RIP Maurice Sendak

 Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of masterpiece literature such as Where the Wild Things Are and Outside Over There, died yesterday. I can not begin to describe how devastated I feel about this. Neil Gaiman wrote a touching article about this wonderful man over at his blog. He writes;

What I loved, what I always responded to, was the feeling that Sendak owed nothing to anyone in the books that he made. His only obligation was to the book, to make it true. His lines could be cute, but there was an honesty that transcended the cuteness. 

 Take a look. 

 And if you want to read something extraordinary, have a read of this. 

 Much love sent out to a master of his craft, his family and his fans. 

Everything you never wanted to know about a woman's period

 A male friend of mine asked me today to do something I never really expected I'd have to do in my lifetime. 'Explain periods to me,' he said in a considered tone, as though he were asking me to explain algebra, or pot roast. 'Can you please just tell me what the deal is?'

 I took a deep preparatory breath and said 'Wtf is wrong with you? Didn't you do Health? OK, well, firstly it all has to do with making babies...'

 'No, no, no, no, no, no. I know the science. But why are women such crazy bitches?'

 Why are women such crazy bitches? It's a deep philosophical question people have been pondering for thousands of years - men and women alike. Why do our periods make us nuts, or else, why does the stereotype that our periods make us nuts exist? If current research is anything to go by, according to studies there is a correlation between a woman's Aunt Flow visiting and an erratic state of mind (SUPER surprising, I know). 

 The feminist me wants to call bullshit on this, considering the amount of times I've heard men blame PMS on perfectly rational reactions to their stupidity. But the little period monster inside me may well disagree as she sits atop her mountain of skulls, contemplating the next head she wants to tear off. 

 This situation is confusing for women, so I sure as hell can understand why it would be confusing for men. In stead of answering straight away, I decided to compile a list for this bewildered friend of mine of all the things I know about having a period. People with vaginas may find this funny, but people with penises may be scarred for life. You have been warned. 

 For some women, a period is just a mild inconvenience in a harmonious life filled with butterflies, bike riding and long stretches of meadow (like in tampon commercials). For others, it's like an apocalypse between their thighs. 

 I had a boyfriend who once told me in the midst of a really bad bout of cramps that he never even knew when his ex had her period - it just wasn't an issue. After a swift kick to the groin, he learned and grew as a person. I kid, I kid, I only imagined the groin kick in my head. What I did was much much worse. 

 A period is as unique as a finger print, a snow flake or a well crafted home made explosive device. Some women don't even see it coming, and by the time it comes, it's gone again. Simple. We hate these women. For others, it's like that scene in Carrie, except the blood is coming out of you, not being poured on top of you. And I'm sorry, but it's really difficult to be subtle about being soaked in a bucket of blood. You think that's gross? Then thank nature it isn't happening to YOU! 

Yup. Stephen King wrote one long PMS metaphor.

 Fat days aren't in our heads.

 Women can retain up to 5 kilograms of water during their period. 5 kilograms. It may not seem so much to some burly dude, but that is 5 litres of water swooshing around inside us telling us how inadequate we are at life (and preventing us from fitting into our jeans). Of course a woman can reduce water retention by eating less salt and, strangely, drinking more water, but don't tell her that, especially while she's on her period because shut up that's why.

We burn over 15% more calories every day while on our periods. 

 Chocolate cravings are a cliche, but one with a serious scientific reason behind it. During a woman's period she needs to eat more food. FACT. Don't begrudge her that second helping of chocolate orange ice-cream or she will murder you and eat your fatty flesh in stead. That is how ravenous we can get. 

 Period boobs are a sign from the gods that they hate women.

 Breasts never look rounder, perkier or more like you're a bikini model in Sports Illustrated than when you're on your period. Too bad there is BLOOD POURING OUT OF YOUR VAGINA.

 Period sex is awesome sex.

