omg two entries in less than a week

Today in Australia is the day of champions. The race that stops a nation. All the country's papers are full of insightful articles, hot tips, and THIS HORSE has apparently already triumphed over adversity before the big race has even started. There hasn't been such intense media scrutiny in this country since "Our Princess Mary" gave birth to a small child in Denmark (remember that?).

The racetrack has been trampled by scores of reporters from breakfast news shows, hungry in their collective quest to profile the wackiest Melbourne Cup supporter, the most exquisite fascinator, the most daring dress, and the most Australian of all Australian race fans on this most Australian of days.

And fuck me if all I can muster up in response to this splendour is a resounding "pshaw."

That's right.

I say "pshaw" to you, Melbourne Cup.

"Pshaw" to you and your horses, your overpriced alcohol, your muddy ground, your horde of swizzle stick-thin tanorexics and their dates for the day, most of whom look like gorillas with mullets, squeezed into tailormade suits. "Pshaw" to you for letting thousands of stupid (but otherwise innocent) Australians piss away their money at the bookies.

Last year, I had the fortune to be working for V.A. on the day of the Cup, and so was oblivious to the events of the day. The emotionally fragile have no need for horse races. The bus on the way home, however, was chockers with pissed teenage girls in undersized dresses, fascinators askew, impractical pointy shoes in one hand and a Bacardi Breezer in the other. The bus driver was frothing at the mouth because all of them paid their $1.30 fare with a $20 note (at least), and that didn't even include the cleaning fee for the removal of sticky alcoholic beverages and traces of vomit from the floor. Meanwhile, their aforementioned himbo "dates" stood in everyone else's way up the front of the bus, swinging wildly backwards and forwards as they discussed the finer points of having a discreet spew when all the Port-a-loos are already occupied by people spewing. How lovely.

This afternoon, allowances have been made. Our lecture will be put on hold as we all watch the "thrilling" conclusion to a few laps around an oval on horseback. Victorians actually get the day off , and more power to them for fooling their government officials into thinking that this horse race amounts to anything more than glorifying this country's inordinate idolatry of "sport" (at the expense of almost everything else before it) and the fine Aussie tradition of getting pissed on a school day. Hoorah, indeed.

A sweep has been organised by a classmate, and I've been required to give up two of my hard-earned dollars to draw a random horse out of a hat just before the race starts. I'll bet I end up with the three-legged one, but I'll keep you posted.

It should be noted that, like comicstriphero, my disdain for horse-racing will disappear if I actually draw the winner this afternoon. Yeah, I'm fickle. Deal with it.

the l-word

Golly, people. Sometimes I just don't have anything to say, alright? So here's a stupid story. Don't saw I didn't warn you.

When I was a third-year university student, I had a lecturer who was something of a Militant Lesbian. She'd bombard us with tirades about the horror of the first Sydney Mardi Gras (as well as the injustice of The System, and why being gay was just, like, the coolest thing ever) during lectures about multiple regression, exploding like a large angry hand grenade in the desolate wasteland of statistics. She even chose the colour of our course outline based on its name: Xena.

I also had her as a tutor for the same subject. Rather than tell us how to go about using the unadulterated evil that is SPSS (behold the evil of the corporate website!), she would generally sit on the edge of the desk up the front of the classroom, swinging her legs back and forth while telling us about her research, which seemed to consist of proving With Science that heterosexual individuals (ESPECIALLY men, those filthy pigs) were inferior to homosexuals in just about every important way, especially morally. Hmm...

One particular research project focused on homosexual stereotypes. First, she asked the class to come up with positive stereotypes about gay males. "Good dancers," "fashionable" and "hot bodies" were immediately offered up by the row of blonde girls up the back of the room. Militant Lesbian nodded her approval at these flattering-but-inaccurate-at-least-in-my-case descriptions, and then asked: "How about lesbians? Can anyone think of good things to say about lesbians?"

And you know what? My mind went blank. Someone put forth "wears sensible shoes" and another came up with "good with power tools," but that was it.

"See!" Militant Lesbian cried with approval. "Lesbians! The second-class members of society! Thankyou!" And then she went back we went to statistics, as if the whole thing had never happened. Well, Jesus. Maybe if you smiled a little more we could be a little nicer.

Militant Lesbian was (is) a scary woman, but one who somehow commands my respect. At one point I was thinking about doing my honours thesis with her, and awkwardly brought this up with her when we were in the lift one day. "Look," she told me. "If you want to make your fame and fortune from psychology, my area isn't going to be one you'll do it in. But who knows, you may learn something about yourself."

She was probably right, but instead I chickened out and wrote a thesis in the domain of cognitive science, which brought me neither fame, fortune, or greater insight. Ho hum.

Earlier this year, and for absolutely no reason, Jenny and I started up a joke about lesbians, and how all of them (no, really! Allof them!) own cats, drink copious amounts of tea and have long boring discussions about their feelings. The most common insult in our house is “go and drink some tea,” closely followed by "fucking cat owner." The very mention of "tea-drinking cat owners" is enough to send us both into hysterics. I guess you have to be there.

