So, a change in circumstances outside my control mean that in addition to all but running the family household, I will also be the main financial contributer for the next year at least. There was no demand, the parental units sat the family down for a meeting, admitted that they needed help and I agreed to it and offered a little bit more than they asked for.
Why? Because we’re family, and despite how much I loathe my father for creating this mess, my family also consists of my mother and siblings, and there is no way I’d leave them do drown in his shit.
Because of the financial burden this will cause on me and the setback to my plans to save for a house deposit, I’ve decided to look for a second job, one for the evenings and/or weekends, one that will help me make sure that I can continue my savings plans (albeit slowly) as well as looking after my family.
So, yesterday I sent an email to ‘the girls’, being as brief about the situation as possible to avoid pity and those ‘poor you’ emails because frankly I’ve no interested in starting a pity party - it’s a waste of time and does nobody any good. I’m 25 years of age and I have been through a FUCKLOAD of hardship in my quarter-century, I’m pretty switched on enough to understand what consequences my decision holds for me. The ONLY reason that I emailed the girls is to ask them to keep an eye/ear out for any evening/weekend jobs that I could apply for - it was the only thing that I asked for and the only thing that I wanted.
THE LAST THING IN THE WORLD that I wanted or need is a person who THINKS that she understands my situation to grandly distribute advice, gift-wrapping it as “hard, but something [I] need to hear”, in the smarmy, condescending manner that I loathe.
To paraphrase her words - it’s there shit, I’m under no obligation to help, let them sort it out as helping them would be ‘enabling’ them.
Two words - FUCK. YOU.
Who the FUCK is she to so grandly wave her hands and say “You should be doing X,Y,Z, it’s their mess so let them clean it up”
Her behaviour towards me over the past six months or so has left a LOT to be desired - I used to cook quite a bit for my friends and while I enjoy it, I’ve also NEVER had any (all but one - V, the woman whom I have more in common with than anyone else in the world) offer to prepare a nice little dinner for me. Once when, Ms. Condescending and another were over for dinner before we went out on the town for drinks (I offered because I’d been on a cooking spree - but frankly I was under no obligation to do so, I just thought it would be nice to have the company, the food would just have easily been frozen), I joked that they’d never cooked for me and it’d be nice to have the favour returned once.
My response? A funny look and exclamations that they don’t cook as well as I do. Umm, excuse me - that is fucking LAME. Did I say I expect a full 3-course spread? NO. I would be PERFECTLY happy with a bowl of vegetable soup and a roll of crusty bread - it’s about the GESTURE, not the fucking food.
The next offense is one I took far more personally - Ms C mentioned to me early in the year that she would be looking to move out later this year. Bearing this in mind and finally feeling like I wanted to try living just for myself instead of being The Dependable One in the family, I mentioned a few weeks later that I was contemplating moving out in passing conversation. Her ears perked up and she repeated that she was looking to move out and for new housemates, and this passed onto a few weeks of light discussion on the topic, possibilities and what our household would be like. On the basis of these discussions, I start to form a game plan for the year in terms of savings and expenditure for moving out.
A month or two passes without the topic coming up again, then when at V’s home for a gladiator-watching session, I ask her if she’s still keen on the idea and she tells me in a VERY blunt manner that she’s not, because she’s wanting to move in with an old housemate and HE’S not keen on having a third person. End of discussion.
Yes, she is well within her right to chose whomever she wants to move in with and it’s understandable that she’d want to move in with him rather than me - they’ve lived together before and know that have working dynamics, and he’s had experience living out of home. However (and this is what pisses me off to no end), SHE DIDN’T TELL ME. If she had even HALF the respect for me that she claims, when her mind was made up that she would move in with P and that I would no longer be welcome, the very fucking least she could do is to call me and inform me of the choice and explain why I’ve been so unceremoniously ‘dropped’.
And then there was the informal invite to her brother’s wedding to be her dancing partner, but that didn’t cheese me off at all because I guessed it to be an empty invite made whilst happy and drunk.
However this behaviour is the final straw. When I wrote back to her and said she shouldn’t try and give advice on a situation she doesn’t understand, her fucking response was “Allright Ellie, I’ve said my bit; whatever you choose to do it up to you.”
SWEET HOLY FUCK! THAT WAS MY POINT EXACTLY! I UNDERSTAND AND HAVE ACCEPTED MY SITUATION, NOBODY IS PULLING THE FUCKING WOOL OVER MY EYES!!!!!
