moving on entirely from self-reflection

Footbridge in Colegiales, Buenos Aires (my own image)

So I feel like it's time to offer a little bit of insight into the city of Buenos Aires. It's big and not so scary anymore but still, when faced with the idea of writing anything about it, I feel overwhelmed by the sheer extent of ideas and experiences from which to garner inspiration. So, maybe a bit boring, but I thought I'd start with things to do with traffic and movement around the city of Buenos Aires.

There are few things that I now realise about this place. The first thing I noticed was that traffic here appears to be really bloody scary. As in, things like lanes, indication and 'common' courtesy don't appear to mean much to anyone here. So far I have gathered that as long as you honk to inform another motorist you are behind/taking over/about to side-swipe them, you are in the right and should continue driving in this manner. Four lane main roads can actually be up to six lanes, and taxis and buses (colectivos) are kings of the road.

What is surprising about this is that until two weeks ago, I had not seen any traffic incidents where any vehicle/person appeared damaged. I did witness an amusing row between the bus driver of the colectivo I was taking and a micro (coach) when the driver of the micro nearly sideswiped the colectivo pulling away from the curb. The squabble lasted three or four red lights with each of them cursing each other out in Castellano, claiming their right to the road, and rather amusingly arousing the attention of several passengers on the colectivo who joined in the row, using the best parts of the super Italianised Spanish used by Porteños to make sure the coach driver knew he was in the wrong. I was sitting in the backseat trying not to laugh as more older women joined in the cussing at each light, feeling quite happy that both drivers had evaded disaster and that both vehicles were still in one piece.

The only other traffic incident I have seen here was again from the comfort (nb: sarcasm, these are often packed, stinky and sticky in the summer and during peak times slow and jerky) of a bondi (Lunfardo for colectivo). This particular incident looked deadly - traffic was slowed down for two blocks as two of three lanes were closed for about a block to make space for emergency crews who were at the scene of the brutal looking crash; it was only one car - a little white sedan had flipped over on its roof and while I have no real idea what happened, I can say that's been the only accident I've witnessed in spite of the craziness on the roads here.

Another recent experience helped me conclude that the level of insanity on roads in Buenos Aires doesn't necessarily indicate poor driving; rather it demonstrates a certain commitment to the need to rush at all times. The lesson learned here was that when you inform your driver that you would like to get to point B as quickly as possible, you're going to get there before your stomach, as the words 'as fast as you can' apparently transform cab drivers into rally drivers. Cabs are equipped with seatbelts here but until this particular incident I had never used one. The cabbie drove slowly enough until he reached a substantially large road with many lanes (Paseo Colón, I think) when he opened 'er up completely, I think clocking probably 90km/h in a 60km/h zone which was fine, until we came to a traffic light. In the far right lane, we would have rear-ended the car in front but very skilfully our rally driver maneouvred us across not two but THREE lanes into a space on the line. He sped off the line before it was green and my companion and I scrambled for our seatbelts, exchanging looks of terror mixed with some strange sort of delight - my reasoning for that is that if I was indeed about to die I was going to enjoy my last few moments. Honestly though, in hindsight I can say it was terrific. We arrived at the bus statoin with 8 minutes until our bus left - and approximately 5 minutes before my stomach. I was very impressed by our drivers' commitment to our need to be where we wanted to go in good time and his excellent handling of his vehicle so needless to say, he got a very good tip.

This collective experience has helped me conclude that public transport here is really good. Really really good. Coming from Canberra, I can safely say it's the best network I've ever used. I haven't even mentioned the subte (subway) but it is also amazing. While uncomfortable, the micro was also very good - long stretches in a confined space are never going to be great - and connects passengers to practically every part of the continent. I'm not sure I would ever recommend taking one from say Buenos Aires to Santiago or further, although the trip through the Andes would be breathtaking, but overall I will say all systems (colectivo, subte, cabs and micro) are efficient and affordable. Though colectivo can be very cramped - something to bemoan in the humid summers of Buenos Aires - the routes are comprehensive and for less than AUD 0.30c you can't really complain.

I guess coming from Canberra I am very shocked that across the board, public transport is preferable to owning your own car but I will say with admiration and respect that this is one system from which the ACT public transport system could learn a thing or two. It's also been endlessly beneficial to my cultural experience here as it is the lifeline of the city, and whether on the way to la facu (university) or on my way home from a boliche (nightclub) at 6am, I have been shoulder-to-shoulder with a brilliantly broad array of folk, an anthropological experience I would not trade for any amount of private transport.

some more argy bargy: how not to feel sorry for yourself (aka how to reinflate one's sense of self importance/confidence when the chips are down)

So managed to be ill for the last week, which was a fun experience! I did lots of stuff. Lots of sitting in the kitchen, lots of laying in bed, lots of drinking water, lots of feeling sorry for myself, lots of thinking about study, lots of lamenting and lots of not going to the gym.

Basically I took a week off the world. And like a sook, there is a reason for that.

I failed my first ever exam.

Monday afternoon saw me locked in a bathroom stall near my classroom after class, for the first Argen-time, crying because I felt like the world was against me and I HAVE NEVER FAILED ANYTHING BEFORE AND THE TEACHER IS A FRIZZY-HAIRED MEANIE AND ARGENTINA SUCKS!

That lasted a few minutes before I realised I hadn't cried since being here for reasons of self-pity like that and also hadn't cried in a bathroom stall possibly since college or maybe even since high school and that I should stop.

So I trudged the eight blocks from uni to my bus stop feeling very sorry for myself, and hating the teacher. Because it was her, and not the language barrier, nor my last minute (but what I felt to be thoroughly comprehensive) study that gave me the cold, heartless and hard desprobaló (fail) mark.

So I was sick and spent the week indulging in a fair amount of self pity, wondering about my experience and what it would amount to in the end and whether or not I should be very stubborn and just drop this unit to spite everyone involved (myself mostly) and why aren't I the most amazing non-native Spanish speaker ever?

And I guess I never thought about the real challenge that living in another country and learning a new language is. Essentially I am rewiring my brain to speak another language while trying to form new relationships, maintain a social life in order to do so, trying out new things and trying to absorb as much culture as humanly possible while avoiding being kidnapped and people-smuggled and trying to lead a balanced and healthy life. And what I have decided about this is is that it is really freaking hard.

Not impossible, but really hard. For a very verbal person who values expression and understanding, it is very hard. Not being able to understand clearly everything that is going on around me is difficult and furthermore not being able to articulate in my usual verbose and or eloquent (yeah I said that) style is also tough. It has been a very humbling experience though and I probably have never spent so many hours in class at least appearing to be attentive and quiet.

Furthermore, not being able to assert myself or share experiences (read: talk with abandon about everything ever or complain about stuff) with the fluidity to which I am accustomed is humbling -because now it isn't that I should keep my mouth shut, it's that I have no option because it doesn't contain the words or eloquence I feel such behaviour warrants. That I don't have at my disposal myriad words, like myriad, to express myself makes me feel like a child, and also stupid that I can't express myself like my peers or even to the standard to which I am accustomed.

So I find myself listening hard to what others are saying, to try and understand the language in all of its entirety - flow, sentence construction, rhythm, accent, basically everything that is idiosyncratic - and to try and pick it up, and I guess I have never spent so much time thinking about what is being said to me and how I can respond.

So it's humbling because I feel dumb and like someone who has to relearn something they previously were very capable of doing and basically I guess my frustration with this constant challenge caught up with me and I spent a lame week being sick and doing nothing (maybe a little bit of comfort eating, but that's not a good thing so doesn't count) and beating myself up for it. Then today I was chatting with a friend from the States in a similar boat - it was his last day in Buenos Aires and we were talking about his experience here and how we both felt about the language thing after three months of living it, and he helped me see that the entire process - living, being and learning a new language - is really bloody tough!