 OK, allow me to clarify. This does not mean I've had sex on my period. All I know is that every girl I've ever spoken to about this has confirmed that an orgasm during one's period is the best freakin' thing in the world. Also, many many many women experience extreme randiness when they're on their period. Probably some artifact left from when men sniffed us out for hanky panky back in the day. I don't know, can't be bothered googling it. But one day we decided that a period wasn't sexy and developed some kind of moral repulsion to having sex while BLOOD IS POURING OUT OF OUR VAGINA. This means that at the exact time we are most willing to get our kit off and have sex, it is frowned upon that we do so. Sucks.

Skipping a period is the worst thing in the world (when it isn't on purpose).

 Thanks to drugs, women can now choose if they want to have their period or not. You can take the pill  or else get an implant and not have a period for years (although it is seriously not recommended by doctors). I know a girl who has done it, and only stopped because she was worried she was pregnant and wanted to check. 

 But if you aren't on the pill and you expect your period at a certain time, but it doesn't show up, it is a horrible feeling. The best way I can describe it is it's as though you organised a big extravagant party, sent out the invites and put up the decorations but the day arrives and no one comes. You have all this excited anticipation and inner preparation. You stock up on chocolate and put Hugh Grant in your DVD player. It's a sad party for one but in a weird masochistic way you kind of like it, and feel totally rejected when it decides you're an arsehole and doesn't show up. 

 Then of course it can be a sign something is wrong. Google 'late period' and you'll see the myriad of things it can indicate. Anything from stress and STIs all the way to full blown cancer. Well of course you're stressed NOW, you might have FUCKING CANCER!

 And I do not care how long it's been since a woman has had sex - months, years, hell, she could be a virgin, but when confronted with a late period, every single woman has had that sickening gut feeling that she might be pregnant. Penis pregnancy or toilet seat pregnancy, it doesn't matter, her period is late by 3 days so she is definitely absolutely monstrously pregnant and her life is over. 

 Personally, I do get more irrational and sad around my period - but not everyone does.

 I am not a scientist. I do often sport a strapping white lab coat and glasses, so I'm sorry if you felt mislead, but it was all in the name of fashion. All I know is that when I am on my period, the following commercial makes me sob like a little baby. 

 I'm not a big crier in everyday life. The only thing that can consistently make me cry is the first ten minutes of Up, but that shit is sad as balls. But I once sobbed for 5 straight hours after a fight with a guy. 5. Straight. Hours. The next day I got my period. What I'm saying is, if science ever tries to say that emotional instability and getting your period aren't linked, science can go fuck itself. 

 That being said, I know plenty of women who don't behave this way. As I said from the beginning, a period is different for everyone, which brings me to...

 Periods change as we age.

 This is something I was never told in those secret women only meetings we have every year to discuss how we are taking over the world, our periods and the latest Leonardo DiCaprio film. Periods grow and change just like we do. For some women they get better with age, less painful, less emotional, and for others they get worse. Some women are in constant fluctuation, like a Kinder Surprise born from the pits of hell, they never know what kind of deliciously chocolate covered period they are going to get.

 The only consistency is women tend to get better at having periods as they age.

 If you've ever seen a girl ask another girl if she has something on the back of her skirt/pants, that's secret code for 'oh dear god please tell me I haven't leaked blood all over my butt'. When I was in high school and all the girls were first getting their period, this is something that happened ALL the time, to everyone. We weren't sure how to position pads right, we were terrified of using tampons in fear of toxic shock syndrome (yes, this is a real thing) and most girls didn't have older sisters who were rad enough to show them the tricks of the trade (for example, tying a jacket around your waist to avoid embarrassment). We also didn't know how to handle the emotional whirlwind, the pain and the other crazy body stuff, such as pubic hair and surprise breasts, that come along with it. It's a whole world of horrible, and a spot of blood is only the beginning. 

 But as we grow up we learn to prepare and condition our bodies as best we can. A period isn't a ticking time bomb any longer. It's more just a situation we, as females, have to handle. We have the tools and the ability, we just have to take a deep breath and deal with it. 

