Yes, I am still ‘harping on’ about graduation. There’s nothing special about my graduation; funnily enough almost everyone in the entire world who has a degree has also gone through a graduation ceremony except for those who had it granted in absentia or those (like Josh) who forgot to apply and thus haven’t received their certificates and will only get photos in robes if they host a graduation themed party to appease their mothers. The difference between almost everyone and me is that I am a grown-up failure. Yes, everything I do is pretty much a disaster. As my mother will be the quickest to point out (well, maybe second only to Jo), I have an inherent ability to cock things up. It started at primary school when in class music my only role was to hit the cymbal at the end of the entire piece of music. I was so ready. I was wielding the thing you hit the cymbal with up above my head, ready to hit it full force. However, my lack of hand-eye coordination meant that when it came to my big moment I missed the cymbal completely and instead of the piece ending with a dramatic GONGGGG there was a deadly silence and a very embarrassed 9 year old (me). Of course it continued to when I was an altar server. For those not accustomed to Catholic mass, transsubstantiation is when the host (eucharist) and wine are transformed into the blood and body of Jesus. The transformation occurs when a gong is hit. Because it is such an important thing, you’re not allowed a second chance. I would miss the gong every week. This means that whenever I was altar serving, people were drinking wine and eating bread rather than drinking blood and eating body. I was wondering if this coincided with my vegetarian phase which would be an explanation of sorts, but alas it didn’t.
This complete ability to fail has followed me into my adult life. Jo and I were off to Katherine Mansfield’s birthplace in the driving wind one Monday. It’s a forty-five minute walk from my house. We got there. The sign outside says ‘OPEN SEVEN DAYS. except Mondays.’ Jo was furious. I was not surprised. Last week, Fran and I went to Petone. We were going to the movies and to this lovely little Italian restaurant which I had visited before and was keen for Fran to visit. It was a howling storm, thunder, lightning, driving rain and everything. We got to the restaurant: not open for dinner on Tuesdays.
With a track history like this, I was prepared for something to go wrong on graduation day. Even though I had read all the information pamphlets so many times I could almost quote them verbatim, I was pretty confident that something would go wrong. For once, I disappointed myself. Everything went entirely according to plan. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was a model in how to walk across the stage to accept my degree. My dress was appropriate, the hem line was tasteful, I looked the Chancellor in the eye as I sincerely thanked a man I had never met. I finished the day with a cup of tea. I didn’t disgrace myself once. I only have double chins in a couple of the photos. I pretty much cannot believe how successful graduation day was. I think this is why I will be a bit sad if now everything goes back to the way it was: I’d like graduation to be the marker of my life finally moving forward. I would like to socialise more; to get shit done and apply for my MA (10 days till deadline), to not spend evenings resolutely at home in my pajamas. To not be so very socially awkward. Basically it’s time for things to change. I have two degrees and the photos and pieces of paper to prove it. I am safely ensconced in my early twenties. I spent this afternoon at a surprise and early birthday party for Kyle. It was a stark reminder that I need within the next ten years if I am not wedged in domestic bliss I will be a social pariah. I will not the quirky awkward funny person that I am now; I will be an object of pity. I am not prepared to be an object of pity. Graduation was the closest I will get to an actual boot up the arse. Because I’m fairly helpless I’m relying on you, my friends, to make sure I don’t spend the next 22 years the same way I’ve spent the last 22: in my room watching Simon Amstell on youtube.
But he’s so funny!
I had just written this entire post and then somehow lost it, and I am very dark about it. It was witty, insightful and, most importantly, quite long and I cannot remember a single thing I wrote. Well, I can remember broad brushstrokes of information which, when I have finished steaming about it, will attempt to recreate.
Rookie error: I was so dark about losing my post that I saved this draft in order to put it off until tomorrow (which is today) and now I can remember absolutely zero of what I had written.