And for this - that I will have survived the semester while avoiding kidnap and maintaining a social life in which I feel I have made some really excellent friends and met a bunch of people from all over the world - I will not beat myself up for my lack of enthusiasm for this class, retaking the test and nor will I hold ill-sentiment toward my professor for failing me.

The wealth of this experience for all of the ups and downs that have come with it is probably worth that of a failed unit and hey mo-fo! I spent a semester of my university career in another country and learned a complete new way of life and I think that's pretty bloody swell!

Now I believe all those dudes who were like, 'YOU'RE SO BRAVE' and 'EXCHANGE IS AWESOME AND NOT FOR DUDES WHO CAN'T HANDLE LIFE THROWING ALL KINDS OF CRAZY SHITS AT DEM! IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE' and to whom I was like, 'sha, duh, whatevz!'

PLUS

I also feel better about failing my first ever exam. So I feel like all is well that ends in a happy revelation.

Post/life lesson number three in as many days!

I don’t really know what’s changed to warrant such posting except that it is no longer satisfactory to lurk facebook while feeling bad that there is a world of fun to be had outside that I am ignoring while being lame and lurking facebook. That aside, also, I made a commitment to this blog and feel I ought to honour that. Blogs are good like that, I guess. You fill them with shit I bet they don’t like, ignore them for a few months and then come back and fill them with the shit you were doing while you were ignoring them AND THEY DON’T MIND. My blog hasn’t said, ‘where have you been the last few months? What makes you think that now, after this long, I want to know?’ or challenged me to a commitment I probably never could have maintained but wanted to because the idea of such a thing, while being imagined, is attractive but ultimately is probably not my style.

Anyway, in my last post I outlined a few valuable life lessons I picked up earlier this year in my preparation for, and early days of, this 'life changing' trip. And these life lessons are being brought to you by the hindsight that is at times crippling, makes me cringe and wonder how the shit I never thought that through. Possibly by putting them into writing and seeing in print a manifestation of the erroneous ways of ‘bugger it, give it a burl and let’s see how we do’ it is possible that a catalyst for change may present itself. SEGUE BECAUSE NOW LIFE LESSON NUMBER THREE IS PRESENTING ITSELF.

Life lesson number three. This lesson deals with the immense disillusionment that comes when the results of a particular endeavour don’t exactly match those projected in the original imagining.

So in the beginning, my sentiment towards my trip was a little something like this: ‘I’m young! I speak great Spanish! I like to talk to people! People will want to be my friend! I will want to be their friend! Life in a big city is going to be awesome! I am going to understand everyone! Class is going to be a breeze! Year long distinction average, here I come!’ and so on. 

Over time that sentiment changed to something like this: ‘I’m young and immature! My Spanish is shit! I am scared of everyone because of this! People don’t care that I am not from Argentina! I still want to be their friend because I am so terrified of them! Life in a big city is noisy and dirty and people hate picking up after their dogs and cab drivers love to honk their horns at all freaking hours and other motorists love to beep their horns to alert other motorists that that ambulance siren means an ambulance is on its way through the busy street and get out of the way! I don’t understand a lot of what goes on and this feeds my aversion to doing anything ever! Class kills me in a ‘I AM PANICKING THAT I DO NOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING BECAUSE IF I FAIL THIS UNIT I HAVE TO DO A MILLION MORE AND MY HECS DEBT WILL BE UNNECESSARILY LARGE’ kind of way! Plus, classes are pass/fail so I should be glad to pass but will feel like shit if I don’t get a kind of good grade which is another unnecessary pressure on my life!’

And thus a big cycle of anxiety, attempts at confidence and lots of red wine is in full effect and (now we are speaking passively because this may or may not be what I am experiencing but these things front better in the passive voice) you are trying to avoid the disillusionment you are feeling as a result of too high expectations with very low results but it is crushing you and no amount of disgustingly cheap booze (ARS$15 will buy you gin, of reasonably good quality, and possibly something to mix it with) will erase this and didn’t you come here to get away from that self-perpetuating cycle?

Another thing that forms part of this disillusionment - the idea of a long distance relationship with someone you have known for a week and half, is a cute one. Like, ‘I am so in love! Some cracked out metrosexual who was probably wasted made a few lucky guesses about my future one time when I worked in a bar and I should believe that this first guy I have met is the guy he said I was going to meet while adventuring overseas and fall in love with!’ 

However, the lesson inherent here is that reality is probably much less cute and will probably feed the disillusionment that keeps you in on the weekend because the idea of being around people who aren’t feeling quite so jaded sounds like a momentous task and wine is cheaper than gin and like blogs, doesn’t judge you for not wanting to be around it all the time or not being enthusiastic about life and willing to talk about pointless shit for the point of company.

Furthermore, in the beginning I probably shouldn’t have trusted this future-seeing metro man because he guessed Europe before South America, but it’s funny how we dredge up things like this to support a flimsy decision that may actually just be a fantasy. The reality is while the idea is cute, it will ultimately make you question yourself, the other person, your life, your ability to make good decisions and set in motion another cycle of FAIL AT LIFE, ADD GIN, EVERYTHING GOOD, HANGOVER, NOTHING GOOD, aka perpetuation of misery.

Also, you may be kicking yourself that you ignored those little voices in the back of your head who suggested that this isn't a good idea, for a mountain of reasons. Those little guys appear like such fun spoiling pricks but they might just be the guys who know you and know that you don't like to listen to them but that it is for this very reason you bloody ought to listen them!  

 

Because when you realise that what you had thought to be flawless in fact is actually quite flawed, and like most decisions you have made, actually deserved much more time and thought, you are in a hole of disillusionment because once again you realise your capacity to make any good decisions ever is significantly lacking and then you don’t want to be around anyone who is a) happy, b) happy and part of a couple, c) not a miserable sack of shit who is capable of feeling positivity even when they feel like balls and THEN YOU FEEL LIKE SHIT BECAUSE YOU CAN’T EVEN MANAGE THAT. 

And those little guys are having a field-day of told you so! and that's not fun for anyone. So I guess the lesson is, listen to those little guys cos they're not being pricks to be pricks. They're being pricks so you won't feel like such a sucker down the track.

All that Argy Bargy - parte II, aka life lessons in Argentina

So part of why I chose to come to a completely unfamiliar country in a part of the world entirely unbeknown to me was for ALL THE AMAZING LIFE LESSONS I WAS GOING TO LEARN - obviously without feeling like an idiot for not knowing beforehand.

Clearly, I am poking fun at the lack of foresight I applied to such an endeavour because, when you decide to take on the world and you can speak the language REALLY WELL and you don't need to worry about whether or not you are going to understand simple things like 'this amount of needless shit you are buying will cost you this amount of pesos' at which point a simple conversion of currency is necessary, YOU DON'T NEED FORESIGHT.

I'll start with one thing about Argentina - while all Spanish speaking countries throughout the world are different in their accents, regional 'dialects' and slang, Argentinean Spanish (aka Castellano and also Porteño), is such a different kettle of fish it's practically a kettle of writhing, flesh eating lizards. So I was on the plane (I think I mentioned something about chronology in my last post, but, uh.. bugger that. That's for people who have a good perception of time, and or arranging events, and or coherent blog posts) and in need of entertainment, at which point I decided, "I'll check out the movies section! Maybe there's a movie in Castellano that I can watch!"

