apply for positions interstate … blah blah blah

Whatever. Do what works best for you, but make sure whatever it is that you are doing is actually working. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that it’ll all work out. You have to make it work out. My advice is to get onto it and to toss most of the advice aside. The reality is that everyone will pass their PhD if they finish it. So focus less on whether it’s going to be ‘good enough’ and more on just getting it done.

Breasts as sexually explicit

2010-10-04T10:25:00.000+11:00

Katy Perry recently recorded a Sesame Street special. She reworked the lyrics of one of her songs and filmed a clip co-starring Elmo. The clip received complaints that Perry was dressed too provocatively and was subsequently axed. I read the reports imagining corsets and suspenders, but no, Perry’s just wearing an ordinary dress.

The problem, as it is presented to be, is not that Perry is scantily clad, but that she has large breasts. And they are real. So they may possibly even move (dare I say ‘bounce’) when she dances around. The attitude presented by those doing the complaining and those doing the axing is that breasts are sexually explicit and must be censored from small children. This is not the case. Small children are fed by breasts. They don’t think much of them at all. Well, until they are banned from their television shows.

When breasts are banned, children are being told that this part of a woman's body is only for ‘adult viewing’. Breasts are something explicit, perhaps even illicit. Young girls are being sent images about their future bodies: that their breasts should be covered modestly unless engaged in ‘adult activity’; that their bodies are inherently sexually provocative; that their sexuality and bodies should be covered; and that it is up to women to control how their bodies are perceived (‘dress like a slut and you’re choosing to be treated like one’).

Little boys are also being sent unhelpful messages: that women’s bodies, unless dressed in a sack, are objects of ogling; that it’s women’s responsibility to dress appropriately as their breasts will cause uncontrolled offence; that breasts should be hidden.

No wonder people debate whether breastfeeding is appropriate public behaviour – it appears to have been entirely forgotten that lactating is breasts’ natural function.

The Katy Perry debacle is problematic, because we don’t have a censor for all of the other rubbish that our children see. The violence on TV; the reports of war on the news; the reality that being in the army means that you will kill people; the endless media coverage of celebrity drug use; soliciting sex, etc etc. The take home message: death and violence are normal, as too are drugs and prostitution. But Girls, make sure you always hide your breasts, you don’t want to shock anyone with their sexually explicit nature.

…

Postscript:

For fuck’s sake … it’s a body. A body that half of the population embody. Get over it.

Interviewing tip number one: Listening

2010-09-30T00:06:00.000+10:00

Research interviews are a complex interaction and they’re something we must think carefully about before we attempt them. Of course, with practise we get better; but going in unprepared is foolish (and ignorant, disrespectful …). So here is the first in a series which will look at useful tips for interviews.

Listening

This seems logical. It’s seems obvious. It seems easy. But in spite of this it’s an extremely difficult skill to master. In general conversation we are, hopefully, in a reasonably balanced exchange of words. An interview isn’t like that – as the interviewer, you are there to listen. To hear somebody’s story. Certainly, don’t sit there like a garden gnome, be engaged; but not necessarily verbally.

Our body language and our facial expressions let people know we’re hearing what they are saying. People will continue to speak until we look like we don’t want them to. Or until we interrupt them. So don’t interrupt them. Not so long as what they are saying will be useful.

Listening is exhausting. While you shouldn’t be saying much, listening is far more exhausting than if you were sitting there chatting back to your participant. You actually need to stay focused on something that has absolutely nothing to do with you. You also need to guide the interview effectively to avoid having a whole transcript of generic rambling.

It’s not about you, so let your participant speak. Do NOT say phrases such as ‘I know how you feel’. You do not know how they feel. So you need to shut up and listen and to do this well you need to be attentive and engaged. Do not sit with your arms crossed, and avoid taking too many notes. You want to come across as a listener, not an interrogator. Don’t look at the people walking by and don’t start to think about what you’ll need to cook for dinner. Do not have your mobile phone switched on, and do not look at your watch (unless you know that the participant needs to be somewhere at a particular time). Very importantly, don’t be interviewing people when you are tired or stressed. Your inability to focus is interpreted as disinterest.

If you want the participant to be open, you need to provide them a wide open space to do this. No boundaries. (I am being metaphorical here.) Create a safe space where your participant feels safe to put things on the table. Show that you’re interested. Don’t stymie it by trying to hurry it or intervene with too many questions. Do probe further at times to show that you do want to hear the intimate details. Don’t probe so much that the participant feels as though they’re on the phone to a marketing company in India completing a battery of questionnaires.

Being heard, without judgement, may be the greatest gift you can give your participant. It’s a very valuable thing to get right.

Practical practise tip: Try listening in everyday conversation. Ask someone you know how their day was. Ask them why it was that way. Hear what they are saying and the tones in which they are saying it. If they are dismissive of your questions (e.g.: ‘my day was fine’), try again. People will answer dismissively if they feel as though the person asking doesn’t want a detailed response. (Forewarning – Eventually you’ll find that you no longer have casual chats: every conversation you have will have a degree of intensity to it. A privilege, but often exhausting.)

The holiday that keeps escaping me

2010-09-23T18:00:00.000+10:00

It's been a while - I’ve been busy. And will be for some time to come. I am currently trying to plan a holiday (the doctor’s given me a few weeks off of work which is time to play with). Slight problem though – no free time for the foreseeable future. Research, teaching, family commitments, musicals, and conferences, I’ve not got a decent block of time in which to escape to some sunny destination. This is unfortunate given that I have multiple pairs of bikinis still with tags. I was meant to be in Singapore in May, but work interfered with that. I didn't anticipate that four months later I'd still not have organised some sort of consolation.

I do have a weekend away in a fortnight's time, and this will, of course, be a nice escape. Save for the fact that I am going with a licence-less person and thus, have to do all of the driving. Ugh. The upside is that the new (thought not yet blogged-about) treatment is much more tolerable than the last round of rubbish. Here's hoping it works.

I’m about to head off to the gym, so got to dash. But hope you’re all supporting Collingwood this weekend! GO PIES!

It's a new day: ALP success

2010-09-07T17:03:00.000+10:00

My kids will be born into a world where a Prime Minister being female won't be newsworthy.

Today is a good day.

Overdose Awareness Day 2010

2010-08-31T14:16:00.002+10:00

Today is Overdose Awareness Day. It is a day to acknowledge and remember the lives lost and affected by drug overdose. Sally Finn, the founder of OAD, also hopes that they day works of a way of laying bare the stigma attached to overdose: the stigma upon those who have overdosed; and the stigma on the families and friends who have lost someone to overdose. Because, after all, the measure of a person's life is not the way in which it ended.

Fitzroy Legal Service have their window painted accordingly

There is also website collecting all of the Tweets which are tagged with the hashtag #od10 here.

You can also leave a tribute on the online memorial page. To do this, you need to fax +61 3 9536 7778 or email access.health@aus.salvationarmy.org.

My thoughts are with all who have been affected by overdose.

Relationship rules

2010-08-30T17:58:00.002+10:00

Lots of my friends seek relationship advice from me. I am not entirely certain why – relationships (of significance) aren’t something with which I’ve had a lot experience (although, those I have had have all been good ones).

Anyway, after constant listening to my friends' conundrums, I’ve found myself frequently thinking and saying the same things. Here’s some guidelines for my friends the next time I’m not able to come to the phone:

1. Partners who make you feel inadequate need to get the arse

They often don’t do it intentionally, often, it might be your own low self-esteem that does it to yourself; but whatever the cause, it’s not going to work. Partners should increase your sense of self-worth; not diminish it. Your self-esteem you need to sort out, don't be depending on anybody else to make you like you.

2. If you ever feel unsafe, get out

No explanation required. (If you think explanation is required, get to therapy and stay single until you’ve figured our why it goes without saying.)

3. People grow together; do compromise on the small stuff

People learn each other’s needs as they learn about each other. Don’t expect your partner to get everything right. If something is of more import to them than it is to you, do it their way. For instance, two of my friends are fairly agnostic. Borderline atheists. Their (then) fiancés were raised Catholic. Should they marry in a church? Well, neither of the brides was really bothered by the prospect of marrying in a church; yet both of the grooms were greatly bothered by the prospect of not marrying in a church. So the church won.

Issues smaller than this need compromise too. You learn each others quirks – accommodate them. If one of you are cleaner than the other, then so be it. You love literature and but they love comics? Cool. It’s called variety. Try it sometime. Or be single forever. Or better – try dating someone exactly like you and realise how annoying some of your traits are!

(this point comes from My Supervisor who always tells me to be more understanding, 'partners grow together, Kat' ...)

4. But don’t compromise on the big stuff

Like safety, for instance. Or, if you are a devout, anti-religious, atheist, then do not agree to marry in a church – you’ll resent them for it forever. Children are another area where compromise is not recommended: if you know that you want children, and you partner doesn’t, then, well, cut your losses.

5. On cheating

I follow the harm reduction hierarchy:

Ideally, don’t do it.

It you are going to cheat, do it safely. (Contraceptives are not safe; condoms are. While this rule is especially important to prevent pregnancy, also imagine that your partner discovers you’ve had an affair because you’ve given them and STI? Ew.).

If you’re going to do it unsafely – get tested

I don’t dictate on whether or not you should tell your partner. But whatever you do, make sure you are doing what’s best for your partner, rather than just what will ease your conscience (telling someone you’re breaking up with, that you’ve been over them for ages, and that it’s evidenced by the fact that you’ve been sleeping with someone else may just add insult to injury).

I argue that there’s differing degrees of cheating badness. Not too many agree with me, but here’s the two ends of my continuum:

Worst end: long term affair, where you are emotionally involved with the person who you are having an affair with (worse even would be if the person is known to your partner). If you catch up with this person for chats, if you share with them details of stressful days, and if you see them and don’t always have sex, you’re pretty much ripping out the heart of your partner. Because, well, you’re in love with the person you’re having an affair with. BTW, do not ever bring the other partner into the marital home. Ever.

Least worse end: kissing a total stranger whose number you don’t even have.

6. What’s important to you should be important to them

It may mean that they sit through shit movies, listen to you talk about cars (although, there are limits), come along to your cello recital then so be it.

On a slightly deeper note, it may mean that if celebrating anniversaries is of extreme significance to you, then they’ll put a reminder in their phone to remember it. If your life work is about saving the environment, then they’ll come along and plant a tree with you from time to time.

Deeper again, if you know that your partner is a bit raw about something that’s happened in the past (parental break up would be a common one), be sensitive to things that may hit this nerve and understanding of why. Talking to a parent that they barely ever see is likely to elicit strong emotions. Be there to give them a hug; if it’s you, let your partner know that you want a hug the first time. Each instance after that they should remember to do so.

7. Good partners ask you how your day was

And actually want to know. Because they care. They especially want to know about the really good things and the really bad things.

8. Caring partners are sensitive to your insecurities

If you know that they need more phones calls than the average Joe, or more hugs, or more transparency, then do it. If it’s too much an ask of you, get out. They won’t change, and it won’t work

9. Communicate, honestly, especially about the un-fun stuff

Cumulative in its effect, an absence of honest communication is possibly the biggest cause of relationship breakdown. So many people say that the most honest conversation that they ever had with their partner was the break up conversation. Don’t let that be you. Talk about the stuff that’s uncomfortable or unflattering to talk about. Listen to the comments that make you uncomfortable or look less than perfect. Saying some things aren’t working, and hearing that some things aren’t working, is far better than having to say or hear that it’s all over cause the relationship isn’t working. When it gets to the point that you speak to others about your issues before you speak to your partner, you’re, well, possibly already at, but at least very very near, the point of no return. So speak now, or forever hold your relationship back.

10. You should never need to have the conversation about whether it’s official

The conversation where you establish if the two of you are seeing each other, if you’re exclusive etc (the adult equivalent, though just as infantile in nature, of ‘are you my girlfriend?’).

I refuse to have this conversation. I tell my friends not to have this conversation. ‘But I want it to be clear’ replied a friend, ‘The clarity shouldn’t come through a verbal contract’ is my trite reply. ‘But what if they’re sleeping around while I think it’s exclusive?’ This statement, the what if they’re sleeping with other people concern, is not one which should need to be articulated as not okay. If your partner is seeing other people, and you feel that having a conversation about exclusivity is the solution, you’re kidding yourself.

People sleep with other people because they want to; talking about not doing so is asking someone to stop doing something they like – it won’t work. So, you should both behave in a way where you each know, without saying, that you both are, and want to be, exclusive with one another. If you’re not clear if that’s where you are at, then I’d say it’s fair to say that you’re not there.

10. Take a utilitarian position

Make a list of pros and cons. Pros should, far outweigh the cons. Note, ‘outweigh’ not outnumber. You can come up with a list of cons which has thirty of your partners annoying habits. If the only thing on the list of pros is that they are, say the love of your life, then cons still lose.

Also, notice just how bad things are. If you’ve been arguing a lot, ask yourself the last time things were good. It may have been a lot longer than you remember. If this is the case, figure out what you want and do something about it.

Another way of measuring good times vs. bad times is the frequency at which the thought ‘I love this person’ runs through your head when you are with your partner. You might say it a lot out of habit, but how often do you really feel it? If it’s been a while, then, well, you probably know what that means.

Another measure: as of right now, wait and see how long it is until the next time things feel great. Then, when you feel that, take note, and wait and see how long until the next time. What’s the space in between these two occasions? Is it too long? What's your role in this?

11. Ultimatums

If you’re ~~stupid~~ brave enough to offer these, then don’t offer them hoping for the best; offer them being totally prepared for the worst. My best friend’s partner once said ‘give me more time with you, or I am leaving’. My best friend didn’t have any more time (without sacrificing much-loved activities), and the relationship ended, much to the shock and sadness of them both.

So, if you’re in that situation, before you demand more time from your partner, ask whether the time you currently have is better than none at all. It may not be, but at least be prepared for worst case scenario.

I’d avoid ultimatums. Always try and clarify what you feel, what you want and what you need. Have conversations about this. Not everything is reducible to dichotomous options

12. Have courage

The courage to say the things that aren’t easy; to make the harder decision when complacency would be simpler; to leave when it’s dead; to stick to your decision. Once something is over, it’s over. It may be very hard, but getting back together is not a sustainable solution and dragging something out is prolonging the inevitable.

My best friend and I both follow the rule: never get back with an ex. He swears he’ll never relent on it; I don’t say things that have the words ‘ever’ in them (ever, never, forever …). I will say that is a guideline that I’ve not ever gone against and that’s because by the time I’ve come to the decision that something’s over, I have tried all other options, so am really sure on why it’s over.

13. Do not ever take your relationship for granted

It’s work – be attentive, give it attention, look after it, nurture it, lay a solid foundation and support it with sturdy scaffolding. Two amazingly compatible people doesn’t’ translate to relationship success. It’s like putting two brilliant novelists into a room with a PC. If they don’t work, they won’t create books. If you and your amazingly compatible partner don't do any work, you won’t create a relationship.

End of today’s advice.

‘Hey, Matthew Newton, you’re a dick head’ ...

2010-08-25T21:02:00.001+10:00

... that was my Facebook status Monday evening. Since then, I’ve had 20 odd people ‘like’ and comment on it. A (male) friend of mine posted a link to this YouTube clip. I was pissed off, and evidently, so were lots of other people.

My tolerance for this sort of behaviour is, well, zilch.

Did Newton hit Taylor because he has a history of substance abuse? No. Rachel Taylor has vehemently argued that he was not substance affected at the time of the assault. But even if he was, drugs do not cause violence. Lots of people take drugs and very few commit violence. Those who do probably would have done so irrespectively.

Is it a mental illness?

