Jobs I Would Like If All Else Fails

Cackademia is a pooey place to be at times, especially when you know you are staring down the barrel of un- or partial employment after slogging your guts out for a number of years writing a thesis on something fabulous and world changing like 'Syntactic Analysis Of "The Ants Went Marching Two By Two"; A Post-Thoraxian Approach'

So far in my thesis, I am only up to the chapter on The Ants Went Marching Six by Six, but I figure now would be a good time to explore possible Plans B, C, D or E. I think it's a good idea to go for jobs that have some connection to your interests, or suit your personality in some way...

Jobs I Would Like If All Else Fails
1. Lion Tamer (I really like cats, and this would be taking my personal interest to the Next Level)
2. Vintner (self explanatory)
3. Tea Grower in India (I love tea. I can watch Bollywood musicals on my weekends)
4. Presenter on Playschool (get to do all the fun stuff like sing songs, do craft and read stories without any actual contact with any actual children)
5. Life Coach (I like telling people what to do. Not in a bossy way, but in a "I am so sagacious, you will be changed for the better if you follow my advice" kind of way. Other benefits for this job include a comfy armchair, and lots of thoughtful nodding)
6. Gorilla-gram (it can't be that hard)
7. Temp in a law firm (see 'my personal hero' link on juicebar's blog for details, but basically I think it would be cool to leave the office hours before the lawyers everyday, and feel a sense of pity for the overworked, underwhelmed mass)
8. Wedding Planner (I am a passionate advocate of reducing the number of instances when Pachelbel's Canon and Handel's Bridal March may be heard. I think I could do a lot of good work from The Inside)

Fugs of The FugFug ManFug

I guess the title of this post is a tribute to two things. Firstly, and fairly obviously, I like the way Go Fug Yourself manage to make their post titles sound intriguing, even though they use one word over and over. And it becomes quite catchy, as you can see here. Secondly, the TV show I am currently distressed about (which is possibly less clear due to my flagrant overuse of one word) is "Girls of The Playboy Mansion".
In no particular order, the things that distress me the most about this program are:

1. Kendra's laugh
2. The infantile nature of the playmates' behaviour
3. Why someone who is so old he no longer walks, but rather shuffles, *wants* to be surrounded by three pairs of matching silicone balls.
4. They have a curfew. And it is 9pm.

So really, the combination of 2. and 4. is a huge problem for me. Do I need to go on a femmo rant, or are we in agreement that it is creepy?

A Fraction Too Much Fiction

A Fraction Too Much Fiction
What upsets me the most is that some of the characters RAN invented seem really cool, and I still want to meet them.
I could live without the so-called best friend Maddy (who is pregnant and engaged sort of against her wishes), especially as she turned a bit psycho towards the end. She never seemed all that interesting to be honest. She is engaged (in the RAN's head, obviously) to Patrick and I could do without him too. But I really wanted to meet Rupert, her brother. He got botox for a dare, and smiled for the first time in 10 years - he is an emo, so smiling usually not on the agenda, but his face was frozen that way for a few weeks. And he is friends with Jack Osbourne. I kind of wanted to meet the sister too, out of horrified awe. She is the practicing Mormon who fell in love with a dope-smoking winemaker (I found this particular little nugget so hilarious and fascinating that I figured it had to be true, because I couldn't imagine how anyone could make it up! Little did I know). I also wanted to meet Tom who likes to drink at The Four Seasons, and has a big white mo and no hair.

I'm still struggling with the fact that she went to so much effort. She made up email accounts and sent emails pretending to be 5 or 6 people, she wrote a letter from her 'friend' Hannah to NLJ, she wrote a suicide note to herself from her 'ex-boyfriend'... that last one is particularly grotesque and strange... I mean, what the fuck?

Congratulations, Inventor Of The Year

The saga of the Random American Nurse turned Compulsive Lier continues. Her name appears to be completely different from the one she told us, but how are we to know if that one is real or not?
She apparently is a nurse, or at least works at a hospital, here in Sydney. So that is a bit of a worry for the people she is dispensing medical advice to, but NLJ is contacting the relevant people.
The funny thing is (well, ok, the 57th funny thing) that she seemed to just want to make people happy, so she pretended she could give them what they wanted. All her stories were designed so she would receive reassurance that she was not such a bad person after all. (The parents blaming her for her grandmother's death, the ex-boyfriend's suicide, the best friend's jealousy over her supposed success....)BUT, I am bestowing upon her the title (that she claimed for herself): Inventor Of The Year. Sadly, this award is for inventing stories and characters, not inventing a life-saving respirator, but at least winning SOMETHING is better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick - right?

Crazy Crazy Crazy

CRAZY, CRAZY, CRAZY

er... yes, folks, that's right. She was absolutely, genuinely fake. Here is a bit of blog that I never quite got around to posting, which I hope will convey the sense of having drunk too much coffee in one day, because that is how my life has felt around this chick for some time now:

Life is just so crazy and intense at the moment. I feel like everything is happening in bold print (except for my thesis, unfortunately). It is all due to the RAN, who assures me that her life is, in fact, *not* usually like an episode of Gray's Anatomy crossed with The OC. So she is a nurse, but she is playing with life and death in really full-on ways in her personal life at the moment and I have now been caught up in the drama. She called me yesterday to ask me the number for emergency services over here. I thought it was a little strange that a hospital person wouldn't have told her, or why she would have to call if she was already in a hospital in the first place...but it turns out that she was on the street and saw a guy having an asthma attack. According to the paramedic who eventually looked after him, if I hadn't picked up the phone and given her the number, this guy would've died. Anyway, the latest development is that this guy has flowers and chocolate for me.


...which incidentally never arrived. In fact, a lot of things like that were promised but never arrived. But everything was so constantly so dramatic that I didn't really notice. I was actually craving some serenity. Now I have it. I am peeved that I wasted what could have been half a day of study listening to someone cry over what was probably non-existent mother drama.

I am interested in the fact that this post contains the phrase "I thought it was a little strange that..." because on reflection, a lot of teeny tiny things didn't add up, but individually they were not such big issues. It's funny how you will dismiss things that are inconsistent merely because you don't see a reason to question them.

Anyway, that is my crazy life for now.

Absolutely Genuine and Totally Not Fake... or is it?

At what point do you begin to question things about a person you believe to be your friend? If you like someone, you want to believe that what they are saying is real. So when, in your excitement over their achievements, you google them for news about awards and nominations and so on, you expect to find something. But if you find nothing, is that just because google is slow or because they made the whole thing up?

Absolutely Genuine and Totally Not Fake

Absolutely Genuine and Totally Not Fake

I would like to recount a recent soundbite of conversation between two Absolutely Genuine and Totally Not Fake People I Know:

AGATNFPIK#1: Oh, look at that. I had completely forgotten, but I got an award for 'Service to Music' in Year 12 at school.

AGATNFPIK#2: Really? I got an award for 'Service to Humanity'.

Well, ok let's be honest - AGATNFPIK#2 was exaggerating slightly. She has only been *nominated* for the Nobel, she hasn't actually won it yet.

...Yes, you read correctly. My friend has been nominated for the goddam Nobel!!!!

(In case you are wondering, it is the RAN)

Nothing Ever Happens On Mars

I found a grey hair today. It was really long so I have been going grey for months and months and didn't realise it. I am distressed. And old.

In other news I have been away in New Zealand for a week and feel like I should post something about the experience but the mere thought just makes me lethargic.