Today/Thursday 27th July 2006

First person I saw when I got to School this morning was Mariam. I gave her a hug, she thanked me for calling her. Apparently she went to Ali-Baba last night, where Hussein told her that he gave me her number… she asked me whether she had met Hussein’s friend. I instantly blurted out “you mean that really ugly guy?” Then covered my mouth, rather shocked and embarrassed by what I had said “oh I am so sorry, that wasn’t very nice.”
Mariam narrowed her eyes “no that wasn’t very nice, but…yes…”
I wished her good day, trundled off to textiles, instead of actually doing my class work, I drew possible designs for my formal dress. Oh this is getting dangerous, since I did the same in art.
I got completely misplaced during Tutor group time, possible because we had year meeting that I forgot all about. As I was going towards my locker, to grab my stuff for history, I saw Priyam coming out of the Gabriel centre, I galloped up to her carrying my heavy laptop, Priyam, looking terrified, got me to stop and said “no galloping hugs.” So I stopped hugged her, assured her on her UMATs, hugged her again, because she is Burgmann captain she had to run off to talk to the Year 8’s or something and told me that Jeans for Jeans day was coming soon.
In history Mrs Ellis wasn’t there (unfortunately the one day I am early, she is not there) so we got sent to the Library. Where I met up Deborah, gave her a big hug, assured her that she did well.
In Religion we have just begun our new unit “religion and the arts.” Which is leading to a lot of roundabout pointless conversations about what art is (hint: art is not a glass of water on a shelf, a stool, vomit, a blank sheet of canvas, or a urinal-even if some pretentious little shit says it is.) Mr Marman read out the passage of the Bible (he wanted to get a King James as the language is more aesthetic, but the girl who he sent to find could only locate a NIV) concerning the rape of Dinah (Zaza has a cousin called Dinah), and the subsequent fictionalised account of Dinah’s life in Anita Diamant’s book ‘the Red Tent’. He began a discussion about whether the book was “religious ideas conveyed through literature, or literature being conveyed using religious symbolism.” And then the bell rang for lunch.
Double English, was good. Though we didn’t actually achieve much, but then it takes Mrs Thompson like a week to actually say anything. I embarrassed the hell out of Elle with my ‘portrait in words’ of her. I myself thought it was quite a flattering description. The reason Elle wasn’t in uniform was because of Shakespeare festival, and she is Drama Captain. Then I went to ‘Narelle’s Hairdo duck in’ because I seriously needed to get my split ends cut, though which sister cut my hair I don’t know, the brown haired one at any rate.