A mental illness that makes a non-violent man violent? A mental illness that changes a man, makes him lose reason and commit horrific offences? A mental illness that affects him so much that he loses the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong; but somehow, leaves him with the capacity to only assault his female partners rather than random men walking down the street? Were Chopper in the room rather than Taylor, would this bizarre bout of mental illness have still come about? No. Because it’s not a mental illness. Don’t make that a scapegoat – people who are mentally ill aren’t wife-beaters, they are mentally ill. Wife-beaters are dick heads.

There are lots of reasons that violence against women is frustrating and while they are all interrelated, there are separate issues. Because it’s such an impassioned topic, we often confuse them, or bunch them all together, which blurs the ‘wrongness’ of it all.

To be explicit, here’s a couple of the things which I think is what is inherently wrong about men being violent to women:

1 It’s an abuse of power

While violence, irrespective of gender, is not cool; there is something quite different about two men being violent with each other and a man beating a woman. What’s different is that it is not an equal fight. Men are, biologically, physically stronger than women. When they threaten, intimidate and are physically abusive towards women, they are abusing this inherent (physical) power inequality.

2 Men who do this fuck it up for everyone.

My office mate was observing last week that being jumpy, as in, easily frightened, is a trait that’s almost exclusive to women (although I’ve worked with young [abused] men who demonstrate this too). He was pondering why.

I thought it obvious – women are far more likely to live in fear: to be scared of not being safe; or to have experienced not being safe. A loud noise or a person appearing unexpectedly makes us jump because it’s the fear that we may be unsafe and the reality that, should violence come about, we’re unlikely to be strong enough to do much about it. Because we can’t do much about it, we have to be extra-cautious to avoid it.

As a result, women feel unsafe a lot of the time. Not necessarily so unsafe that we feel that if we are to walk down the street we will be victim of a violent assault; or that every boyfriend will beat us. But, knowing that many men do, we are cautious; we wonder if our men will ever hurt us. This is a fear. Not necessarily a hounding, constant fear (although, it certainly is for some), but a fear that we cannot take our safety for granted.

Living in fear has consequences for all of us. Obviously, fear is an emotion we’d mostly like to avoid. But what’s given less attention, is what it must be like for all of the non-violent men who have to prove that they are not violent, rather than have that assumption made until shown otherwise.

When I wash the dishes, my boyfriend often comes and holds me. I don’t think there’s been an instance where this hasn’t caused me to jump out of my skin. He hates this, but try as I might, it’s a reflex; it’s beyond my control. He interprets it as meaning that I don’t feel safe with him, which must, I assume, be quite hurtful – but it’s not my fault; it’s the fault of all the dick heads like Matthew Newton who make the world less safe for women

While it’s fine for me to say ‘I’m jumpy because some men are violent’; it’s not fair that all the non-violent men of this world have people wonder about them -- wonder if they have the capacity for violence. Women wonder which men are safe to be around; which men do we trust enough to let our girlfriends date; which men are safe to leave our children with. We don’t really wonder these things so much with women. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair that men are guilty until proven otherwise; yet given that some men are violent towards women, it’s only natural that women are cautious by nature – it’s not a risk that we’re prepared to take.

Because we’re being so cautious, we forget that we, as women, as much as we try to avoid violence, we can’t really prevent it – that’s up to the men.

White Ribbon Day is a day to stop and focus on how we can change a culture; how we can take away some of the silence about violence against women. It is a day to encourage men to take this oath:

‘I swear,

never to commit violence against women,

never to excuse violence against women,

and never to remain silent about violence against women.

This is my oath.’

Guys, you can do this at myoath.com.au

Election 2010

2010-08-23T23:32:00.000+10:00

I live in Gellibrand, on the border of Lalor. In other words, like most of Victoria, I live in very safe Labour seats. Health minister, Nicola Roxon is my MP; (current) PM, Julia Gillard, lives in my electorate, and is Member for our neighbour, Lalor. Both of these women have had their seats for years. They'll have them for as long as they wish. Best way to illustrate: I didn't received a single piece of election campaign material from any other party.

So anyway, being on the cusp of these two electorates means that my local polling booth has two queues. And when I went to vote on Saturday, so did Ms Roxon and Ms Gillard. This also meant that I voted in the midst of a media circus.

There was a young girl, say about five, waiting ever so patiently to give Gillard some flowers and wish her luck. You should have seen her beaming little face as Gillard arrived. She was standing next to me so, being slightly taller than most, I took some photos for her grandmother who couldn't see over all of the cameras. When she was interviewed, her mother explained how they had been learning about politics at school and that she was so excited that Julia lived in Altona.

Another man interviewed by the media explained why he voted for Gillard 'It's not just because I live in her electorate - I'm originally from Canberra. But she is good, and she's our first female Prime Minister, and I think that's important. I think it's important for my kids to see' (Kat nearly cries right here).

It was quite nice when, mid interview, Roxon's daughter runs off into the playground, I admired that the media didn't follow. Once Nicola Roxon went over to watch her daughter play, the media let her do so in peace.

The hype was building as Gillard arrived; as she stepped out of the car, there was instantaneous applause and cries of 'Good Luck, Julia' and 'Well done'. It was really quite moving. The campaign had virtually ignored Victoria, so it was nice to see that there is still some political engagement. Speaking of which, I was elated to see Adam Bandt win the seat of Melbourne. He ran an excellent campaign and is a formidable candidate.

Here's some pics of Gillard at the local primary school on Saturday:

Yes, I am refraining on analysis regarding the fact that we voted, yet still don't have an elected government ...
to be continued ...

Anxiety

2010-08-18T22:19:00.000+10:00

I have been in a fairly constant state of anxiety for the past couple of weeks, for a variety or reasons (none that are out of the ordinary).

I am currently convinced that I am an imposter and that my marvelous life is sure to come crashing down around me at any point. Quite possibly due to my own, uncanny ability to self-sabotage.

**Thoughts to self: This is normal. This is normal. This is normal. Do NOT, Kat, DO NOT, make any serious decisions until these feelings have passed. Breathe deeply ...

***further thoughts to self: therapy techniques on yourself are dubious in efficacy

****further to further thoughts to self: you are talking to yourself while talking to yourself - no wonder you got bloody anxiety - stop thinking and do some work!

I'll be sending the examiners some tissues with my thesis

2010-08-14T13:32:00.001+10:00

This week I started the interviews for my PhD. My interviews are exploring the life experiences of young people who have come to experience problematic substance use. I’ve done these interviews before, so I knew what to expect. But knowing what to expect doesn’t make it any less shocking.

I was speaking with my friend, Prof. Ought, on Wednesday about the absence of a vernacular which adequately describes how we feel things. We have names for emotions (e.g. happy, sad, fearful, etc), but don’t have a language for how these things feel.

I have a similar conundrum when I try to explain to others what it means, for a 17 year old girl to tell me that she slept on the streets from the time she was 13. When she told me of the bruises her father left on her face, I think about the pain, physical and emotional, that the imprint of his fist would have left.

When I talked to the young man who found himself in a world of paedophilia and prostitution at age 12, I hear the experiences, but lack the language to then convey how it felt for him to live through this.

Another young woman, in a gay relationship, tells me that she doesn’t know if she’s gay as much as she knows that she just could not ever be with a man again. This was the permanent reminder of the 13 rapes that she had endured. Even with another woman, she still has only non-sexual relationships. She hopes that one day sex can be a source of pleasure rather than trigger off floods of horrific memories.

What about the young woman who was left alone by child-protection after they deemed that the notifications made by her school were unsubstantiated? How did she feel when after fifteen minutes the authorities left the upper-middle class home which they assessed as safe and caring; yet for her was a dungeon of abuse and neglect – how can we articulate how that feels; how that permeates the trusts that children should take for granted?

What sort of language can I use to explain what it must be like for these children having spent their life living in fear – real, substantiated, fear and terror?

Two young women had histories of self-injury. Like so many I’ve met before, the descriptions of the purpose cutting their arms served was ‘It was the only thing that stopped the pain’ and ‘It was the only thing that made me feel alive’. How can I describe the internal pain that had to be cut out? How can I narrate what it must mean for a 12 year old girl to feel so numb that the permeation of her skin, which then gave her the sight of blood, let her know that she was not dead? Clearly she felt dead on the inside.

My Honours thesis made its readers cry – especially males. So with language too inadequate to convey emotion, I’ll write up my PhD. By then, I’ll have turned dozens of these traumatic narratives into a document and, when I send it off to my examiners, I’ll have to put in some tissues. Perhaps it’s not ideal to be writing a document that will upset people; but it’s more upsetting to me that these kids have had to live through events which, at their mere mention, make total strangers cry.

Breaking up ... with your research project

2010-08-10T13:10:00.000+10:00

I'm quoting Branwen Hide -

"Dear Project

I have tears in my eyes as I write this but I feel that there is nothing more I can do…I need space. We are no longer able to stimulate each other intellectually like we once did. Everyday is the same, with the same outcome again and again. It is like we are going around in circles and not getting to the core of the problem. And on top of all this, the lack of emotional support is causing me great heartache. We are not happy and I feel myself slipping yet you do nothing to help, even when I beg of you. I think we just need some time alone - some personal space to sort things out and try to ﬁgure out how to get back to the way we were at the beginning - full of excitement and joy. We need to try new things and once we have explored these other avenues we may ﬁnd that we are actually meant for each other and the troubles we have had sort themselves our or are no longer an issue. I do care about you immensely; you consume my every thought. But right now, I think we just need more that we can offer each other. We may ﬁnd that by exploring new options we ﬁnd new techniques that will stimulate us in ways we never thought possible.

Love always,

Your Research Scientist".

This is fantastic. A break-up letter to your research project. Those who have done research will identify. Those in relationships could probably use the same proforma should they wish to break up through the written word. The whole thing is over here.

Get Up!

2010-08-09T17:18:00.000+10:00

I've been in Daylesford all weekend at a yoga retreat. Divine. I was going to write about that until I was interrupted by an email from the amazing organisation which is Get Up!.

I am a member and I contribute financially to their campaigns. You should too. Why? Because they are an independent body that aren't competing for a place in parliament. They have more members than either political party and critique both the Left and the Right when they are falling short (which is often).

Last week, the won a High Court battle to regain the voting rights for 100,000 disenfranchised Australians who couldn't enrol to vote within the one business day allowed (it was previously seven days, the Howard government changed it). Read more about that here.

They have also influenced discussion of mental health which saw Labour make some policy amendments last week.

This week, they'll launch a campaign focusing on all the offensive, oppressive comments Abbott has made on women's rights. View the ad here.

For those who are apathetic about politics, after the High Court win on Friday, GetUp tweeted: "Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed ppl 2 change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has." And that's why you should think about your vote; and that's why you should contribute what you can to causes that matter to you. Especially this election where we are witnessing the inherent flaws of a two-party political model.

Progress reporting

2010-08-04T11:48:00.000+10:00

Okay, I’ve not been blogging much. I hate people that don’t update their blogs frequently, so have contemplated closing mine. But I don’t like that much and I still have hope that I’ll get back on track and be a more dutiful blogger. So will, for now at least, keep the page active.

This afternoon I have a meeting with My Supervisor for my regular progress report (the PhD equivalent of a PDR really). I was feeling nervous until I started to think about what I’ve done in the past six months that were directly PhD related (teaching and other research activity doesn’t count, even though without it, and with just a PhD, I’d be no chance of finding employment later). And I have been doing stuff. For instance, I have written three chapters of the thesis and a couple of publications, I’ve presented at conferences and become a member of the university ethics committee and I’ve began data collection (although my last progress report lists me as having that completed by now. But all is still on track for me to finish on time and with brain tumor to boot. So Progress Report Anxiety, take that!!

Before I get too confident, best I get back to it …

Speak soon. Promise.

Random tidbits

2010-07-23T22:44:00.000+10:00

Bill Clinton spreading the Harm Reduction message at an HIV prevention conference.

I began teaching for the semester today. The course is, as its name suggests, a Sociology of Drug Use. A subject I'm impartial to ranting a lot in. Week one's tutorial is a lot of housekeeping. My discussion of class rules went along the lines of:

'You cannot refer to a drug user as a "junkie"; nor to a prostitute as a hoe, whore or slut. It is totally unacceptable to use the word "gay" as a negative adjective or as a synonym for 'stupid'. These are on top of what I assume are the unspoken rules about sexism; racism etc.'

I like to be open minded and tolerant of other people's views; but there's some non-negotiables.

A medicated depression.

2010-07-23T22:26:00.000+10:00

I'm not sure yet if this week was a success or a failure. It began dismally. The medication made me so ill and affected my mood so negatively, that I had to avoid everyone and everything. Which even meant skipping breakfast and chocolate (these are two of the most amazing things in my life).

The nausea, while hideous, would have been slightly more manageable had these drugs not turned me into the most depressed woman on the planet. The tears -uncontrollable and multiple times a day - were just ridiculous. What was I crying about? Not anything that warranted so many salty streams down my face, that's for sure! Fortunately I managed to keep this to moments where I was solo. However, this did mean some rapid escapes from places and off into the security of my car.

So I took the meds on Sunday, and by Tuesday was firmly of the view that everything in my life was an abysmal failure, that I hated it all and needed to escape. I was easily irritable, grumpy like I was going to strangle someone, had no motivation to do my work and keeping up a friendly demeanour in conversation was an exhausting experience. Throughout all of this, I was seriously contemplating quitting my PhD and my job and MOVING OVERSEAS. What? This was absurd. I love my job. I love my PhD. I have little to no desire to live overseas (travel, yes; live, no). So, Wednesday afternoon, when I was into day three, while feeling low, I was also feeling a definite improve, I realised that the tumor medication (which acts on the dopamine receptors in my brain) was wreaking havoc on my emotional state.

So on Thursday, in my latest appointment, I spoke to the doctors about all of this. They were sympathetic to the nausea but that was not enough to warrant the discontinuation of the drugs. However, mention of the shift in mood (which I was surprisingly uncomfortable to tell them about) was responded with 'stop taking the tablets immediately'. So, the long story short: four weeks to clear out one treatment to introduce something new. Today's Friday, I'm still a bit fragile, but I am more and more myself and oh so glad I told them about it. I am also fortunate to have the most amazing mother on the planet. Not only did she tolerate this hideous me, but bent over backwards to accommodate me and do things to help and soften the awfulness of it all. Bless.

Finally, this week I failed in my one other task. I decided last weekend that I was going to book a holiday this week. Not a real holiday, but an inbetween holidays holiday. The current plan is South Australia. Why? Because they have this and this. I didn't get to book yet, so it looks like there's a little more time til I get to meet Wang Wang, Funi & Simon Haigh ...

Loyalty

2010-07-19T12:39:00.000+10:00

The recent leadership spill in Australia led to arguments of loyalty. Was Gillard, who had thus far in her career been universally acknowledged as unwavering in her loyalty, failing in this trait? There's no clear answer.

The assumption underpinning allegations of disloyalty, is that there is a single correct place where one's loyalty is, or should be, placed. But this is rarely the case; especially in matters of politics. Essentially, the question to be asked of those assessing Gillard's loyalty is: should her loyalty lie with the leader or with the party? Now certainly, for much of Rudd's leadership, the two may have gone hand in hand. But when Rudd was faltering and flailing, when he lost touch with his electorate, when he got lost in the power; was the role of Deputy PM to support him, to be loyal to the leader when the leader had lost his way? Or was it her role to step up and to do what she, with the support of the party, felt best to ensure the ALP secured a second term?

When the Libs were doomed to lose the next term in a landslide, Peter Costello wasn't loyal to his party. Subsequently, they lost the leadership and Howard even lost his seat. Subsequent to that, Costello lost all respect and is now out of politics too (and I really wish he'd stop writing for the Age). If Costello had of contested, he too would have been accused of failing in loyalty to Howard. (Although, the cold relationship between the two of them has me questioning what the loyalty was about in the first instance.) But when Costello is on his deathbed, he could have looked back on his career knowing he did all he could to ensure the best interests of the political party he'd committed his career to. Instead, he will look back knowing that doing nothing meant that he was complicit in the major downfall of the Libs. Hardly an admirable recollection for someone who'd invested their life career to the cause.