I am a person who rarely asks for help unless it is desperately needed - and even then, I will be very specific about the help that is requested and understand if it can’t be given. One thing I do NOT want when asking for help is for some person to turn around and spout ‘wise’ words in a manner with which a fucking schoolteacher would advise a student.
I am NOT one of your fucking students. I am meant to be your FRIEND.
We’ll see. I managed to hold it together enough to write a half a detailed response explaining myself, before getting so angry again at the realization that I shouldn’t HAVE TO EXPLAIN MYSELF TO HER, so we’ll see what she says in reply. And if she continues to sit on her “holier than thou” platform and think that she was in the right for informing me of what I should be doing (i.e. leaving my family to collapse financially and living it up on my own) then I want nothing to do with her.
This writer manages to convey my thoughts on commercial radio exactly. Waste of time, space, money, and reduces your IQ by a point every minute that you listen to it.
If you want theft protection for your electronic goods, consider some GadgetTrack software. Quite affordable, you can secure your ipod, mobile phone, laptop, digital camera, USB drive and any other supported electronic device.
The story of the clumsiest dog in Britain (and possibly the world!)
Amazing encounter between a wild polar bear and a husky, proof that the instinct to play is natural.
Telstra have opened their T[life] store in Melbourne (nooo, of COURSE they didn’t steal the idea from Apple! /endsarcasm) and if you feel like they’ve ripped you off, you can get a little back by going in and taking advantage of:
- Free phone calls and internet
- Free charging of your mobile phone or laptop
- Free bottled water
- Free lessons on how to use various gadgets
I can see the store being a haven for the mobile-less who need to make calls and those who are thirsty, but personally I want to take advantage of the free lessons. You see, I’ve been trying to teach my mother how to use a computer and use the internet for the past two years, with very VERY little success. I want to see those suckers give it a try.
Got an idea for a cool font? Now you can build it yourself!
I’m not exactly old, but when I have the misfortune of observing the coming generation of adults, I can’t help but feel a deep, deep sense of despair.
Whilst on a train back from the city with a mate last year, we heard two teenagers yakking loudly in front of us, talking about various topics which were fairly mundane, till one had the ignorance and audacity to ask “is communism a fruit?”
*cue crickets chirping*
I thought that it was a once off, that that was about as fucking stupid as you could get…that is, till I encountered a bunch of teens on my train ride home this afternoon:
Dumb blonde: “Hey, what’s a nazi?”
Dumb guy: “I dunno…” [looks around at other friends]
Dumb blonde: [louder] “HEY, WHAT’S A NAZI? DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT A NAZI IS?”
Dumb brunette: “I think it’s a German…the Germans used to be nazis…”
Dumb blonde: “Oooooh, so if you’re German, then you’re a nazi!” [looks around at friends] “HEY! IS ANYONE GERMAN?”
Dumb guy: [laughing] “I am!”
Dumb blonde: “Awesome! High five, you’re a nazi!”
At this point, I was gripping my metal crochet hook so hard that it was digging into my hand, and it took all my self control to contain myself from LEAPING OUT OF MY CHAIR AND SLAPPING THE STUPIDITY OUT OF HER BRAIN. However, self control won out and I tried to ignore their idiotic yellings (though it was a bit hard as they were sitting all around me), till the next gem came along…
Dumb blonde: “Asians who dye their hair blonde are stupid. They should just be Asian. [weird segue] And you’re all stupid - you['re race] was in a war, you['re race] was in a war, all you[re races] were in wars except me!”
Dumb brunette: “Really? What are you?”
Dumb blonde: “I’m half English and half Irish…I think”
*cue my wanting to stab myself in the brain to save myself from the insanity at this point*
Not so dumb brunette: “Hang on, but the English were in wars…”
Dumb blonde: “Oh, I don’t care about my English half, they’re stupid. I like my Irish half, they’re harmless, all they do is dance around in kilts all day, they’ve never been in a war”
(The kilts are for SCOTS, and two words - Sinn Fein)
Now, while you may forgive this level of ignorance in a child, THESE WERE NOT CHILDREN. No, these teenagers were talking about driving around, petrol prices being so expensive and exams - so at the VERY youngest, they would’ve been 17-18.
Dear sweet geezus. These teenagers are the FUTURE. That thought alone is enough to make me want to immigrate to the North Pole. However, I propose a solution to deal with the problem of the ignorant youth of today:
Step 1. Write a large, heavy history book detailing the most significant historical events of the past century.
Step 2. Gather all the idiots in a room.
Step 3. Beat them over the head with the aforementioned book.