 What I mean to say is that we learn how to not be crazy bitches on our periods, in spite of all the crazy shit that is thrown our way because of them. If we are feeling ultra crazy, we generally go to a doctor and get that shit sorted. So next time you think a girl is being a crazy bitch just because she's on her period, maybe you're just being a dick bag and should probably stop calling bitches crazy. 

On Racist 'Girls'

 This week there was an avalanche of feature articles on Race and Racism (with capital R's all round) spilling out all over Gawker and Jezebel. And just like an avalanche, this cacophony was begun in small pockets of disturbance all over the gosh darn place. A major celebrity with a higher melanin count than many graced the cover of a very popular magazine, dubbed the most beautiful woman in the world. A show set in New York dared to feature not one, not two, but four aggressively pasty women in feature roles (not since Sex and the City have we seen such an atrocity!). A book was adapted authentically. And renowned hipster Zooey Deschanel made a 'gangsta' hand gesture on twitter.

 Some of this attention is fair enough, particularly in the Hunger Games case which was just such a brain-achingly stupid situation that not pointing this out would have been bad journalism. Other commentary, however, has been so loaded with over-generalised, exaggerated, anachronistic and purposely provocative bollocks that I've been bashing my head against a wall for days trying to work out a way to develop a whimsical yet thoughtful counter attack to the above articles, only to come up completely short. As a white, Australian woman it's unsurprisingly difficult to write about what an African American New Yorker might feel about yet another show dedicated to celebrating an authentic female experience without including a character who looks like them. So I take a quote from the end of Cord Jefferson's article on race on TV set in New York (in direct reaction to Girls);

The thing that sucks about those shows is that millions of black people look at them and can relate on so many levels to Hannah Horvath and Charlotte York and George Costanza, and yet those characters never look like us. The guys begging for money look like us. The mad black chicks telling white ladies to stay away from their families look like us. Always a gangster, never a rich kid whose parents are both college professors. 

While I don't inherently disagree with Jefferson, or any article that speaks for authentic representation in media of diversity, I still felt the real issues were being sidelined. This is particularly true for Lindy West's inflammatory article on 'Hipster Racism' which, in quick summary calls everyone and their dog racist if/when they adopt cultural slangs/signs/signals that are different from their own to, I don't know, be hip and bathe in the irony of it all. I can see how West is trying to get youth culture to think about their pseudo ironies and how they can harm and offend other people, but I still wanted to wretch all over this article, punch West in the face and then tell her she is totally missing the point.

 I want to focus on Girls for a second though, because the issue for me begins and ends with the four white 20-something protagonists of the show. If you haven't seen it (and you should), it's a toned down, more realistic and effing hilarious take on the Sex and the City formula. It's by no means a carbon copy, but it takes a now classic set up and tilts the frame a bit to give what can only be described as an uncomfortable yet exhilarating reflection of life. Personally, watching this show felt like stumbling back into my clothes in my ex-boyfriend's bathroom at 4am after a big drunk night in, to see a lumpy, blotchy, half naked, retarded raccoon staring back at me under the glaring fluorescent light. In a funny way, of course. It is spawned from the mind of Lena Dunham, who brought us the oblique and underrated Tiny Furniture (2010) before it.

 Despite the ocean between us, these girls come from a very similar cultural* experience to my own, a generation raised half on TV and half on the internet (respectively), sitting in a mountain of uni debt, still shamefully reliant on at least some parental support and released into the workforce at the worst possible time (particularly if all you have is an English degree). It's eery how mirrored mine and Hannah's lives seem to be, yet if you stalk any internet TV forum you will read these same words spouted by thousands of young women around the world. Women who grew up watching Sex and the City only to come to the realisation a little too late that they were never ever a Carrie Bradshaw.

 Yet so much of the media attention for this show has been driven by the 'race' question. Where the heck is the diversity? We live in the 21st century! Black, white, hispanic, asian - we all deserve representation. One of these characters could easily be played by an African American. Look! The only African American character is a homeless man. Girls is so racist.

Super racists.

 Well, no. And here's why.