So, for those arguing about Gillard's loyalty, I think the question of more import is whether her politics are better suited to the current political climate than the leader she ousted. If so, then she's done what a politician should: she showed leadership. And that's another point that should be emphasised more in this whole debate: she's a politician, and politicians need to demarcate between the best interests of their party and the best interests of looking kind. Politicians are not to have parent-like capacity for loyalty. Parents, and only parents, have the ability to be totally unwavering in their loyalty. I also think the parent/child relationship is the only instance in which it's understandable.

Parents can be loyal to a child who is behaving immorally. They can be loyal to a child who lacks leadership or who uses their leadership to exercise power unjustly. Parents are able to be loyal to their child in circumstance beyond comprehension. While this is loving and kind and perhaps essential in the parent/child relationship; unquestioned loyalty is hardly a trait I want in political leaders. Unquestioned loyalty is ignorance.

Loyalty is often a trait which is thrown around in accusatory ways; but it's a largely useless discussion point. Arguments about loyalty are generally lacking in substantive merit. It's not about whether one is being disloyal as much as it is about where one's loyalty lies. And of more import: why?

Last day of the mid year break

2010-07-16T15:33:00.000+10:00

Teaching resumes again next week. I'd really hoped (and needed!) to get away somewhere nice for a few days over the student-free period, but work and illness interfered with that plan. Some drinks with the PhD gang tonight, and seeing The Drones tomorrow night seems a reasonable - if not entirely equal - recompense.

As well as the RMIT stuff, I'm teaching into a practice-based Diploma of Community Services (AOD) this semester. That began Monday just gone. It's quite different teaching to frontline workers rather than high-school leavers; different applications and learning objectives. I enjoy both - which is fortunate given the large proportion of my time which each consumes!

I shall spend what's left of the afternoon preparing for the week ahead. Have a good weekend my Internet friends!

Melbourne Writers Festival 2010 program

2010-07-15T14:49:00.000+10:00

While the official program will be in tomorrow’s Age, those of us nerds that go each year today received an email giving us access to presale tickets (and there’s already a few events sold out!).

Frustratingly, the annoying ticketing system empties your shopping cart after 20 minutes, and failed on me twice, so I really had little chance to trawl the program properly. But I bought tickets to the shows I knew I had to get to. I’ll read the print version of the program tomorrow. Doubtless, there’ll be some literary events of interest, which have obscure titles, thus I would have missed today in my does-the-title-tell-me-what-it-is-about selections.

So far, the schedule is exhausting. Despite the festival running for ten days, the political events are concentrated into two days. Ah well, that will be only a couple of weeks after I return from my yoga retreat so perhaps my ability to sit still will have increased from the current maximum of 40 minutes. Mum and I are both book obsessed, and politics obsessed, so the Writers Festival gets us out into the cold every year (and the Readings stalls get us into crazy book buying mode where we always have a false and tokenistic conversation justifying why we do need to buy every book that author has ever written. She and I never really need to justify books. We love them. Like shoes).

So, Kat’s MWF program:

Saturday 28th August

Reflections on public policy: The Victorian Charter of Human Rights

Frank Brennan, chaired by Rob Watts

The Amazing Brain

Norman Doidge (author of ‘The brain that changes itself’) and Perminder Sachdev (‘The yipping tiger and other tales from the neuropsychiatric clinic’).

Big Ideas Series – Hawke: The Prime Minister

Blanche d’Alpuget, Bob Hawke and Barry Cassidy

Sunday 29th August

Beyond Politics

Malcolm Fraser talks life after being PM

(Mum says, ‘Yes, this will be good, my views on Fraser have changed somewhat since he was PM’. I reply, ‘because we all tend to romanticise the past’.)

The Politics of History

Graham Freudenberg (the guy who was the political speechwriter for the ALP and Liberal governments), talks politics, history and Churchill with Bob Hawke.

Big Ideas Series – On Liberalism

I wouldn’t have gone to this so soon after Waleed Aly’s essay (and having gone to see him speak about it to boot), but the line up is good. Aly, Fraser and Judith Brett talk liberalism, conservatism and the Australian Libs.

Then on Tuesday 31st August, I am going to another Big Ideas session. ‘Decisions, decisions’. A talk with a member from each of the major parties on the importance of young people’s political engagement. Anything that tries to get youth engaged in politics interests me greatly. Hopefully Adam Bandt from the Greens will be there. But he’s also speaking at the Wheeler Centre in a couple of weeks, so I’ll see him then. He’s really got me quite interested in what he has to say. Surely a sign of a good politician.

Recent lessons

2010-07-08T23:55:00.001+10:00

Firstly, that when one has chronic nausea, neither curry laksa, nor dance class, are of any use.

I've also learnt, again, that democracy is not always a good thing when it means that politicians jump through hoops to win a majority of votes; yet the majority of voters have no idea of policy. Or politics.

I don't believe that relationships need to start on the premise that you're going to last forever. I've learnt that it's of not much good telling your partner this.

I've also learnt that those who care about you can be extremely ~~understanding~~ accommodating.

The latest Ben Cousins saga (re: excessive consumption of sleeping pills) has made me re-learn that people become hysterical and lose ability to reason when drugs hit the headlines. Cousins ends up in hospital because he took too many sedatives; the headlines today spoke of caffeine being banned among players in response to it. Ahem. He took too many sedatives, so the obvious conclusion is to ban stimulants. Huh?!

I've also learnt the the management at my gym feel the need to state the obvious:

Lastly, I've also learnt that, contrary to what their title suggests, flow charts don't actually need to flow:

What. A. Week.

2010-06-29T02:00:00.007+10:00

Okay, so it's the ALP's fault that I am so frantic. I spent almost 48 continuous hours absorbing every skerrick of political commentary which pored from the media outlets post-spill. I had intended on writing; but I am now at saturation. My mania has calmed and I am now relearning how to sleep. I'm sure we'll talk politics over the coming weeks, but not tonight (well, this morning as the case may be).

A colleague asked me on Thursday to co-write an op-ed. I said no. I declined on the basis that it's a topic that is going to be written about by everyone; but it was also that I couldn't step away from the endless stream of analysis and commentary long enough to write anything of my own. I was totally absorbed. I am still totally engrossed by the fascinating unfoldings but I have regained some control over my life. Knowing that many people don't want to discuss politics, I am making a concerted effort to avoid the conversation. But if someone else starts it, I dive right in!

In other news, I was back in hospital last Wednesday. Nothing of emergency -- some more tests (results still pending). It was, as always, a typically depressing day. No matter how many tests and how many admissions I've been through, I still always end up crying. Following the tears, I feel vulnerable and alone. I then feel like a sook. This reaction occurs with remarkable consistency that I can now recognise this whole routine. It's with remarkable consistency with which I let it unfold each and every time, too.

On a lighter note, I ate at Coda last night. It was amazing. There was a group of us and the menu had been sorted by one of the guys beforehand. We had ten courses (well, ten dishes) each. Let's see if I can remember them:

Crab betel leaf wrap

Prawn mousse fried betel leaf

Zucchini fritters with buffalo mozzarella

Pork Belly

Quail lettuce delights

Scallop with salmon caviar

Lamb cutlet

Aged rib eye

Yellow duck curry with jasmine rice and broccolini

Banana fritters, sesame ice-cream, caramel sauce

Complemented by good wine. An excellent night had by all. The food and service were impeccable. Save your pennies and check this place out. Yum.

Today I finished up all teaching duties for the semester. Tomorrow I want to finish a report I am drafting for a project I've been working on. I also need to read the 400 pages of ethics applications sitting on my desk. Wednesday I want to finish and article I've had on the back burner. Thursday I need to finish writing practice guidelines for service provision. Friday I've got a date with the doctor. Saturday I am eating chocolate. Or something like that. Sunday is my usual date with the newspapers.

Oh crap. It's 2am. I've got to go to bed. Catch ya.

Julia Gillard

2010-06-24T12:51:00.003+10:00

is intelligent, brave, courageous. Gillard is an atheist and from Altona. Gillard has guts and has strong values. Gillard is excellent at what she does and a formidable political figure.

Julia Gillard is also a woman and also has red-hair.

I am unsure why the former facts are attracting less public attention than the latter. Of course a woman can be a great PM. And of course someone with red hair can too. It's been a while since we've had a PM with all of those former traits, surely they are more noteworthy?

It's an exciting day. Well done, Julia.

Mental heatlh services petition

2010-06-23T12:39:00.003+10:00

Hi

The government's head advisor on mental health, Prof. John Mendoza, has just resigned, saying that the Government is ignoring the need for mental health reform. He says that only public pressure will move politicians, and is aiming to collect 60,000 public signatures on a petition to be delivered to Parliament this Thursday.

Prof. Mendoza has written a letter requesting we all join his call - you can read it below. Can you join his petition before Thursday?

www.getup.org.au/campaign/mentalhealth

There's been a fair bit of press about this since Saturday; Nicola Roxon was nailed by Kerry O'Brien last night. I won't rant -- you can find that elsewhere. Back to work.

Thanks,

Kat

Back from the conference ...

2010-06-21T15:48:00.006+10:00

... and exhausted.

I was in Sydney last week for the annual conference of the Australian Association of Professional and Applied Ethics (AAPAE). It was most excellent, and I will write about it soon. I presented my paper on the first day, then spent the rest of the week listening to some fascinating discussions on all sorts of interesting things. I am now back and trying to catch up on other things which have imminent deadlines so the review will have to wait.

I resume tests this week which is unfun. But I am sort of relieved. As much as I've appreciated the break from my meds, the symptoms have been getting worse. I know it's time to get back on top of it.

In other news, I ate at Movida Aqui on the weekend. I'd highly recommend it. Was delicious. It was very cold out, so the new heels got an outing, but the (very short) dress stayed home. Ah well. There's plenty more weekends.

I also went to see CandyMan. I'd highly recommend that you DON'T go and see this. It's watchable (if you get free tickets); but otherwise, pretty ordinary. On the topic of musicals, I was taken to see Jersey Boys a couple of weeks ago. I'd heard rave reviews, but hadn't been to see it. It was amazing. There's a few weeks left in Melbourne, it's been playing for 12 months. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd suggest you do.

The week before last, I went to see Exit Through the Gift Shop, which is the Banksy doco (which isn't really about Banksy so much). That was excellent. It's playing at ACMI at Federation Square. It keeps selling out so book your tickets online (and still get there early - there's a huge line to collect them).

Tomorrow is the launch of the Yarra Drug and Health Forum's Position Paper on medically supervised injecting facilities in Melbourne. Recently covered in the news.

Have I alreay told you to read David Marr's Quarterly Essay? One of my student's emailed to ask what I'd thought of it. I love that my students can predict what I read. I love even more that they are also reading them.

Anyway, I have a report to have written by tomorrow, must fly.

Grieving the birthday boys

2010-06-13T16:08:00.001+10:00

Grief is something that is always so surreal; yet it’s this same and consistent surrealism which makes me recognise this emotion. In its most obvious manifestation – after someone’s death – grief is assumed. We identify any surrealism as a consequence of losing a loved one. It is in this instance that we learn what characterises grieving.

When somebody close to you dies, your world is turned inside out. When I have lost those close to me, I have had no choice but to get through. From experiences which disassembled me into thousands of pieces; I have reassembled -- hopefully, with both dignity and grace. However, like the recovery of all breaks and fractures, things aren’t ever the same.

Today is the birthday of my brother and my cousin. They were born ten years apart. They died almost ten years apart. Today they would be 29 and 39 respectively.

It’s been 20 months since we lost Jared. That sounds like a reasonably long period of time. It’s not and I hate that it sounds as though it is. I feel as though the increasing time since my brother’s death denigrates our pain; that there is an expectation that I will start to be normal, to no longer be the grieving sister. There is an increasing expectation that I will be able to talk about his death like I am an outsider; that it won’t elicit tears and sadness. I don’t like it when people don’t ask; but I am hurt when people ask but ask only the clinical questions of when and how. Not asking how I am, or how I was, of how I feel, demonstrates a lack of understanding or compassion. I takes from me the facts, and offers me no comfort.

The further in time I move away from the dreadful night my brother died, the more desperate I am to run back to it. At least then, all of the hurt and the pain and the loss and the sorrow would still hold the same validity. The tears that still seem to appear from nowhere would be justified.

For a long time after we lost Jared, I couldn’t sleep. I felt terrified by what might happen; I had lost my protector. I couldn’t hear his TV or him in the kitchen getting more water. I didn’t hear his heavy footsteps down the corridor as he went to the bathroom. Our house is quiet now. At times, living with Jared was difficult. Living without him is horrific. When he was here, there was a consistency and a security to the late-night chaos. What now runs through our house – a heavy silence – is deafening.

My grief for both Jared and Darren is private. Death, unexpected youthful death especially, is not something that most people are very adept at responding to. For this reason, I tend not to talk about how I feel about losing these dear boys. But this silence puts a strain on my relationships; it creates a boundary, an emotional barrier.

I miss these men. I miss them everyday. But today, their shared birthday, is particularly difficult. T. S. Eliot once wrote something which resonates:

There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value,
In the knowledge derived from experience,
The knowledge imposes a pattern and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment,
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been.

Happy birthday, beautiful boys.

Josh Thomas talking politics in the Age

2010-06-12T16:10:00.003+10:00

I am so ridiculously busy, but this is important.

Australians, read this.

I'll elaborate later.

Medical jargon

2010-06-10T11:56:00.003+10:00

What the doctor wrote:

'She has experienced a number of syncopal episodes. Most likely these are due to postural hypotension though we do not believe ...'

What the doctor meant:

'She has fainted several times and this is most likely due to low blood pressure when standing.'

Needless to say, I was much calmer once I Googled all of the jargon to discover that syncopal episodes and postural hypotension are hardly indicative of any near-fatal illnesses.

The single most agreed upon rule of writing is clarity: Say exactly what you mean, as simply as possible. The medical profession would do well to take this one up.

Egalitarianism in Australia

2010-06-10T11:43:00.003+10:00

I am in the midst of marking student essays analysing the constructs of egalitarianism in Australia.
The cover of today's Age is a photograph of billionaires protesting about a new tax.
There are more than 105,000 homeless people in Australia.

Do not kid yourself that we live in a society that is remotely:

a) classless;
b) just;
c) compassionate.

I remember how difficult it was trying to explain to the locals in Vietnam that I work with homeless teenagers in Australia. The single response that I received every time: 'But Australia is rich, why are the teenagers homeless?'.
'Twas difficult to explain that most Australians simply don't care.

(Un)Productive.

2010-06-09T18:54:00.000+10:00

At the end of a day which has to have been one of the least productive in recent memory, I have decided it justifiable to write a blog post. I am unwell and everything that I have attempted to do today has been an abysmal failure.

My ill health is compounded by the fact that I am a couple of weeks away from resuming treatment; hardly something to look forward to. I’d hoped that the six-week break would be a time of high productivity and restoring health and fitness. I’ve certainly been feeling much better – and my personality has resurfaced for the first time in a year. But I’ve had a chest infection and now a generic sort of cold. Neither of which have been severe, but enough to have kept me feeling less than 100 percent. I’ve also found myself needing much more sleep than is usual. Because of this, I have come to the conclusion that sleep prohibits people from being productive.

I’ve always taken for granted my ability to operate well on little sleep. Having to sleep eight hours has been a rather significant hurdle in my work plan. My good friend, Prof. Ought, and I were talking this morning about how less productive (and therefore, less successful) we would have been had we needed to sleep eight hours per night for the past five years.

