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Making it better


Project-L Song can be purchased on iTunes – I did!

It absolutely flabbergasts me that someone like Magda STILL has to think seriously about coming out. She is a massive star, loved by all Australians, and yet she waited till 2012 to publicly talk about her sexual orientation.

Just for a minute, think about having to make that decision, think about having to decide, worrying about how you would be perceived, whether you would every get the same job offers, the same party invitations.

Think about what it means to be so vulnerable to the whims of public opinion. I was born in the 70’s, when David Bowie wore make up, and Elton John and Liberace were “flamboyant”, but no-one was ever openly gay.

Then in the ’90s, AIDS came along, and the hatred and fear was out in the open. In the last decade, the heteros started going to mardi gras, and it was cool to have a gay boyfriend (if you were a girl!).

We’ve come a long way, but obviously, watching Magda tonight, not far enough.

There is no point talking about being “almost equal”, Australia needs full legal equality, so that our kids don’t have to deal with this crap.

It’s great to say “it gets better”, but it’s far better to fight to make it better. Today.

Marriage inequality is the last remaining barrier to legally entrenched discrimination.

I wouldn’t be happy with a civil union.

Would you?

Happy Valentines Day. I love youse all.

Home

No fracture, just a sprain, so that is two counts of feeling extremely silly chalked up in one day.

Thanks for every lovely comment, I have had a few cold hours in the hospital waiting room to process, and this isn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to me – or anything near it. It just means that I will have to go to residential school this semester, and every semester until I do get in to a decent Sydney University.

I certainly don’t want to disrespect ACU, it’s just that I know a total of NOTHING about it, and I had my future fully mapped out at Macquarie. From the meagre research I have been able to do, if you want a psych degree that matters, you get one from Sydney, or New South, or Macquarie.

By all means, argue with me! I really don’t have any information except what I have been told by the lecturer I met on open day and a psych student that works at the gym.

But for now, I’ll buy my stats textbook for Armidale, and work on my attitude towards residential school. My parents have offered to come with me to help look after Squish while I am up there, which is an amazingly generous offer, or I may be healthy enough to be able to leave him for a few days by the time it rolls around. Either way, it isn’t the end of the world.

The feeling I am left with is frustration that everyone told me I would get in, and now I have no way of knowing why I didn’t. There is no special consideration for mature age students, and no appeals process. Just a flat NO.

And NO has never been a word I can accept lying down…

Just looked up the ATAR for the course I was offered, Vs. the course I had as my first preference.

MQ B. Psych (Hons) 94.5
ACU BA (Psych) 60.7

There is a massive difference there. Even the course I am currently doing is about 72.55. Need more information. But it doesn’t look like a great achievement to have been offered a place at ACU after my results from last year.

Pearl Beach weekend

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Mark went snorkelling to see what he could see – and he found this amazing sting ray, just off the beach! He got some video too, but it hasn’t been uploaded yet.

And our favourite moment of the weekend was Alex and Inigo splashing together in the surf and playing surf rescue 🙂

Putting myself out there

A few weeks ago, at a local rainbow picnic day, a photographer came up to my friends and I to ask if they could take a picture of us for an anti homophobia campaign. I’d seen the website publicised, and immediately said yes. Zenia came up with our punchy message, and we shared our vegetarian picnic with the poor staring inner city vegetarian hipsters who had come to work without a picnic – they were glad of an alternative to charred mammal flesh.

And here we are.

We’re all people, people! Unfortunately they got Squish’s name wrong, but I hope they will fix it soon.

Then, Australian Marriage Equality contacted me to ask me if I was interested in travelling to Canberra for a full day of meetings with politicians about same sex marriage. Would I? You bet.

Next Tuesday (if Mark gets his leave approved), we’re travelling to Canberra. And on Wednesday, I’ll spend most of the day in meetings with politicians.

And in an entirely unrelated note, people keep asking what we are planning for November. I don’t feel up to doing anything amazing to commemorate my boys on the anniversary of their birth, or the anniversary of Archie’s death. Last year I lost a friend because my grief didn’t follow her guidelines, this year, I am just going to do what feels right at the time.