I’m STILL shellshocked. Fucking hell.
There is no day on the calendar year that makes me as sad and angry as father’s day.
Long time readers have seen me vent many a time about my father, and though those posts have now been made private (for family reasons), the sentiment remains.
My father, the schizophrenic, the egomaniac, god in his eyes and ‘owner’ of us all.
On a day to day basis, I generally spend about 1-5 minutes in the same room as my father, and even less time engaged in conversation with him, something that I don’t mind at all. But I can remember being young, yearning for his approval which never came. Getting a full scholarship to an exclusive private school, getting into MacRobertson Girls High TWICE, winning creative writing/math/science awards, scoring ridiculously high on school reports (some of my teachers during my junior high years didn’t think an A+ was sufficient, so I got insane A+++ marks), none of this was ever good enough. I still remember in year 8, after bringing home a report card that was A+s from front to back bar one page, being marched back to school by him to have a ‘discussion’ with my computer science teacher about why I’d only scored a B, then cowering in the back of the car as he fumed at me all the way back home.
Never in my life has he expressed in any way that he loved me or was proud of me. That much I could’ve lived with, but then was the insanity, the physical abuse my mother endured, the mental abuse the rest of the family endured, and my mother’s insinuations that my conception was not…altogether willing, on her part.
And yet, I find myself unable to leave. If it were just him and me in this equation, I would have bolted as fast as my stumpy little legs could carry me long ago, but in some sick and twisted way, I’ve been instilled with a sense of family unity and loyalty that is part of the very core of my being. My mother, my brother and my sister are my life, and I cannot imagine living without them. Add that to the fact that my mother, who’s never been a woman of good health, finds it more and more difficult to manage the household and thus my role as surrogate mother and housekeeper comes into play.
To be honest, I’ve spent the past 25 years in this life and it just doesn’t bother me so much any more. Well, the scars still run deep beneath the surface, but I operate and live like any normal person - other than my frequent bouts of introversion and desperate desire for quiet and solitude, you’d never guess what was going on in either my head or my heart.
However, on father’s day…I find that the pain is still raw. Bombarded with images and messages by the commercial world telling me to tell my father that he’s “the world’s greatest dad” and people sharing stories about how utterly wonderful their fathers or father figures were cuts deep.
And then I see things like this:
and it makes me want to burst into tears, wondering what life would have been like if I’d had a father/father-figure who gave a damn about my existence, other than as a disappointing pedigree dog who he wanted to show off to others but was never quite proud enough to do so.
I know, compared to others I’m lucky - I have a wonderful, loving mother who I get on fabulously with, and two wonderful siblings who I love with every fibre of my being. But I still feel the hole in my heart, yearning for a father’s love all my life.
And yet, I can still remember John. After my first attempt at taking my own life, I was put into foster care with an amazing elderly couple in East St Kilda, and the two of them were two of the most loving and caring people I’d met in my life. And while they were both lovely, I found myself doing whatever I could to make John happy - from cleaning dog poop and walking their two furbabies, taking their adopted daughter T* to and from school… I was amazed that he seemed pleased with me for doing the smallest of chores that I absolutely fell in love with him (not romantically, but as the first father figure I’d ever had in my life). I wonder what life would have been like, had my father been someone more like him.
This morning’s 3AW rumour file suggests there may be quite a wait on our hands (am personally waiting on a parcel that’s meant to be delivered in the next 1-2 weeks and worried about the delivery now):
3AW (Melbourne)
Breakfast - 16/06/2008 - 07:14 AM
Darren James and Tony Leonard
Producer Ms Nicole Denton 03 9243 2121
Regular Segment: The Rumour File
Caller Postie says by Monday week Australia Post contractors will not deliver any type of parcels to any households or buildings due to the low rate of pay. Postie says after several arguments with Aust Post the contractors have withdrawn.
If this rumour is repeated in other media outlets, then Aussie Post are bound to respond within the next few days so will update this post as things move along. In the meantime, if you’re waiting on any parcel deliveries, might I suggest you contact the sellers and talk about alternative delivery measures should this rumour prove true.
My mind is too incoherent to rant at the moment, so I’ll just share some interesting links and tidbits:
1. 3AW 11/06 7:11am Rumour File:
Caller Text Terrors says she attended a seminar for employers, and the speaker spoke about Gen X and Gen Y people, the employers given the task of deciphering text messages. The speaker told the group that in NSW teachers were directed to accept all text abbreviations in all HSC exams except English.