I realised today that I am stuck in a bizarre little world of my own as I discovered that this coming Monday is a public holiday. Normal people know about public holidays because it means a day off work. I am, obviously, not taking the day off. But I certainly thought I’d have known that it was a coming.

It’s definitely time for a break. I haven’t taken leave since February ‘09 and before that was years and years and years ago. I was supposed to have been in Singapore for the past three weeks, but teaching commitments meant that the tickets went to waste. I think I’ll plan a trip for the end of the next semester, once I’ve finished teaching and finished the interviewing for my thesis. This is, of course, highly subject to change depending on what other projects take my fancy along the way.

Meantime, I’m out of here. The office is cold and empty. A bit like me: freezing and in need of dinner.

****
btw, Australian readers, get into David Marr’s Quarterly Essay. It came out last week and is compelling reading. His writing is, as always, exemplary. His incisive analysis of Rudd’s leadership is powerful.

Time and temporality

2010-05-31T11:43:00.004+10:00

I went to the National Gallery of Victoria yesterday. Now, as I’ve mentioned around these traps before, art and I aren’t exactly old friends. Call me a bogan (I’d agree); tell me I lack culture (ditto); and tell me I don’t know what I am missing (exactly the point), but I’ve just never understood art. I’d like to, but I don’t.

But yesterday I was taking someone else out -- someone who appreciates art.

In my planning, I discovered that there were a few exhibitions on at the NGV that piqued my interest. The first, Love, Loss and Intimacy, struck me immediately. The ‘What’s On’ calendar told me that there was a talk on, ‘Grief and Loss – A philosophical enquiry: Immortality and the Moment’. Now this grabbed me. I was interested in this because I like discussing grief and trauma; and I am ever-inquisitive as to how we construct our lives in the face of death; and, how we do this with finite time. But, we weren’t going to the NGV for me. I also know that most people don’t like talking, or thinking, about death, grief or mortality. Even if they do, they probably don’t on their birthday. So I cut that one out of the itinerary.

Next up, was a photography exhibition, Timelines. This also appealed to my curiosity of temporality, but without being so: a) heavy; b) philosophical; c) illustrative of my tendency to think so much. This exhibition was good pick for the non-artistic Kat to take someone to: I figured that he could look at the photos, and I could think about time and temporality.

Notions of time, as more than 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour clock-time, started to run through my head a few years ago. It came about from a practical perspective. When I was working as a youth worker, I stopped wearing a watch. I found it redundant. I planned my days so that I never needed to check the time 'just in case I had to be somewhere else'. The reasons for this were two-fold.

First, checking the time reflects boredom, or a need to be elsewhere. Neither of these are helpful when you are working with clients. How can you develop a solid therapeutic relationship when you make such visible demonstrations of nonchalance?

Second, and more importantly, I felt it rude and cold and clinical to check the time when you are with a young person who is trusting you with the most intimate and sensitive parts of their lives. I felt it negligent to time-limit things. My explanation: things take as long as they take. You can’t hurry things up or slow things down. You must allow for an organic development. This means that one shouldn’t be placing time restrictions on treatment, and certainly not forcing client sessions into 45 minute allotments.

So I made an active decision to stop wearing a watch. I wanted to demonstrate to my clients that time was not something of which I placed emphasis; my focus was on their development, irrespective of the pace at which this occurred.

Now, in my academic sort of life, I wear a watch. But that’s okay. Now I am in profession where I need to be aware of the time, and people expect me to be. But temporality continues as a prominent curiosity. This curiosity is most pronounced when I am researching people’s lives.

In my Honours year, I researched how young people come to experience problematic substance use. I drew on different techniques; but the heart of the thesis was the information I drew on from in-depth interviews with young people accessing AOD services. These interviews ran between 1-2 hours and collected a narrative from each participant. These interviews were powerful. The stories that I heard were moving, heartbreaking, depressing and inspiring. But I then had to negotiate the conundrum of how to best weave these stories into some sort of coherent thesis. As interesting as they were, I needed to tie all of these narratives together with a central argument.

My argument wasn’t too difficult to disentangle. There was a common sequence of events in the lives of all of my participants; parental substance abuse, significant trauma, abuse, neglect, state-care involvement, homelessness, school exclusion were all common place. It’s probably unnecessary to note that these events are all in contrast to the life-history of the ‘typical’ Australian adolescent.

These events were all common, and the order in which they occurred were also very similar, but it took me considerable time to establish how best to tell this story. You see at first, I didn’t see it for its similarities. I tried to look at trends in age. What were these young people all doing at age eight or at age 14? But there weren’t any significant trends. Some were still at school, others were homeless; some were happy and others were sad; some had tried drugs, others hadn’t.

But I knew that there were similarities. I knew that my underpinning argument was that there are significant structural differences in the lives of young people accessing AOD services, but I couldn’t ascertain how best to articulate this with the 12 different, yet similar, stories I had in front of me. That’s when I started to think about temporality.

I questioned my assumption that things should be looked at in a chronological fashion, with a sense of clock-time attached. As I explained in the actual thesis:

Although there was no universal age at which certain experiences occurred, what remained consistent was the temporal order in which events took place. Most participants reported that substance use preceded homelessness, but that homelessness preceded problematic use. While for some this was at twelve, and others at twenty, this was the usual order of events and this is how the ‘chronology’ is presented in the following chapters.

Why I had to explain this was to point out that ‘time’ is constructed. When I explain that I am using 12 peoples’ narratives in my research, the assumption is that as I talk about their life event, each of these young people is roughly the same age. The reality was that the age of the participant was far less relevant in the pathway than the events which paved their way into substance abuse. The age at which substance use occurred was far less influential than the environment and contexts in which the drug use was taking place.

Embracing a new sense time was a breakthrough for me. It enabled me to mount my argument logically as well as point out that the weight which we accord to clock-time is undeserving. References to time, serious references, are often ambiguous: ‘time heals all wounds’; ‘only time will tell’; ‘time is your greatest resource’. These may be all true; but none attempt to quantify time into arbitrary compartments of 60 second per minute, 60 minute per hour entities. Things take as long as they take.

****
In thinking about this post, I Googled for some things to do with time, here’s a couple of thoughtful quotes which came up:

Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got. – Art Buchwald

When we are doing what we love, we don’t care about time. For at least at that moment, time doesn’t exist and we are truly free. – Marcia Wieder

Listening.

2010-05-29T15:00:00.009+10:00

I’m in the office today, working away on a paper. It’s been a big week. The last week of the teaching semester means lots of student consultations, emails and discussions. My students' final pieces of work are starting to arrive in my pigeon hole, as has some very touching feedback. (Have I mentioned just how much I love teaching?)

It’s been another big week in the news. The Ombudsman’s report on Child Protection was released and it made front page of the Age. I haven’t read it yet (it’s printing as we speak). I’ve got some notes about issues of State Care and its relevance to the upcoming state election, but I’ll save those for once I’ve read the report in its entirety. It'll also be better if I write when I am a little calmer. My passion and sadness about this whole issue is a recipe for producing writing which is lacking in considered thought.

So this afternoon I have been reading some articles about ethics and research. They’ve been good – some really incisive, and insightful, discussions that are really resonating with me.

In relation to the ethics of collecting a person’s narrative, their ‘story’, there was one quote which I wanted to share here:

‘Listening, as well as answering, is part of giving back’

I don’t think that this can really be understood until you have been a listener, or have had your otherwise oppressed story heard. When I give presentations on ethics, or research methods, or interviewing, I nearly always end up, at some point, discussing how providing a safe space for a person to be able to tell their story, in its entirety, and in its own right, is profound for the interviewer and the interviewee. People often mention how seeking people's stories can be like running in and doing the smash and grab; that it takes something from the interviewee, but what do they get back? Well, as this quote suggests, listening is something which is a gift in return.

People rarely have an opportunity to tell their stories to someone who is listening. Really listening. We don’t want to burden our friends and families with our troubles; we fear that doing this may upset them. Counsellors are expensive, clinical and time-limited. They are also, usually, solution focused. People like to fix things. If you speak of your fractures, people usually feel some obligation to nurse them. But some fractures can’t be healed straight away. You might wish to speak of your pain as a way of release; but also be aware that the only pain-killer is time (although sometimes even that’s not strong enough). It's hard for a listener to have to also make this awareness: Seeing someone you care about suffer is painful; the listener feels an obligation to offer remedy, even if it is only tokenistic.

Listening, rather than hearing, requires considerable energy and focus. (In the post I am writing about in-depth interviews, I discuss this more.)

My best friend Shani places being a good listener at the top of her list. When I date, it’s the question she always asks about whomever it is that I was dating: does he listen? What she means is, does he hear what I am saying; consider it, reflect it, store it. Her view is that having to repeat oneself, especially on matters close to the heart, indicates that you are with a person that you’d do well to move away from. She’s right. Relationships based on trivial discussion; which avoid the heavy stuff; or which fail to accord appropriate weight to the words being shared are disrespectful, and later on, it's these relationships which will be seen as insignificant.

Sometimes we can offer no words or actions to heal someone’s pain. But often, acknowledging this, and listening, is a gift which has the most meaning.

This week's issues and topics for ranting about.

2010-05-22T13:58:00.004+10:00

I'm at home this afternoon, working on a paper, so I am not going to write anything extensive. But there's a few things I'd like to draw your attention to.

Firstly, the Wheeler Centre (formerly the Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas), has released its second program. Just thinking about it increases my excitement levels. There's lots going on, but the events I will be at no matter what are: the Julian Burnside's discussion, 'Mind Your Language'; the bimonthly lectures, 'Ethically Speaking' (WOW!!); and the brilliant David Marr speaking about his next Quarterly Essay. For the full program, see here.

Second (and totally unrelated), a few weeks back, I found myself inside a children's bookstore. I picked up a few things, one of them was a book on feminism (read: gender equality) written for the young adult (YA) market. It's titled, 'Your Skirt's Too Short', authored by Emily Maguire. It's great.

Maguire's a journalist so writes in an accessible language. Maguire uses everyday examples to highlight gender inequality. She talks openly and candidly about sex and sexualities, relationships, pressures inherent to gender stereotypes, heteronormativity and so forth.

A fortnight ago I was teaching introductory feminism to my students; and this week just gone, we addressed the sociology of education. Both of these topics had emphases on gender differences (particularly with regard to opportunities and outcomes). I think that the Maguire text would be an ideal starting point for students beginning to grapple with the complexities of gender issues. I also think it should be a compulsory text in all secondary schools. (Hopefully I still think that when I finish it.) Another related article that came up this was in last weekend's Age - quite interesting. Have a read.

Third - and again, unrelated - this weekend's Australian has an op-ed on Obama's work towards eliminating nuclear danger. I am uncertain as to how many Australians are following the issue, but it's important. I won't elaborate here, but I will quote something that, I think, iterated the heart of the issue:

'So why would the President, a President who inherited one of the most challenging agendas of any world leader in the past century, add nuclear non-proliferation as a priority in the first year of administration?

It is because while the source of the threat has changed, the horrific consequences of the threat have not.'

In the guise of consistency, my fourth point is also unrelated: homophobia. It's come up all over the place this week. My friend has covered the Akermanis comments well at her blog. I may write a post on homophobia too. For now, I just want to draw attention to it. Within most parts of Australian culture, homophobia's pervasive and accepted. But it IS discriminatory, offensive and unacceptable. (As is racism. Unfortunately our legal system doesn't reflect this [see: here.])

Finally, there's a huge rant brewing on Australia's schooling system. It's always been inside of me, but discussion with my students and colleagues over the past fortnight have given me food for thought. For now, let's just leave it at: teachers who place more emphasis on their students' ENTER (or TER) scores rather than on their learning should be held accountable for the fallout. A recent report has highlighted how this approach to 'teaching' leads to students leaving school ill-equipped (for anything). The teachers argue that they are part of a system that's designed that way. This is true. But the same argument was put forward by Eichmann -- that didn't alter the fact that his job killed millions and he (rightly) ended up on trial.

Phwoar, this post has raised all sorts of passionate emotions in me. But 'nuff for now. Have a lovely weekend people!

Today

2010-05-18T16:48:00.003+10:00

Ate breakfast in café where I read the paper.
Went to work, at the place that I love, and plugged away at the new project. Realised, once again, that I love writing. Currently getting paid to do it. A-ma-zing.
Laughed at the YouTube video of the dance which I choreographed for the bridal party of the wedding I was in over the weekend.
Had lunch with a colleague who I love.
Spoke with my best mate. Talked about how great I am feeling three weeks out of treatment.
Was offered a job as the researcher on a really great project.
Had two people, both of whom I adore, battle over who needs me to work for them the most (helloooooo ego inflation).
Went for a walk. Despite my promise that I would not purchase another book until I made headway on the heap that I already have – and am yet to read – I found myself in the second-hand bookshop. Oops. Walking back, holding in my arms: three books on ethics; two on the decay of the English language; and another on ‘love, truth and justice’, I realised that I am a nerd.
Now back at work.
Tonight’s my first Tuesday night free from wedding-dance rehearsal in months and I’m having dinner on Brunswick Street - can’t wait!
Mum just called: my brother’s best friend spent the afternoon baking for me - he’s going to drop them off to me tonight. YUM!
Have meeting cancelled tomorrow - I am going back to dancing!
Life is good. Great in fact!

And here’s the YouTube link (it’s recorded on a mobile phone and I am well hidden).

Working solidly

2010-05-13T12:25:00.005+10:00

Things are a little hectic around here. I've just taken a job on a new project. It's great, but it's also at the pointy end of semester where I am having lots of student consultations, am trying to write a bioethics paper for a conference in a few weeks. I am also trying to finalise an ethics article that I really should have sent back to the UK publisher already.

Meanwhile, I am in a new phase of the PhD and have been immersing myself in statistics. The PhD is a mixed-methods design; but the heart of the thesis lies in the qualitative aspects. However, there's a nice sense of security that I get when working with numbers. I've been finding more than I anticipated, so am planning on developing a database of statistical info for analyses. This is taking more time than I had allocated to spend on the quant aspect of the project, but I've got a feeling that there's potential for me to draw out more than anticipated.

Meanwhile, I am trying to work with two agencies who have offices across Victoria to establish how I can coordinate 120 interviews. Woah. If I pull this off, I will be mightily impressed with myself.

Work is starting to flow through for semester two. The requests for guest lectures are starting early and my teaching load is finalised and I'm really excited about it. It's a much smaller course (about 140 students compared to the 500 taking the course I currently teach into), but it's also a 2nd/3rd year elective as opposed to a first year core course. It's a sociology subject looking at drug use. Obviously, it's about as close to my field as an undergraduate course can get. A few of my first year students were disappointed that I wouldn't be teaching them next semester. That made me feel nice. The guy whose course I am teaching also said that he'd be 'privileged' if I'd teach with him. That also made me feel nice. I'll miss the first-years. There's a nice bond that develops when you teach students in their first semester of university and I don't like that I have to so abruptly discontinue that.

But, my immediate focus is on a meeting this afternoon for the new project. Then I am wedding saturated. I am a maid-of-honour in a wedding this weekend and it's all hands on deck. The best man and I are giving a speech together and we are trying to work it out. We went for dinner last night to try and do this, but it is considerably harder than we anticipated. He, I, the bride and the groom have all known each other for years. You think we'd have plenty to say, but when you know people so well, for so long, it all becomes a blur.

Must fly, I've got a few posts in my drafts folder ... they're all brewing.

Inspiration

2010-05-09T20:17:00.000+10:00

I always carry a notebook. It's a collection of all sorts of things. Sometimes I need to make lists of things that I'll have to refer back to later (like Russell's suit sizes when we look at multiple stores and he's a totally different size in each brand); other times it's work related stuff (to-do lists; thesis structures; ideas for papers); and other times, it's general note-taking on my world at large (social interactions; emotions; relationships). It is these last type of notes which often ferment into blog posts.

