Music To Get You Through

These assorted rippers are currently making editing far more tolerable:

Florence and the Machine, Dog Days

Mumford and Sons, The Cave

Stornoway,* Zorbing

The Band, Rag Mama Rag

Example, Kickstarts

Julian Cope, Sunspots

*Will shamelessly add that they were among my first friends in Oxford.

British picks plus one vintage American. The Aussie thread is that they would all be welcome at a festival…and Aussies do indeed love festival music. Enjoy! (Thanks to Ben for the two oldies)

Life Lessons

It was my birthday yesterday. 31. My 30th birthday itself was a surprisingly simple and elegant time, but the year that followed was punctuated by way too much personal angst and drama for my liking: loss, two grief cycles, isolation, moving rooms five times (moving house sounds too glamorous), uncertainty, and the tension that thesis boredom and repetition can create. There was, of course, a lot of stable, productive, and very happy times, but, on the whole, I think, during 2009-2010, I coughed up some pretty staggeringly high prices for some lessons that I guess I couldn’t just steal from the self-help aisle or pinch from a website. I feel better today, in most senses, than ever before, but I paid up, kiddies.

Here are some of those lessons:

1. Take charge. No one is going to get yourself out of situations you don’t want to be in, or help you into others, certainly not the right way, anyway. Those who love you can’t always be expected to push you off from the shore, even if you’re fretfully thinking, ‘Can’t they see that I need a push?’ This goes for personal and professional stuff.

2. Beware fear of loss and rejection. These anxieties mean that you can attach too early, fantasize at the cost of really knowing and caring for the other, become ungrounded, and ultimately disrespect your own personal standards and boundaries. Don’t foreclose early. Loss can be a breath of fresh air, and rejection is, for the most part, a benevolent thing.

   

3. Fear is contagious. No matter how sensible you think you are being in a relationship, there is nothing like a bit of fear (anger, defensiveness, dishonesty etc) from the other to taint and warp your behaviour. Goes both ways. Builds up.
4. Remember the love. Lots of people love and value me, and I adore them. I am absurdly lucky in this way. I just spoke to my twin. Last week, my parents treated me to a holiday in France in which we met up with our French family friends. Yesterday, a friend took me to late lunch at this nice French place in Oxford, then last night, a bunch of friends took me out for cocktails, dinner and nice chat. They also granted me my wish: to be sung Happy Birthday in a non-English language, in character. Included Latin, Dutch, Urdu, and Spanish. If that’s not supremely loving…well, I just don’t know…(fierce shake of my double chin)

   

5. Generosity emerges from unexpected gaps. A new friend made my birthday very special by taking me to dinner and out to a College party on Friday night. We laughed a lot and he just knows.
6. Adversity can be a good test. Crap situations test your ability to respond to life with creativity and self-composure, and this, I think, is a reflection of how much you know and like yourself, in the good way, not the narcissistic way (narcissism actually blocks these opportunities for growth). Of course, some situations are just crap and you have to just get through without any theorising.

   

7. Maybe just don’t say it. Not everything needs to be expressed. Wait and see what remains to be said. Equally, not everything deserves a response. I have realised over the year that I actually don’t like talking as much about things as I used to. I don’t need to. Plus, I am more practical by nature. I am hoping the next year is one big ’shh…’
8. Take your time. Giving yourself enough time and space for recalibration after set-backs is crucial. If you don’t consciously do this, your body and mind will take it from you anyway, in some form, which means that no matter what you’re intending, you simply don’t have enough of the right stuff to give.

   

9. Chin up, and just keep going. Even if you have to start again at your beginnings, you’re wiser for it, and it can be quite a light time anyway.
10. Give yourself more credit. I have proven to myself over and over that I am kind, dependable, optimistic, pretty self-reliant, and definitely resilient. Lock it in, AH. Also, I like the fact that I would go for a run along the promenade of a beach in the Riviera to then decide to strip down to my underpants and dive into that unclouded blue water because my bikini was back in my bag in the hotel locker, and because dolphining about is better than any land-based exercise.