El Secreto De Sus Ojos (The Secret of Your Eyes, roughly/literally) seemed like a great choice, being Argentinean, having won an Oscar (among others) award and having a pretty babin' lead actor (Ricardo Darín). So when I started to watch it, and it didn't have subtitles, and I couldn't understand it, I panicked and wondered if maybe this was some Eastern European version. Until I started picking up bits and pieces of Spanish in there. It was at that moment I maybe SHOULD HAVE realised the immensity of the adventure I had just embarked upon. Only, I was far too stubborn to admit this at that point. Anyway, apparently the movie is great. You should probably watch it, but only if you speak Spanish or find a version that is either dubbed or with subtitles - and then let me know. To me, I'm sure there were a few major points I missed because I was too busy panicking that THIS SHIT'S INSANE AND NOT LIKE THE SPANISH ANYONE I KNEW SPOKE.

And this leads me to life lesson number one.
If there is a guy in your Spanish class who has been speaking Spanish since birth and is good looking and you need to speak Spanish and the fact that he is good looking encourages you to ask him for help in that department - don't bloody flirt with the guy. Because he's probably (only a bit, but still significantly so) younger than you and thinks you want to shag him, which you do, but not after he drinks a reasonably good glass of wine too quickly, slurping while doing so, and starts getting naked in your kitchen while eating your face off, all in super quick succession. This is because after this occasion, you will not want to talk to him but you still need to speak Spanish and you don't want him to feel like an idiot for being so foward but you also don't want him to think he's getting another shot at whatever he was going for. Also, he is of El Salvadorean descent and knows nothing about Argentinean Spanish and your lessons will never be the same again, and the whole endeavour was pointless.

And that was months before I even left the country. Living/learning, what sort of crap is that? Anyway.  
Life lesson number two.
You probably should never have believed aforementioned guy when he told you your Spanish was good. In hindsight, this is a good way to shirk responsibility for your pigheadness when you realise your Spanish is okay, but nowhere nearing being good. And there is a big different between 'okay' and 'good'. Like, 'okay' being able to order a coffee or exchange money with only a small amount of difficulty, and 'good' being able to maintain a conversation with minimal misunderstanding, or not be ripped off by smug cab drivers in plastic puffer vests. But at the time, he was saying this because you are a babe (this is my blog, and this is my truth), and he wanted to drink Oomoo Sauvignon Blanc like Sprite before probably nailing you like some sort of jackrabbit*, not because you are good at Spanish.

However, being as I am, I failed to take into account these things. I arrived to my host family's house, glad to be out of reach of people-trafficking bad guys who wanted to sell my white booty onto some terrible black market where whatever pretense of innocence I once had would be siphoned away and replaced by a crippling opiate-addiction. I still maintained the pretense I was kind of good at Spanish. So I got there, chilled out a bit, showered away the 15-hours-in-transit-scum and enjoyed a cup of tea before asking my host mother where the nearest supermarket was. I thought I understood her directions, but ended up at least seven blocks away from where she'd directed me, and found on my return journey home (which I was grateful to achieve) that the supermarket she'd actually directed me to was a mere block and a half up the road. No matter, because the Coto I ended up in was massive and gave me a false idea of what supermarkets were like in Argentina. Evidently I had stumbled upon either a 'hipermercado' or a 'maximercado' - the distinction between the two being one I have yet to make - that had TOYS and SOUND SYSTEMS and COMPUTERS and other such things dispersed between the yerba (yeah I love linking to Wikipedia, what of it?), shitty cheese and UHT milk.

Anyway. Being in a foreign land, beginning to sense you are not in fact as good as you thought you were at Spanish and also having just realised a smug cab driver in a puffy vest who was oddly generous with cigarettes ripped you off more money than you care to have been ripped off could very easily be mistaken for grounds to pick up life-destroying habits like smoking. WRONG!

Anyway, in the spirit of continuation and not giving it all away too soon (life lesson number.. something, not sure, never learnt that one), I think I have covered enough life lessons for today. Also it is Friday night, and as appealing as it sounded this afternoon when it was raining, drinking cheap but delicious red wine and blogging by myself in my house is no longer as entertaining as I had hoped. I am in one of the city that never sleeps, probably already have red-wine teeth and am determined to make something of my evening. Life lesson number three - from the streets of Buenos Aires, coming soon. Hasta luego.

*this never happened, and for my parents/prospective employers ever read this, this is simply artistic liberty and/or maybe my future contains writing erotic prose for Cosmo or some such so I am getting in some practice now.

all that argy bargy - parte I

Hey blog-o-sphere!

It's been awhile coming - I needed to give the big bad world a chance to show me its teeth before I could write about how scary/sharp they are - but this is big post number one from the other side of the world!

I guess I'll attempt some sort of chronology for the sake of ease, starting with my arrival at Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires. In spite of my fatigue after what I consider in some ways having been spastic in time (an idea attributable to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five - 'Billy Pilgrim is spastic in time') I was determined to maintain my sense of independence and definitely delay inevitable feelings of 'oh-shit-I-can-barely-speak-this-insane-form-of-Spanish'. So I marched up the arrivals hall, suitcase in tow feeling very purposeful, looking for a bank to change money.

I couldn't find one so I marched back down the arrivals hall, attempting to look as purposeful as I didn't feel while the nerves inside me fought the cool inside me. I found a stall to do so and successfully changed my precious Australian dollars (at that stage the best Spanish interaction I'd had) before heading up to a kiosk to buy water and a newspaper. I did the latter on the advice of my well-traveled older brother so as not to look like a tourist, though that tactic only works when you don't leave the bloody thing on the counter.

So I hurried up to a phone booth and called my host mother to inform her I had arrived and would see her at her house soon - assuming I wasn't smuggled into a prostitution ring upon stepping outside of the airport. One of my first thoughts as I stepped out into fair, and fairly windy, Buenos Aires was something along the lines of 'GOOD GOD I WANT A CIGARETTE.'
I was recovering from a chest and lung infection, and on antibiotics, and had only a week before been warned by two doctors that quitting was paramount to not dropping dead anytime soon so I had to fight that urge. I spotted a cab (a radio taxi - for reasons of security it is strongly advised here not to use any others) and asked in what was apparently shithole Spanish to go to Recoleta, a wealthy suburb close to the city. The driver I approached didn't look threatening though after a confusing swap of customers and cabs I ended up in a cab with a young guy in a puffy jacket who seemed very nice - but who probably saw in me easy money.
I say that because in my fatigued, fresh-off-the-plane state, I had asked if it would cost 'one hundred dollars' to get there. I'd read in Lonely Planet on the plane that the cab should cost around ARG$100 from the airport to most parts of the city but what they hadn't mentioned was the paramount importance of using the word peso instead of dollar. This cabbie was savvy and didn't think twice about turning on the meter nor clarifying that for me. He took what I said as 'I'll pay you USD$100 to this address in Recoleta' and stuck with it. In hindsight, he was a little too flattering about my Spanish as well as very generous with his cigarettes but I was just looking forward to being within private property, safe and sound. So I coughed up ARG$400 for a ride which should have cost no more than ARG$100 - and in case you're not into keeping up-to-date with South American currencies and their exchange rate, ARG$400 is, at this moment, AUD$103.416. So I got swindled.

Anyway, being that nearly two months has passed since I started this post I can say I have, thanks to that shitty and expensive experience, not been swindled quite that much since. Sure, some cab drivers like to take elongated routes when they think I don't know the area but that's okay because a) I'm too shy to tell them I know that they are taking me a long way and b) they might not actually be doing that anyway because, except main roads, streets here are one way and sometimes you can go two or three blocks before finding a street that runs the way you want it to and c) one time I complained in English to my brother that the guy was taking us a long way before asking him why he didn't use another street that I thought would have been quicker and was told, 'I understood, and because the street you are thinking of doesn't run two-ways until much further down the road', and d) for me it's usually only the difference between $3-10 dollars, something I feel I can afford, for reasons I will outline shortly.