I've had lots of things happen in the past couple of weeks. This means that my notebook has been the recipient of my impassioned scrawl on many an occasion. Blog posts on these eclectic notes will come later - posts on topics which have an emotional connection I usually brew for quite some time. I like to find other things to anchor these emotions to. It is, after all, my aim to have some sort of coherency. Emotional diatribes certainly have a place in this world - and that place is in a journal. This is not my journal. My journal would be almost nonsensical to any outsider.

But looking over these notes, what they all have in common is an underpinning sense of inspiration which is consistent with how I am feeling.

There are very few things in my life that I take seriously. That's not to say I waltz through life like an immature brat unable to deal with reality. Quite the contrary; I think that a hard sense of reality is so firmly ingrained in me that I can't take most things seriously because, I've learnt, most things aren't serious.

I could write a whole post in defence of that last claim, but the simplest way to illustrate is to talk about death:

If someone close to you died tonight, no matter what you had scheduled for tomorrow, no matter how important those meetings seemed yesterday, it would be of little to zero significance tomorrow morning. The work you can't manage to get on top of in order to justify annual leave would suddenly take care of itself while you are on bereavement leave.

So there's no point treating many things that are essentially superfluous as though they are serious. There's few things in life which can't go on without you - don't kid yourself into believing that you're needed.

With this in mind, in my life I am aware that while many things mean a lot to me, there's few things I couldn't sacrifice. But social justice is something which I couldn't be more serious about. Joke around in this life all you like; but do something. Be good. Do good. Have values. Apply them. Be political. Use your voice for those without one. Teach values to your children. Don't be ignorant: your bliss is someone else's agony.

My work is something I take seriously. Not the nuts and bolts of it - deadlines and word counts are arbitrary. But at the heart of my work is a cause which I hold very dear. I am not writing a PhD for the sake of having a doctorate; or to be an academic. I had not ever planned, or even contemplated, doing so much study. But my passion in my project is what drives me. I cannot accept the disadvantage that some are forced to endure. I cannot spend my life ignorant or apathetic about the way our major systems and structures fail so many of our most vulnerable. I have some capacity to effect change. I therefore have an obligation to do so.

Sometimes it's hard not to get caught up in the everyday happenings in one's life. It's hard to keep perspective. But when I find this happening, I go back to the heart of my cause: I go back to the kids and their stories. Sometimes it's in person, other days, when I must be in the office, I re-read transcripts of their interviews.

I left a meeting in Geelong this week with a fresh reminder of why I do what I do. Conversations with some workers about the needs of their clients; discussions about the values of research; and disdain about the confounding policies which govern service delivery were all stark reminders of my cause.

On Friday, I was working on-site at another of my agencies. At this stage, I am data-mining for statistical information. It's a complicated process, but one which will have worthwhile returns. I love working in this environment. You get rid of the bullshit that academia entails. It's also insanely inspiring to be around people who know their shit and who you hold in high regard. It's utterly breath-taking to know that these people have faith in what you're doing.

After this, I dropped into one of the drop in centres. There were some clients there I hadn't seen in ages. One young woman, who I have interviewed in a previous project, was keen to catch up. She's doing amazingly. It is hard to comprehend how someone with so little, and so many barriers, is able to achieve so much. I actually left the building smiling. That smile will motivate me. Each time I get down and out, I draw on the memories of these moments to keep on going.

Coffee shop chatter

2010-05-07T22:03:00.007+10:00

I feel as though I am having an affair -- I am a regular at two separate coffee shops. Each serve different purposes: one has great chai and good food but is only open Mon - Fri; the other is open on the weekends and the mother of the guy who owns it has become quite attached to me (she picks me fruit from her garden!).

I have unique relationships with the staff at both. Today, I was at one of them, and Barista 1, who last week commented on how tired I look, asks me how many hours I sleep per night. 'About five hours', I tell him.
'Those who sleep less than six, or more than eight, will die sooner' he retorts
'Well, that's great to hear. Thanks for that!' I joke back.

A minute or so later, the other barista who works there is talking about reducing his hours at work as he's going back to study: 'I need to go back to uni soon, while I am still young (he's 18) -research has shown that learning is much slower after age 25 ... how old are you, Kat?'
'25'

'ohh ... you look younger than that'

So I am going to die from not enough sleep and not learn anything because I am too old. Just the news I wanted with my coffee!

I'd consider monogamy with my other cafe, but apart from the fact that I'd have nowhere to get coffee on the weekends, the barista there refers to me as 'THE Pies Supporter' (yes, he says it like I am the only Pies supporter in Melbourne). When he found out that I followed Collingwood his response was: 'What?! I knew there had to be something wrong with you, Kat!'. I didn't know whether to be complimented (he thought I was perfect prior to this?) or offended (that following the Pies means that there's something 'wrong' with me). Evidently, what all of this shows is that you can't just buy a coffee in Melbourne ... you actually end up in relationships with your cafes.

The end of a long day

2010-05-05T20:26:00.006+10:00

Every Wednesday I have a teachers meeting. It falls at the same time as my favourite dance class, so I have missed that class all semester. This week's meeting was rescheduled, so I had spent the past week planning to get to that class. Part of that plan was also planning to be well enough to survive it(currently staving off a stress-induced chest infection). But it didn't happen.

I had a student coming to see me at 5pm (which eliminated the possibility of a 6pm class); and in any case, I nearly coughed up a lung walking up the stairs today. Dance class would have been my death. I was out of the office by 7pm, which is the earliest I've left in ages.

I'm home now, currently marking student work. After this I might (though probably won't) begin to respond to the past two weeks of emails/Facebook messages/texts that I have had to leave without reply. Then I plan on resting. I have an important meeting tomorrow and would like, for the first time in months, to not be told by each person I see in the morning that I look tired.

**
Oh, and today's highlight: I was told by one of the professors that I could be a footballer's wife - provided I wore shorter skirts. This was following on from her telling me that I'd been nominated by the school for something that sounded of some importance ... The Trophy Wife comment was the obvious segue, right? haha. It was, in fact, very amusing.

btw, the courage theme will continue. Next time with regard to politicians.

Being brave; acting courageously

2010-05-05T00:52:00.003+10:00

There's a certain degree to which courage and bravery are synonymous; but they aren’t entirely. One can be brave by virtue of the situation that they find themselves in. People say that I am brave because I am coping with the health stuff. I suppose it's complimentary, but this ascription of 'bravery' is hardly meritocratic - I have no choice but to do what I am doing. It's not as though I have done anything to deserve compliment; everybody else would do just as I have. Perhaps that’s what bravery is - doing what must be done when forced into circumstances which challenge our sense of security. If that's the case, I may be brave by definition, but that doesn’t mean that I feel brave.

That's what makes brave distinct from courageous: bravery can be inadvertent; courage requires action (or purposeful inaction).

To be courageous, we can't avoid things. Immersing ourselves in some other aspect of our lives so as to avoid the tough stuff is the antithesis of courage. It's weak, it's obvious, and it's unsustainable. People that avoid things are train-wrecks in the making. I've seen it plenty. I watch my clients (and friends / boyfriends / students ...) do whatever they can so as to avoid the inevitable. It's futile and it's painful. It lengthens an already painful situation and the analogy about having to rip off a Band-Aid quickly rather than slowly is more than apt.

Over the weekend I met someone who was telling me about the divorce of their parents. They'd been together more than 30 years, but when they both retired, they realised that the relationship was dead. So dead that they divorced. How could you be with someone for 30 years and then divorce? Well, as their child told me, their relationship had been dead for a long time. But they occupied themselves with their work and, over time, the parents got used to the relationship being like that. They forgot what love was. Complacency set in and they readjusted their ideals.

When the parents announced their separation, the kids were only moderately surprised. 'At first, I didn't understand why you'd divorce after being together for so long - why not stay together?' their adult child told me. 'But the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became - they should have divorced years ago. They weren't in love - but they are your parents and they set the precedent for your ideals of relationships. They were all that I had known in terms of long-term couples - I thought that it was normal to not be 'in love' with your partner. It was almost a relief that they were divorcing; it let me be open to the ideal that long term relationships are meant to have love - the 'in love' love and if they don't they should end.'

That resonated with me. A lack of courage to bite the bullet, and a total avoidance of the major issues, kept these two together – unhappily – for years. Their kids grew up thinking that old couples aren’t meant to be in love and that there's an obligation to stay in relationships which offer no more than constancy.

Relationships certainly aren't the only time when we need courage - although they are probably the most ordinary. Separations are a bit like death: completely ordinary in occurrence; utterly extraordinary in their effects.

The end of my last serious relationship was an agonising experience. I left someone who loved me dearly and who treated me, and our relationship, with a degree of respect and care which was second to none. We had a great relationship. People envied us - they told us so. At clubs we'd be photographed by the street magazines because we looked like a compatible, photogenic, couple. I'd never contemplated marriage, or children, yet when I was with this man I envisioned both. He'd named our future children and we'd arranged how we'd work the parenting/career balance. I didn't desire a wedding, but we'd planned to elope. He told me how he looked forward to looking at me across a room and telling a stranger that 'she's my wife'. Likewise, I felt utterly privileged to have this kind of love with someone and was proud to introduce him to people as mine. I knew that he'd be a great husband and a wonderful father; but, I came to realise that he would be doing this with a woman who was not me.

He didn't want it to end. He had hope, and I suppose I did too, that I would fall back in love. That we would go back to how we were. He hoped that we would, again, share a bed and a home and a favourite noodle shop and a shared schedule; that he could, again, see me dance and cry tears of pride. He still wanted to be the person who I called, and woke up, when I needed a lift home from work at a club at four in the morning. He wanted to be the man that protected and defended me from the sleazy men of society. He hoped that I would continue to ask what he'd eaten for lunch each day and to find out the times of his basketball games. He hoped that I would still be there to remind him of his siblings' birthdays and to be the one who did the talking with his highly political family members. He appreciated that I understood the inner workings of his family. It was comforting when I persistently mocked his 'dad jokes' and knew that they were a trait of the men in his family. Throughout the break up, he hoped that we would resume our everyday mundane discussions and texts and emails and that he would be the person I called with good news and the man who I came home to at the end of a bad day. These are all the things which are the threads of the relationship fabric.

The break up was progressive, amiable and respectful. We shared books and went out as 'friends'. I still chose his family's Christmas gifts for him; they still phoned me and wished me well for my exams. They sent their condolences when my brother died, and they took me on holidays when they had family escapes. Each time, we all ignored the fact that we might not be doing this again. That, at some point, the not entirely broken break-up would be complete. At some point, there would be a new me in their life, a new girl in the photos, a new daughter-in-law to care for.

Eventually, he moved interstate: to them; away from me.

It took courage for me to stick with the break-up. It would have been easy to slip back into the safety and security that I had by being with him. My friends were vocal in expressing their disdain at my decision: 'He's the best partner one could ever wish for' was the line of many. My mother told me that nobody would ever love me like he did. She hoped he found someone amazing that deserved him. A girlfriend asked me if it was hard to leave him because he was so physically attractive. Even recently, a male friend drunkenly ranted at me for an hour that leaving the ex was the biggest mistake of my life.

At the time of the break up, I agreed with all of this. I probably still do. But him being too good for me; or the possibility that I'd not ever find another partner were not reasons to stay with this man. The only way I could stay was for love - the 'in love' love. And that was gone. I couldn't stay and he deserved more.

He didn't see it like that. He was hurt. However, I knew that, eventually, he'd flourish as a result of me leaving. I limited him. But admitting this to myself at the time was not easy. We humans like to feel that we are so special that our partners cannot ever be without us. It's secretly nice to feel that you have some influence over people's hearts. But flattering your own ego is a sign of your own insecurities and not something which should come into the equation of what to do about love.

I had to be courageous; I had to leave. My respect and appreciation for our love meant that I couldn't be inconsistent. I had to stick to my message. And it was hard. There were plenty of times that I wanted to hug him and to be held in his arms. And he would have done that. But that would have been unfair. I had to have the courage to enforce the decision so as to not extend what was an awful situation for him.

When relationships end, one person has to take control. Nearly always, there's one person who cannot; they simply are not able to. The person who can, must. Especially when they care about the other person. Not acting – avoiding – is an action which is cruel and it is selfish. I could not stay to keep my options open; or to avoid dealing with what was an inevitable situation. I had to leave. And I couldn't delay it in the name of 'waiting for the right time'. There is no right time. Or good time. Or less bad time. It is, always, painful. Falling near Christmas or a birthday or anniversary is inconsequential. And anyway, had I dragged it out, I would have ended up resenting him when he hadn't done anything wrong. I would have been unkind and let down my obligations of the partnership. I would have, subconsciously, been acting in a way so as to make him leave me, or to make him be horrible back. It's times like this that people begin affairs: A way of passively destructing what needs to end. I didn't do this. I wasn't going to make him hate me so that I could feel better about what had to be done. What I had to do hurt because I was doing it to a kind and caring person. But I couldn't change this fact. You can't promise to love someone forever; but you can promise to do right by them. Even when it takes courage. Even when it hurts you.

Likewise, you can’t control how another person feels about you, or how they treat you. You also can’t control much how you feel about them. But you can control what you do. And sometimes, what you do, or at least, what you should do, takes courage.

Courage is inextricably linked to values. We need to be clear on our own values and when we are we must, always, act in a way which is consistent with them. And at times, this takes courage. Where bravery is inadvertent and accorded by virtue of being; courage is accepting and negotiating the inevitable with both dignity and grace. Being courageous is hard – that’s why it’s revered.

Taking sides

2010-04-27T11:11:00.004+10:00

I am at home marking student essays today. I have an appointment this afternoon on my side of the city so travelling in to the office seems futile.

My appointment is at 3.20.

By 3.35 I will be in disagreement with the specialist. He is going to tell me one of two things:

1) that my treatment is digressing and I must double my medication; or
2) that while this is the case, I am still too weak to endure this and we must prolong the current dose and monitor me closely.

I suspect that it will be number one. Increasing the meds has been on the cards for some months now; but with each review I have deteriorated from the previous visit and have still not been able to manage the side-effects. The Doc remains hopeful that I will develop a tolerance to the side-effects. I think he has confused idealism for hope. I've been taking the pills for a year. If I could get tolerant, I would have by now.

However, each time we prolong increasing treatment, we also prolong the prognosis. You see, providing all goes well, I have to continue with treatment for 3 years after the tumor has reduced to a size that is of less concern. It's almost been a year since diagnosis and the has been no change in the size thus far. Other factors had stabilised - chemical levels in my blood which were out of whack - but last week's results found that thy are back on the increase.

My best friend says that it's about time they finally increased my treatment.
'What do you mean?!' I decried, 'You're supposed to be on my side!' I said defeated.
'I am on your side', he tells me.
'But I don't want the dose to increase, it makes me sick. Why would you want them to do that?'.

I was exasperated. I felt as though I was in the midst of a battle; but I wasn't aware that I had no idea of what, or who I was battling.

'I am on your side. I want you to get better. You have to take the pills'.

That's when I realised that nobody is on my side. Not even me. It's because I don't have a side - all of my options are ones I'd not opt for.

Courage is a coming

2010-04-21T12:01:00.002+10:00

I said I'd write about courage. Which I will. I am currently dealing with multiple people who have a serious lack of it and this is an endless source of inspiration for impassioned posts about having to live by your ethic (which brings me back to my argument that one has to own their ethics in order to have some accountability ... but anyway ... ).

I've been thinking about the topic of courage since I lamented Rudd's lack of it and have had slight recollections of Maria Tumarkin's book, Courage, which I read several years back.

