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.