Since then, I have mastered public transport, mostly for reasons of cheapness. By 'mastered' I mean I know one subway (here called the subte, literally 'under you') line and use it often, but also know which buses to take to go to the few destinations I frequent and have been forcing myself into this sort of thing to 'be like the locals'.

And this is nearly a perfect segue to inform my (few) readers, who similar to me - white, middle-class Australians aka unwittingly privileged members of the developed world - are white, middle-class Australians who probably have never really had to pay much thought to just how 'white' we are (in inverted apostrophes because the term, in this context, seeks to encapsulate all the characteristics I just named in varying degrees throughout the following).

First of all, because I am white, and by my fashion sense (read: laziness which leads to jeans-and-a-t-shirt, something that isn't done quite so simply here) I am picked to be extranjera (foreign). Walking around the busy streets of Buenos Aires, if I am solo, means I am a target for men who call me 'beautiful' (the word's many manifestations in Spanish including but not limited to bonita, señorita, mina, linda) and ask me where I am going or harangue me in such a manner until I am out of earshot. Admittedly, at first, I felt complimented by this. I thought, 'I am the best looking foreigner here!' though this sentiment has changed over time. Firstly, because I can be on my way to or from the gym (one of the few destinations I have here in Buenos Aires), sweaty or in men's shorts (for the wrong soccer team, might I add.. Boca Juniors are one of the most popular teams here, though for many reasons I am sympathetic to River Plate. I mistakenly thought the shorts were of Argentina's colours, whoops) and still garner this kind of attention. I feel gross and sweaty and you are telling me I am the most beautiful girl? Get out. You are lying. This led me to suspect that it was merely the colour of my skin and the fact that I don't colour co-ordinate my outfits or wear ridiculously elaborate outfits to the gym aka that I am not from here, that garners such attention.

Secondly, because on more than one occasion it has been presumed I have a shit-tonne of money. By aforementioned cab drivers, by sales people in stores, by people I have met who are surprised when I evince that I am not a rich gringa. Basically, the feeling I get, is that because a) I am white, b) I am not from here and c) I am white, it is assumed I have a lot of money. The thing is, and I don't know how to make this at all obvious, that I worked my ass off to be here. I busted tables (see post below this one for an idea of how much it was shitty) and only drank 3 nights out of 7 to save the money to be here (a grand sacrifice, I am sure you, dear reader, will agree).

Thirdly, and this is the point I want to make most, because I am white and I am automatically assumed to have money has helped me realise that I do indeed come from a privileged position. First of all that I can travel, and that I could work myself to gather capital to do so in an economy that is currently faring super well, suggests this. Furthermore, that I have been given the opportunity to learn another language and am undertaking a university degree that requires this, and very much so recommends a semester abroad speaks of this. And perhaps it is for this reason - realising my privilege - that this is recommended. I always knew that I was lucky not to be a starving African baby, or that at birth I wasn't abandoned on some train tracks under a one-child policy, but I never really knew.

I'm not preaching, and I am going to finish this post shortly, by pointing out a parallel I wouldn't have realised from the suburbs of Canberra.

Argentina and Chile are nearing 'developed' status. This means something in economic terms, maybe says something about the politics, but basically it just means, that like the rest of the developed world, there is a small percentage of wealthy dudes that got a bit bigger. Maybe there are less people living in slums, maybe the gross capital (or something, I don't study economics) is a bit bigger than last year, but, to my understanding, because the circle of fat-cats here just got a bit bigger, these countries are a little bit closer to joining the 'developed' club. I'm not sure if membership is lifelong or if you wear the wrong sort of shoes to the annual do you are ejected, but I do know this. In every nation throughout the world, capitalist or not, there is a grand concentration wealth in a small percentage of the population. In America, something like 5% of the population has the most money and the greatest access to resources. Australia can't be too different.

In Chile, driving down an autopista (freeway), you compete with BMWs, Audis and Volkswagons who are zooming past small dwellings of subsistence. Here in Argentina, the autopistas are filled with both crappy, thirty year old antiquities that you would never see on the road in Australia as well as new model Audis, Porsches and Mercedes, but these autopistas separate the wealthy neighbourhoods that fit neatly and cleanly into the cityscape from the sprawling urban slums that are much bigger than those wealthier suburbs.

My point is, we have it lucky, but that's relative. If you live here and earn pesos, it's almost the same as earning dollars in terms of relative wealth, though things like Pringles and some other brands of potato chips cost more than cigarettes (score one, my diet. Sorry, lungs, you lose! Hips, you win!), but I guess in finishing I want to put it out there that, in spite of my skin colour, I am not so different to the people here. I benefit from a system that doesn't favour me in myself, but the position I was born into, much like the people I am taking the bus with, much like my cab driver, who according to many, is lucky to get the work.

I think this got a bit rambly because it's dark and my eyes are doing that 'my-surroundings-are-dark-but-the-computer-screen-is-really-bright thing' and also because I got distracted slash I can't lie, haven't written in months and feel like a shitty fledgling journalist, but do watch this space.
All that Argy Bargy, parte II coming soon, in a better and less rambly fashion. I might even map out what I want to say before I start, but who knows.

Hey blog-o-sphere!
There's a big ol' Argentine post coming up - different to the last, very much so -  so keep your peepers peeled!

Vamos !

waiter, i'm an idiot. do you perform lobotomies here?

I have spent a quarter of my short lifetime busting tables to bring home the bacon. (By 'bringing home the bacon' I should point out I actually mean beer money, with the rest going to non-necessities like fuel and savings.)
It took me a year or two to realise that what I was really doing was some sort of degree in anthropology - from hard of hearing, we'll-have-the-soup oldies to overtired, we-reproduced-without-thinking-about-it-now-you-have-to-suffer-through-our-pride-and-joy's-screaming parents, I'm fairly confident I know societal prototypes and how they are likely to behave in a cafe/restaurant setting pretty well.

There is a group on Facebook called 'Working in hospitality made me hate people', and many of its posts are the sort of gripes I happily share with co-workers during a shift, or with friends in the same industry over bevvies.
I will be the first to admit that sometimes it's just me being shitty - try holding in a pee because you've got tables to order, coffees to run, food going cold on the pass AND that table of 5 only getting one lemon, lime and bitters between all need water, asap please! - and you might have walked 300 metres in the shoes of your 'cranky waitress', but I do like to consider myself a rational person, and I am more than aware that I work in a service industry.
So when I have something to gripe about, it's usually because I find it endlessly depressing to answer the same questions about whether or not we have Cafe Latte and what-does-the-meat-pizza-have-on-it and to see the same stupid types of people do the same stupid things before leaving me to clean up the mess without any gratitude (tips or otherwise).
Furthermore, that it took me this long to write a blog about it depresses me a bit as well. I've been at the end of some sort of proverbial tether, wondering how I can change the attitudes of these people to ensure their dining experiences are enjoyable while reducing occupational hazards for people like myself (mean-spirited thoughts are an OH&S issue - negativity has serious effects on productivity).
I reached the end of this tether after the umpteenth, ump-sized mother unable to control her children snatched her plate/saucer out of my hand as I was bringing it down to the table, which for the umpteenth time nearly ended in disaster - little Tommy would have worn Mummy's skinny, decaf, vanilla latte - and guess who would have been in the shit for it? So this leads me to

