"Would you like to buy some drugs?" Teachers and their second jobs...

I loved the movie Mean Girls. In my opinion it was the best teen flick since Clueless, but feel free to challenge me on that. We live in a world where John Hughes' most recent projects were Beethoven's 5th and Maid In Manhattan, John Cusack has to play the "quirky" love interest in Diane Lane vehicles about internet dating to make a buck, and Jon Cryer is relegated to the small-screen in costumes sourced from Sears instead of the fedoras and brothel-creepers he so richly deserves. The golden age of teen cinema is dead, so when movies like Mean Girls come along (except for the ending, which I freely admit was really half-arsed) I get a warm glow in my heart. Like maybe the world isn't such a terrible place, after all?

ANYWAY.

What I don't want to experience are Mean Girlseque moments in my own life. Today I had one such moment. (Funnily enough, it happened about an hour after I described a pair of earrings as "fetch".) I ran into one of my university lecturers at her other job at a bookstore. It just about broke my heart, because I love her (she's one of those young and enthusiastic lecturers) and the course she's in charge of is one of my favourites because I can write essays about Kylie Minogue and get away with it. She has a PhD, is the course co-ordinator and runs half the tutes herself; shouldn't she be getting paid enough to live off academia?! Call me naïve, if you will, but if I was running the show people would be encouraged to do tertiary study, and encouraged to take up what is perhaps the noblest of all pursuits; shaping the minds of the future!

As Janis Ian said;
"That is grim."

The above is a still from the movie where Cady (Lindsay) runs into her teacher Ms. Norbury (Tina) on her way to her second job. It was about as awkward for me as it was for them! OK, so my lecturer wasn't bartending in a kitschy jacket covered in "flair", but it still depressed the hell out of me. The encounter only served to further cement my centainty that I won't be pursuing a post-grad career. Has this happened to anyone else?

Deck Dog-ette

More from the skating life and times of our hero; one bitch-ass Z Girl who'll fuck you up as soon as look at you.

20th of April:
10am - feel bad about not ever doing any exercise.
10:02 - decide to fix this by skating to uni.
10:05 - put on uplifting/inspiring music to get in the mood for action, incl. Cocteau Twins and Martika.
10:07 - try to sing along to Cocteau Twins. Fail miserably.
10:10 - start getting dressed.
11:00 - finish getting dressed. (Yeah, I'm a vain motherfucker. So sue me.)
11:10 - find old wristguards from my radi-cool 'blading dayz, so as to prevent fracture number three to my left arm.
11:15 - run out the door feeling excited and motivated about my skate.
11:16 - realise that in my excitement I've left the board inside, so go back and retrieve it.
11:17 - realise I'm not sure which foot is meant to push and which is meant to stay on the deck.
11:18 - realise I don't know how to steer.
11:19 - realise people might witness my train wreck-like attempt.
11:20 - almost "skate" through some dog shit.
11:21 - decide the whole venture is a waste of time and that I need to practice somewhere that's less densely populated and has footpaths that aren't so cracked and narrow.
11:25 - get on the tram.

So, then I carried the board around for the entire day, which wasn't a problem till later that evening I ended up at Cherry and had no idea what to do with the stupid thing. I ended up just sticking it in a corner, and would you believe it, no one stole it! While I was there I did what no other blogger has ever done... I met ns! Aren't you all jealous? I found out all his secrets and they will soon become part of a new series of posts entitled: 'The secrets of n/s'... Just kidding. (Or am I? MWAHAHA!)

In other news, I was perusing strangers' blog profiles, and some of them are positively hoot-filled. Or at least, I think they are.

One girl listed her interests as: Jesus, God, music, singing, dancing, acting, making faces, boys, rocking out, driving around, rain, magazines, books, animals, giggling, movies, life.
(N.B.: I'm not making fun of her for being religious. It's most of the other "interests" I find utterly fatuous.)

Another listed: Anything outdoors, water sports, piano, dancing, books, wine, beer, boys, animals, plants, the human condition.
It disturbs me how many grown women refer to men as "boys". But what I mainly love about this one is that her interests include both water sports AND the human condition. Props to that.

Blog Town and Z Girl... The diary of a first-time skater; age 20

Reasons I shouldn't learn to skate:
-I'm almost 6 feet tall, and gangly as all fuck
-I have no co-ordination
-It takes me ages to acquire skills (refer to when I attempted to learn to ski, or when I tried to teach myself the dance at the end of 'Footloose' for further examples of this)
-I hate making a jack-arse out of myself, except for the purposes of this blog
-Skating is pretty lame
-People will laugh at me
-My board sucks (it was $20; I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought it!)
-I've already broken my left wrist twice; I probably shouldn't tempt fate
-I'm almost 21 and ought to know better by now

Reasons I should learn to skate:
-Ummmm... ?

The diary so far...

Friday 24th of March: Bought my first ever deck at the Toy Kingdom 50% off sale. An ominous beginning, don't you think?

Saturday 1st of April: Got on my board and went up and down the street for a bit. Heard my neighbours coming out of their house so I ran away in fear, lest they catch me in the act.

Sunday 2nd of April: Got my dad to take pictures of me on my board for this post. No actual skating was done in the making of these shots. Nevertheless, I still managed to fall off.