fin

Yesterday/Wednesday the 26th of July 2006

still haven’t progressed much on my review of Earth. Though Sareena brought me her DVD of Water and Fire. I know they definitely work on my laptop, since I watched the first three seconds of Water during history today. They’re a both combined on the same disk, Sareena says they’re burnt.
Yesterday/Wednesday:
I found out in religion (which I had first lesson), that I was indeed correct in my assessment of why Zaza was distressed. She got called up, left the class, after a good 15 minutes she came back, and announced the good news that her father would get back from Turkey today, having been trapped in Lebanon. He must have been back by Lunch time as she wasn’t in Modern history which we have second last lesson.
Yesterday was UMAT day for Priyam, Mariam and Deborah, plus a few people who don’t really know well enough. I had sent Deborah a good luck card on Tuesday, which she must have received yesterday since she thanked me for it today. Year 12 was much reduced without its UMATees: plus a whole bunch of people were at a chemistry competition as well. I spent the Lunch time sitting with Sareena discussing Bollywood movies, which then moved onto a conversation on Sikhs (I see a handsome policeman, she sees a clown).
After school, I dropped off Sandy’s book to her then continued on walking to Manuka.
When I got to Manuka, I went directly Ali Baba, (Mariam works there and her family owns the business). And I began to lay compliments on Hussein “hello Hussein, who is so wonderful, so handsome, so clever, so strong. Can I please ask you the hugest favour?”
To which he replied that he didn’t give free food to Jews. This was one of those jokes/insults/jests that when they are used against you can’t think of anything to see at all, but you are still thinking of clever replies six weeks later. Mine is ‘but I am not Jewish, merely a Zionist.’
However as I wasn’t after free food on this particular occasion, I merely told him “ah but I am not after food, could you please give me Mariam’s mobile number, I want to wish her Happy UMAT.”
He gave me her number on the condition that I didn’t tell Mariam, her were I got it. I said that of course I wouldn’t tell, with a laugh. He gave me her number. I rang her, to find that she was surrounded by a huge number of Curries, most probably her family celebrating. I even heard her say something about ‘is this another curry mother?’ Twas a very cheerful conversation, that lasted for a few minutes, I told her I was sure that she had done very well. I am pretty sure that she could hear ‘Ali-Baba’ background noises and then put two and two together. After I hung up, I stayed a little while longer in Ali-Baba, considered buying something to eat, but decided that since I would be having dinner with Dad at McDonalds, that wouldn’t be necessary. Hussein introduced me to his extremely ugly friend Ari/Avi/Ali, not sure which name…
Hung out in the Paper Chain ordered a few books in (most of the ones that are on my wish list) I met up with Jason and Neil. Neil was as scruffy as ever (why does he never cut his hair or shave his beard? He looks like a Hobo?) Jason had found a mostly spent book voucher that I had given him ages ago, and was trying find something to buy with ten dollars. I got stuck into Voltaire’s Candide, which was a surprisingly light read.
Jujitsu wasn’t so fantastic: Denise wasn’t there, but Sascha was and he hasn’t trained in ages so he needed all this help just remembering all the basic moves.

All I know

I know that there is such thing as objectivity, truth, there is a standard that we can aim for, though it may not be obtainable, I do know that values and morals are not relative, they can be known objectively by all humans. Morality is not relative, because if morality was relative, then it would mean that anything were permissible or possible. It would also mean that some humans were less capable of morality than other. This would be to lower the standard of human morality. A man who sets his daughter on fire as a result of his cultural backgrounds, is just as capable of morality as a man from a different culture who does not. All humans are created in the image of God and are thus endowed with the ability to discern right from wrong. To say that humans are helplessly shaped by their circumstances, is to say that humans have no true responsibility. To deny people their responsibilities is to deny people respect. To deny respect is to deny freedom.
We do not give freedom to children because they are not responsible. When they reach a certain age, we decide that they have obtained sufficient responsibility to be given freedom and respect. To treat adults as children by denying them responsibility is to deny them respect and freedom.
To say ‘his culture forced him to do it, be merciful’ is to say ‘poor little baby, he couldn’t help his poor (insert minority here) and thus should not be punished’ is to deny him, not only respect but his freedom also.

first day back at school

25th of July 2006.
First day back at School today after my luxurious winter holidays: three weeks were I achieved very little, though I planned to do so much.
This is my last semester of School, in less than six months I will be free.
Having spent most of the holidays sleeping in till midday, and staying up to 1 am. It was an absolutely huge shock to the system to get up at ten past 6. usually during School term I get up at 6, but I decided to give myself a little lee-way since it was my first day back.
I still woke up feeling awful.
The bus trip was as miserable as usual: Tantrums, overcrowding and general noise. According to Amy, who goes to a Public College, yesterday was really quite-so few of the other Schools had started that the bus had all of three people on board.

