This post.

I do not know how to say why I like this post:

Well, having children changes you. Jonathan Coulton likens it to becoming a vampire.

I was having a conversation with a friend who had recently become a parent, and she reminded me of something I had forgotten about since my daughter was born. She was describing this what-have-I-done feeling – I just got everything perfect in my life, and then I went and messed it all up by having a baby. I don’t feel that way anymore, but the thought certainly crossed my mind a few times at the beginning. Eventually you just fall in love and forget about everything else, but it’s not a very comfortable transition. I compare the process to becoming a vampire, your old self dies in a sad and painful way, but then you come out the other side with immortality, super strength and a taste for human blood. At least that’s how it was for me. At any rate, it’s complicated.

Maybe tongue in cheek, but not that far from the truth, honestly. Your children, they ruin everything in the nicest way.

Before Henry was born, I remembered Scott Hanselman writing this odd blurb about being a parent:

You think you love you wife when you marry her. Then you have a baby and you realize you'd throw your wife yourself under a bus to save your baby. You can't love something more.

Nuts to that, I thought. Hanselman's crazy. Well, obviously he doesn't love his wife as much as I love mine. Sniff. Babies, whatever, sure, they're super cute on calendars, just like puppies and kittens. Then I had a baby. And by God, he was right. I wouldn't just throw myself under a bus for my baby, I'd happily throw my wife under that bus too – without the slightest hesitation. What the hell just happened to me?

from Jeff Atwood. Read all the words!

That post: Sniff. [wipe tear]

Catalyst?

This, delivered via Bluemilk (you are such a star):

7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?

Everything involves sacrifice. I don’t buy into the notion that anyone can have it all in any context. Being in a relationship involves sacrifice, being a child or a sibling or a friend involves sacrifice, just being a person involves sacrifice at some point.

For a long time now I've been waiting for the want of motherhood, suspecting that I will never get clucky until I am a mother, and that if I don't want to be elderly and childless then I'll just have to get on with it, current reluctance be damned (romantic, no?).
But a large part of my hesitation is selfish - what will I be forced to give up for this? Will I resent myself for it? And what if it sucks, or I suck at it? What if its harder than I ever imagined? (And I have a good imagination for melancholy.)
Then I read this and realised I forgot to think about the road so far; it hasn't been perfect*, and I have given up many things and been OK, often happy. I've also forgotten to look at what's between the parents and their children, rather than just at their trials and challenges.

*Forget for a moment the privilege I live in and how perfect that is in the greater scale of things.

You know what...?

I think it's been a hard year.

It's late, and I should be in bed. I seem to be using report writing seasons to semi-annually update things here. If none of my 'friends' will interrupt me then, darn it, I'll just have to procrastinate myself...

One of the reasons I haven't posted much is because I haven't been very happy. That is to say, I haven't been categorically 'unhappy' as such, just not my usual bubbly self, and it's for a range of reasons I think.

The wedding, although wonderful and awesome and perfect and ended with me married to the right guy (as promised), was followed by something of a slump. Twelve months of talking about this massive party and then a week of honeymoon to find something else to say... well, it got a bit quiet afterward. And 13 years of going-out with someone actually doesn't prepare you for being married to them. But I think I'm finally getting my groove as a wife and becoming more and more delighted that he's my husband.

When school started this year I learned that a student of mine from last year had passed away over the holidays. It was completely unexpected, and I found out in an unexpected way. Her funeral, where I gave a eulogy and last talked with her mum, was hard and gave my first term (at the least) a grey stain that was hard to shake. She had just begun to figure out that she was going to be fine the way she was; that the way she was, was awesome and loved, and she was going to be pretty cool. Her Christmas card to me said "You taught me that I'm fine the way I am" I thought "Well, that's a success. I did ok there." So I was fairly miffed that I wouldn't get to see that particular kid from my first ever class grow up and be awesome.

And then it turns out that my second year hasn't been as easier as I'd hoped. I should have been more careful to extend my self-forgiveness all the way through my graduate years, not just the first one. Unfulfilled high expectations of myself have just left me frustrated and disappointed and, after a kick in the shins from the funeral, its been pretty grindy.