    

Please tell me a life lesson or two that you have acquired over the past year…But only if you feel like it. ; )

Life Lessons

It was my birthday yesterday. 31. I remember my 30th birthday being a surprisingly simple and elegant time, but the year that followed was punctuated by way too much personal angst and drama: big decisions, loss, two grief cycles, isolation, moving rooms five times (moving house sounds too glamorous), uncertainty, and the tension that thesis boredom and repetition can create. There were chunks of stable, productive, and very happy times, but, on the whole, I think, during 2009-2010, I coughed up some pretty staggeringly high prices for some lessons that I guess I couldn’t just steal from the self-help aisle or pinch from a website. I feel better today, in most senses, than ever before, but I paid up, kiddies.

Here are some of those lessons:

1. Take charge. No one is going to get you out of situations you don’t want to be in, or help you into others, and certainly not the right way, anyway. Those who love you can’t always be expected to push you off from the shore, even if you’re fretfully thinking, ‘Can’t they see that I need a push?’ This goes for personal and professional stuff.

2. Beware fear of loss and rejection. These anxieties mean that you can attach too early, fantasize at the cost of really knowing the other, become ungrounded, and ultimately disrespect your own personal standards and boundaries. Don’t foreclose early. Loss creates space, and rejection is, for the most part, a benevolent thing.

   

3. Fear is contagious. No matter how sensible and sincere you think you are being in a relationship, there is nothing like a bit of fear (anger, defensiveness, dishonesty etc) from the other to warp your behaviour. Builds up. It becomes very hard to listen. Goes both ways.
4. Remember the love. Lots of people love and value me, and I adore them. I am absurdly lucky in this way. I just spoke to my twin. Last week, my parents treated me to a holiday in France in which we met up with our French family friends. We also won pretty big on Neptune’s Fortune at the Casino of Monte Carlo. I like that I’ve now been to a casino with my parents. They go all the time so it was nice of them to finally include me (wink, wink). Yesterday, a friend took me to late lunch at this nice French place in Oxford, then last night, a bunch of friends took me out for cocktails, dinner and nice chat. They also granted me my wish: to be sung Happy Birthday in a non-English language, in character. Included Latin, Dutch, Urdu, and Spanish. If that’s not supremely loving…well, I just don’t know…(fierce shake of my double chin)

   

5. Generosity emerges from unexpected sources. A new friend made my birthday very special by taking me to a lovely dinner and out to a College party on Friday night. We laughed a lot and he just knows.
6. Adversity can be a good test. Crap situations test your ability to respond to life with creativity and self-composure, and this, I think, is a reflection of how much you know and like yourself, in the good way, not the narcissistic way (narcissism actually blocks these opportunities for growth). Of course, some situations are just crap and you have to just get through without any theorising.

   

7. Maybe just don’t say it. Not everything needs to be expressed. Wait and see what remains to be said. My friend says to put things through the ‘necessary and kind’ test. Equally, not everything deserves a response. I have realised over the year that I actually don’t like talking as much about things as I used to. I don’t need to. Plus, I am more practical, outward, and flexible by nature. But I did hurt someone I love with too many words. Fortunately, we had enough in the bank. I am hoping the next year is one big ’shh…’
8. Take your time. Giving yourself enough time and space for recalibration after set-backs is crucial. If you don’t consciously do this, your body and mind will take it from you anyway, in some form, which means that no matter what you’re intending, you simply won’t have enough of the right stuff to give, and you’ll probably be giving it to the wrong thing or person anyway.

   

9. Chin up, chaps. Even if you have to start again at your beginnings, you’re wiser for it, and it can be quite a light time anyway.
10. Give yourself more credit.

    

Please tell me a life lesson or two that you have acquired over the past year…But only if you feel like it. ; )

10 Signs you have a Development Studies student in your house

1. He doesn’t let not having met you before get in the way of helping himself to your beer in the fridge.
2. He scoffs that you don’t use your oven very often (No, earth child, I am not up for much roasting or baking at the moment.)
3. He challenges the statistics on female genital mutilation or ‘FGM’.
4. Without asking, he starts frying half a bag of your pumpkin and sunflower seeds to add to his portion of the salad.
5. Even though you’ve left him out a plate to use – the same type as your plate – instead, he takes the decorative bowl from the table and uses it because it ‘just feels so lovely’.
6. He is fascinated by the dish-washing practices of South American minorities.
7. He won’t touch your fry pan because a sausage has been cooked on it.
8. He leaves more than half his beer behind.
9. He tells you it is hard not to go to kiss you goodbye on both cheeks.
10. If he read this, his first response would be to ask whether the image came from ‘Roma’ or not.

