i'm in trouble

this conversation just happened. me, postgrad student, bright, smart with a good vocabulary [let's call me MG]

daughter, grade three student, bright, smart and with it seems a better vocabulary [let's call her PSP for Princess SmartyPants] [note, i am not feeling annoyed, this is just a convenient name]

scene: we are reading my family and other animals together. i am reading to her, in her wee white bed, trying to get my feet onto her hot waterbottle.

we come across the word translucent.

PSP: what's translucent?

MG: um, well it's... like... transparent, you know, you can see through it, like glass... um... [thinking of another example]... um, i think it's when there is a shine, or something is glowing...

PSP: oh, no, it's not the same as transparent, it's like when you can sort of see through something but not exactly... i learnt it in science

MG: oh, ok. [keeps reading]

ten minutes later, the light is turned out and MG goes directly to her macquarie dictionary that virtually has its own chair at her dining table.

transparent: having the property of transmitting rays of light through its substance so that bodies situated beyond or behind can be distinctly seen [opposed to opaque and usually distinguished from translucent]

translucent: transmitting light diffusely or imperfectly, as frosted glass.

for fuck's sake

love letter to my daughter

from the moment she slipped out of my body she has held me spellbound

this is why i love my daughter beyond reason:

* every time the bathroom mirror fogs up she writes "I love you mum" with hearts and crosses

* she lets me kiss her as much as i want [unless she is cross with me and places a ban on for say one day. then i'm allowed to return to kissing frenzy]

* she encourages me. i remember one occasion when we were in bath, england on a holiday. i was trying to parallel park the car. she was four. "you can do it, mum" she said over my frustrated groans, "just keep calm" she said. this is just one example of her supporting me.

* she makes me laugh. she is witty and quick, and wise beyond her years

* she reads my mind sometimes, it's spooky. and then i say, "did i say that aloud?"

* she is kind and caring to younger children, especially her cousins. except for the time she threatened to punch her 4 yo girl cousin in the face. when i expressed my severe disapproval she cried and said she knew it was wrong, but that her cousin had threatened to pull on her clothes and rip them. i said "well, why didn't you just say the same back?" "Mum," she sighed, patiently, "that's not how it works in kidworld. You have to say something that is higher than what they have said." She often explains the workings of kidworld to me [that's what she calls it]. Some of the rules i remember from my early days, some are news to me.

* she has had to put up with her beloved granny being sick for more than half of her short life. she is supportive and positive and writes gorgeous notes to her granny saying things like "granny i am really sorry you are sick and i don't want you to go to the hospital"

* she rubs me on the back when she sees i am upset

* she is trying really, really hard to work at overcoming a dyslexic-type learning thing. talk about hard. this means 3 lots of 10 minutes exercises each day, for 14 weeks. we have been doing it a week and a half and it is killing us both. but i can see she is improving.

* she wants to sleep with me sometimes, and for her this is a treat

* she keeps my old and somewhat unattractive teddy bear on her bed along with all her other favourite "friends". she has expressed a loyalty to him, and worries about hurting his feelings if she abandons him in favour of some newcomer [most recently a small monkey with boxing gloves]

* she self-censors when a news-flash comes on the television. she knows i don't want her watching that stuff

* she tries really hard to cooperate with me, and accept my rules, even though she is such a free spirit and old beyond her years, so much so that she would do all the right things anyway [maybe]

* she accepts me being strict about nutrition and food. she is well brainwashed in this regard and makes comments on how kids at school don't have very healthy lunches [i swell with pride when i hear her being disparaging about junk food, but tell her not to comment on it to other kids]

* she walks around the house singing, and when i sing in my faux-opera voice she tells me "you have a really good voice, mum" and she's not being sarcastic. the other day we were driving and i made up a song about getting to where we were going. she was so impressed she said i should try and get it on the radio. really, it was abysmal.

* she makes cards for me, such as "you are the best mum a kid could ever have, even though i know we clash sometimes"

* she has been bringing me breakfast in bed since she was about 4. the first time it was a glass of juice, a banana and something odd like a couple of chocolates. this year it had worked up to toast, fruit and juice. she doesn't do the kettle thing. yet. [she's only 8]

* she wants to travel the world with me, and when i tell her one day she might want to go overseas and live with her dad, or when she grows up and becomes independent she can live in our flat in st kilda with her uni friends, or work overseas, she says "but i want to be with you forever, mummy"

* she tells me she loves me right back, after i say it to her first. this will not last so i am making the most of it

i know the day will come, surely, and probably before i am ready, when she will have to pull away a bit so she can breathe. it's a part of girls growing up, to become their own woman. they can't do that while they are shrouded in their mother's love, which can be suffocating. i am preparing already for that day. but for now, let me enjoy our co-dependent, all-consuming, over-the-top, one-eyed, mutually-beneficial, parasitic, crushingly overwhelming, limitless, extraordinary and unique but at the same time, very ordinary and very, very loving thing we have going on here.

nude in a turkish hamam and other things on my mind

it kind of bothers me that when i write a post about orgasms or brad and angelina i might get more comments than when i write something about the big world issues. but then i guess orgasms and movies are something that is a common factor for all of us [except for blind/asexual people?] plus we want to forget about the yuck stuff. how we deal with this you can read about here.