I returned all the books I had been reading over the holidays except ‘understanding the times’, even ‘Out of Afghanistan’ despite the fact that I haven’t finished it, I might renew it sometime this week. English was okay, I think Mrs Edwards was better, though this new teacher is okay, I have forgotten her name though, she has one of those regional English accents which makes her voice quite grating. But at least I am in Creative Literature, not like Deborah who got shoved in Indigenous Literature!
The most interesting thing that happened all lesson was that Zaza seemed to be on the verge of tears: I guess the whole Lebanon thing must be worrying her.
We were set a few exercises: given a selection of sentences and told to build upon them (all I know, I am writing, He/she Remembers) I chose All I know.
I overheard Bori, Sareena and Kobi discussing formal dresses: which makes me feel awful since I still have very little idea of what I want. And as a textiles student, pride would not permit me to get a run-of-the-mill bought dress; I have to wear something fantastic. And I know I am going to have to make it.
After a fairly inadequate English lesson, I had a free (most of my friends do maths). I employed this to send a very long tedious email to Sareena: during English we had briefly mentioned ‘Earth’ Deepa Mehta’s film about partition. Sareena owns the whole series (Fire, Earth and Water). I hope that if I discuss the movie with someone in great detail, I might be able to successfully complete the half-baked review of it I have written. I sent her what I have written so far. When she replies to my email, I might post it on here. But I want my review to say more than ‘it’s a great movie’, though I don’t deny it’s fantastic. According to Sareena ‘Earth’ is actually aimed at a western audience. Which probably explains why it’s so much more watchable than any other Bollywood movie that I have ever encountered.
During Recess, I was surprised to see that Priyam was at School, I came up to her and asked “why aren’t you studying for your UMATs, aren’t they tomorrow?”
To which Priyam replied “Thanks for rubbing it in A----.” We all thought this was very funny, one of the chief topics of conversation was moving out of home, Bori and I are particularly keen. Jasmine is too, but says she’s broke, I am out of home as soon I have the money I swear. As I was eating my sausage roll, I joked to Bori, that I would move into her house, Bori’s a strict vegetarian and we don’t usually get along on political grounds. Priyam and Sareena both seem to want to move out of home, but feel they can’t, this surprised me as they both seemed keen to live at home for as long as possible. I remember some stage last year Sareena and Mariam discussed the possibility of sharing a flat together in Brisbane (and that’s not a bad religious joke??). in this particular conversation Sareena mentioned that even if she went to Brisbane, her mother would still follow her there to do her laundry and cooking. Priyam said that her parents would move to Sydney if she went to Uni there. This caused Bori to joke:
“‘Mum, I am moving to Sydney.’ ‘but Priyam we like it here.’”
Mental note to self: find an Indian flatmate, disguise own laundry as aforementioned Indian Flatmates, and thus keep up supply of clean laundry.
The two went onto discuss how there mother’s both went into their rooms and went through their stuff. And I thought my mother was unbearably intrusive.


Textiles I arrived late. Mrs B was giving us the rundown on the enormous amount of homework she will be giving us in the following semester. First we have to research a Fashion designer, then we have to design atleast 10 items vaguely inspired by them. Of course I am choosing William Morris, which will give me a lot of freedom. I also went through the enormous number of Textiles books on Fashion designer, this further conflicted me onto what to wear to my year 12 formal: there are just too many ideas.

On my way to Assembly I bumped into Mariam, I asked her why she wasn’t studying for her UMAT’s either. She yelled out “I have prepared enough and I have a life unlike some people.” Who was she implying? Deborah or Niv? I laughed and sat through a boring assembly.
Miss Just was as dour as usual, I swear she must have a very dry sense of humour though: when some girls laughed during her speech, she said, “To the girls in the front, do you think I am funny? Because I don’t think I am very funny.”
Art was a double lesson, it was okay, we basically talked about Formal Dresses.
The formal isn’t till November 29th…
Gah.
Horrible bus drive home.
Dad found his truck, we thought it had been stolen, but actually he had just left it outside Transboarder on Rossi St.
I am desperately looking for the card I bought in the Adelaide Art Gallery. I was going to send it to Colleen to thank her for her giving me two of her books. I wonder where it could be?
Turah

end of school holidays

Ladies and gentleman. It's sad, it's depressing but school holidays are sadly over. Today was my last beautiful day of freedom, i have finished reading the book i borrowed from Sandy. I got Ceasar home today, i am very worried about his arthritis. mostly we slept. I have achieved very little these holidays, i have not progressed very much on either of my fanfictions, i have not read all the books i had wanted to read. i have painted very little, i have embroidered very little and i have knitted very little.
i must do more in my next holidays.