Rule #1 Entering dining establishment
This concept should be easy to explain. Obviously if you're not at McDonalds, this is going to be a slightly involved experience, but you shouldn't stand in the doorway looking lost and confused, because you're not a puppy and I'm not into animal rescue (as evinced by my head-to-toe black attire and apron, although some places are getting into the khaki-safari look as part of their uniform..). If you've ever eaten out, it should become apparent to you by having a look around (which may require pulling your head out of your ass) whether or not there is table service, bistro or some other such style. If not, asking someone who doesn't look like a ranger could be a safe bet though if we're clearly busy, your patience would be greatly appreciated. If we say, 'have a seat anywhere,' we mean, 'anywhere except tables with reserved signs or that need to be cleared.' I am yet to understand the magnetic appeal of the only dirty table in the restaurant, but hopefully this is an easy concept to take on board - nothing kills me more than watching people waiting to be herded to a table, logic by which I'd be able to shoo said people out at a time convenient to me.
And just to return to a small point I fear to gloss over - DON'T SIT AT THE ONLY TABLE THAT NEEDS CLEARING. If it's busy and there's a table that needs clearing, it's much better for everyone for a number of reasons (OH&S inclusive) if you speak to a member of staff and wait for a moment or two while the table is cleared. Hurried, cranky and underfed waitresses lose their shit at moments like that, but sometimes impatient customers wear the previous customer's leftovers as a result of pushiness and a lack of consideration.


Rule #2 Placing your orders
As a rule of thumb - cafes DO serve cafe lattes, and we're not in the Himalayas, though I'm pretty sure that even there they have Coke, lemon lime and bitters AND cappucinos. And I'm fairly certain a restaurant would risk small scale mobbing by overweight, middle age women who need their skim-milk mugs of cappucino to go with their big breakfast/wedges, so YES we have Coke/lemon lime and bitters, cappucinos AND skim milk.
On that note, asking for obscure items like dandelion coffee makes you look like a wanker, and a 'flat white. on skim. uh, in a mug! OH AND IT HAS TO BE DECAF' is an annoying way to place an order that I'm sure you knew you wanted to be decaf, in a mug, and on skim milk. But that might be picking nits, so onto bigger and more haranguing things.
Please, don't wave me over from the other side of the very obviously busy restaurant full of people like yourselves to tell me that 'you're ready to order!' before returning your nose to the menu, poring over every item once more, asking your friends what they're having, giggling about 'who said we were ready?!' and not letting me 'give you another moment'. That 'moment' is actually code for, 'you're not the only people in this restaurant and the last thing on my list of my priorities right now is standing over you while you ummm and ahhhh over the shitty Caesar or the subpar soup'.
Also, this isn't karaoke and nor is the menu a teleprompter - you don't need to reopen the menu to find the item to make sure you say the 'Portuguese tenderloin chicken wrap' instead of the 'chicken wrap' - I know it's in there, you do too, and if there are any ambiguities in your order, I will seek to clarify before sending it to the kitchen! (see below where I outline the importance of speaking TO your waiter/ess rather than the furniture/menus as well as the benefits of listening to an order when it's being read back to you.)
AND furthermore, for God's sake don't freaking point at an item and say 'that one' because I know you've read the menu (unless you're playing a weird game of I-don't-know-what-I-want-so-I'll-point-at-a-random-item.. an idea I don't want to entertain and fortunately have never had to), you're speaking to me so I know you're not mute and you're an adult so using your big-boy words shouldn't be a foreign concept to you. If the word is difficult to pronounce, give it a burl! This isn't high school English and your crush won't totally think you're a dork if you get it wrong or whatever.Working in an Indian restaurant helped me see that some people are REALLY insecure, and apparently waiter/esses are intimidating people who will laugh ALL UP IN YO FACE if you mispronounce 'vindaloo' or 'raita'.
Last but not least, when waitstaff read your order back to you, ye gods PLEASE listen! It's not my fault that you told the menu/table you wanted the beef nachos and weren't paying attention when I read the order back to you as 'chicken nachos' (after making a 50/50 guess, based on your mumbling, that would be so easy to change before the kitchen saw it, and the exact reason why I am reading the order back to you) so no, you can't have that order taken off your bill. I'm sorry but we don't compensate for your stupidity.

Rule #3 Receiving your orders

You're not being helpful when you grab the plate an inch of the table to put it in front of you. A portion of what you pay for what's on the plate goes toward my wage, which I earn by - guess! - putting your food on the table in front of you. Furthermore, you are unnecessarily adding an element of danger to your brunch when you snatch your long black from me as I am about to put it in front of you. The 'assist' doesn't exist in hospitality until you're asked for it (see below), and again, I am being paid (in part by you, dear customer) to place your sometimes reaaaaally hot coffee in front of you, so please just chill out and let me do that. Also, this is just rude and has only happened to me once, at a table of patrons including the first restaurateur I ever worked for no less, but grabbing a handful of fries from the bowl before it's even reached the table is incredibly poor form. They'll still be hot once I've put them on the table, and in spite of your designer finery and snobbery, you look like a twat!
To the snatch/grab/takers out there - do you recall that really valuable life lesson, being taught not to snatch?!
You're out to dine - ergo, I put the plates on the table, and I take them away! If you can't handle being a passive participant in the process, stay at home and do it all yourself! Save yourself the dollars. We are only just recovering from a crisis of the economic variety and who knows when the next crash on the pretend-money-that-you-pay-real-money-for (aka credit/stock) market will happen?
There is ONE exception to the no snatch/grab/taking rule, and that is when your fat friends are impeding me from placing the plate in front of you. Then, and only then, will I politely ask if I can pass the plate to you, in which case I hope you are paying attention!

Rule #4 The rest
If you're finished, placing your knife and fork together on your plate will send a small electric shock up my spine, alerting me to the fact you have finished your meal. If you're not finished, feel free to leave your cutlery in any fashion you desire, as long as it's on your table and not in any of your orifices. That way, I leave you enjoy your meal in peace until that little tingle finds its way to my vertebrae, when my list of priorities changes, to fit clearing your table in at the top.
And generally, it's manners from our side to ask if you've finished, and how your meals were. That is your cue as customer to give us honest answers to these questions.
Depending on the style of dining you've gone for, you may or may not have had a courtesy check not long after receiving your meals, which is the perfect moment for airing grievances with regards to your meal. Once you have licked the plate clean, there isn't a great deal we can do for you if 'the steak wasn't cooked how I asked' or 'it wasn't what I ordered.'
If there's a problem with your meal, don't eat it unless you don't want it fixed. Get a staff member's attention and rationally explain the issue - though generally speaking, 'we ordered a breakfast pizza, but we weren't exactly expecting a pizza!' isn't indicative of any rationality or sense at all.
As another example of dining faux par, the same chip-grabbing hog sent her main meal back for the reason that there was a hair in the dish. At this particular restaurant, the kitchen undertook a very high standard of food preparation and presentation so we inspected the dish to find said hair. It couldn't be seen on the dish, but in my eyes this woman had already destroyed her credibility (and from memory had her hair out) so it was a good thing she didn't want a replacement dish. She probably filled up on fries anyway.

Stacking crockery on your table is a no-no, though the same exception to the snatch/grab/taking rule exists here, because most days I leave my go-go gadget arms at home. The reason for this is that I have a very good and fail-proof system of clearing tables, and while you think you're helping me, just like people who drive Prius' think they're helping the environment, ultimately you're reducing my productivity and efficiency.
You're out to dine, so relax. If I ask for an assist, please don't ignore me. I'll ask you one or two questions while I'm bustling about the table, about meals and whether or not you need/want anything more, but apart from that, I am really not much more than a fly on the wall - if you count a fly on the wall as being a human being who is paid to do a job that is soul-destroying, repetitive and gross - case in point being the disgusting chest infection that's rendered me unmotivated to do anything except whinge in a semi-literary fashion about that which made me thus.