However, given that the courage topic is a post which will be close to the heart, I want to read that book again and do some more thinking.

**
btw, on the topic of politicians, there was an op-ed in today's Age about Gillard's education reforms which closed with reference to her needing to maintain courage under fire. I hope she does.

The need for a secular state: Follow up

2010-04-21T10:01:00.003+10:00

In the Rudd the Dud post, I talked about the place of religion in politics (and certainly don't confuse me; I STRONGLY believe that there is NO place).

In today's Age (which I can't link to because my computer shuts down each time I try and open the Age website), Catherine Deveny has written about Euthanasia. She points out that 85 per cent of people are in support of voluntary euthanasia; yet policy doesn't reflect this.

Deveny argues that euthanasia is still illegal because of religion. I'll ignore the fact that she provides no evidence to support this claim because I think that it's a pretty reasonable claim to make.

Why I am talking about this, is because Deveny incisively states:

I don't care what you believe, but we all must fight for a secular state to stop religion influencing our policy.

Hear, hear.

Rudd the Dud.

2010-04-18T12:12:00.006+10:00

Okay, this post carries a dramatic title. So I own that it starts from the premise that Rudd is, of course, not as bad as Howard. But neither are half of the population -- not being as bad as Howard shouldn't be the determining factor in who we vote for as Prime Minister.

Another foundational premise, upon which the following is based, is that Rudd should be expected to be better than Howard. After all, we voted Rudd in as much as we voted Howard out. We wanted change. We needed change. Rudd was a refreshing face who apparently cared about the people and wanted to engage with the electorate. Rudd wanted troops out of Iraq and asylum seekers to be treated humanely. Rudd, along with Julia, promised us an education revolution and to abolish 'Work Choices'. Rudd wanted to work on Closing the Gap, increasing 'social inclusion' and halving homelessness. He promised to implement paid-maternity leave and undertake other well meaning (well sounding?) activities.

But then we voted him in. And then we had wall to wall Labour at a state level too. And then he thought he was safe.

And then the GFC hit. BTW, The GFC, I think he managed very well. While there was certainly an impact here; it was nowhere near the magnitude which was anticipated. It also began to recover sooner than anticipated. But since then?

So long pre-election promises. So long Prime Minister with an identity. Hello People Pleaser.

I've been sceptical about Mr Rudd for some time now. Actually, I've been a little sceptical the whole way along.

Primarily, I am a bit cautious about the gap between what he says and what he does. For instance, pre-election, a common point of discussion was the fact that Rudd is religious. What is the place of religious beliefs in political decision making? Rudd espoused the line that religiosity is a personal view that should be kept out of political decision making. So he was presented to be different to the highly conservative, highly Christian Liberal politicians who let their religious beliefs influence their policy making; Rudd is objective.

Well, so the rhetoric would have you believe. But, I don’t think that one can detach themselves from their religious beliefs. Allow me to explain:

Religions are belief systems about how the world developed; about life and about death; and about how we should treat one another. If you believe, if you genuinely believe in Christianity, then you must also believe that non-believers are wrong; that they are mistaken about the world. You see, if you could understand the position of the non-believer then you yourself must have a seed of doubt that perhaps Christianity (or any other religion) is not the Truth (note the capital T). You cannot genuinely believe that the sky is purple while having some doubts that perhaps it is blue. You may think that it’s purple; but you clearly don’t believe it as an unquestioned truth.

Therefore, Rudd is not being honest.

If he can separate religious beliefs from decision making, he must not be a Christian. Because, a believer could not separate the two; religion is lens through which people see their world.

Alternately, if Rudd is a Christian, then he is lying that he can separate these beliefs from his politics. When Rudd says that he doesn’t let his religious beliefs inform his political views he is either: a) entirely ignorant and genuinely believes that individuals are capable of objectivity (in which case, he should be voted out on the grounds that he is a moron); or b) he knows that admitting that his views are informed by his religion would not be the smartest move (in which case he is a swine).

The disjuncture between what Rudd said and what he did was the reason for which I had cause for concern. Let’s look at homelessness.

In the White Paper, Rudd ambitiously targeted to halve homelessness by 2020. It was promised that there would be an injection of funds; resources; and infrastructure to assist with this. At the time of this announcement, there were 105,000 homeless people in Australia. So, within ten years, not only is Rudd aiming to stop the homeless rate increasing but he is, presumably, going to house 52, 500 people.

This will not happen.

What might happen is that the way we define homelessness may change. Some people may no longer be counted as homeless because of definitional debates. So, whether the number of homeless people decreases; or is the number of homeless people who are counted as homeless decreases remains to be seen.

Similarly, it is curious that significant amounts of money were retracted from other welfare services in the past twelve months. Homeless people have more issues that a lack of a housing. De-funding other services which assist with these compounding issues will not help to halve homelessness. But, it does sound very nice that Mr Rudd wants to help the homeless.

Now, the issue of the day: asylum seekers.

Last Saturday, I got up and read the papers. I then saw my mother. I did not say hello. I, in a passionate fury, cursed, ‘Fucking Rudd!’
‘The asylum seekers?’, Mum asked
‘What the fuck is he doing?!’, I exclaimed

The topic has been re-occurring throughout the week. In the sociology course I teach, this week’s topic was Australian immigration. Timely. Very timely indeed.

So what is it that has angered me so much?

Well, last weekend, immigration minister Chris Evans announced that the Rudd government would be placing a delay on the processing of asylum seekers arriving from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan (3 and 6 months respectively). It was announced that ‘People aren’t being denied their right to seek asylum, but it’s been suspended’. Woah. Since when did the suspension of rights become okay? How does a suspension differ from a denial?

In response to suggestion that this new policy is in breach of the UN Refugee Convention, the retort was that this is not the case because Afghanistan and Sri Lanka are now safe enough that people seeking asylum do not qualify for refugee status. Hmm. We have Australian troops in Afghanistan at war; but it’s safe to live there? What a curious juxtaposition.

And mandatory detention? What? Rudd, you were going to get rid of it? You either think it’s inhumane or you don’t. If you do, then say so. If you don’t then stick to your pre-election promises.

This new policy is so totally Howard. But, worse. It’s worse because it’s not Howard – it’s the guy we got rid of Howard for; and it’s worse because Rudd pretends to care for asylum seekers. No one would have ever mistaken Howard’s views for caring about asylum seekers. We were all clear on where he stood (even before Tampa).

I’m not sure what Rudd it trying to do. I suspect that he is seeking to appeal to the swinging voter. He knows he’s lost ground since his landslide win in 07 and he knows that he needs to grab onto the votes of the neo-cons. But it isn’t working. This week’s political commentary has all pointed out that because of his response to this issue, he will lose the votes of those sympathetic to asylum seekers. Those seeking more authoritarian border protection will still be mindful that three years ago he promised to dismantle Howard’s Pacific Solution and take on a more humane approach to refugees; so they will be unlikely to be persuaded by a radical policy change in the election lead-up.

So, Rudd, go away. Let Julia run the place.

Stating the obvious

2010-04-13T22:27:00.003+10:00

Okay, the post on the asylum seeker policy is going to have to wait a day or two - I have too much work to do tonight. But I had to share this ...

Today, I am at the heart clinic having a monitor attached to me which I must wear for 24 hours. Every 30 mins, it takes my blood pressure and my heart rate. It's the second time this week I've had to do this (which means that this will be the third time this week that I'll be having a night without sleep). Anyway, I am in the clinic room and the nurse who is attaching it says: 'Are you having problems with your blood pressure?'

Kat wants to reply:

No, my blood pressure is great. I just like to hang out with cardiologists and go without sleep because being attached to a machine is fun. Not to mention the pleasure I get out of having lost four days of my life to hang out with a machine. Nope, there's no problems at all with my blood pressure - why on earth would you think that?

Kat's actual reply:

'Yeah, my blood pressure's low'.

Rudd, health and blogging

2010-04-12T23:25:00.006+10:00

My students returned from their mid-semester break today and were straight into a class on the history of immigration in Australia. A timely topic. I did struggle to avoid being a ranting loony, I figure I'll save that for tomorrow's post on Rudd the Dud.

I've already decided that following the post on why Rudd's lost my vote, I'm going to write a post on the importance of courage. The impetus? Rudd's lack of it.

There are very few qualities in people which really disgust me; however, a lack of courage is close to the top of the list. I really struggle tolerating situations where an individual chooses the easy path rather than the right path. I don't mean in just anything, I mean in situations which have consequences (of the serious nature). Anyhow, that's to be continued ...

My life is surreal at the moment. I feel as though I am walking through it in the vessel of somebody else. I get home each night and need a processing time - time to contemplate if this is all really my life. There is just so much happening in each day. This is surely a clear sign of my mind being almost at capacity.

I've got doctors appointments every day this week which is, as I am sure you all know, really disruptive. I also had appointments every day last week (I am convinced that I am keeping the health system afloat).

This endless engagement with medical professionals is both exhausting and depressing. But, I can't fault the level of care that I've received. My GP is amazing. She calls me when she says she is going to; she follows things up with my specialists; and she's detailed and thorough. I think she also worries about me. Not because there is cause to - she knows that I am certainly capable of looking after myself. Yet I think that's just the reason that she worries. In fact, I think that's why all of the medical staff that I have encountered have been so kind (well, save for the grumpy nurse that took my blood a few weeks ago).

When I am in hospital the medics are especially friendly. I was at work a little while ago and fell ill. I knew I wouldn't stay conscious for the whole trip home, so I had to go to Emergency at St V's. I am not sure if it was good or bad that I was rushed straight in (good = no long wait; bad = shorter the wait means you're more of a risk). When the admin staff asked who to call I asked them not to call anybody. When I said that, I thought the woman was going to cry. Which then made me want to cry. Although that doesn't take much - I've certainly exhausted myself to the point that almost any medical appointment elicits tears.

I am not very comfortable crying, but these tears keep appearing unexpectedly throughout my day. But it's almost been a year now since the diagnosis, given that it's ongoing, I reckon that I'm coping pretty well - all things considered.

On the topic of emotions, I caught up with my best friend today. I've previously commented here on his lack of emotional ability - but that is the same reason why I can talk to him. I know that my problems are not going to stress him out! He just wants to know the facts. All of them. And then he wants the solution. Which I don't have. But he is a man. Men like things to be solvable.

Russ and I have a shared interest in health and fitness. So he asks me lots of questions about how the drugs are working; how does the brain chemistry work; how am I managing the dehydration - where does the four litres of water I drink per day go? ... He also likes forward planning. You can tell he works in project management, he goes into management mode: No more Bikram, eat more salt, do something about your cracked lips, when is your next appointment?, Have you told Chris?, Is your temperature influencing your heart rate? And so it goes.

So yes, Bikram is out for the foreseeable future. I'll try to switch to running instead - it's not as enjoyable, but getting fat or unfit are not not extra side-effects which I am seeking. Plus, I've always wanted to be a better long-distance runner.

Speak you tomorrow. About Rudd and his Howard-esque stance on asylum seekers.

What a week.

2010-04-11T18:53:00.004+10:00

I've been really terrible on the whole issue of substantive blog posts. However, I will, very shortly, get back to writing posts of substance rather than weekly updates on my life. But that's very soon -- not now.

There is so much to write about. For instance, Rudd - WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING???? You've lost my vote.

In other news, I've managed to finally finish writing the thesis chapter that was between me and the next stage of my project. I'll edit it once I've finished this post and then send it off. Soon I'll head out into the agencies that I am collaborating with. Several months interviewing and collecting data and then I'll be on the home stretch of the PhD. I'm guessing it'll take a bit over a year to analyse the data (i.e.: make some sort of coherent story from interviews with 30 workers, a heap of statistics and the biographies of 80 young people) and write it up. It's really useless to estimate time. It will take as long as it takes, I guess. Let's not even contemplate the possibility of further health complications interfering.

I will write more on the blog this week. I've been drowning over the past month, but there does appear to be light at the end of the tunnel.

Newcastle. Again.

2010-04-05T14:14:00.004+10:00

It's been a while between posts. I'd say that it's cause I've been busy; but that's a tired excuse. Not to mention lame. And, while I have been busy, it's not really because I've been busy. It's partly because I have been away in Newcastle; and mostly because the trip to Newcastle was on the back of one of the worst week's in recent memory (and I have a very good memory, so that actually means, one of the worst week's ever).

I have since had an action-packed weekend. (btw, to those of you who are religiously inclined - Happy Easter!)

Last Friday I went to Queenscliff to have lunch at the Charity Restaurant on the pier. Well, that was an experience. Firstly, a seafood lunch may well be appealing to most. But I don't really eat seafood. I've learnt to do (eat) the basics to avoid being a social misfit, but seafood's not something which I adore. My earliest encounter with fish was as a small child and I totally despised it. I then, totally independently and much to my mother's frustration, decided at age 10 that I was a vegetarian. So until I was 21, there was not only no seafood, but no meat at all.

My then boyfriend, who was quite partial to good restaurants, was delighted when I decided to re-introduce meat to my diet (good restaurants are wasted on vegos). It also made eating at his place (with his two male mates who wouldn't call a plate of vegies a 'meal') much more feasible. When we moved in together, it also made our cooking options much more diverse. But I still struggle with a knife.

Ten years of vegetarianism was a period where a knife was pretty much redundant. I only ever needed a fork - well occasionally a spoon too - and therefore, only ever used cutlery with one hand - which was my right. But the problem with eating meat is that I now need my right hand to cut steak, but my fork's still in that hand. The cutting of said steak is never a graceful endeavour. I went to a very nice restaurant recently, and very fortunately, was with someone who knows me well enough to know that he needed to cut up my meal (in a not-too-obvious way) so as to avoid me shooting it across the table. I struggle with cutlery. Give me chopsticks any day. (same guy also had to cut the rhubarb for me when I was eating his breakfast recently ... evidently rhubarb is not something you can cut with a fork. I learnt this by losing my dignity in a restaurant and almost spattering his yogurt across his suit - oops.)

Fortunately, seafood doesn't require advanced knife skills. At times it requires finger-skills, which I also lack (prawns, I've learnt, are faaaar too much effort - why do people bother?), but for the most part, with seafood, I'm left with my trusty fork with which I am so familiar. Less fortunate is the fact that I am not particularly a fan of seafood. But I went along to the lunch and it was, ordinary. Very ordinary. It appears to be staffed by students and led by a woman who I wouldn't describe as hospitable. In fact, the way she spoke to her staff and patronised them endlessly was appalling. The service was bad, the wine came in ice buckets but despite what their name would imply, the ice-buckets held no ice. (This still makes me laugh)

The food was okay, but serving bait (crumbed pilchards) made even the seafood aficionados cringe in disgust. The other sea creatures were okay - save for the still-cold lobster. The delay on entry and on service was horrific and nobody really seemed to know what was going on. Fortunately, everybody at the table were good company. The man opposite me was utterly hilarious, referring to the wait staff as Basil Fawlty and asking if they knew what the ice-bucket was for. He had me in stitches for most of the prolonged and otherwise painful experience. The weather was also pretty ordinary, so post-lunch, we ditched the original plan of hanging in Queenscliff and took the long drive home.

While the proceeds for lunch did go to charity, one of the other guests was right in observing that it would have been more pleasurable to donate the money and spend the day eating fish and chips and a bottle of wine at home!

Anyway, Friday night I went along to see Cats. I was quite possibly one of the very few people left in the world that hadn't seen it. And, wow! It was amazing. As much as I was desperate to see it (I bought the tickets the minute they opened the pre-sale allocation - great seats, by the way), I was a little bit hesitant. Almost anything that is remotely abstract tends to bore me. A musical about cats? Well yes, that's certainly a little abstract. But it was great. Unlike most musicals, much of the focus in Cats is on the dance rather than the singing (which is something I clearly appreciate). The cast were fabulous. Ridiculously talented. The voices were amazing. The whole things was great.