soo

my blog is up. though K-the odd can't read it.
political terms for the uninformed and the international.
Uglies: far right, moral issues, often roman catholic... a certain element of the liberal party. sometimes i am an ugly (though i am a WASP) , sometiems just a plain boring conservative. my parents are not uglies. Mum calls them religious extremists.
Moderates: my parents, most people in the lLberal party are, the Liberal party is mostly composed of old ladies.
Wets: stupid people. Often Young Liberals, they support conservative economics, but leftwing morality. for example, abortions for all, homosexual marraige, and the republic. in other words: Yeuch!! they are often homosexual men.
pinkos, greenies and commies. various names for lefties. pinkos and commies is applied to Labor people. greenies to the greens.
tata-that's all folks

Liberal Party meeting in homebush

Dear world,
Today is the 22nd of July 2006.
If you didn’t already know that then you probably have your head in the clouds, that or your reading this tomorrow.
What did I do today, this day of my first blog entry?
Well I woke up rather too early for the holidays (6:31 am) … I have often assumed that people in cities don’t have to get up early to go anywhere like people in the country. But in Sydney (see below for talk of corrupt state Labor party), congestion is so thick that it takes an absolute age to get anywhere.
I was staying in Pyrmont, which is where my mother’s apartment is located. Dad and I drove up last night, I was quite tired, but couldn’t sleep at all, I suppose because I had just had my B12 injection-but more about my fascinating deficiency some other time) which meant that I felt shockingly tired today. So anyway I reckon we left the house at 7:30 am, but I think we arrived at the Novotel at around 8:30 am. ( I love boring people with time and date information) this is the Novotel in Homebush bay mind you (of Olympic fame for any international readers out there) I wonder why the Liberal Party chose it for the conference-the place was incredibly expensive-60$ for an incredibly ordinary breakfast (my parents had a continental and I had a buffet) the food was in fact quite awful! The conference started at 9:30. I had been expecting to get incredibly bored, and had even been conspiring to spend the day in Sydney with my sister eating instead. But Dad was furious about that idea (he had already paid for my lunch) and put a stop to that.
This having been canned, I brought along, possibly the worlds most boring book “Out of Afghanistan” by Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison. On the cover it claims to be the inside story of the Soviet Withdrawal. When I borrowed it from the School library I was expecting a ripping read of the day-to-day adventures of the Afghan Mujahideen. What I got was a very dry account of how skilful diplomacy over a long period of time, caused an eventual withdrawal, which is probably true, but not as interesting as the Mujahideen. I started reading it a week ago and still haven’t finished it.
Back to the topic.
Dad suggested (rather strongly) that it would be a poor reflection on Mum if I read inside the conference centre.
So I ended up listening.
The conference started with us singing the National Anthem, Mum has the most beautiful singing voice.
It was actually very interesting. All the speakers spoke well though I have forgotten some of their names ( I remember Jeaschke though-he had a particularly weak voice). They were funny.
One of the major topics for conversation was the Four Corners program that aired on Monday night. The little old ladies who make up the Liberal Party membership are extremely pissed off.
Another one was the CORRUPTION of the Labor Government. God how we all hate Morris Iemma. His electorate is Lakemba, so the police won’t arrest all the Lebs and Mussos rioting, because he relies on their votes in Preselection and on Polling Day! The political correctness that has infested the police force and the judiciary is starting to get dangerous. Just ask Tegan Wagner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashfield_gang_rapes