Good grace will live in me.

Semester one of 2010 has all but drawn to an end (exams never seem to pose a stressful threat at this stage) and I am now scratching my head at the thought of no more sleep ins, attempts at study and relatively relaxed, coffee-filled days on campus looking at boys and talking shit with friends. until at least August. Instead, my life will revolve around an endless amount of customers demanding their lattes asap, with a double shot please, on skinny milk if you've got it! while chasing and saving dollars to fund the next chapter of my life.

What will make that effort worth it are the endless mazes of streets, alleys, cafes, shops and more that await me in Buenos Aires. To get me excited for my travels, and to feed my love for street art, I've been checking out a bunch of blogs and websites - I started with this site, del artista Julian Pablo Manzelli.

I stumbled across more fun things - this is funny - 10 tattoo cliches to avoid, which I found at a time when my long-standing 'I'll-never-get-a-tattoo' attitude changed of its own accord, as I came across ideas I would indeed have inked on me fo life.

How to catch a bus in Buenos Aires - matador universe is my new favourite place to hang out online and dished out this gem, which will surely come in handy for me.
From the matadorverse, I have come across yes, there is such thing as a stupid question whose author is fabulous - a woman living in Buenos Aires with a biting sense of humour, basically doing something I may aspire to!


  

The first image is an example of vomito attack's street art, in Buenos Aires. The second image is by German based art-duo, Herakut, whose style is blowing my mind (thanks to Lucy, who showed me their stuff while we were sharing art last night. Social media is great for more than 'h hru, gt, hbu?', who'da thunk it?)

Excited by the prospect of having time on my hands to enjoy more of the world that exists away and out of text books before getting out into the big bad world, the rest of my life is starting now!

I asked the sun and he said the future's looking bright.

..I interviewed the rain and he said that sun was truly an asshole.

This article is
 the basis of my second journal entry of the day and my favourite so far because I got to bemoan the state of media/politics in a way that is probably  more constructive than any other rant I've had on the matter. Sorry, blog-o-sphere, you are being spammed with my opinions and you will enjoy it! Or at the very least, I will provoke some thought amongst the few readers notquitelois has.

The principle of verification in journalism, and the notion of transparency are fundamental to the integrity of the industry. Straight up, that is my belief but whether or not in reality this is true is definitely debateable.

The news industry’s primary function is to report to the people information that is newsworthy – events or moments that have the capacity to affect the populace whether because of the timeliness, relevance, human edge or whatever other news value of the issue. So when that function becomes hard to do because other interests – ratings, namely, because ratings mean revenue - the integrity of news is undermined.

When ‘analysts’ and ‘contributors’ are in fact neither of those things, the idea of ‘verification’ falls to the wayside and the word ‘fabrication’ comes to mind. This ties in with the notion of transparency – viewers may believe they are getting the finance report from someone in the know (because they’re standing in front of a giant CBA logo) but they’re really getting a biased version of the days stock and so neither verification nor transparency are being used here.

I feel I may overstep the word limit on this slightly because though I almost fell into journalism as a way of utilising my love for words and the double major in English I did in college while making use of the UAI I didn’t try to achieve (it wasn’t very high), I have come to recognise it as a powerful industry contributing to society in ways I’d previously not imagined.

This reading stirred a few things in me. Firstly, the relationship between media and politics has indeed become very complex and I have felt isolated in my view that Australian politics are more about he-said, she-said than actual policy because no one else in positions of authority to assert this did so. Rosenstiel and Kovach talk about the ‘horse race bias’ in reporting political campaigns in the US and this idea reflects the cynicism I feel with regard to political reporting here in Australia. What I have been taught about morals and ethics in reporting appears at odds with the reality of the industry and this reading strengthened my feelings of disillusion with the state of political media as I thought about verification and transparency in journalism.

This quote from the reading perhaps best summarises why I feel this way:
“The press covers what the candidate does that day. The polls measure the political impact of that behavior. The media then analyze whether the latest campaign performance is helping in the polls. And that in turn influences the candidate’s behavior.”

To speak from experience, I can say frankly that being told each week whether K. Rudd is more popular than Tony Abbott doesn’t mean anything to me. More than anything it reflects the percentage of Australians who were offended by Abbott’s budgie smugglers (a downright disgusting misuse of media time across Australia that continues to this day, and one I fear to include as it may serve only to perpetuate the stunt’s efficacy in bringing Abbott press) and had at their fingertips the opportunity to lodge their approval (or not) of the action as they perused ninemsn or news.com instead of doing any work (maybe I imagine too harshly what happens in public service offices but from what I’ve heard from those in such positions that is actually the norm).

To make a point I’ve been trying to sharpen for the last two and a half years, the relationship between media and politics has become far too interdependent and that is shaping both the state of politics and media. That talking heads on stations like Sky News here are being labelled ‘analysts’ when really they are representatives of particular corporate interest reflects something ominous. The cycle Rosenstiel and Kovach describe further reflects this, but what isn’t said is that the time spent devising the shape of politicians’ media figures is time not spend on writing policy. The Abbott/Rudd popularity race has long annoyed me because I always wonder – “Surely Tony Abbott has more to do and say as Opposition leader with relation to Liberal policy than to merely discredit another of Rudd’s policies/actions, even it will sell tomorrow’s paper and draw viewers to TV bulletins..”

Being told ‘not to believe everything you see on the news’ goes against what I have learned of reporting – you have to verify your facts, you have to balance your story and, while you’re in university, report without bias. Unless asked not to by your talent, you have to identify your sources, but in any event the credibility of talent is enormously important because otherwise it's not news!

It seems though that to get ahead, or a job, your ability to advance the interests of the company is more important than any of those things and from the get-go, the integrity of the industry is forgotten as wanna-be reporters forsake the integral fundamentals of their craft to get their foot in any door.

I was supposed to interview the snow today but of course, he flaked.

When it rains, it sometimes also pours.
Being that I am catching up on a lot of journal readings and responses, I thought I would spam the blog-o-sphere with my thoughts on the range of issues pervasive to journalism today.

This article, by veteran Chris Masters inspired the following. I feel like I've said some of it before but maybe that's because some of the issues are deserving of a lot of hot air, though I wouldn't shy away from being told it's merely because I am a repetitive sort.

Chris Masters’ discussion of the media environment in which he developed as a journalist was certainly an eye-opening read. While much of the course content of the last year in particular, but obviously the preceding two as well, has been focused on ensuring we are equipped as journalists of tomorrow with the necessary skills to vacillate between key mediums of journalism, I had never really seen the industry as it is now as constantly evolving in response to a number of influences.

That his career spanned 43 years and was almost entirely at the ABC was impressive to me. Masters even acknowledged that that sort of longevity is almost unheard of today and I would bemoan that, if it weren’t for a knowledge of my own almost-ADD capacity to stick with one thing for a period of time. But in saying that, it impressed me for reasons far beyond an admiration of a personally lacking perseverant nature.

43 years in any career would be hard-going, but to stick with one that is subject to the ebb and flow of consumer popularity while maintaining a sense of dignity and pride in that work is certainly admirable. Certainly, too, it is almost as enviable as incredible that in his day, Masters’ could have become a foreign correspondent straight out of school.

Both those things seem to reflect an era less complicated by the multi-platform-digital-high-tech state of today. From a young age, I have been (almost) conditioned to believe that I will go through four (or is it five now?) career changes in my time. I don’t believe that sort of thing does much to help the lessening attention spans of my peers and the generations following us, but it is widely recognised that as a collective we lack the ability to endure much at all for longer than an ad-break.