My Special Cupboard

Am in a black jumper (sweater), with a big, stencilled, white zebra on it, and black leggings, inside, editing my thesis, on one of those English, still, white-sky days. But, fortunately for me, I have all these pretties ready to unleash over the Summer as soon as the weather picks up again:

(Excuse some of the models’ expressions – we rarely need more of that in life. Please do imagine me writing this with a semi-crazed smile.)

Never sure about long shorts on women…very risky…but I might wear this to a casual day party.

For travels, however near.

Just ’cause.

Festival-going.

Swishy, swishy at a garden party.

Yep. All sorted. Thanks, special cupboard (stare, stare, honky laugh).

A Poem

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A while back, I started subscribing to the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-day emails. Today’s poem was a nice wink. Thanks Tones!

There are people who do not see a broken playground swing
as a symbol of ruined childhood

and there are people who don’t interpret the behavior
of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process.

There are people who don’t walk past an empty swimming pool
and think about past pleasures unrecoverable

and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians.
I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings

do not send their sinuous feeder roots
deep into the potting soil of others’ emotional lives

as if they were greedy six-year-olds
sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw;

and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without
debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality.

Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon?
There are some people, unlike me and you,

who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as
unattainable as that moon;
thus, they do not later
have to waste more time
defaming the object of their former ardor.

Or consequently run and crucify themselves
in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha.

I have news for you—
there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room

and open a window to let the sweet breeze in
and let it touch them all over their faces and bodies.

Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, published by Graywolf Press.

To be done with these worries

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My new romantic object said to me the other day, ‘Won’t it be nice when you finish your thesis if only to have new things to worry about?’ ‘Yes, champ, it will be very nice,’ I probably replied.

Later, I realised that this is part of the reason why I haven’t been inclined to blog much lately. It’s not being poor of time and eye strength, it’s that my worries have not changed. I need to be done with these worries. A while back I saw this movie, The Blind Side, the one with Sandra Bullock in it, playing a can-do (partly because I am wealthy) Mom who takes in an underprivileged African American teen (see Alice’s review for more). I thought, ‘Look at you football Mom in your white jeans striding so confidently over to your new son and his footy mates…How nice would it be to have a context in which you so well knew your value.’ At times, I think similar things when I see super hipsters, especially those backed up with a bit of artistic talent. They form self-affirming communities, and seem to be quite open to the present. Actually, they like the present a lot. I don’t think thesis writing gives you that. It is a solitary rite, par excellence, a process that forces you to chase the future, which, in turn, teases you like a kite’s tail. But these are old worries. I have worried about how one creates a meaningful context for years now. I have been playing slap and run with the future for even longer.

I wonder if buying something pretty will help, or maybe avoiding it all together. Again, I need to look at things afresh.

I have been writing about the use of symbolism lately, and apparently in traditional rites, the neophytes’ masks are often black, white and red to represent the colours of human bodily functions and a rotting corpse. I am pleased that I now have a scholarly reason why I detest this colour scheme for weddings. There are a lot of ladies out there who love a blood red rose and matching red maidies, and to see their man in black dinner jackets or tuxes, but they’re the colours of redbacks on white petals, Phantom, and, it seems, together, they enact the life cycle. I am not into it, though perhaps it is inspired that in one of our few modern rites, premodern symbols prevail. I raised this to some friends on Monday night, over pints of cider on tired, trendy cushions, and one of their friends who was listening said that he wasn’t sure he liked me because I say scary things. In any case, wedding colour schemes have been a constant replacement obsession in times of academic stress, and I have run out of subjects to wed-off in my mind. I am off it.

I need to finish this thesis so I can allow in fresh worries, and find new things to do with myself. Until then, I may as well be in that harlequin outfit, to mark my status as neophyte, as not yet done.

(How funny is that harlequin? In my thesis, I have a quote from a businessman talking about a night out playing Limbo to a Calypso band. Every time I edit this section, I crack up. Something about these sorts of things, including A Cappella, always gets me.)