So my update is more a series of reasons for why I've not been updating.
I have, however, been reading lots of awesome blogs and wishing I'd been enthusiastic/time-rich enough to try cooking up an articulate contribution to these great discussions about sexism on the Footy show, league tables for schools, rape culture and misconceptions, bogus feminist spokespeople and a rainbow of other fantastic commentary that's probably gone unread by the wrong people.
I must say, I do try my best to keep an equalitist voice in my classroom. It's surprisingly hard, considering our school is so sports orientated and a few key male teachers in our school are rather 'blokey' - which has its pros and cons. The girls in my room are very good at maintaining feminist/equalitist points of view and voices, but the boys aren't so good and have been taking their cue form other poorly informed males. This is particularly apparent when the boys say something inflammatory (you know, some dopey joke about women drivers or something), clearly to get a rise out of the girls, and the girls can't explain why its so frustratingly infuriating. (I challenge feminist/equalitist to explain that response in one sentence... In the meantime, I'm am presenting an articulate, somewhat formidable, respectable and feminist to them for a year, so that's something.)
My main hurdle is that, although I'm good friends with these guys, now they're perpetually cautious around me with their stories and jokes (or purposefully not), yet they have no idea how undereducated they are about feminism or how sexist they are. Poor chaps. At least they were able to have a chuckle with me when I noted this:

Blokey humour has helped to boost its ratings, but Newman goes over the top when audiences appear to be dropping off. (HS, 17/11/09)

The HS suggests that Newman, a man educated in the old school system, apparently shouldn't bother to (or isn't able to) call on his morals or ethics to gauge the appropriateness of his behaviour, nor should anyone else try to mend the error of these ways: they should rely on ratings. Yes, it's the ratings that will tell you the true quality of a joke, and whether you've gone 'over the top'. Never mind if you've been pointing at the top for years.
Almost HS, but you have some Equal Opp. training to go yet.

Another Box Ticked

I've been to 4 Hen's nights and last night I went to my first with strippers.

Oi.

My first memory is of the Bride and her maids signing the release form. Then of the other dozen Brides and their maids making their way to the aisle seats.

And then they introduced The Premise.
The Premise - which seems to be present in most porn too - is whatever reason they think of to contextualise and justify the need to strip. (Watch as I deftly intellectualise this experience.) Our performance was about these brothers - nay, Princes - who had been kept virginal by their tyrannical father, The King, and were apparently/understandably bursting at the seams. But NOW (oh blessed day) the King had died, and the brothers were FREE! They were making the most of the occasion.
The eldest brother - the New King - did the MCing.

The MC cycled through referring to us as maids, virgins, wenches and goddesses and as a result I was very confused about myself. In the beginning I laughed and laughed - the set up was so painful, with guys walking down the aisles in monk robes, lots of temple images, very Excalibur, and all the guys named The Prince of Lust, The Prince of Temptation, The Prince of Seduction (an impressive title for a virgin) etc. And the MC had a weird Father-of-Robbie-Williams look about him.

But once they got into the dancing, and passed the premise, it was much more fun and easier to stomach. They had the Brides-To-Be up on stage alone or in pairs or fours and would seat them on chairs as they danced around - at one stage asking a few BTB to dance for them. They found the women who had been married longest and asked them to make some penises out of plasticine (one quite promising and the other more like a bowl, which was explained with "It's Italian") There was a guessing game and a fair bit of blindfolding.
Most promising were the referential performances: Dirty Dancing (no lift, mind you), Grease and Sex in the City remakes - even the poor token black man (great dancer) having to do African themed stuff (imaginatively named the 'Prince of Darkness'). Plus some excellent song choices such as Baby Did A Bad Bad thing.
More painful was the (un)surprising Robbie Williams mimed-cover from the MC (who would've thought?) and the 'bathing' at the end. By that stage a friend and I were up the back dancing away and getting the last of the drinks before the venue opened up for regular patrons.

Soon enough I was clapping too.
Come ON! All that dancing for over a hundred women and only two bouncers is pretty keen. And they were clearly nice guys doing the job; very supportive and forgiving when the BTBs or whoever declined or got too nervous. Also, I think I had been desensitised a little by our Bride's paraphernalia*.
All the dancers seemed older than us (although I'm betting a few weren't) which was comforting for some reason, and they showed a good sense of humour about the whole thing, even when the drunken women (not even a BTB!) got herself up on stage and had to be escorted off by the bouncers (who, by the way, were very entertaining to watch as they watched us.)

So we danced away for a few hours afterwards and I didn't feel any dirtier than when I went in.
Well, a little.


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*One penis shaped whistle; two Hen's Night sashes (one with blinking lights); three penis shaped balloons tied to her waist; one tiara; one headband with two sparkly, flashing penis-and-balls on springs which also had a condom-laden veil attached; and one double-ended dildo (named Ernest & Clive).