In saying that, I am not deviating from the discussion but rather pulling together the strands of my experience to illuminate a point: the nature of journalism is changing to reflect this. The option of being print OR broadcast journalists no longer exists because we (as a generation) can do it all. We can do it all at once, too. Heck, we can do it all at once from one device if we have the access to the technology!

So Masters’ experience comes from a time when putting in hours, days and weeks for a story was paramount to success, but is of some value to those of us who can achieve recognition for the most banal of banalities in an instant – before losing it in the next. We achieve recognition for a status update on facebook, or a tweet, or a youtube video, or a blog entry, which are just as swiftly buried by a torrent of newer, more up-to-the-micro-second tweet/video/blog/status update.

So the old quality over quantity adage applicable to Masters’ generation has given way to quantity trumping quality to keep up to date (or seriously, up-to-second, which is SO important – you couldn’t be still ‘lol’-ing at Kate’s hoax party when the hits of the next Trent-from-Punchy video on youtube are already beginning to dwindle), and the nature of broadcast journalism reflects that. Radio journalists like Latika Bourke tweet during Question Time, not only to share the more amusing he-said-she-said’s of QT but to plug her news bulletins or stories. In the process, she is exposing not only herself to a wider audience but the nature of broadcast journalism today: you have to straddle a variety of mediums to engage with an audience, who are tweeting from their iPhone while listening to a podcast while filming the next minute-of-fame youtube video who lack the time it takes to tie up their shoelaces but who can and are doing a million other things simultaneously. Masters’ experience is valuable to those of us about to be churned out into the multi-platform-digi-journo industry though – imagine the strength and viability of broadcast journalism if those of us who could do it all, could do it with style, dignity and loyalty?

So in the time it's been since I last posted, an entire lifetime has passed by me. Or so it feels.

This week is my last week of university in Canberra for 2010, have to enjoy it as much as I can because I have only just realised I will not be taking anymore classes with any of the folk I have come this far with. That thought makes me sad - with only a year and a half of my degree to go, I feel I have developed a rapport of sorts with many of my peers and in the very least have reached a level of familiarity with these people that I would almost call 'comfortable'..

Tangibly positive outcomes of this semester have been a number of distinctions, and one high distinction but sadly being caught up in the throes of life has meant keeping up to date with more than what's on today (or at stretch, tomorrow) has been difficult. The essay I wrote about in my last post scored a distinction though quite disappointingly my lecturer didn't enjoy Sublime or MF Doom as much as I did.

Because I'm staring down the barrel of two months off uni (more or less, may look into enrolling in a journalism class), I had dreams of scoring myself an industry-directed job but being that I will be in Buenos Aires in three months (no kidding, three months almost exactly, though I have yet to buy flights..) I think I need to think more about immediate employment. (note to self: update resume, stat!)

In any event, this is a link to the (few) articles I wrote this semester.
Check them out if you're interested in education, reasons for Canberra's lacklustre music scene or the open spaces program that makes Canberra so beautiful.


And, finally here is a collection of images thrown together in the space of 10 minutes for added illustrative value of this post to show what the last few weeks of my life have included (but were obviously not limited to!).

This is my face/favourite sweater & brooch.

This is my soon-to-be home town!

& I'm no sycophant - this house party featured a lot of punch, plus a band I've loved for a really long time and I was more than impressed with the quality of this image from my phone.

And finally, because in my downtime lately I've been oscillating between too much Aesop Rock and Daria, here are images of both. In love with Daria for a million reasons, for reasons of identification as well as an appreciation of the cynicism and almost always perfect social commentary that rounds the program out.

I would like to note also I am the proud owner of the above piece of merch so am mega excited to see Aes wearing the same hoodie that will be bringing me so much warmth this year.

So a few weeks have passed since I had time to do any blogging. I have just finished a non-stop seven week cycle of university, work, study and attempts at a social life and feel like I have come through relatively unharmed. In the future I will know that the end of a week in which I have an exam and over 3000 words to write, I ought to take a night off work so I don't hit a brick wall! Furthermore it would benefit my workmates also who have to deal with me dragging my feet and wanting to burn small animals..

Aside from that I feel like I put out some pretty good stuff this term. An online news article I wrote would have got a distinction (but didn't due to a small oversight) and though I failed it because of that, it only counts for 5% of my grade so I am not feeling too horrible about it. Having never failed an assignment or received less than a credit for most work I do though I didn't feel too great about it to start with though.

If I knew how to upload videos, too, I'd put up a news story I wrote whose visuals I'm pretty proud of. I chose to do my first TV news story of the year on the issue of the insertion of Indigenous/Torres Strait Islander experience into the proposed national curriculum and ended up feeling like it was more about self-determination than the curriculum. I interviewed Andrew Barr (an experience I grew to hate after watching the interview over and over while editing; also learned what I can do to make myself cringe endlessly), a UC Ed. student and Aunty Jude at the National Tent Embassy and the latter two talent had a lot to say on the issue, mostly relating to the failures of paternalism in closing the gap.

In doing a piece on Indigenous issues I felt a little (very) white and that I was treading the fine line between perpetuating white paternalism and providing a forum/platform for those who are not only in touch with their community but in positions to address government/bureaucracy in order to create positive change.

In the conversations I had with Adam and Aunty Jude though I came to question why I felt I was in any position to do such a piece and in doing so I came to realise a few things about myself and what I may like to do in the future. Ultimately, I came to realise that the issue of human rights is one I feel strongly about. What I've learned in my International Studies units combined with Journalism will put me in a great position to research, understand and then bring attention to issues that prevent the realisation of equality between all people.

An offshoot of that is my increasing disdain toward global, liberal market. I'm still developing ideas but the overwhelming feeling that money is the ultimate device of control within such a system is leading me to some big thinking about the nature of capitalist society. I'm not quite ready to go and join Socialist Alliance but it is something I'd like to take a bigger look into.

But the news story I wrote is one I'm proud of, mostly in the way I illustrated it and tied it into my script - obviously there's a few little cringe-worthy moments where I had to cut bits of interview to get the strongest points from Adam but largely I feel I created good visual juxtaposition of White and Indigenous histories with good transitions that tied into the script.


Today is the first day I've had off with absolutely nothing on in such a long time it feels biiiizaare! Don't know what I should do with it. But because I feel this blog has been a little staid til now I think the inclusion of some visuals should liven it up.

But by liven it up I mean simply 'illustrate' - the images I'm going to use are black and white.

Some of my favourite hip hop artists right now.   (Mos Def/Aesop Rock/A Tribe Called Quest)

I wake up with a Sublime song in my head every day. I am not even kidding.
Yesterday it was 'Scarlet Begonias,' today it was 'New Song'.
And if the scope of Sublime's influence over my life is not evident yet, I'd like to share a paragraph from the essay I turned in on Friday for my Peace and Conflict Studies class.