Then Saturday morning I jetted off to Newcastle which, as usual, was divine. A very fortuitously timed escape.

I was there to attend an engagement party which was lots of fun. It was just so good to get away and, perhaps for the first time ever, I was really quite depressed to have to come home. But here I am, fresh off the plane and getting back into the thesis (or the blog, as the case may be).

I am much more invigorated and think I'll write well over the next couple of days; but still, I can't stop contemplating a permanent move up there. Not that running away from one's anxieties is ever an effective method of dealing with them; but one can daydream, no?

This week.

2010-03-27T10:06:00.004+11:00

It's Saturday and I survived the marathon week of public speaking and still have a voice. Quite remarkable really!

On Wednesday, I was teaching one of my usual classes, and felt a little out of sorts. I have a feedback envelope that I use in my classes where, each week, the students leave an anonymous note commenting on the class/subject/materials etc. I do this as a tool of reflexive teaching, and I think it's important to use with first year students to encourage them to speak up about things (and to then go on to be good social activists!). But this week the feedback was all good - which, given how I was feeling, was a little surprising. In fact, while I was feeling that I lacked energy, a few students commented that they really liked that that day's class was quieter than usual!

Went to the comedy festival on Wednesday night to see the opening of Wil Anderson's show. You REALLY should get along to see it. It was fantastic! He is very political and there's a real substance to his shows. I love it. And him. Some highlights? Well, he talked about the absence of logic in banning the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. This ban came about because there was concern that the Cookie Monster encouraged children to eat too much junk food and this was contributing to childhood obesity. After the jokes about childhood obesity being about what parents feed their children rather than what a Sesame Street character feeds himself; Anderson pointed out that if that logic followed, are we going to suggest that Oscar the Grouch caused homelessness?!

There was of course much more, but my memory is currently failing me. I'll get back to you on it!

So then, after this, I took a three hour session on research methods on Thursday. That was intense and exhausting. That it was a class of 55 students in a room without air-con didn't help the situation. I hadn't been well throughout the night on Wednesday so by the time I finished this in the afternoon I was utterly exhausted. But I still got to yoga and while the body struggled, the mind was grateful I soldiered through.

Today I will be back into the land of the thesis. Newspapers and shower first, and then stuck into it. This, while also answering endless texts and calls in response to the 50 invitations I sent out for a girlfriend's hens night, none of which included the date. Yep - same girl that case-manages young people's lives and writes a PhD can't notice that the key piece of information is missing from an invitation. Nice one, Kat!

Have a good weekend guys!

Happiness and guilt: a confounding juxtaposition?

2010-03-26T22:29:00.006+11:00

Frequently, I feel happy. Not just not sad, but happy. As in, I even smile to myself. Many times I've contemplated posting about how great life is, how amazing life can be and how much I enjoy living. But before I can get to the point of being smug I am then hit with a wave of guilt; a feeling that perhaps I shouldn't be so happy. That perhaps, given my life events, to sit around lamenting the wonderful state of the world would be trivialising some very horrific experiences. Perhaps it would also be seen as disrespecting those who I have lost and those who have shared similar experiences but who aren't walking around the world grinning to themselves in such a state of contentment.

I know that we can't be grieving or recovering from traumas forever. I know that this would be unhealthy, unproductive and very unhappy. I know that nobody should be encouraged to be unhappy. But that's not to say that recognising this makes one feel that it's okay to be happy.

I am talking rather abstractedly here - yes, of course you can be happy, Kat.

What I am trying to get at - and what I am evidently having a distinct problem articulating this afternoon - is not so much about justifying happiness; I can already hear the flow of comments about me being 'deserving' of happiness. It's my struggle to reconcile how to accept the overwhelming love of life that I often have, with the sense of contrition which shortly accompanies it.

For how long do we carry the identities which have been forced upon us? For instance, for how long is one the high-school failure or the grieving sister?

And how can we carry opposing identities simultaneously? Yes. That's what I think I struggle with; being one person with capacity to carry two different 'stories'. In common perceptions, these two narratives would be in almost distinct polarity to one another.

There's the person who most fits the stereotype of what I look like: The young, happy-go-lucky, blonde girl who is a dancer, who works the door of nightclubs, does yoga, likes shopping and chocolate, watches chick-flicks and dates men who look like the sort of guys that would expect to date this type of girl: tall, alpha male, athletic, trendy, tanned etc. This same girl did fail high school but befriended most of her teachers and got through on charm alone.

Then there is the other person; the young woman with a curiosity about the world. An intensity about everything; perhaps a consequence of having experienced things which force one to mature quickly. She is the person people go to for advice and support, the person people find themselves opening up to about all sorts of intimate details about their lives.

This person, also me, is in the early stages of a successful career as a professional. Committed to issues of social justice and disadvantaged youth, this person is working on a PhD and teaching at university. This is a young woman who is political, reads widely and is actively engaged with the world and the social issues within it. This woman firmly believes that the written word is a powerful tool and uses it accordingly. This same person's closest friends are mostly male and her first point of call for anything remotely serious is her 60+ year old thesis supervisor.

Now, of course these two personas are not mutually exclusive - they are both me! Well, more correctly, I am both of them. But there is often a tension between the two.

I went out with someone recently who introduced me to friends that I hadn't previously met. One of the friends, an older guy, when I asked what he did, told me that he was a mortgage broker. He then went on to explain to me - and slowly in speech no less - that a mortgage broker, is a person who 'sells mortgages, to people looking for home loans'. Because, of course, as a young blonde female, he assumed that I would need the slow, dumbed down version, of what his totally trivial and mundane occupation entailed.

Given that I only knew one person there, the diplomat in me just bit my tongue and endured the patronising undertones of this fools conversation. I did take comfort in knowing that I was far more intelligent and far less discriminatory than he. The irony was that he felt that the ten years in age between us indicated his superiority; I took it as an indicator of his inferiority.

Seriously, you're 35 and haven't yet learnt that people's abilities cannot be assumed from how they look? Yep, you really are a moron. Sure, you tell yourself that I am the ignorant Gen-Yer; but only people with inferiority complexes would make sweeping generalisations about people based solely on their chronological age. Because, of course, social class, life experience and other factors are no longer pertinent. All people who are 'gen Y' are homogeneous. Puh-lease. Go away. There's a hot guy on the other side of the bar making eyes at me, and even if he ends up being stupid, at least he's hot. This is one up on what you currently have to offer me, Mr Mortgage Broker.

Ah, sorry about that diversion, Dear Readers. It's just that it's incredibly frustrating to be treated like a moron all of the time based solely on how you look. Or to be patronised based solely on your age. But that wasn't the main contention of this post so I will try and get back to it.

So where I was going with the multiple persona discussion was that it can, sometimes (not always), be difficult to manage the two. Identity and emotions are inextricably linked. So how I feel, and whether or not I have a right to be feeling that way, is often dependent on which way the identity pendulum is swinging. But the issue which was the impetus for this post, was that perhaps my emotions encourage the swing of this metaphorical pendulum. That, when I am in the land of the happy-go-lucky girl soaking up the goodnesses of life, I soon swing back to the stark reality that some things are often touched with incredible sadnesses. And while I can acknowledge and accept this, it still grinds with the notion of total contentment.

It's not to say that I can't be happy or that I am commonly depressed and soaking in my own sorrows - far from the case. My claims of loving life, also don't overlook that I have shitty days and weeks like everyone else. I get hurt and upset and angry by people too. But, for the most part, I can see that these are part of the life package that, on balance, I really do love.

My guilt that's associated with happiness comes from my underlying fear that being too happy will be failing to recognise those things which are not so happy at all. Which is of course, silly, but something I struggle with nonetheless.

The week of endless speaking

2010-03-24T10:39:00.004+11:00

Woah. It is only Wednesday. And only Wednesday morning. I feel like it should be Friday. Friday of next week at that.

I don't normally feel as though the week is never going to end. In fact, I normally feel as though it's ended far too soon. But this week has been intense and I am already exhausted!

On top of my usual teaching schedule, I have a lot of extra stuff this week.

Yesterday I spent two hours co-presenting a research seminar on fieldwork for graduate students. I spoke about the how to do good fieldwork and interviews in social research. I literally had to run from that to a convention centre down the street where I was giving a lecture on 'how to make formal ethics requirements a help rather than a hindrance in designing research projects'.

When I was asked to give this lecture I was slightly amused. This is part of a public lecture series on research which many graduate students attend as part of a research methods course.

A couple of years ago, when I was an Honours student, I undertook that same course. My project was always given so much grief and I was told endlessly about how I wouldn't get ethics approval. But I did (without any drama at all) and now I am on the ethics committee. I told my audience yesterday that giving that lecture was a great taste of poetic justice!

Tomorrow I am running a three hour seminar on methods and ethics in researching young people. Yes, that's right. THREE hours.

If I have a voice left at the end of this week I will be impressed. Not that it will matter much, as I will be too tired to actually use it.

**
my notes on interviewing are a coming ... soon(ish).

Waleed Aly at The Wheeler Centre

2010-03-23T11:12:00.004+11:00

Last night I went to see Waleed Aly discuss the latest Quarterly Essay, What's Right? The future of conservatism in Australia. I haven't yet finished reading the essay - although most people there last night hadn't yet began it at all.

Aly demarcates between two uses of the word 'conservative'. Identifying with the bases of conservative political philosophy doesn't always mean that one is a 'conservative' in the everyday sense of the word. Similarly, rejecting the idea of conservatism doesn't mean that one is a revolutionary - as the true meaning of 'left' would suggest.

Aly's question came about after reading Switzer in a 2007 issue of conservative journal, Quadrant. Switzer's main claim was the the Iraq war was an non-conservative war. The idea of forcefully implementing a new political system was problematic and not consistent with the origins of conservative political philosophy. Conservatives, Aly argues, are far more pragmatic in their approach to change. They are not necessarily anti-change, but a classical conservative would not support radical change. According to Aly, conservatives are 'evolutionary, not revolutionary'; they undertake change in an organic needs-based way as opposed to direct and dramatic (which is a progressive response).

Aly states that conservatism is not an ideology; moreover, and as Oakshott put it, conservatism is a disposition. Aly articulates conservatism as an approach to change. Aly is highly critical of references to the Left and the Right, and in the opening paragraph of his essay, denounces these terms as 'utterly meaningless and should be abandoned by anyone interested in having a substantial political conversation'. Left and Right, he argues, 'are the hallmark of a political conversation that is obsessed with teams and uninterested in ideas' (p. 2-3).

Aly's denouncement of Left and Right is based on the premise that the dichotomy between the two is now arbitrary. He critiques the overload of 'announceables' in the media and the absence of 'ideas' in public discourse. The radically transformative nature of society today does not lend itself well to the public discussion of ideas. He pointed out last night that the 24 hour availability and publication of 'news' doesn't complement the complexity of ideas-based conversation and exchange. Consequently, Aly has some serious doubts about whether classical conservatism can be revived given the highly transformative nature of the world today.

It was great. He was great. I love it when people that write beautifully speak beautifully too.

The ethics of doing research with young drug users

2010-03-17T22:56:00.005+11:00

For those of you interested, here's a link to the paper I presented at the Australian Sociological Association annual conference last year. It's on ethics in research that involves young people with problematic drug use. I've since restructured it and added and subtracted and turned it into a journal article.

But the paper is here.

Sorry about the delay. I know some of you asked about it at the time - I forgot to post it.

Snippit

2010-03-13T19:48:00.003+11:00

I found this amusing, you might too ...

Person (who'd previously announced that today would be THE day of action): 'I've decided that tomorrow's a better day to start'

Me: 'Ohhhhh ... In therapy, I'd call that avoidance'

Person: 'Really? I'd call it being decisive'

Start of semester

2010-03-11T17:21:00.004+11:00

The beginning of the teaching semester has hit. While I have been on campus the whole way through, the sudden influx of so many students on campus, adn the flurry of first-years makes me feel like it's the beginning of a new phase for me too. And in a way, it is. I am teaching this semester, so I am in 'tutor mode' for the next ten weeks. After which time I have a break (from teaching, not PhD) and will then resume teaching again in the second semester.

I'm teaching a couple of classes, and thus far, the students are a great cohort. The course is great, so, if this is all a theme, it should be a great semester.

I've been pretty hectic, finishing up the interviewing on the St Kilda project and preparing for semester. I've also been trying to prepare a bunch of lectures I have coming up so that I can really focus on my PhD. Since I fell ill, I haven't regained pace and that's an increasing anxiety which I would like to calm.

I'm in one of those periods where things are in need of finalisation and other things are about to emerge. So I have wrapped up some things I've been working on; and am making headway on some big things which are impending. I've been slashing through things in need of attention in my personal life (like, organising stuff for friends weddings etc), so, while I am still a bit behind the 8-ball, there is definite progress.

Sleep and I are almost mutually exclusive, but I think I'll be able to rest a bit more when things are a little more settled. In any event, I find the way stress interferes with the body and its systems incredibly fascinating (those around me probably don't like my grumpy moods so much). I'm off to dancing this evening - got to make time for the pleasures.

Will write properly over the weekend - by which time I anticipate at least a few hours sleep will have occurred!

News??

2010-03-01T10:42:00.002+11:00

"AUSTRALIAN students who attend the top private schools and whose fathers hold degrees are five times more likely to gain entry to university than those from urban working-class, rural or indigenous backgrounds."

... So reads the first line of this article in today's Age.

I am curious as to what makes this newsworthy? Haven't we all known this forever?

Secular education and values

2010-02-26T23:42:00.006+11:00

In the past few weeks, I have found myself on the outskirts of two conversations discussing (albeit very loosely) the role of catholic schooling in the provision of education on values and ethics.

The first conversation was with a colleague who attributes his own sense of social justice to his Irish-catholic upbringing. He tells me that his pride in this heritage is not about the religiosity, but the lessons of ethics and values which he feels he received.

The other conversation was with a different colleague.

In a general chat about education, schools and values (n.b.: when you work in welfare, these conversations are actually the everyday sort of lunchroom conversations). In talking with her, it came up that her husband is very firm in the view that secular schools should offer ethics education. Both she and he are atheists, and he is very keen for there to be a place for lessons of ethics in formal education.

Prior to these conversations, I had not ever given any thought to the role of schools to teach values. Acknowledging that I have deep views on most issues to do with education - and likewise with ethics - this seems a significant oversight on my behalf. I suspect that it never occurred to me because I went to several secular schools, none of which offered lessons on ethics. At the same time, I have a very strong sense of social justice and always act in a way which is entirely consistent with my own ethical framework. Integrity is something I think critical to being a good person and thus, a quality I seek to engender.

So, perhaps not surprisingly, I am sceptical about the necessity of lessons on ethics from the school system. Well, I should also mention here that I am sceptical about the role of the school system entirely. Schools go by under the pretense of 'educating' students, yet I am not convinced that this is in fact their purpose (and if it is, then its success rate is appalling - but this rant is deviating too far from my contention ...)

Yes, so where was I?

Education, schools, ethics ...

... okay. So what sense do I make of it? Not much.

I didn't engage in the conversation with colleague number one - he was drunk and I don't know him all that well. I suspect it would have gotten ugly - via misunderstandings and miscommunication - very rapidly.

As for the role of ethics education in schools, well, if it was done in a way that was consistent with my own views, then I'd say okay. But the reality is, this probably wouldn't be the case. So would I want to send my children to a secular school where they would be 'educated' in ethics? Probably not. Although, I wouldn't rule it out - I would be very aware of what, precisely, was in the curriculum.

