STAND AND DELIVER - THE WHITE MAN SAYS SO.

So I got a call asking if I wanted to do some market research, said yes as long as it doesn't involve alcohol (non-halal stuff) and the bright young spark on the other side of the phone launched into a quite abrasive way of asking questions about Islam like 'Did you as a female choose to be Muslim because your religion is so misogynistic etc'. 

Credit to him for actually asking and listening to the answers, and sometimes trying to be polite about it (actually zero times), and 15minutes in I tried to give him an easy out because I had corrected every single piece of garbage 'knowledge' he had spewed and didn't want to make it him feel more awkward or shallow so I asked him how old he is (21) and what he was studying (some combination of economics and law) and I was like oh yeah my cousin is studying law - and then - wait for it - the misogynistic tapeworm automatically assumed the cousin is a guy. His brain would have imploded if he found out that my mother qualified as a doctor twice, with the second one being in her 3rd (4th?) language and simultaneously dealing with 5 children. 

I got all of the horrible questions - beheadings, deliberately dying as a martyr, polygamy (this was a good one - 'we are animal and we're not designed to be with one person for life, we're supposed to SPREAD OUT SEED, but having casual sex partners is okay and different to a woman allowing her husband to add a second wife for whom he's has to provide for equally etc. is wrong') and lots of "I haven't read the Quran but I watched this documentary and it was really good and the I read the Quran (?but you said you haven't??) says women are inferior" and it went on and on and on in this vein. 

And he had actually just called to ask if I'd like like to taste test some lemonade for their research group. Like, WHAT THE ACTUAL FCK??? I couldn't remember a single scholar to recommend watching on youtube because there I was enjoying my mature cheddar and BAM! STAND AND DEFEND YOUR INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY AS WELL AS THOSE OF 1.7 BILLION OTHERS BECAUSE THIS 21YO MALE HAS WATCHED A DOCUMENTARY THAT SHOWED THAT MOST MUSLIMS ARE JUST HUMANS.

And all I had wanted to do was take a lunch break and eat my mature cheddar. 

S.

PS I'm not as angry as this post may suggest, but he interrupted my cheese time. Luckily mum called soon after to tell me she loves me and how I was such a good little girl back in the day. Nothing quite like praise from someone you love to perk you up again :) Also, he's not going to learn if he doesn't ask questions, and only God knows the many and varied silly things I've said and done out of pure ignorance. I'm glad if I can be the person to pull someone over to the light, and I would like documented credit to me if this interaction contributes to his learning or broadening of his mind in some way.

S.

Procrastination and the thoughts you have long after a conversation is over.

Okay, so I'm having trouble focusing on this assignment that's due soon, so I'm going tell you a story instead.

Back in the day, when I was young and yet to find a white hair on my head, this guy told me that the idea of paying zero interest on loans (interest is forbidden under shariah laws regarding business) is putting undue stress on the poorer people in society.

Wth, right?

I tried to explain it to him - it's not a difficult idea to understand, the fact that not charging interest on loans is in the best interest of those who have the least amount of money - and he responded with 'well I did a semester of economics at Melbourne Uni and you haven't studied any economics so I'm better qualified' (paraphrased) and I was like ???

In the naïveté of my youth and the profound sense of anger I feel at every injustice in the world, I got worked up about this silly person and his silly understanding of how exploitative interest is. In fact, I'm getting annoyed thinking about it right now. Why do I care so much about this incident, so many years on?

But that's not the point of the story.

The point is that I was young and silly and did not have the presence of mind to take a step back and try to understand where this guy's silliness came from. Here was a privileged white boy trying to tell me that my religion was wrong for making it easier for people of lower income to buy the same things as the 1%, and nothing I said was going to change his mind.

So why didn't I understand that people are funny and find it hard to let go of any idea that's comforting to them, regardless of how wrong it is? Kind of like how I know that lots of carbs aren't healthy but they make me so happy, and telling me that carbs are bad isn't going to make me happy or change the eating habits of an obese generation. Change doesn't come from arguing with an idiot, and, if you're a more benevolent person than me, you won't label the idiot in the first place.