Honey, I Zapped the Kids

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Thesis stress, some personal worries, and the warm weather have teamed up to give me some wacky dreams lately.

One of last night’s dreams:

My sisters come over to visit my newborn baby. I take them to the kitchen, say, ‘Here she is’, as I open the oven and pull out the tray. On the tray sit four burnt meatballs. My eldest sister says, ‘You put the oven on too high’. I look back at the dry meatballs, my baby girl.

Then I made myself wake up.

Any creative suggestions as to what this means besides the standard: ‘modern woman worrying about whether she can have it all’?

Spring and Babies and Nests and Whimsies

Hey team. I don’t have much free time for blogging at the moment, which is no fun. I am trying to follow my tips below and be a good thesis writer, and also good (outdoorsy, stretchy-stretchy) break taker.

I took a longer, more lovely break yesterday. My friend and I hosted a baby shower for our other bestie here. About a month ago, new mummy-friend has taken a rather literal approach to nesty, turning into an owl, owl’s nest and general enchanted forest obsessive. So my friend and I tried to honour and nourish that in our Spring set-up. No pink or white allowed!

The final look was a little more Aussie-fied in the end than I had expected, but I was the only one who noticed, and I actually loved the shrine to the goddesses of abundance feel! I am sure Aphaea and Hera or whoever were appeased. Yes, a guest made these lush cupcakes with sparkle dusting:

I even threw on an owl tee to keep my friend happy (that I wore with a very light apricot full skirt with some black floral detailing). I am stretching it out here to show it off, rather than my chest, to a make slightly odd, sporty chick effect, but you get the idea:

And this is me riding home with some some goodies to brighten up my College room. Small pleasures, these days, including the dozen winks, toots and waves I received on my way. One of my friends said I seemed like one of those Amelie types. I did cop a spectacularly bad haircut in the week (which makes me look like I am wearing a hair-helmet) so it’s all about the seemingly French, but actually cover-up, pony and short fringe pushed to the side. I wish or at least wish a bit that I was a floaty, Amelie type, but I am not really. I plan to unleash a whole lot more whimsy when this thesis is done, but I might not:

Tips for Finishing a PhD

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I have been lucky to have several friends send me advice on how to approach the final edits of a PhD (or DPhil!), what are the final laps in the stadium after a cross country marathon.

I know some of you are writing too, so I thought I would share them (you can tell when I’ve added my words). They’re more PhD-specific than the general academic tips I shared a year ago. All the best and please do let me know if you have any more to add.

1. Carve out huge chunks of time to focus.

2. Set a submission date.
3. Love the calendar. Set small, manageable, time-specific tasks and make a submission calendar. Tick off targets, be excited about your progress. Know exactly where you stand.
4. Keep yourself energised. Too many people stop exercising when finishing up DPhil. Keep exercising. Take energising breaks. Become more interested in nature, like pretty flowers and families of ducks. Take deep breaths. Try to rest. Sleep. Routine. Get enough time to reflect, rather than just producing; make sure you are intentional about lifting your head above the water line.
5. Manage the supervisor relationship. Take responsibility for your own submission. Show the supervisor your submission timetable and stick to it. Make supervisor feel confident in you, but also realise that he or she doesn’t have to be for you to finish. Like all good Jedi Padawans, you must outgrow your master.
6. Know that it can be done. When the task seems insurmountable, consider those who had gone before. If they could do it, so can you. Remember why you’re here, that you deserve to be here, and that it can be done. A useful mantra to say, even out loud, is “I can do this”.
7. Find a proof reader. Find someone who will read your whole thesis, nudge you back in line when you’ve lost perspective, check for typos, make useful (but not too ambitious) suggestions.
8. Get Brutal. Instead of trying to rework patchy sections, just cut ‘em.
9. It’s about the “I-will”. Finishing a doctorate may be less about the “IQ” than the “I-will”. Finishing requires a tremendous amount of will. Dig deep, and get stubborn.
10. Just Say No. Anything that is not work or energising rest is a distraction.

and a final thought, one that I picked up when I was reading about poetry, is Paul Valery’s adage that a poem can never be finished, only abandoned. I think the same could be said of a thesis.