I see Militant Lesbian wandering around the psychology building now and then, and I can never help but wonder whether she would like to hear these new sterotypes we've come up with. I suspect not.

whoops

So over this last month or so, I've done something rather rebellious and lost a uni library book. I'm so bad. I've had overdue stuff before, but never has it actually disappeared into the ether, and as such, I was quite distressed.

Of course, I wasn't aware that I hadn't returned the book. I did a mass return one afternoon, and sort of assumed that this particular book was lurking somewhere in the pile. It was only when I logged on to my student account to reserve a book that my eyes strayed to the "Fines" section and I saw, with great aghastness (new word TM me), that the fines had been racking up, apparently expontentially, and I now owed the library 75 dollars.

Well, fuck that for a joke. I made a complete trashpile of the house (not that it needed much encouragement) as I tore it apart, looking for this wayward tome. No luck. It was gone.

So I sent a polite email to the library loans department, explaining my situation, and could it be possible that the book had not been marked as returned, even though I had done so? They sent me back a form letter explaining that they would search the shelves in an attempt to help me out. Isn't that nice?

Two weeks passed, during which the 75 dollar fine weighed heavily on my soul. Then, on the day I FOUND THE FUCKING BOOK (don't ask), a response.

Dear SCOTT,

We regret that we are unable to locate the book you so stupidly lost, you retard. Basically, you've got three choices. Either:
- Come and search the shelves yourself (which, with a good eight or nine storeys and probably a couple of million items to search through, should be a blast);
- Cough up $125 so we can spend it on chocolate biscuits in the staff tea room;
- Buy us a new copy of the book and pay an extra $30 so that we can put a barcode on it and get one of our mothers to cover it in Contact.

You decide, bitch. Kisses,
The Library Staff.

I may have paraphrased a bit, but you get the drift. I considered my options carefully. I had planned on buying the book anyway. Option One was out, considering I had already FOUND THE BOOK ANYWAY and returning it at this late stage would result in me being $75 out of pocket, with no book to show for it. So it was down to Two and Three. By the narrowest of margins, Option Three won out because it would leave me approximately $7 better off, and when I am so ill-equipped to part with large amounts of money, this was an important consideration.

The book was ordered and shipped within 7-10 working days, and I was ready to roll.

___________________________________________________________________

And now I'm home with my parents and I'd forgotten I even had a blog, let alone that it needed updating, so I'm just going to post this half-finished entry and leave you all in suspense until I get home. Kisses.

sometimes you need a release

Back when psychology was all about running rats through mazes and giving them electric shocks, a theory of depression emerged. It argued that a decrease in positive mood came about when a positive reinforcer was removed. Much like a baby begins to cry when its favourite toy is lost or thrown away, so too will many adults become downhearted after something that used to bring them happiness (no matter how small) is gone. That goes a long way in explaining why moving house, deaths and divorces are such common triggers for low mood.

I say this because I sense a significant loss of positive reinforcement coming my way in...ooh, about ten days now. Rob will be packing his suitcases, which are currently inhabiting my living room floor, and jetting back to that big ol' country he calls home.

In a lot of ways, I have no excuse for moping. I knew, we both knew, that this would happen. But that doesn't make it any easier.

The rat quickly learns that a green light precedes a food pellet, and I quickly learned to take Rob's presence for granted; only a text message or AIM login away. He's given my life structure ("What are you doing this weekend, Scott?" "Oh, I'll be seeing Rob." "That's nice, what've you got planned?" "Um...not sure yet, I guess we'll decide when we meet up." "Fair enough. Say, have you had a chance to read those articles for our presentation next week." "...Shit.") that I fear will be sorely lacking once he's gone ("What are you doing this weekend, Scott?" "Well, I bought this book of cryptic crossword puzzles yesterday..."). Dammit, I'll have to go and make friends again.

Rob is in Alice Springs at the moment, so these few days are something of a practice, although of course it isn't the same. The aforementioned suitcases are lying on the aforementioned living room floor. The Australian version of Monopoly is sitting on top of the piano. The fold-out lounge sags when I sit on it because the mattress is upstairs, lying on top of the futon (I refused to share a single bed for the entire time Rob was staying here, not wanting to spend any money on costly chiropractic procedures). In short, I'm bombarded with cues that indicate Rob will be back, thereby preventing me from fully engaging with the inevitable. I think that it's only when the suitcases move and the futon gets folded up and all the other cues disappear that the reality will hit me.

This probably all sounds very melodramatic, especially when you consider that Rob hasn't even left yet. But a bottle of soft drink will explode when it's shaken enough, and a person will fall apart when too much pressure is applied and there's no release valve; several formerly stoic great-aunts of mine have been hospitalised and given electroshock treatment for depression in the last few years. And while I'm not suggesting that on the 27th of July I'll be the next family member to light up like a Christmas tree (well, not our Christmas tree, which is older than I am and has branches that won't support anything heavier than the paper angels my brother made in preschool, although this is probably somewhat off topic), I'd rather be safe than sorry. So you get this whiny entry, you lucky devils.