Change comes from your own insight and subsequent actions that may help others achieve insight as well. Not that you can predict or direct insight. Some of the brightest people you know will have the least insight into their own selves and behaviours. It's not something that's dependent on intelligence or knowledge or how nice you think you are/try to be. I guess it's a mixture of life and luck - you happen to be in a particular situation or mood and the right particles collide to set off flashes in your brain and for a split second you GET it. Hopefully you can hold on to that glimpse into the workings of the universe, but if you don't, don't stress, because it gets easier the more you open yourself up to it.

I feel like I was trying to tell you something really profound and also take a passive aggressive dig at the guy who annoyed me (obviously I posted something on fb and he messaged to say sorry and i was like 'nah it's cool i would have told you if i had a problem with you'- a complete lie, btw) and I haven't quite done the first bit. What I have done, though, is put off working on this assignment.

Back to it, I guess.

Peace and love,

S.

Caffeine to bring you up, happy thoughts to keep you there.

Sometimes I am struck (and paralysed) by how awkward I am, but then I drink coffee and the caffeine doesn't care about small talk or funny looks, just how much happiness and wonder is in the world around me.

Obvs the coffee doesn't fix anything, people still think I'm either weird or unapproachable, but at least my inside perfectly correlates with my outside, you know? I like the idea of being an authentic person, no lying to myself regardless of what others think. Of course I want to be a decent person, but what is the point of being a good person on the outside only to have a mess of hypocrisy underneath it all?

I'm pretty sure it's the caffeine talking now, but sometimes life is superb, once you remove yourself form the littleness of your immediate surroundings/situation and connect with life and the universe on a happier wavelength. For example, I just came back from ward rounds then coffee with the ortho team (interns and registrars) and the other med student was chatting away with them and they were responding to her and ignoring me, but do I need the approval of those people in that moment? It's okay to have nothing to say, and if my aim in life is to be a decent person to interact with, not having funny stories to tell doesn't really mean much, does it? I can still be easy-going in my interactions with people and not get in their way. They won't like me in the way they like the other med student, but I'm also not offending anyone, and eventually I will find my niche.

That sounds a bit sad, but I have so many moments in my life where I connect with people or situations and everything in life seems to be dancing to the same harmony and that's a beautiful feeling, like tapping into the fundamental frequency of the universe and seeing the perfection of every object and movement in relation to the rest.

I will worry about my awkwardness and lack of approval from others later when I'm feeling down. No need to spoil this high with stressing about what I can't change, and to some extent, don't have any need to change.

Peace and love,

S.

Driving, Drama, Ham.

Well, that was an eventful few days.

I finally took my Hazards test (so I can take the final driving test now). Hurray! I've only had my Learner's permit for 5 years.

Saturday was the next grand event. Med ball, Alice-in-Wonderland theme. My long green dress made me look like a big, beached green whale. I've gained too much mass to wear the silver blazer with it. It was still fun getting dressed up, though, glittery heels and plum coloured lipstick.

I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing. I don't like being around people when the alcohol has been flowing. I don't like seeing them say or do embarrassing things, revealing the defects in their character like it's a hilarious pride-worthy quirk. I also found out that it's very stressful being the sober person in a group. Not that it wasn't fun; I was with an awesome group of people, the food was okay and free soft drinks - kinda hard not to be happy with that much sugar and fizz in your system.

The night did end on a slightly less celebratory note. We needed two taxis to get all of us back home, and managed to hail one. One member of the party was really anxious to get home, so me and another female friend were left behind to wait for another taxi. It was dark, the middle of the night, and the centre of a not-so-friendly city. We waited ages on the roadside and on-hold to the taxi service, and eventually just walked into town to find a taxi. I know that I am a strong independent woman of colour who don't need no man and all of that, but you don't leave people alone in the middle of the night. It's not nice.

I am trying not to remember that as the defining event of the night. On the night I felt like I'd had a really good time hanging out with some fun people, but now I'm not too sure. I wasn't comfortable with some of people's activities, I don't drink alcohol and so witnessed everything with the clarity of a sober mind, and the heels made walking a tad difficult.

Anyway. Sunday was over in the blink of an eye. I walked down to the shops and splurged on yoghurt and pasta. The longer I am away from my family, the easier it gets to become caught up in my own world. But it also means that the moments I miss them are even harder; it's literally the little things, like asking my sister's opinion on an outfit, getting my youngest brother to help out when I'm cooking, hearing the sound of my family as they go about their lives, seeing their books in the living room.