but i want to write about how the innocent brazilian was killed because he ran away from people chasing after him, and he was wearing a winter coat in summer. unfair.

i wonder how many people are reading this to see the nude as referred to in the heading?

but before we get to that:

i want to write about how the reading i am doing for my thesis introduces me to ideas like this:

" On, East is East, and West is West,
and never the twain shall
meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at
God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
though they come from
the ends of the earth."
- Rudyard Kipling

it seems at the moment that never can east and west meet. the death of the dream of multiculturalism? [even though multiculturalism can be criticised for being tokenistic and not really managing the issues of race which are too scary for politicians and their agencies - ie education services]. can the two men, ie communities from polar opposites stand face to face without warring, can't we meet in the middle somewhere and talk about it? can't we see that we are humans, all together, without resorting to the Us and Them. Can't we be just Us?

And talking about the centric positioning of the west:

"But 'Europe' remains the self-same, unmarked by its Other. Although 'Europe' shapes and informs its surrounding world, it is not reciprocally shaped and informed by that world. "

read 'the west' for 'Europe' and see if it makes you think of anything...

the west thinks it is right, and good, and just and democratic, and morally superior and intellectually superior, and economically superior. etc.

we need to consider other perspectives.

Open any world map and look at where UK, USA and Australia are located. The coalition of the willing draws a line across the world. It makes me think of a neo imperialism or colonialism. Are we seeing the "projection of the white race as the natural rulers of a global space created and divided by imperialism"?

now for the nude. i bought this a couple of weeks ago for only $65

love love love it:

ps just a little bit more on brad and angelina

yep they sure did cut the sex scene, it was so badly edited and so so frustrating. not sexually OF COURSE, just from a creative-eye type of position. you know. one minute she's in her shirt, the next she is falling to the ground beside brad, heaving and panting, with her bra on. ripped off!

something i have learnt about tour de france

tonight i watched some of the tour at the insistence of my sister and bro-in-law. my daughter, our dog and i are having a sleepover at sister's place, because i wanted to take her to see mr and mrs smith, just to see brad and angelina get it on if the truth be known. but for much of this silly film they basically try to kill each other.

anyway.

we had a date, my sis and i. she has two young children and needed a night out. we went to a bar and had one drink each. i know, mild as shit.

then we went to the movie. it was ok.

then we came back. and her husband was watching the tour. so i sat there, and despite my deep deep boredom with watching sport, i kind of sort of got a bit, just a tiny bit interested..

and that's when they told me some facts:

tour de france guys have to coat their perineums and balls with savlon. because of the boils you know. people have died during this race. people have plunged off cliffs.

we will never see lance armstrong ride again as he did tonight.

and the guy in the polka dots fell off his bike twice, and had to change doohickeys four times.

and then tomorrow, they all cruise into gay paree chatting as they ride in to the champs elysee, sipping champagne. sometimes eating lobster. i kid you not.

vive la france!

what makes my blood boil #1

what makes my blood boil is to read in the paper that a woman has been sexually assaulted in a western australian detention centre.

my question is:

why was she being held in an area where she was the only woman, with up to 50 men? [the paper talks about her being the only non-Muslim in a block with 50 muslims, but more or equally importantly, she was the only woman]

the article goes on about how her particular religious group is persecuted by muslims.

" [the Human rights Commission president] said the [immigration] department should have been aware of the risks of housing a woman from a religious minority in a compound with unaccompanied men of a different faith"

excuse me? "unaccompanied men" - what's that all about? does that mean single and therefore really really horny?

AND

was she targeted because of her religion? maybe, but i would say definitely because she was a single woman, and therefore seen as available

anyone who knows anything about islamic culture [and perhaps other non-religious cultures] that a single woman, without a 'protector' [ie a male family member, husband, brother, father, son] is at risk of being targeted for sexual approach, harrassment, assault, etc.

maybe this is a male/female thing, rather than a cultural thing though - put 50 AFL players with a single woman in a jail and see what happens

forget the culture of race and ethnicity, let's talk about the culture of men and women. regardless of the religion, or racial/ethnic background of the men, do you think it's a good idea to imprison any woman [or man for that matter] on her/his own with a group of 50 of the opposite sex and expect them to be ok with that? and for there to be no problems?

and before anyone [hm, yes you boys] starts talking about putting their hands up for a stint in detention with 50 woman, think about what you would have to endure: endless hours of conversations about shoes, periods, boys, hair, clothes, movies, movie stars, politics, philosophy theology, why he's not that into me, society, money, nails, shapelle corby and whether ron was in love with her, cosmetic surgery, breasts, thighs, vadges, personal odour, body hair, wax, cooking, food, shopping, family. but i'm pretty sure you wouldn't be raped.

this is illogical and crazy and it makes me so fucking mad [if it's true, perhaps it's just another beat-up to really grind the muslim male reputation into the dust. yep, we know they're ass fuckers with moustaches, and they like knives, of course they're going to go and rape a woman in that situation.]

what also makes me mad is the focus on the religious aspect - it's more convenient for the fear-mongers in this country [ie the government, yes and the opposition pussies, the media] for it to be a religious thing, highlight the Us and Them theme, make people hate the Other, and keep control of us. it's a power thing.

what do you look like when you come? (apols for layout of pics, too hard to adjust)

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