A lot of people I have talked to are quite cynical about graduation – we finished uni almost six months ago, and now that we have donned our black capes we have effectively cut the apron strings to the institutions (not me though, since I have every intention of going back). I loved every minute of graduation (except the bit where I had to dash in to buy some flat shoes because the balls of my feet were killing me from the ankle up). It’s ironic that the ticket to my academic success, Alexander Pope, was sort of disillusioned by universities and the educations they offer: In Dunciad IV miseducation is the tool the goddess Dullness uses to undermine political and moral stability, and the logical conclusion of this theme, occurring just before Dullness’ great yawn, is the graduation ceremony in which the ‘dunces’ advance on their knees to receive their titles and degrees (IV.565-566) in a parody of the commencement ceremonies then in use at the universities. And so I felt a bit funny prancing across the stage to shake hands with the Chancellor, whom I never knew existed but deserves his job because he managed to shake hands with 400 graduates and make it feel like he had been personally following your entire tertiary education, and if he had turned up on my doorstep for a cuppa and a chat it would’ve felt entirely natural. I feel a bit like I was cheating on Pope, who’s about the only man in my life, which is a bit dire since he was 4’9″, crippled, hunch backed and sickly, and has been dead for 300 years. At least he was a good Catholic.
It’s 7am on the morning of my graduation day. Yes, finally, 4 years, 60 essays and $40,000 later I am finally qualified to cross a stage in a black cloak and pink hood to receive two bits of paper which deem me suitably educated in all manners Religious and Literary, in what is the largest ever graduation ceremony ever hosted by my university. I’m up this early because, just like my birthday, I couldn’t sleep with excitement, and when I did I dreamt of graduation, and of being a Kardashian and processing an overdraft for a couple who owned a $23,000,000 property in Miramar, but how those two parts got in to my twisted little brain I have no idea.
Graduation fever is so thick in the air it is almost tangible. In a last minute shopping frenzy yesterday I managed to drop $130 on makeup I don’t need and will never wear (lipliner, seriously?) at Farmers department store because the kindly (evil) shop lady got me talking about graduation and Future Plans. She got me yabbering away about work and Masters study and the next thing I know I have a lipstick, lip liner, lip treatment, waterproof mascara, nail polish and what I actually went in for, an alice band. Evil old lady, I hope she made her quota or my bank account sacrifice was all in vain. The spending was not yet over, oh no no no, as Emily and I went out to the suburbs to Westfield to drop some more serious dollars, on flat shoes (for wearing during the day, although of course the leather isn’t broken in so in actual fact graduation is just an excuse to buy yet another pair of shoes), jewellery (treat to selves), and groceries (read: wine and cream).
Today is the second day of graduation ceremonies, with the Law and commerce (read: serious) students graduating yesterday. You can tell it’s graduation because there are lots of very well dressed and lost parents walking around the city in pairs, and sets of younger siblings walking around the capital city also a little but lost but pretending they’re not, and of course the biggest giveaway, the hoards of caped young men and women, making the most of the precious few hours they get to wear the regalia for. Even though I know it’s my turn today, I found myself gaping after these grown ups in envy. But, after all the waiting, today is finally here, and in the time it’s taken me to type this so far, the sun has finally risen on the first significant milestone which I have achieved by my own merit – celebrating birthdays is just celebrating that I haven’t died, and marriage is the celebration of finding someone to live codependently with forever (which, incidentally, I haven’t), and the best part is that I can graduate over and over again and it will carry less stigma than, say, getting married over and over again. It will probably be just as expensive, though.
Today is the last day I can ever legitimately listen to this song on youtube. My friends and those who still believe in my credibility will dispute this.
I’ve been reduced to a complete blubbering mess at how perfect Duchess Kate’s dress was at the Olympic Gala.
Oh my God.
PS. I, obviously, didn’t take this photo.
Today is my 22nd birthday. 22: The first time since I was 11 that both my age and my name are palindromic. Four years since I was first able to buy my own alcohol and scratchies, and four years since I was first able to vote. Five years since I could go to adult prison for any crimes I commit (still 0) and seven years since I was first allowed to get my driver’s licence (still don’t have). Oh yes, I am safely ensconced in my early 20s. Here are the lessons I have learnt.
1. Before buying replacement lightbulbs, always check whether it’s a bayonet or screw fitting. This mistake can lead to a vast collection of thoroughly useless screw fitting lighbulbs.
2. Never trust that the bus will be on time. Aim for the one before you need to catch. Especially if you live in Wellington. I’m looking at you, metlink.