I certainly do not subscribe to any suggestion that ethics and values are learnt solely through religion. In fact, that suggestion really infuriates me. It, like all other religious mantras, attempts to assume responsibility and attribution of cause, for something which is very often very unique. A person's values are developed with influences from all over the place - learning to think well is most important. If one can think, then they are positioned to develop their own ethical values rather than assuming those proscribed from another and this way, people are then held far more accountable for what they do. One can't be left floating through life on the lessons they were taught at school. On matters of values, the real lessons are always the ones that we learn for ourselves.

The purpose or the pay?

2010-02-21T22:15:00.000+11:00

I have recently been appointed to the university human research ethics committee. Many have asked me if it's a paid position. When I tell them that it's not, they tell me that it should be. My response is that it would be unethical to pay people to sit on an ethics review board. It would certainly run the risk of attracting people to the position for the money rather than for the inherent interest in the position. I won't elaborate on the broader implications of why ethics committees should operate on a voluntary basis. But this persistent question about payment really irked me.

I've thought about why this question irritated me so much. Partly, it was to do with me being happy to be on the committee and feeling that obtaining this position was an achievement. People's concern about payment, rather than the position, detracted from my satisfaction in being afforded the opportunity. However, the bigger issue had to do with the fact that people seem to overlook that some things should be done for reasons intrinsic to the activity; not for financial bonuses upon their completion.

I am not suggesting that we should all work for free. Nor do I think it's even remotely realistic to suggest that we should only do work as a means in itself. But I am touching on the idea that some things should be done for their own integrity. Helping people is one of these things. If you have the capacity to, then you should. Widening this to a broader context, other things should be done for their own sake. Sitting on ethics committees is one such thing. Guest lectures are another.

I give several lectures a semester to various groups of students and/or staff. Usually, I receive an email from an academic I haven't met, but who has been given my details through someone I do know. Subjects don't usually have a budget to pay guest lecturers. However, I've been a student. I know that some of your best learning comes from guest lecturers. This is because the guest lecturer is typically an expert in whatever it is that they have been invited to lecture on. They've been invited because they know more about the topic than the usual lecturer. As a student, I've benefited from others donating their time to guest lecture. When someone asks me to do likewise, I'll always do my best to fit it in.

Sometimes when you give a lecture you receive a bottle of wine or a book voucher. These things are fine and appreciated (although I do have a moral issues with alcohol as payment, but that's another issue entirely ... ). These things are tokens of appreciation, but they certainly aren't expected.

Away from academia, when I was working in welfare, supervising students was a similar deal. We had the option of whether or nor we wanted to supervise university students on field-placement. I liked taking on students. It's a lot of work -- in many instances, the students require closer supervision than my clients. As a placement supervisor, you are also expected to help the student with the academic requirements of their placement - reading draft reports etc. The supervisor is also required to write a report about the student. This is on top of training the student, providing formal supervision to the student and overseeing the student's clinical skills development.

Welfare workers always have a shortage of time - so why take on a student to supervise as well? Well, if we don't, how will students learn? Likewise, there's the sense of reciprocity. I was a student; I took a placement; someone supervised me. Now it's my turn to return the favour.

Similarly, there's also a great sense of privilege which comes from helping a student make the transition from classroom to clinical practice. It's also good skill development for me as a worker. I am forced to continually articulate what I have done in my work practice and to be able to explain why I did that. This process encourages reflexivity in my work practice and in turn, this discourages complacency. A good thing to avoid when your job affects people's lives in such a significant way.

So not only is taking on these tasks without expectation of payment an issue of integrity, but there's a deep sense of satisfaction that comes from undertaking a task for its process rather than for just its outcome. Most people aren't lucky enough to have these opportunities that I have been fortunate enough to come my way -- situations where you have the time, other financial income, and the invitation to contribute to the production of others' knowledge. It's also an opportunity to be active in issues and areas in which one is interested. It is the activity of individuals which go to improving the communal good. We need to be active in our lives - for our own benefit as much as for others'.

So having these opportunities is a privilege in itself. I like to respect it for that, remuneration can be seen as merely a bonus.

After the Orphanage, by Murray, Murphy, Branigan and Malone

2010-02-15T14:54:00.001+11:00

This is a sort of book review. But it's sort of not. You see, it was on my list of books to be read (posted here) and then a reader of this here blog asked my thoughts on it. As I explained in the comments section of that post, I hadn't written on the book because its lead author is a researcher here at RMIT with who I am acquainted. But as I said, this is only a sort-of book review. My comments are more concerned with how we tell people’s stories in an ethical way; rather than providing a commentary on the entire book.

The issue that came to the fore when I was asked my thoughts on the book was how well researchers/authors can relay the experiences of others. This is an issue that I have given considerable thought to over the years. I too have been frustrated with the way people from minority groups are often painted with the same brush based on having one similar characteristic or experience. I've been infuriated with the sometimes horrific consequences of researchers portraying a group of individuals as homogenous without seeking to understand that there are in fact groups within groups who each have distinct heterogeneity. If research is informing social policy, there are very high stakes in the research getting the story right.

In a similar line of concern, I am wary when outsiders are writing about the experiences of others, particularly when those they are writing about are an otherwise 'voice-less' group of people. While it's certainly admirable to attempt to give a voice to those who are victims of oppression; if it's the first time that such a powerful story is to be told, it ought to be told accurately.

I want to point out that I am equally wary when I am reading material that is written about a group of people by an individual member of that group. For instance, when a former drug user speaks about drug users, I am cautious that they do not speak as though all people use drugs do so for the same reasons, and experience drugs the same way and use them in the same contexts.

Women's groups are also a prime offender at doing this. Often you will hear such groups speak on behalf of women – all women. Throughout history, women have been subject to all sorts of oppression. This continues today. There is most definitely a place for women's advocacy groups. However, women comprise half of the entire population -- our experiences are varied and diverse. Anyone speaking for an entire cohort of people is sure to grate with some members of the collective; but this doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done at all.

However, what we must bear in mind when we speak on behalf of a group to which we belong; or, more critically, when we attempt to speak for a group to which we do not belong, - is that we must endeavour to provide the most accurate account about the subject of which we are speaking. This includes recognising what you are not looking at. You need to be explicit in what part of the issue you are you looking at; if you are exploring a, b & c, be sensitive to the implications of excluding x, y & z.

While it might be interesting to speak about the prevalence of offending behaviours among young homeless men; not acknowledging why these people are homeless, or not demarcating violent crimes from acquisitive crimes is problematic. It fails to provide the context in which such offences are taking place and portrays these young people to be pathological criminals rather than people who are surviving on the absolute margins of society and with limited resources to get by. It makes us want to persecute these people when they are in need of the most support.

So, when speaking about any collective, as an outsider, there is an ethical obligation to do one’s best to really understand the group beforehand. Having a grounded understanding makes you far more likely to get the story ‘right’. If you are talking about a group which you are a part of; you have an obligation to recognise that you story is only one story among many. One needs to be reflexive about whether their story is similar to, or quite different from, those of other people in the group.

So what’s my view on how this plays out in After the Orphanage?

First up – it’s good. I’d recommend it.

The book is based on oral-history interviews with 40 people who were raised in orphanages in Victoria. The authors are at pains to emphasise that this is a select sample – they only recruited participants from service providers who work with care-leavers. It’s more than likely that those who aren’t engaged with such services may tell a vastly different story. I should also point out that this book focuses on people’s lives after they have left care; the focus is not on the orphanage experience (though it does come up). Participant interviews all began with what happened the day they left care.

There was much diversity among the stories of the 40 participants.

There were vastly different recollections of time in care. Some people remembered their time in care fondly and were defensive about the widely held assumption that being raised in care is a disadvantage. Then there were others who spoke about being abused in care. There were also people who were somewhere in the middle. They felt that the orphanages had their shortcomings; but were raised free from abuse and neglect.

The book’s authors don’t seek to position themselves within the argument of whether being raised in an orphanage was inherently good or bad. Rather, they approach it from the perspective of an historian. They weld together the large numbers of narratives into a detailed account about the different experiences that these people had in their lives after being raised in care. They point out the similarities among the group (e.g.: many had problems in their first serious relationship), but also emphasise the often vastly different pathways each of these participants have followed in life.

The authors are thoughtful in their approach to telling these stories. Having to piece together this many narratives into some sort of coherent work would have been difficult - especially given the vast differences among the participants. The authors show respect and courtesy in acknowledging that there is no single universal experience of how it is to be raised in care. Nor do they suggest that all care-leavers have the same life outcomes.

Interestingly, they do point out how in our attempts to be sympathetic to those raised in care, we have inadvertently created a stigmatised identity that comes with being a ‘care leaver’. On the other hand, the life problems that many participants faced as a direct result of being in care were not diminished.

The book is very interesting. It touches on a sensitive (and under-discussed) issue. It highlights that despite being raised in similar circumstances, people are all very different. This book avoids the ethical conundrum of ‘not getting the story right’ as it doesn’t seek to present a single story. Instead, it’s a discursive piece that addresses the differences and similarities among the lives of people after being in an orphanage. And it does it very well.

One city, two worlds

2010-02-10T23:09:00.008+11:00

I've been doing work on a research project at a welfare agency in St Kilda. It's a four year research study which is evaluating an intervention for chronically homeless adults. My role is to interview these people over the four years to see how they progress (or regress, as the case is likely to be for many). Now these interviews are hard going. But I've got my head around this sort of stuff enough to not take it home with me. I'm pretty confident in all sorts of potentially precarious situations. I've done interviews with people who have histories of being extremely violent towards women; others who are registered sex offenders. But I see all of the people I interview as individuals and my role is to gather their story. Sure, it can get pretty intense.

An interview is different from a chat. It's more work.

I need to be constantly monitoring the direction the interview is taking - am I getting the information that I need? I also need to be acutely aware of my participant's emotional state - are they becoming anxious, or upset, distracted? I need to build rapport with people so that they feel comfortable to tell me the most intimate details of their life. I also need to be aware of how the interview will end - often I need to spend a period of time debriefing participants who become emotional during the interview. Some participants may be substance affected. I need to find out what they've had to understand their overdose risk. In instances where I may be at risk, I also need to be very mindful of my personal safety. All of this while listening carefully and attentively to the story that my participants share with me.

Interviewing people is a humbling experience. Having people open up to you, to trust you, is a genuine privilege. I avoid ever doing more than two interviews in a day as they take a lot of time and a lot of energy. I would never go into an interview tired or distracted. It's completely disrespectful to your participant.

So I've been out 'in the field' today. My interview went well. I was expecting this one to break my heart, but it didn't. It was actually incredibly inspiring.

On my way back to the office I dropped into the local cafe. I chatted with the chef for a while and had a coffee. Not far from here, as I walked into the street my office is in, there was a young woman standing on the corner. She was a street-sex worker. I could tell that she was just starting for the day. I smiled as I walked past and went inside and did my paperwork. About an hour later I was leaving and I walked past her 'spotter' (read: pimp). He stared me up and down; quickly assuming that I was a worker, and not the police, he relaxed.

Around the corner, I walked past the girl again. She was young. She was attractive. She was definitely no older than me. I smiled at her.
'You always smile', she said
'Can't do any harm', I replied
'You're the only one who smiles around here -- It's a miserable place'
I took to her. I've worked down this street before; the younger sex workers enjoyed it when I was in the area, I was often the only female in their world who was close to them in age and with who they could be honest with.
I took out my earphones and walked closer to her, 'How's the day been?' I asked
'Oh, pretty quiet'
'You been out here long? What time did you start?'
'Oh, only about an hour ago'
There was a look of desperation on her face but also a degree of anxiety
Then she said 'I can't talk, my friend's watching me ...'
'Okay. Be safe. I'll look out for you tomorrow' I said and walked away.

I knew she wanted to talk. But the fear of being persecuted for missing a potential customer was greater.

I was moved by this. I was thinking about it a lot on my walk to the tram. She wouldn't have been more than 22. Possibly younger. There she was, working the corner, unable to talk to me because someone wanted a cut of her earnings. I felt sick at the thought of what was likely to have led her there.

On the tram I was heading down St Kilda Road. The kids from Wesley, an elite private school, got on. They were bubbling with life and were happy and friendly. They were all smiling.

I listened as they spoke about staying in a five star hotel for a friends birthday. I heard all about how they were going to get stoned at art camp. They spoke about the strategies their teachers had given them to maximise their ENTER scores (it was about being strategic in selecting subjects, there was no mention of working hard or learning anything ...)

I thought back to the girl.

There wouldn't have been more than a couple of years difference between her and these kids. She couldn't imagine their life; likewise, there's no way they could imagine hers. If I told them about her, they'd probably tell me that she 'chooses to do that'. Lots of people say that. Lots of people just don't get it.

Comparing these kids to that girl really hit a nerve with me. It brought home just how polarised our world is. Same city that they live in, albeit in different worlds.

In the news

2010-02-06T14:18:00.005+11:00

It's Saturday. Every Saturday and every Sunday, usually after yoga, I spend a long time reading the papers over muesli and coffee. There's a lot in the weekend papers. You could spend the whole weekend devouring them.

Today's Age I found quite distressing. Well, it wasn't the paper as such, but the topics which were covered.

The suicide of a 19 year old young woman after horrific workplace bullying evoked emotion in me which made me want to stop reading. I didn't though; I kept going. I do not think it good to be ignorant in an attempt to avoid pain. Especially in this instance; it disrespects the dead (which I've written about elsewhere).

The rape of a 14 year old girl in Melbourne by two older men was awful.

Britt Lapthorne's parents spoke about how they are still seeking answers as to what happened to their daughter. A parent who has lost a child is a changed person. A broken person. Having seen it first-hand, their story touched me much more than it would have before my brother's death.

On top of all of this, the lift-out marking the first anniversary of the Black Saturday fires was emotive. Not to the same degree as the first three I've listed. When the fires happened I was, like everybody else, left reeling at the scale of damage and the effects of this upon the whole community. But a year on, we are hearing survival stories and stories of people rebuilding. It's still horrific, but there's a sense of resiliency and camaraderie that has emerged which makes it easier for all to process.

So, while that put a dampener on my day, I felt better for it. We need to read these things - we can't sit back and pretend the world is full of good things. If it's awful to read, I cannot imagine what it was for those whose had to expereince these tragic events.

Obama's State of the Union Address

2010-01-29T17:35:00.003+11:00

I didn't see the address on TV/YouTube etc ... I read the transcript so that I could see its substance and to avoid getting drawn in on his tone or emphases. I also did not want to be influenced by the incredible number of standing ovations that he received (14, I think). If you're interested in reading the whole thing, it's on the NY Times site here.

Overall, I thought it was pretty good. He kept his phrases short and punchy which is a useful quality in the spoken word. I'm not going to provide any analysis of its substance - there's plenty of others doing that.

The part I liked so much that I'd like to quote it:

'In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a world-class education. And in this country, the success of our children cannot depend more on where they live than on their potential'

Admittedly, a problem with this is that while this grandiose ideologically-driven statement means well; the reality is that the success of children can, and usually does, depend more on where they live than on their potential. I think he meant 'cannot' as in, cannot be accepted ... but I like the moral of the story ...

The statement which raised too many questions for me:

'Abroad, America's greatest source of strength has always been our ideals. The same is true at home. We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we're all created equal; that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it; if you adhere to our common values you should be treated no different than anyone else'

My issues with this:

* One in three black American men will go to prison. There's no equality in that. Who you are and what you look like are very influential in whether you are protected by the law;

* having worked with victims of crime; the suggestion that if you abide by the law you should be protected by the law, is idealistic at best. It definitely borders on offensive. It certainly invalidates the experiences of those recovering from hugely traumatising crimes. It fails to acknowledge that in practice, the law often fails;

* 'common values' - as defined by who?;

* I shan't even comment on the claim that America's 'ideals' are held in such high regard by those abroad ...