Alas, every morning while I compile the Telstra broadcast report, another colleague of mine has to summarize the 3AW 7am rumour file as a lot of our clients are interested in potential rumours that might be floating around. Some are ridiculous, whilst others such as this one, are interesting. This, combined with the high school principal who announced this week that English was too difficult, marks a horrific day in history. COME ON, PEOPLE!!! The younger generations already see bastardizations of the English language as valid, do you really want to AID the deterioration of it??
People, repeat it with me: ‘CHATSPEAK’ IS NOT OK!
2. Google Reader does Konami code:
A rogue retro-gamer at Google has apparently programmed the famous Konami code — the mother of all cheats, the giver of life and ammunition to small, spoiled children with poor motor control— into Google Reader
For some reason, the coworker who sent this alert was horrified when I asked what Konami was. Rather than risk horrifying him anymore, I just googled. Meh, but I think the alert itself is kinda amusing - mostly the fact that someone actually bothered to do it!
3. Coming in October, Oliver Stone’s “W”:
Written by Stanley Weiser, this focuses on the life and presidency of George W. Bush and how he went from ‘being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world’. This shows Bush’s eventful life — his struggles and triumphs, how he found both his wife and his faith, and of course the critical days leading up to Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. Josh Brolin stars as George W. Bush, Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, James Cromwell as father Bush, Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld, and Ioan Gruffudd as Tony Blair. Dick Cheney will be played by Richard Dreyfuss.
With this as the Cannes teaser artwork, I think I have a rough idea of what we’re in for - and I can’t wait!
OMFG. Cannot wait to see this. I WANT I WANT I WANT! The only thing that slightly chafes my keester is that they have someone playing Tony Blair, but nobody mentioned so far to play Bush’s lapdog, our own Johnny Howard. Come on, he was almost as big a mess-maker as Bush and Blair, only fair to include the fuzzy-eyebrowed freak! But if the movie in any way tries to make the audience sympathize with these fuckwits, I will be issuing a plea for boycotting and film-burning.
4. Oral sex blamed for throat cancer rise:
The virus thrives in the outer layer of skin and is transmitted mostly by skin-to-skin contact, researchers think. Sexual transmission tends to cause infection near the site of contact; intercourse is linked with cervical cancer, while oral sex can cause cancer of the upper throat.
Alright, unprotected sex kills, protected sex still puts you at risk, and giving blow jobs puts you at risk of cancer. What’s left, dry humping?!
5. US judge embroiled in cow porn controversy:
A JUDGE has suspended a long-awaited obscenity trial in the US after he was embroiled in revelations that he had posted sexually explicit material on the internet. Judge Kozinski, 57, was reported to have posted a photograph of nude women on all fours painted to look like cows, while a video on the site showed a semi-naked man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal.
!!!!!!! I don’t know whether to laugh or be disgusted!
6. Someone wanted to be a pilot when they were a kid. Now they can at least pretend their dream came true…
I have no words. None. Well, all I can say is that I don’t envy his electricity bills.
7. Crikey’s First Dog on the Moon:
I love Crikey, but I have to admit that I love the First Dog strips more than everything else it offers. How sad!
I figure that’s enough to keep the handful of you who read this thing entertained till my mind clears itself up.
Got this through the Crikey alerts today, pissed myself laughing at my desk for over five minutes. Hoboy, wonder how they did damage control on this sucker?
Even reading it now has me in a fit of chuckles!
All my life, I struggled with my identity. I tried to become an ‘Aussie’, but when that failed (my naturally tan skin tone and stereotypically Asian almond eyes made fitting into mostly European/White suburban Sydney impossible), I tried to embrace my Korean heritage - which failed miserably when I moved back to Korea.
Majority of my life was spent in a sort of limbo, a sense of displacement, feeling a part connection to both cultures but still feeling like the outsider. Only in the past few years have I started to feel more grounded, more understanding of where I stand and who I am, and I am forever grateful to my mother who has patiently stood by me the whole time, guiding me (well, pushing when necessary) and helping me to develop my own unique link with my heritage and past in a way that made sense to me.
While celebrities have made adoption from Africa and Cambodia popular, one thing that many people may not be aware of is that many many people travel to Korea to adopt babies - growing up here, I’ve come in contact with many Korean children who have been adopted into Australian families, and I hear that the adoption rate for America is greatly higher. One thing that all the adopted folks that I’ve met have had in common is a deep thirst for knowledge of the culture that I was fortunate to still have been immersed in whilst they were removed from it as mere babies. Pleas for recipes, understanding of cultural events, social quirks - even requests to come over and try my mother’s cooking have all been put forth to me, and while I’ve always been happy to provide assistance and knowledge wherever possible, I never delved much deeper and never tried to understand just what drove this desire for knowledge.