3. Never use bleach without wearing rubber gloves.
4. If the world starts spinning because you’ve drunk too much, there’s nothing you can do about it. Drink a tonne of water, take yourself off to bed and accept that you’re probably going to see your food again. It’s your own fault.
5. When dining out, never buy a chicken meal if it’s less than $10. Decent chicken is not cheap, so there’s a reason that dish is so cheap.
6. If you keep refusing invitations, people will eventually stop inviting you.
7. You are probably underestimating how much your parents know about you. You may think they didn’t notice you were wearing the wrong pair of glasses because you lost yours on a messy night, but they definitely noticed.
8. Leave the house once a day. The scary fact of human nature is that if you are out of sight, you are out of mind.
9. C’s get degrees but C’s do not get academic respect.
10. You don’t look cooler by pretending Joyce’s Ulysses is your favourite book. You look like a pretentious tool. Unless it is legitimately your favourite book – but you’ll have to prove it.
11. Falafel can be eaten for any of the three main meals. But ideally not in the same day.
12. You have to be your own biggest fan club. No one else has to like you, but you do yourself a favour by liking yourself.
13. Academic success is not a fluke. If you got the marks, then you earned it. Unless you cheated, in which case you are despicable.
14. Never undervalue your friends. They are the ones who will have a gin with you when the only reliable man in your life is called Gordon, Jack or Jose and he comes in liquid form, or who will hold your hair back and promise never to mention it. They’re the ones who listen to you whinge even if you complain about the same thing over and over. But they are not family – so they are not obligated to stick by you if you’re a dick to them. They can cut you off quicker than Telecom’s dodgy internet connection.
15. It’s better to have a few really great friends than lots of good-time friends. Don’t spread yourself too thinly. At The End you want people sobbing at your funeral, not lots of people who are there for the cucumber sandwiches.
16. If it’s bring a plate, don’t always bring a bag of crisps. Seriously, fairybread is really fricking easy and everyone loves sprinkles.
17. Smile in photos. Except if the photo is at a funeral or equally sad occasion. That’s not appropriate.
18. Start a savings account. Then when you get to 22 you can afford to have no income for a couple of months and still take holidays. Financial independence is incredibly satisfying.
19. The quality of a gift depends on the thought, not the value.
20. Get a good night’s sleep every night. You will be more energised and less grumpy.
21. Realise the value in spending time alone. But not too much time because that’s what makes you a hermit.
22. Your parents are (probably) really fucking cool. I hope I can be as great as my parents are when I grow up. After all, I am the product of the combination of their coolness. And I am pretty fucking cool.
Because I am thoroughly unoriginal, it is entirely appropriate that the steps I am taking to ensure a productive use of my impending unemployed months are not my own.
I’ve only seen the film once, so my recollection of The Yes Man is hazy at best – in fact I can’t remember whether the title has the definite article. Why am I writing like a ponce? Because I’m reading The Da Vinci Code and it requires lots of brainpower to follow what’s happening. And I don’t have any milk so I haven’t had a cup of tea yet today so I’m probably over tired. Anyway back on track. Basically I know that I have a serious problem with turning down social opportunities in favour of staying home, watching crap telly in my pyjamas and going to bed early. This does nothing good for my startlingly small social circle and teensy collection of life experiences. I’m 22 this coming Thursday and have nothing to show for it except for an Honours degree of which I am immensely proud, don’t get me wrong. And my friendships are based on quality, not quantity, and all my friends are quality (naww you guyssss). Nonetheless, here I am in my early 20s. This is probably the only time in my life when I have no obligations and am not required to be in any way accountable, except of course to the law. I also have zero hobbies. Normally, I would spend the next three months sleeping lots and pretending to Write My Novel, which is a rite for all Lit postgrads it seems. I was well on the way to this when at my parents’ house last week, one morning I was still sleep on my foldout couch/bed my Mother approached me in distress over the fact that I was going to do absolutely nothing for the next three months. She even took steps to get me a job which fell through because I do, after all, intend to go back to uni in July. So, to appease my mother, I am recalling a pact that Cate and I made a while back: I will agree to every social suggestion made to me. The only reasons I could decline are: monetary (after all I have no job), and time – if I have already scheduled another activity with someone else, I cannot override it, except if work offer me some hours – because then I can earn more money to fund more activities.