Sigh. My brothers are growing up and my sisters are progressing through life and my parents are busying themselves and I'm alone in my room. I know I shouldn't waste my time day-dreaming when I could be living in the moment and making things happen. I catch myself every now and again, and I do try. But there seems to be some fundamental flaw in my character that stops me from being proactive and productive. And I know that the flaw is my fault and that I need to accept it and address it. And I don't know why I'm not.

And finally, last night's drama with meals from the residences' cafeteria. We get three compulsory meals a week (can't opt out of it), and there was drama earlier in the year because the uni advertised halal food but there was none available so my housemate and I had to resort to eating salad three nights a week. They assured as that the situation would be rectified, and since then halal food is available every now and again. The food isn't great, but it's food.

Anyway, so I get take-away meals, and I always write down 'halal' under the options, and last night was some sort of lasagna thing, and when I took it home I found a huge slab of ham in it.

That's right.

Ham.

Not cool. I understand that it's the staple diet of a large portion of the world, but I'm a Muslim and pig products are big deal in the forbidden list. I emailed the lady in charge of our residences. I wish I'd used stronger language. Like, of all the things to give, why would ham be okay?????

Blah. I hope I get out of the meal plan. I'm tired of eating over-priced salad (the food is basically less than acceptable) and being iron deficient and feeling yucky. That's right, I, a 23 year old educated woman of science and learning, just used the word 'yucky' to describe my feelings.

I think that's all for now.

Peace and love, 

S.

A Fortnight in Arts.

This post will be a recount of my first two weeks in Arts. I wish I had more to say, some insight into the human condition, an ounce of wisdom. But I don't.


Starting a new degree is super exciting. New place, new subjects, new people. But it's also a little scary. My first day was tiring but exciting, and also really awkward. I got soaked to the skin (literally). Had to go to  female toilets at Melbourne Central to dry off under the hand-dryers. Really awkward. Also got lost. A lot. Couldn't take out my map of campus in case I was mistaken for one of the other newbies. I met some new people, saw some others again. It's all a bit of a blur.

Also, within the first week, I established myself as the stereotypical eager mature-age student. Emailed one lecturer to ask if notes could be made available online before the lecture, and the another to ask if recordings would be made available online. I FEEL NO SHAME!! Well, okay, I do a little bit. But still. My last uni wasn't this slack. Seriously, this uni is technologically challenged. Pretty sure a monkey with a typewriter could have designed a better webpage. It is a massive struggle waiting for the student portal to load. 


Other than that, my Latin tutor looks like Jesus and always wears blue. He's pretty cool. I think he knows like eight languages. Amazing. My French tutor is also really cool. Very French. I love it. 


I did have a moment in the middle of my second week when I questioned what on earth I was doing. I'd just hung out with some really cool girls from the Islamic society, and then had a tutorial in which I met my first stereotypically know-it-all Arts student. It made me furious, but in hindsight, I think I'd just had too much caffeine. I keep forgetting that I've had a lot longer to adjust to and learn about the real world. 


But things are okay. I'm usually tired or running late (consecutive classes at opposite ends of campus) or bewildered. But it's okay. I'm pretty sure I'm headed in the right direction. If nothing else, at least I'm learning something every day. Also, week 1 readings for one of my units introduced me to Slavoj Zizek. He's awe-inspiring. So enthusiastic and animated and funny. I think I want to be him when I grow up. His rant about flowers being disgusting because they are sexual organs inviting all the bugs and insects (obviously a joke) reminded me of a thought I had a few years ago about fruit. Fruit is part of a plant's reproductive tract. And we eat it. And it's delicious. This thought is slightly disturbing.


Peace and love,


S.

Given I have done Arts for a whole week now, I feel the need to post something insightful and politically and morally motivating. But I got nothing.

Honours. (Warning: Mopey)

So Honours is over. Totally and completely. Thank God.

Last I wrote here, I was only a couple of days away from my thesis defence. Needless to say it was disastrous. I'd asked The Other Guy for the cause of death and pathology databases pertaining to the subjects who donated the tissue I'd used all year. He refused to send either one to me, because of quote, 'ethical issues'.


They were my blergh subjects, I was part of the blergh team, and I was half a blergh hour away from my thesis defence. Did he think I was stupid enough to go and google the names, or something?