And then, a few months ago, I got a short, quiet email from a Korean adoptee called Julia Mendelson. She told me that she really appreciated the Korean recipes and the Korean food app on Facebook, and that was it. We added each other but never again exchanged words, though we followed each other’s blogs.
Reading her blog, Julia’s JAM, was undeniably an eye-opener for me. Here was someone who wrote so eloquently about a sense of displacement that ran far deeper and cut much painfully than mine ever could, who struggled to understand her adoption, her adoptive Jewish culture, the Korean culture which she had been cut off from as a baby but still felt a strong connection to. I read about her struggles and frustrations, developing a deep admiration for her strength and honesty.
And then, despite her abstract references, I came to understand that she had developed cancer, a cancer which had genetic markers, which possibly could have been caught earlier had she had any family history to warn her of this genetic predisposition. Her only connection to her past had previously been nothing but a photograph of her young mother cradling her in her arms, and now she had this to add to her legacy.
She rarely mentioned it, and when she did it was in short sweet abstract prose…but it wasn’t until about two months ago that her readers became aware of just how serious the situation was, thanks to a post her family made on her behalf. Then radio silence.
On Saturday, a brief post was put up to announce that Julia had lost her fight. Never in my life have I felt so overwhelmed by the passing on of a stranger, someone half a world away from me yet connected by blood, like me, to the Land of the Morning Calm.
Her struggles helped me to appreciate my fortune in having my connections to my homeland, helped me to develop more of a tolerance and understanding of the separation, and made me realize that my connection to my heritage was a pure blessing.
Thank you, Julia, for everything. Thank you.
And goodbye.
What is it about the word ‘cunt’ that gets people riled up?
I’m horribly horribly foul-mouthed, everyone who knows me knows that in the course of any day, unsavoury exclamations pepper my everyday speech, it’s just a part of how I express myself. In my opinion, all the words are just as bad as the others - the English ones anyone (when I get REALLY pissed off, the Korean comes flying out of my mouth (which is strange as despite speaking Korean at home, English has been my primary language since I hit the Australian school system)).
Taking a cig break at work earlier this week with one of the girls (who’s almost as foul-mouthed as me), after a bout of mutual venting, I mused out loud that I didn’t know what the deal was with people being hung up on the word ‘cunt’. Now, K (the workmate) is hardly the world’s most staunch feminist, but she grimaced when I said it and set about declaring that she didn’t use or like the offending word.
My point is this - everyone I know has no problem with using dick/dickhead/cocksucker/wanker (as well as many more unique combinations which I can’t be bothered listing) - they all refer to male genitalia, so what’s wrong with ‘cunt’? It’s just slang for a vagina, right?
(No, I’m not a complete idiot, I know there are connotations with the use of that word in a perjorative context, but I also believe that people should collectively PULL THE STICK OUT OF THEIR ARSES AND RELAX A LITTLE).
Mind you, I also refer to my cigarettes occasionally as ‘fags’, which I know gets on the nerves of some people, but I think it’s alright - it doesn’t come from the reference to gay folks anyway, but the old definition of the word fagot/faggot: a bundle of sticks/twigs bundled together, often for kindling for a fire)
Does anyone out there still take offense at the word ‘cunt’ being used? If so, why? And if not, why not?
My eating habits are pretty good - I rarely eat anything that’s preprocessed, our fridges contain no frozen dinners, and we make almost everything from scratch. However, the one constant in the pantry is a box of shin ramyun - the Korean equivalent of McDonalds, a spicy, kimchi-flavoured instant ramen that is what we eat when we can’t be bothered cooking but want something filling with a piping hot broth.
I have this no more than once every 2-3 months at most (and almost no other junk food - we make our own pizzas, burgers and chicken for when we want something unhealthy), and it’s been even longer since my last indulgence. That is, till yesterday evening when I came home exhausted and could barely boil the water for the noodles.
Have been regretting the decision ever since - woke up in the middle of the night in absolute gut-wrenching agony and passing nothing but liquid (WAYYYY too much information, but deal with it), and have been in the same state all day.
Could it be? Is my body no longer accepting of this one indulgence? I guess I should be happy that it’s not kimchi - the day my body no longer accepts kimchi is the day my life is over!
And no, I’m not kidding! I’ve been eating kimchi since before I could walk and am thoroughly addicted to the stuff.