I am very fortunate to be officiating at a wedding on the 6th, so on Saturday we might go to the cemetery, on Sunday we’ll be focussing on the love that Archimedes and Aubrey brought into our lives. Then going to a rocking wedding 🙂

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UPDATE – they fixed the spelling of Inigo’s name, so the link changed. Fixed now, thanks Meg!

10 minutes to spare

It’s been a little quiet around here – the big assignment for this semester was due at midnight tonight. I got it in at 11.50pm.

I don’t see an HD on the horizon for this bit of writing!

Perceptions of infidelity in committed relationships correlated with Cognitive Experiential Self Theory.

Phew!

Being Shy

Now, if you’ve met me, you would probably think that I am the least shy person in the universe. That I could talk the leg off a donkey, and then convince it to go for a walk. That I am bolshi, and brave, and bossy.

But for a long, long time, I was really shy. Super shy. So shy that I was the butt of every playground joke, and found it almost impossible to make friends. I was a bookish, nerdy, strangely dressed freak, who never cut her hair, never saw the cool tv shows, and even had a weird lunchbox (my mum had this strange drive to put food in there, not junk). I was “that kid”. The one that spent every recess and lunch time in the library. The one that hated going to school so much that I developed a painful cramping condition in response to the stress of going to school. The one that was bullied, and teased, and taunted, and then, eventually just ignored. Invisible.

At the end of year 11, I switched schools. Thanks mum and dad, I know it didn’t seem like it did me much good academically, but socially, I was in a new world.

Nobody knew me, so I could be whoever I wanted. I fronted up at school that first day as an unknown quantity, and became one of the cool kids. Finally, I realised that the only difference between the cool kids and me was that the cool kids acted like they knew everything, were comfortable in every social situation, and always knew how to act. They didn’t of course – but they knew how to pretend. Fake it ’till you make it.

Eventually, I grew up a bit, and didn’t mind being a freak. And I realised that we’re all freaks. And the only difference between the freak in the corner, and the freak on the dancefloor, is that one simple trick. Just keep talking the talk, and one day you’ll find yourself walking the walk.

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Inspired by a link posted by a friend on facebook the other day – How to be More Confident.

Crochet Workshop?

I have a leave pass next Saturday – Mark has offered to take the Squish away so I can play with yarn. Anyone want to sharpen up their crochet skills with me?

Lien asks, “Like a real workshop, or just a get together? I think I may be able to make it for a few hours!”.

Well, if we can get Andrea to come (and/or somebody else who can crochet and read patterns), then it will be like a real workshop, but if not then we can just muddle through by ourselves 🙂

Sarah – does a 9am start work for you? I have to go up to Pearl Beach afterwards, so we’ll finish around 3pm, but if you have to leave earlier, that is fine.

WWKIP Day, 2011

For the uninitiated, that’s World Wide Knit in Public Day. It’s been happening every year for a few years now, and it’s a fun way to spread the knitting obsession with the public.

I’m going again this year – without Mark and Inigo, who will both be at the zoo, cleverly arranged by Mark’s work.

If you’d like to come along, there is more info on Sally’s Blog. Thanks to Sally for being the driving force behind this for a few years, Kris for kicking it off, and Margot for taking the baton and running with it.

Another “click”

I finally chose my second unit for this semester – Environmental Peace, so I enrolled today and looked up the blackboard to see what I could see.

After having a quick look around, I had a look at the discussion forums, and the first post I read was written by a dear friend, who has just transferred to UNE to finish her Human Geography degree as an external student. And she is enrolled in the same course. I have a study buddy!!!

That is such a relief, as I was a little worried that some of the language will make me a little stabby. Things like –

Students engage in finding a personal connection to green living and environmental responsibility by constructing for themselves a ‘green practice path’ to sustainability in order to effect real change through a willingness to act appropriately in their own spheres of existence while influencing wider changes in the world. They learn about: reducing harm to themselves and ecological systems; empathizing with environmental suffering; gaining inspiration from green thinkers and workers; and linking the green path of environmental peacemaking to living in harmony with nature.

So, the whole unit description, basically. But with Dionne there, I know I can navigate the stabby feelings, and find the useful stuff in there.