The actual defence was an ordeal as well. I'd asked the Supervisor about something, he didn't know the answer, the question obviously came up in the defence, I stumbled around a bit and finally gave the right answer. Afterwards, the Supervisor told me I'd done okay, I'd stumbled around a bit, but I'd done okay. No thanks to him.


At the end of the defence you leave the room for a few minutes and your supervisor talks to the panel about how you went throughout the year, and then the supervisor leaves and you get to do the same. I tried to tell them about all the crap I had put up with, particularly from The Other Guy, but I couldn't stop crying, and the guy running the thing kept trying to shut me up. Boo.


Marks came out a few weeks ago. I did okay; when I think of why I thought I wanted to do Honours to begin with, I'm fairly happy with the mark. But given the awfulness of the the year and the people it contained, the mark did not make up for it at all. I finally got the Supervisor a (meaningless) thank-you present (fountain pen). When I gave it to him he had the nerve to say that the microscopes breaking down might even have given me pity marks. B*TCH. I worked my derriere off, trying to keep things going. If I was going to be given pity marks, I should have well over 90.


I have horrible nightmares about Honours. They have died down a bit in the last week or so, but they were awful. But I think I might be getting over it. Karma will take care of everything.


And this leads me to reflect upon my year. It was great - in parts - but the project was incredibly dull, and the people I was around even more so. If one of them - either the project or the lab group - had been good, it would have been okay. But in this case, each seemed worse because of the other. It took most of my lab most of the year to make eye contact and say hello. The Halloween-themed lab bonding day at the RA's house was incredibly awkward. Thank God the postdocs had brought her little kids, because I had nothing to say to anyone, nor they to me. The other PhD students were really nice in the last two weeks, once my thesis had been handed in. They sat through a practise talk and gave good feedback. The Other Guy was as awful and manipulative as can be throughout the year. The Supervisor could have been worse, but the passiveness, and constantly telling me that I can never get full marks or get anything perfect really wasn't great.


When you are going into Honours, people tell you to choose the lab group, not the project, so I did. I knew at least half of the lab because they'd lectured or demonstrated in undergrad. The Supervisor was head of department so I thought there was no way he'd make the year a waste. Everyone spoke so well of them. And how wrong they all were. I should have known better, too. You always get this vibe on first meetings, and then ages later you ask yourself why you were such a persistent fool. Sometimes you just have to accept that people are awful, and stop trying to find the good in them. In the first month or so I was still excited and in denial, but reality has a way of punching through, and you realise that you should have run when you had the chance.


So basically, I spent the entire year being bored and miserable, and I learned nothing. Actually, I learned three things. These are as follows:

1. Microscopy (taking decent images of crap tissue)   
2. Stereology (glorified counting, in a manner thought suitable by the Supervisor)
3. That the world is full of truly awful people, and these are the people who get places in life. Basically, success requires being manipulative, obsequiousness, putting people down, treating people like rubbish if they're lower than you in the food chain, barefaced lies, and having the audacity to think you are better than someone else such that they should be happy with an outcome you consider far below you.

Of course, there were also some great times. I'm trying to remember them now, but nothing springs to mind. I'm sure I'll remember once the echoes of this miserable year have fallen silent. All in all, it was a character-building, soul-destroying type of year. 


I'm sure aggression and misery associated with this year will burst through for a while yet. While it's true that I'm getting over it, the fact that I have a Bachelor's degree with first class Honours and still can't get a job because I basically did no proper lab work this year is incredibly frustrating. Plus all of that awfulness. 


Anyway, I think this might be enough self-pitying and whinging for one post. 


Peace and love,


S.

Nearly there.

Just over a week until Honours is over. Final seminar in two days, thesis defence in a week from then. And that's it. Thank God.


It does leave room for awkwardness, though. Do I RSVP to the Christmas dinner? What about the department's 50th anniversary celebrations? Do I need to come in ever again? 


Asked the supervisor if I could use him as a referee for job applications. He agreed and asked what kind of jobs. Just the regular soul-destroying retail variety, dude. After this year I need to know that there is worse out there and that what I have isn't the bottom of the heap.


But it's okay. Soon, there will be a lot less to whinge about. I will still be in limbo, but I'll be free to learn things and meet people. I am not naive enough to think that I will meet many, if any, awesome people. This year has taken care of that. But I will at least meet some people who aren't as awful as these ones. And that will be a nice change.


Also, sometimes Arash's voice sounds so beautiful it hurts.

Peace and love,


S.