Already I have an event lined up for Tuesday evening, to listen to some historical fiction writers read excerpts from their works in a bar. Yesterday I went to Petone to go to an Italian restaurant (very Italian, run by an Italian family who also run guided tours to Italy each year) and to watch a subtitled Hebrew film about competing Israeli father-and-son Talmudic scholars in a ten-seater cinema. I was going to go to the rugby with my sister but other sister’s bike got stolen so our parents’ attention was diverted elsewhere so we couldn’t get tickets. Normally I would’ve gone straight home from work on a Saturday, perhaps drunk some wine, had some pasta in bed, and watched Never Mind the Buzzcocks online. I am on my way to becoming a social success!
So, you are welcome to suggest things for me to do. I am the perfect social occasions partner. If you need a chaperone for a blind date: pick me. If you want to go to a film but don’t want to go on your own: pick me. If you need someone to listen to your woes: pick me, I’m an excellent listener and make a very good cup of tea. If you want someone to walk down the motorway with you: I’m not going to do that; it’s illegal.
‘I am wasting my life.’ This is a big fear of my mother’s. This morning, when I was still in my couch bed at the parentals’ home at 9 in the morning because, let’s face it, there’s nothing else for me to do at home, in my unmatching flannel pajamas (purple peace signs top, white with little turtles bottoms) and trademark birdsnest hair do, Mother came upstairs to my living area-cum-bedroom and asked what I was going to do today. I looked at her shortsightedly, because I was too lazy to put my very strong glasses on, and told her, truthfully, that I was going to do nothing.
“Oh but Eve you are going to waste your life! You can’t do nothing! Isn’t there anyone you want to meet up with?”
“No.”
“Don’t you have any hobbies?”
“No.”
“Eve! You are going to waste your life! You can’t do nothing!”
I’m sorry, Mum. I don’t have any hobbies. I’ve thought about it really deeply. I have no interests. Well, I lie. I like to meet up with my friends and drink, and eat, and watch movies, and objectify men, and cackle uproariously. I like to drunkenly get into incredibly heated debates about literature. I like cooking drunken curries. None of these can count as hobbies. Also, I can do none of these things at home. My friends at home have serious jobs that they are very good at. They live in well maintained houses, cook nutritious meals, can drive, and never binge drink. I bounded home yesterday and was at brunch with Successful Friends, and announced that I was home until Friday. “WHO’S GOING TO HANG OUT WITH ME!!” There was a little awkward silence, until one by one they broke it to me. They had work meetings to attend to/boyfriends to hang out with. I have neither a job nor a boyfriend, therefore zero entertainment prospects for the week at home.
I don’t want you to think that I was at all blasé about my deadend life. I got in the shower this morning and was running through my other friends and what hobbies they have. Turns out, most of them have hobbies. How did I wind up with no hobbies? I was too used to being the successful one with a job with authority and far above minimum wage. And all of a sudden, I missed the Masters programme submission application, my five month secondment has ended, so I effectively have no job, no hobbies, and rent to pay. My intention, wholeheartedly, is to write my Novel during the four months from now until the next Masters application deadline. The problem is, though, that I have no life experience, probably a direct result of the fact that I have no hobbies so barely exist outside of the workplace (no longer) and the university (also no longer). Mum, being more worked up about this than I am, went about finding me a job at home, but then was going to charge me rent to sleep on my bed(couch) in my bedroom (living area). I quickly scotched this plan, as I am not prepared to pay rent for a room that has no bed and no clearly defined rooms, damn you open-plan living. So, here I am. Still living the impoverished student lifestyle without being a student, strictly speaking. Yes, I am going to be that weird mature student that still hangs out at uni, drinking at the bar, lunching at the cafe, prowling the aisles in the library (but unable to borrow books as I don’t have a current student ID card), and I am still going to be here, moaning about the lack of things I have to do, blabbing on my cyberdiary just like a anxious teenager. Thanks for sticking around.