Obviously the biggest problem with the state Labor Government is the rail service. It never comes on time, comes infrequently and sometimes comes not at all.
Then the Prime Minister arrived. He was announced, we all stood up, clapped and cheered, and where then told that he had just been caught on the phone. We all laughed sat down.
Then the MC gave us the number of a woman called Jackie, she’s a state Liberal Member, who is currently on the new show ‘Dancing on Ice’ or something like that, so that we can all vote for her by SMS!!! I forgot to get her number. We all cheered some more.
Then the Prime Minister finally arrived, we cheered and clapped for ages!! I don’t remember him being so popular when I was a child! I guess he grows on people. What a great PM though! His speech was fantastic: he started off talking about the crisis in Lebanon. he said that we were doing all we could to get our citizens out of Lebanon, and that Alexander Downer would have good news to announce later today. (What can we do? our ships are way overhear, and Lebanon is way over there! We’re also in competition with Canada, a much closer country) he went onto to talk about the Middle East in general. He said that there were two things that were absolutely necessary for Peace in the Middle East. One: the acknowledgement of the Right of the State of Israel to exist!! We all cheered at that statement (perhaps I cheered a little too hard, as my parents gestured that I should stop) then the necessity of a Palestinian state. At which there was slightly less cheering I was pleased to note! Everyone cheered when he condemned the terrorist PIGS Hizbollah. Economy, which is going great thanks to his reforms (he just said reforms though) and condemned Kim Beazley for being enslaved by the unions. And went over the incredible corruption of the State Labor Government (Heck- the Labor party in general!) particularly the terrible quality of public transport in N.S.W. it was a great speech-Howard was in his best form. A Lebanese Maronite man asked a bit of a Dorothy Dix about what, the government was doing to get Australian Citizens out of Lebanon. Howard reiterated what he had said before, though perhaps more detailed. And the old Maronite called the Prime Minister, by his old nick name ‘Honest John’ every clapped and cheered when the man said this, the Prime Minister looked especially pleased. A few more questions by a few other people. Especially about the horrible quality of public transport in New South Wales.
There was cheering throughout the PM’s speech.
Then the Prime Minister left. We watched a slideshow by a woman called Gladys (she was an Armenian and her family name was unspellable and unpronounceable) she’s the state Liberal Member for a seat. She presented a slideshow on how to conduct a political campaign. It sounded boring, but the information it contained will be vital for my mother in the future.
By this time it was almost 12:30, because my mother is going to China yet again, she and Dad had to get her bags from the car park, and she took a cab to the airport. The Prime Minister left just after Mum did. While my parents were getting Mum’s bags, I stayed up in the Conference room, watching slideshows, with everyone else:
a Liberal guy trying to get into the Labor seat of Miranda (a man whose name I have forgotten) presented a slideshow on how to win a seat off a sitting Labor member, especially a reasonably competent one like his was. He hasn’t succeeded yet though. For the Liberal Party to get into government on a state level we need to win at least 16 seats-a huge number!! With a Labor Party this corrupt, I reckon it will take at least two rounds, but it could take longer if we have any more scandals. Whilst my parents were away I chatted with Roger Hood, he is in one of the Branches in Epping (obviously not Cherrybrook) and is quite important for Mum’s career.
Then we had lunch in a very ordinary restaurant downstairs… tasteless lasagne, okay chicken, and salads that were just plain awful. The restaurant had been rented out by the Liberal party and was incredibly crowded and had the atmosphere of a School cafeteria, the membership of the Liberal Party being so elderly, this could’ve been quite a novel experience for many people. We sat with a man of eighty, and an overweight woman who hated the Uglies (some sort preselection battle involving herself), her family name was Steiner I think. She said she would support Mum to the hilt.
After Lunch we listened To Peter Debnam give a speech. I was incredibly surprised-everyone (well actually the Media) says that Debnam is a Wuss. He gave a fantastic speech: not only did he talk about the dreadful quality of public transport, and the Political Correctness infesting the Police force, he also talked about the Labor Parties corruption regarding the environment, and ethanol fuels etc. his car’s engine is powered by 85% ethanol fuel, he says that it’s saving him money in the long run-petrol being so expensive, and canola being so cheap!
His speech was not only informative, but well delivered, and funny too!! The questions he got were so good that he kept on making Dorothy Dix jokes.
After Debnam finished speaking I went into the foyer, wrote a postcard to W.S… (I wonder if he even reads them-probably not) sent it quite from a post box not far from Homebush Train station (I had quite a lot of difficulty explaining to the Hotel Staff what I was looking for-how hard can it be to find a bloody post box???) the postcard actually showed a picture of the train station from which I sent it! How fun. I love postcards. I wish more people would send them to me.
When I came back to the conference room, the meeting was petering out into boring debates, so Dad and I decided to go.
I told Dad I how surprised I had been by how interesting the meeting had been, he said that of course ‘nothing could be more interesting than how a country is run’. On the way home he advised me to start keeping a journal, I have decided to run a blog instead
We arrived home at around 7:45 pm and I begun writing this almost immediately.
See you later.