All growed up

The end of semester always inspires a sense of freedom in me - the sense that I've now got all this spare time, in which to do, well, whatever I want.

Anything at all. I could read one of the hundreds of books on my bookshelf that I've always wanted to read. I could clean up my desk, or even tackle one of the massively overdue tasks on my to-do list (tax returns spring to mind*).

I could do anything. I could, say, take up another instrument, or even start another degree.

I'm in the danger zone. It's a bit like being on drugs (I suppose). A sense of possibility, of indestructability. And of course, this time it would be different. I wouldn't be up at 2am one morning in about 4 months time cursing my own stupidity and lamenting the death of my interest in what could possibly have been a fascinating subject.

When I was in Bathurst last week, my aunt mentioned to me a book she was reading, about adolescence. Unfortunately, I can remember neither title nor author. In any case, the view of adolescence taken in this book is rather more far-reaching than I've encountered before. For males, adolescence, as defined in the book, extends until about 27, and for females, about 24. One of the last things to develop during the adolescent years is the ability to plan appropriately, and to measure risk. That's a bit close to the bone, in my case, including the upper age limit for males.

So, given my newly recent adulthood, it's time I started planning a bit better, and taking into consideration some of the risks involved, before taking on a new activity. I'm old enough now to consider having to stay up until 2am in the morning - note the modal "have to" in there; it's fine when it's voluntary - to be a risk.

There is another risk in that I don't give any of the activities that I do their due attention. This semester I studied a very interesting pure maths subject. It's exactly the sort of subject that I returned to maths to study. It's a complete abstraction of the number system that we know, and I was very, very interested in it. I got 59.

Now, if I can't put in the required effort to get a credit, as a bare, bare minimum, in a subject by which I'm completely fascinated, something is pretty wrong. It's enough to make me reconsider the whole degree.

So I need to organise things a bit better (there's the planning for you), and to recognise the consequencesof doing too much (there's the risk assessment for you).

Wow. Being grown up is really boring. *sigh*

* One massively overdue task on my to-do list, though, has been recently despatched. Yes, shire heraldry has now been submitted. I might just crow about that for a while. Rah. Although, it did take a bit of poking from Blayney to make me do it, so I can't take all the credit. Still, it's not on my to-do list anymore.

An analogy abused

dr.k
	ok cool well J. is doing stuff with her friend S. too so we can co-ordinate !! and the two of you are not incompatible
me
	LOL. We can make some sort of time-sharing arrangement between us!
dr.k
	yes darling i am a condo
me
	LOL. A very pretty one, too. With a waterfront??
dr.k
	and a water feature, occassionally spacious downstairs not a bad balcony :P
me
	ROFL.

Vampiric Sleeping Habits

Well, isn't this exciting. It's 5:26AM, and I can't at all sleep, having been in bed since just after midnight. And yet, in a couple of hours, getting up will be a major mission.

I have never been able to sleep at night. My parents tell horror stories of staying up all night trying to get me to settle, and then being unable to get me up in the morning when they needed to get to work - day after day after day. And that was before I could talk. That continues to this day, many many years (nevermind exactly how many) later.

This nocturnal behaviour is not something I've leaned, it seems to be intrinsic. It could be said that it's not my fault, but that would mean that I can't do anything about it. So here's my goal: This coming week, I will lie in bed, doing absolutely nothing else (not even updating my blog) beween the hours of midnight and 7am (*). At 7am, or earlier if I wake up and it's light, I will drag my carcass into the shower.

Perhaps my body will then realise that that's all the time it's going to get to sleep, so it had better take advantage of it.

Wish me luck :/

(*) Yes, I know that's only 7 hours a night. I've tried sleeping exactly 8 hours a night, and I've had even more trouble getting to sleep (and staying asleep) than usual; as a result, I've never been so tired. Sleeping only 7 seems to work better.

Spirituality in the Pub

Last night I went to 'Spirituality in the Pub', temporarily renamed for this occasion 'Spirituality in the Club'. The speaker was Justice Michael Kirby, one of the most senior High Court judges in Australia, a homosexual in a partnership of 37 years, and a man whom I've long admired for his forthrightness and simple refusal to be anything other than he is.

His message was simple: hatred of or discrimination against any minority, although our topic concentrated primarily on homosexuals, simply for being what they are is irrational, and will eventually right itself. You can't stand in the way of rationality; it's the human condition to try to figure things out, and when things don't make sense, that's just what they do. homo sapiens - the ones who reason.

"We each have a journey to make", in terms of this rationality. Some people have made it, and some haven't. Those that haven't may never do so - but they will eventually pass on, and their children will make it.

The relevant passages from the Bible were of course mentioned: the infamous Leviticus 18:22 in particular. It was contrasted to another passage from the Bible: Matthew 27:25, "His blood be upon us and on our children", where the Jews accept responsibility for the death of God. This passage has been credited with the rise of anti-semitism in 1930s Germany, and by extrapolation, the second World War. But it's only a sentence, for God's sake, in a book over 1500 years old. It is now generally accepted amongst Christians of all denominations that anti-Semitism is unacceptable. and so it will be for us and Leviticus. Already, the majority of that book has been discarded as irrelevant. Why people hang on to that passage, I have no idea.

It was an uplifting and affirming speech, one which proposed a gentle but persistent pressure against discrimination, simply by being who he is. His partner accompanies him on many state trips and to many functions. "Her Majesty was completely underwhelmed", he said, upon being introduced to his partner. "It's boring", he said, and so it should be. Same sex partnerships should attract no more attention and no more comment than heterosexual partnerships.

I know I'm bored by heterosexual couples holding hands in the street. It's boring, humdrum, run-of-the-mill. When same-sex partnerships are viewed in the same light, we will have reached a major milestone. We have to make ourselves boring.