Hello, my dears. I’m going to be honest. This is my second attempt at a post today. This one is not any better than the previous. Rather, I am typing faster and the day is nearly over and I would rather like to have one out of the way today. It’s 2 weeks, almost exactly (my maths is horrendous) since my last post. Don’t worry everyone, I’m not feeling some kind of guilt over my lack of cyberpresence as I’m still feeling rather proud of my last post although I know for a fact no one has read it. WordPress told me. I read recently somewhere other than wordpress that it is therapeutic for teens to vent all their teenage angst on the internet, which is rather more effective than in the old traditional lock-and-key diary because of the, often rather far-fetched, chance that someone may stumble across it and so someone, somewhere out there, may read it and so empathise.
I’ve forgotten where I’m going with this. I’m going to tell you a story about my Easter.
So Mother and Littlest Sister were in Funedin for national swimming champs. they are the other two Catholic members of my family. So that left me, Prodigal Dad and Middle Sister, who is also PDad’s favourite, at home for Easter. Asian brother was with his real life family. Dad told me that I was welcome to bring any friends home for Easter and that he would do the cooking, I just had to bring my own eggs. I thought, fair enough, eggs are expensive and I make more money than PD, so, dutiful daughter that I am. I bought a dozen and took them home. Little did I know that PD meant eggs of the chocolate variety. So I rocked up home with 12 poultry eggs, zero chocolate eggs. Great, omelette. I frigging hate omelette.
Well, my new years resolutions have been thoroughly canvassed on these cyberwalls. There are only so many times and ways in which I can tell you that I don’t drink (OK I drink less)/eat refined sugar/snack/have any fun whatsoever. However, my sincere efforts to eat healthy came to a head the other day when, while at the supermarket, I had the brainwave/malfunction of replacing my favourite food of all time, pasta, with wholemeal pasta, in an attempt to cut out any white food from my diet except for eggs because wholemeal eggwhites haven’t been invented and also would have to be renamed. This, it turns out, was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made (that I am prepared to admit to or have not repressed the memory of which). A couple of years ago a flatmate who was a beauty therapy student told me about the nutritional benefits of wholemeal pasta over starchy white pasta which other than being delicious delicious deliciousness has zero nutritional benefits. I should have been alerted by the fact that it took her the entire year to finish a 500gram bag of wholewheat pasta, and it was only finished when she fobbed it off on to an incoming and unsuspecting new flatmate, who soldiered her way through the large part of the packet. I was aware that it would not be as delicious as my beloved starchy pasta, so I prepared by googling ‘ways to make wholewheat pasta delicious.’ One website told me to cook it in homemade stock instead of plain water. Now, I don’t have enough vegetables to make my own stock but that’s the reason Oxo cubes were invented, surely, so I cooked it up in my oxo-infused water and added a generous dolloping of pesto with some broccoli and my least favourite vegetable in the whole wide world, cauliflower (which is white so I should be giving it up now YAY). The helpful hints website gave me some sage advice that the wholewheat pasta would not melt in my mouth the way that starchy pasta does, but that’s the nature of healthy foods: they are not to be enjoyed. Yeah, the blog was not wrong. The devil pasta transformed my favourite meal-for-one of pasta and pesto from a nice treat at the end of a hard day in the corporate world to a chore that had to be endured. Stockwater did not save it. I think the only way it can be made in to an edible dish – or in fact something that doesn’t taste suspiciously like cardboard, and look like tiny little penne-shaped cardboard tubes, would be if it were cooked for a long time in a lot of wine, and washed down with a lot more wine. The catch is, of course, that it’s Lent so I can’t use wine to aid my wholewheat pasta experience, I went once more to the supermarket and bought a packet of vegeroni – vegetable pasta – and spinach fettuccine. I feel like both the mother and child in a very impossible family tree, where the parent sneaks vegetables in to the kid’s food to make sure she gets her 5+ a day and the kid is none the wiser. Although spinach fettuccine was a tremendous improvement on wholewheat devilpasta, I was not fooled, just like my wily five year old self knew when Mum was grating mushrooms into my plate of starchy delicious messy spaghetti bolognese. I sat with my bowl of spinach fettuccine in a dairy-free, wine-free and entirely vegetarian-friendly mushroom sauce in front of another episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks (series 22 episode 6) and pined for those simple, starchy and delicious childhood days.