" Before foraying into academia to explore ‘development’ however, many observations of the negativity of its various forms can be found in popular culture and may underpin these ideas with a more appreciable succinctness. One particularly favoured by the author and thought to have significant relevance to this argument can be found within the ska genre. Bradley Nowell of Sublime penned ‘We’re only gonna die for our own arrogance’ in the early nineteen nineties, a concise summary of colonial and imperial practices and applicable to the globalist system of today:
‘Early man walked away, as modern man took control. Their minds weren’t all the same, and to conquer was the goal. So he built his great empire, and he slaughtered his own kind. He died a confused man, killed himself in his own mind. We’re only gonna die for our own arrogance.’ (Nowell, 1992)
That example of popular culture’s observations of history warns against behaviour typified by arrogance and prompts an exploration of the various forms of ‘development’ to understand in greater depth its failures for that reason. "

I also used Mos Def/MF Doom in the same essay:

" Even in developed countries like the United States, unequal distribution of wealth contributes to systems whose structure contributes to conflict. Observations of this can also be found in popular culture, and though vernacular of the following quote is specific to the culture from which it came, its message is relevant to the idea that even in developed nations liberal principle maintains an inequitable system.
Beef is when working [folk] can't find jobs, so they tryna find [folk] to rob. Tryna find bigger guns so they can finish the job ... [Beef is] when a soldier ends his life with his own gun, [then] tryin' to figure out what to tell his son ... Beef is oil prices and geopolitics ... Beef is Iraq, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip ... Beef is real life, happening every day. (MF Doom, Mos Def, 2006)
Highlighting issues that contribute to a state of negative peace even in the so-called developed world, this kind of social commentary is widespread and is a reminder that simply compelling states or previously marginalised peoples to join the ‘free’ world and providing them the tools thought to be needed to do so is not enough to support the achievement of peace. "

/wank.
In any event. Will be back in the swing of posting regularly soon!

Okay so it is way late but today has been an excellent day re: getting places with journalism. Absolutely loving that Online and Advanced Broadcast are able to be based on stories from the same lead but, obviously, made appropriate to each with creation/pursuit of new angles to do that.
Had a very positive 'pitch' with my lecturer (Caroline Fisher) today (sheepishly I don't want to admit previous grumpiness/indignance at a recent reprimand) after which I was able, despite being in a post-three-back-to-back-classes slump at 2pm, to get myself to NLA to take advantage of prime afternoon sun in their courtyard to down some San Pellegrino while making use of their wireless internet.
I was looking for information on the Canberra Institute's one-man band Peter Conway, who was a Hawke government advisor, and found it to be scarce so decided to give Shane Rattenbury a call; I interviewed him last year and thought maybe he'd like to have another chat. He was a lovely guy and really gave me some time, on and off record, so I feel he's a real genuine, humble sort of guy which made my first interview with an Ediroll and a politician much easier.
Turns out however education isn't his area of policy - how could I forget? so I was directed to Meredith Hunter's office and am now waiting to hear back from her. Then I thought I'd see if Andrew Barr had anything to say. His media adviser returned answers attributable to Mr  Barr by the end of the day, and has my number to confirm a quick meeting with the MP at some stage next week. Also, my wonderful friend Maddie gave me the number for an final-year education student at UC with lots of relevant experience and studies in the area under his belt so I've lined up an interview with him next week too.
So it has been a day of chasing leads and getting places I didn't think I would so feeling rather good about the whole thing now.

To put the proverbial icing on what was a very journalism-flavoured day, this evening at work I had the pleasure of looking after Virginia Haussegger and her partner for dinner! Affter the bill had been paid, I let some sycophant out. I told her I was a student of journalism and that I thought she was wonderful and she was so lovely, she knows Caroline and Matthew (Ricketson, fave lecturer/dude) and had great things to say about them and the course at UC and talked about the changing media landscape. She also said that that'd made her night - I think it was actually the other way around though!

So really, today was one of those, "I could totally be a journo when I grow up" days.

More to Media Watch

Thanks thisisapastiche (don't mind my blog-illiteracy when it comes to fancy tagging of other bloggers..) for that link. Thought I'd share to start with; who'd have thought 10 minutes of ragging on journos would be a week-in, week-out gig?

My next point - and I wanted to get it out there asap - is about the new national curriculum proposal. I'm going to have a little vent now because I'm chasing leads (hey International Studies readings, you're waiting ANOTHER day) in a hurry, first story of the semester is due on Thursday and I'm hoping I can use this one (for Online News) as the foundation for my next one, a TV news package due in two weeks (for ABJ).

So, on the subject of the National Curriculum proposal, its history outline in particular, Christopher Pyne (admittedly a hitherto unknown name to me) has said, 'the early signs were the “black armband” view was back.
“How can Australians know where we are heading in the future if we don't have a balanced view of our past,” Mr Pyne asked. ' (From this article)

*five minute blog-writing interval as I lurk Lily Allen's twitpic account after teeth/face washing*

So, in my attempts as lead-chasing, crack investigative Lois Lane I came across The Shape of the National Curriculum. There I found this doozy:
"The ... draft of the National Declaration declares commitments ‘to supporting all young Australians to become successful learners, confident individuals and active and informed citizens’ (Box 2) and to promoting equity in education."
According the draft,
"Active and informed citizens…
• have the capacity and inclination to act with moral and ethical integrity
• have an understanding of Australia’s system of government and civic life and
appreciate its diversity of culture and history, including the special place of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures
• are able to relate and communicate across cultures, especially in relation to
cultures and countries of the Asia-Pacific
• have a desire and capacity to work for the common good, including
stewardship of the natural environment
• are responsible global and local citizens"

According to Pyne, this is a 'black armband approach.'
Julia Gillard defended the curriculum draft, saying it is 'neither black armband or white blindfold' as she and Kevin Rudd got cosy with kids in a classroom today (undoubtedly for the ABC TV news crew also in attendance). In spite of their very peachy-keen PR smiles and forced banter with children that made me slightly cringe, I am definitely in favour of curricula that seeks to shape children's knowledge so roundly.

This may be because, as UoM's Stuart Macintyre said earlier today, "[Our best estimate is] probably only half the children in Australian schools are studying history in any systematic way." (see Simon Santow's article for more from Pr Macintyre)

Case in point is my own education. The first four years of my primary schooling were spent at Collombatti Public School and if you make it to the website, you'll see that it's 10 years out of date. What's more is the school actually closed in 2001. This isn't a trip down NotQuiteLois' memory lane though; case in point being that I cannot recall any history subjects done in my time there. The next school I attended was a Catholic primary school in Kempsey and the general gist of history seemed to be the Roman Catholic view of the time when BC was becoming AD - or when Joseph received his coat, Mary Magdalene was turning tricks and Jesus H. Christ didn't quite become the carpenter his parents had thought he would.
Australia's colonial history was offered in the form of caricature prisoners in striped garb, cute fellows who stole little more than bread to feed their poor families and spent months on a boat with rats to arrive in the 'lucky country.' What small snatches I learned about our indigenous past came from playmates who attended public schools across Kempsey. When I arrived in the ACT, the idea of SOSE (Studie of Society and Environment) seemed to be similar to HSIE (Human Society and its Environment) though I had done neither in any real capacity. I touched on Mesopotamia in year 8 at an ACT government school and came second in history in year 9 (while on a 10 month stint back in Kempsey), but the content was sporadic and anyway, the achievement of being second best in the year surpassed retention of any content. In college here in the ACT, I elected to do all ancient history subjects, from the birth of Civilisation to Rome, receiving a minor in history for my studies. 

There you have a nice cross section of NSW/ACT schools. I have always felt the knowledge of Australian and world history I gained in any classroom to be lacking. That which I know outside of what I have outlined  I pursued outside of school, and upon reflection I feel rather that millions of Australians would benefit greatly from a broad focused, national history curriculum.

Blindfold or armband? How about give the kids the information and let them decide. Youngsters appear to have a great sense of right/wrong or fair/not until that code is demoralised somehow, and just maybe the examination of folly and triumph across time, culture, land and sea will actually enforce this moral code.

So while Pyne is whining about the Magna Carta and the Westminster system being overlooked, and only 10 references to Britain amid 66 references to Asia, maybe our kids will grow up with a relevant geopolitical awareness and regional understanding (heck, maybe even compassion!) while old fuddy duddies like Mr Pyne linger in a colonial past clinging to the Motherland and imperialism, more than comfortable with white blindfolds that will obscure armbands of any colour.