Tuesday 4th of April: Tonight I said to Mum that I was going to skate to the video store to return 'Total Recall' and 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (the latter isn't as bad as you'd expect. The trick is to forget the novel exists). She replied; "You're going to skate down Sydney Rd at 9pm?! Are you mad?! You'll end up dead in a gutter somewhere!" ad infinitum. OK, so it wasn't the best idea, but actually I was going to stick to the back streets, (and maybe pick up some crack on the way to complete the picture). I just hate the idea of practicing in broad daylight. Anyway, in the end I walked, and instead of getting crack, I got some ice-cream. All that and back in time for 'The O.C.'. What a night of madcap high jinks it was to be sure.

So far, so lame. More as it happens.

My board:

Hopefully the spirit of Turtle Power will guide me. Meanwhile, it says "Cowabunga" on the other side, which is pretty cool.

This post is rated PG for a mild sense of cynicism...

The other day I convinced my friends Seb and Svet that we should watch David Cronenberg's movie 'Crash'. (When I asked Svet if we could get it, she said “Isn’t that the gross movie where people have sex with other people’s car crash wounds??” I replied in the affirmative. She said “OK, get it.”) Disappointingly enough, no one actually did have sex with anyone else’s wounds. However, they did have sex in smashed up cars, masturbate while watching car crashes, have sex with fatally wounded car crash victims, etc. etc. etc. All in all, it made for a good afternoon’s viewin'. Plus, you got to see a whole lotta James Spader, and that can’t be a bad thing. Anyway, despite how awesome that film might sound, the most memorable part of the whole viewing experience was in fact the previews on the VHS cassette (yes, even more memorable than watching James Spader get it on with some dude who was covered in scars). One of them was for a movie called 'Last Chance' and it came across as the ultimate 1990s' action movie, in that it possessed every single cliché of the genre. I actually made Svet rewind it and then play small segments back to me so I could write the whole trailer down for posterity. Tell me if this does not sound like the most generic film ever made: (imagine the voiceover parts in the typical gruff male American v/o voice…)

Voice over: After a nuclear holocaust, the world is a very different place. Joe Knight is a reluctant hero with an attitude. McCabe is a wisecracking soldier with a past.

(Dialogue from film:
Judge: “This court finds you guilty!”
McCabe (wisecrackingly): “Is this going to go on my permanent record?”)

V/O: Together they must fight a warlord to save the human race from extinction. Only one scientist holds the key to mankind’s survival.

(Dialogue:
Scientist: “Shortly before the war my father created a serum.”
McCabe: “You mean if someone ingests this serum they’re able to have sex?”)

V/O: In a land ravaged by war, men and women must find a way to trust each other once again. And bring new life to a dying plant.

(Quick shots of McCabe and Knight hooking up with scantily clad blondes in science laboratories.)

V/O: Fate can bring a slight change in plans.

(Quick shots of cars exploding in the desert, people shooting each other, men in tanks, scantily clad blondes with large rifles, etc.)

V/O: Now an ordinary man must take a chance to become a hero. This is humanity’s ‘LAST CHANCE’.

Also, there is a character in this film known as 'the Queen of the Amazons'... For serious... It has to be seen to be believed. So go rent a VHS copy 'Crash' right now. That'll be waaaaay easier to get than a copy of 'Last Chance' itself, I imagine.

In other news, I recently had another one of my Arts' student existential crises. These crises occur when I realise how utterly pointless and removed from any kind of reality that actually matters my university studies are. The one I had the other day was brought on when I read this sentence in one of my subject readers:

"The last portion of this chapter offers a Baudrillardian reading of Milli Vanilli..."

(I swear I didn’t make that up!) That sentence sent shivers down my spine, I'm here to tell you. I mean, what if I turn into that person?? It's entirely likely, you know. For that same subject I'm presently writing content analyses of Kylie Minogue music videos. In my current state of mind I realise how disconnected that is from anything worthwhile; it's just a fun and enjoyable exercise. But what if one day I wake up and realise that my whole career is based on my groundbreaking Lacanian mirror-stage theoretical interpretations of the 'Hand On Your Heart' clip? WHAT THEN??? Basically, I think that as long as I never become an academic it'll all be OK. So, please kill me if you see me attempting any kind of post-grad work. Deal?

To end on a more pleasant note, did you know that 'Ice Age 2' is rated PG due to "a mild sense of menace"? The world is becoming a progressively odder place, I think.

Flowers For AL(gernon)

So! Guess what? I finally got real, live proper flowers from someone who likes me and knows me in real-life. That's right, he didn't just choose to give them to me because I happened to be in close proximity to his car window. Here's a picture of my first ever real, live proper flowers, (with the requisite bunny ears from Svet):

Ain't they somethin'?

What's more the box they came was easily transmuted into a fun fashion accessory/time-filler when I got sick last week and spent two days bumming around at home out of my mind with boredom. As you can see, the indigo of the box nicely off-sets my fabulous sky blue polar bear dressing gown and my pallid, sickly complexion (not to mention my spotty chin and lank hair!):

Pretty snappy, huh? Something for the 2006 racing carnival, perhaps?

Inspired! I'm sure Jimmy Choo would be proud.