Pathological · Supermarket

I've never felt so short and white in my life.

This weekend I spent filming Sudanese Appreciation Day. I've been filming pretty much solidly from Friday night, Saturday from 8:30am til midnight, and most of the day today. It's been one of the more remarkable weekends for me. Culturally, the Sudanese community are very similar to us (sense of humour is one common point; they're funny guys, and they love their food) and very different. Appreciation Day is the day set aside for the Sudanese Lost Boys to say thank you to the Australian community through doing charity work and putting on a concert. It's been hard work, but worthwhile.

Today, though I didn't HAVE to film for my project, the Lost Boys really wanted the footage so I went by myself (short white girl to the rescue!). It was really worth it, there was a forum on in which they opened the floor to the Sudanese people and they discussed issues relevant to their community. What particularly interested me was the debate on women's rights within the Sudanese community, and the role of women. Those opposing women's rights were primarily, I think, not opposing respect to women in general, but concerned about the loss of culture in women rejecting their role in the home. As one Sudanese woman pointed out, however, perhaps the men were more worried about their position in society. Most of the young men present, however, believed strongly in equality between genders and that was encouraging.

Altogether, the weekend was fairly amazing. I've not felt so welcome among a group: it seems to be the Sudanese way that they see everyone as friends until they demonstrate they are otherwise, this is an attitude that hopefully Australian culture can adopt. I learned a great deal about Sudanese culture and their way of life; and it makes the situation in Sudan even more worrying to me.

Now, to sift through 14 hours worth of footage...

This financial crisis turns out to be a bad time for me money wise. Looks like my investments have suffered substantially more than I had initially thought. I sort of suppose, though, that's what I get for speculating and playing with fake money.

The thesis is nearly over but it's proving to be, at times, problematic. Especially with the amount of other coursework given, a piece of which includes volunteering with Sudanese refugees, which is amazingly eye opening and proving very much a learning experience. As a community, they're quite remarkable; considering what they have gone through, the fact that the community still wants to say "thanks for having us!" is pretty much astounding. If I'd personally have gone through much of what they have, I'd probably have a pretty big chip on my shoulder rather than an open, appreciative attitude.

I spend pretty much every waking hour working, and if I'm not working, I spend my time contemplating my own lack of functioning brain-matter. It's like somebody has filled my head with peanut butter. Only it's worse than that, because at least if it were peanut butter I could spread it over toast and have a tasty snack. I don't know why I'm writing this either, it is a perfectly good waste of words .

School zones, school times, 40kmph, not so difficult. Annoying and of perhaps dubious effectiveness, but nevertheless the rules are pretty unambiguous, I personally obey them because I only just got my license and would really rather like to keep it, also because I figure road rules are normally there for a reason, regardless of whether I care particularly for the well-being of children, I think crashing into one might be a bad idea. If doing 40 is going to help that, okay, wherever I'm going can wait the extra 2 minutes it takes me to get there.

What I wish to rant about, however, is it's always the parents (usually mothers, to be honest) you see in usually 4WDs, little Timmy/Bobby/Jimmie/Katie in the back, speeding along at 60 or 70kmph, which is interesting because it's meant to be their offspring the rules are dedicated to protecting. I wonder about this kind of person. It also tends to be the sort of person, incidentally, who becomes rabidly accelerator-happy in shopping center car parks if there's a remote chance they might have to park more than 20 meters from the entrance.

Oh wait, because their offspring is in the back of the car, obviously they're safe, so it's okay to speed through those areas, other people's offspring never matter so much as one's own.

I just got tailgated and beeped in a school zone by a mother in a 4WD ten minutes ago/cut off in a car park yesterday by a similar beast, and now I need another coffee, a jolly good lie down and possibly some neurofen. Does it show?

There's this meme going around, if you comment I will give you a letter and you list all the stuff you like beginning with that letter. Holly gave me S.

Snakes is the obvious one. I do like my fecalphiliac pythons. My two are named Pookie and Spoinky and much of this journal is devoted to their various movements. They're not that bright, but are fascinating to watch and quite calming to play with. Pookie ate 4 mice today. Planning on breeding snakes at some point; though not my two, because they're both boys and that's weird, unnatural and unlikely to produce viable offspring.

Sisters of Mercy are my favourite sad old goth band.

Studying is probably my next favourite thing to snakes. I like to write particularly long-winded essays about pointless frippery.

Spouting pointless nonsense; gosh, really?

Star Trek Mostly DS9 and TNG though.

Snoring isn't something I like so much as something I do quite noisily and with great gusto.

That's all I can think of. Oh yes, comment if you want a letter.

I just got approved to rent a house in Blackburn. It's pretty small, but it's quite nice and on a really pleasant street. New kitchen and polished floorboards. I like new kitchens AND I like polished floorboards, so it's great.

There aren't even words for how relieved I feel.

Good things:
*Damon is moving to Melbourne in 5 weeks. See, Peter? Teh Intarwebz Boyfriend is REAL!
*My thesis appears to be under control, for a very loose definition of "control" and "under".
*CAR! My 2008 Mazda 2 Neo in "radiant ebony" (dark purply reddy black) arrived. It looks like a very fast eggplant. Photos later.

Things to be stressed about:
*Trying to find a place to live in the current rental market. It's arse, to be perfectly honest about it. Going to find another job to cover rent.
*The thesis is under control, but whether it's good enough is another matter entirely.
*It's raining and I'm supposed to drive to the airport tonight.
*One of the scaly tubes seems to have done something to his jaw that is causing him some discomfort.
*Oh, everything else. I'm good at stressing. It's one of the best bits about being pathologically neurotic.