 Girls is a show about a culture - a very particular, very personal culture. As I know as much about New York as can fill the tip of a needle, and I've only seen 2 episodes of the show so far, I will not pretend to be able to describe this culture, but I can say this - a culture is generally defined by its boundaries. The first culture you ever belong to is your family. Another is your neighbourhood, ethnicity, nationality, history etc. In this day and age, you will probably be part of a culture that is the bastard child of the internet and some kind of adopted habit or fashion you've taken up (hipster culture, gamer culture, etc.). Any other is anyone's guess. But if you refine your own life, your own culture, to a very small pocket in your mid-20's (if you are single and live out of home - or even if you don't, really) what generally comes up is your closest group of friends.

 What's most important to point out here is no one gives a flying fuck what race their best friend is. If they did, they wouldn't be best friends. It's not race that matters, it's that you sit on common cultural ground. You understand where your friends are coming from. This is the most fundamental problem with 'token' race characters on television. They insert a person who looks a bit different from the typical cast, but give them a completely disparate culture, shoving them into a group without any justification as to what they're doing there. It's not that the asian character looks asian that makes him stand out, it's that he relates everything back to math when everyone else is talking about getting laid and hittin' bitches. That there, my friends, is racism.

 It's why shows like Community are genius. Community overcomes this culture clash tokenism by creating a situation where it is perfectly reasonable that a middle aged African American house wife turned business entrepreneur could be bffs with an early thirties white male narcissistic douche by literally forcing them in a room together until they become friends. Everyone on that show is different and therefore no one stands out for being so.

 Unfortunately, in real life, people aren't always inclined to step outside the box they were born into. And situations where you are forced to be in a room with someone from a different cultural background  don't arise as often as one would think. Sydney, for example, is easily subdivided in certain cultural territories, usually based on ethnicity, economic standing or common interests -  Cabrammatta is like a teeny tiny Vietnam, Newtown is for the disenfranchised, yet semi-well off pot smoker art hippies, and the North Shore is, well, exactly what you'd expect a place called 'the North Shore' to be. There's nothing racist about wanting to stick in your own group. There's comfort in familiarity. It doesn't matter what a person looks like - it's their language, their food, their values and beliefs, their likes and dislikes, their histories, their memories, their familial ties and, yes, their socio-economic standing. These are the things that bond people together, not the colour of their skin.**

 Phew. OK. After that little spiel, back to Girls and those articles. These girls are part of their own culture which happens to be predominantly ethnically pale. Many journalists are suggesting this is a bad thing mainly because we have too many white protagonists already. The point they are missing is that it just shouldn't matter. It should never matter. White, black, brown, blue, yellow, red, who gives a fuck? If it's good TV, it's good TV - straight up.

 These writers seem to be pulling Dunham down for the simple act of writing what she knows, without considering the fact that maybe a writer who has the balls to put herself and her experiences so thoroughly on screen is a step in the right direction, not the wrong one. Jefferson stipulates that it is a shame because black people can relate to these characters that don't look like them. No, that isn't a shame. It's a good thing that Dunham is writing characters that are so relatable. It's a very very good thing that people can look past familiarity in looks and into the heart of a character. The shame is that the people who develop these projects, and the people who fund and produce them, still assume that we can't, and pick scripts and cast accordingly.

 Personally, I think if you want to see a show that represents yourself, you should pick up a pen and write a show about yourself, just like Dunham did. And by 'you', I don't mean 'blacks' or 'asians' or 'minorities' or what have you, I mean anyone. I mean everyone. Pick up a pen and write. You can't change things by simply complaining about the people who succeed. You can change things by succeeding where others have failed.


*I use the term 'culture' a lot in this article. Some would say too much. To them I would say 'go blow it out your arse'. For purpose of definition, here, have one from dictionary.com


cul·ture
nounthe behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture.

**Let it not be said that I am someone who believes racism doesn't exist. Of course it exists. It's rife, it's insidious, it's dangerous and it's really pathetic. I'm just writing about the broad, non-racist population out there.

Sex is NOT a toy

 When I was little and had a bath, I'd often make my naked Barbie have sex. First headless Ken would take her on a date, there'd be some flirtation, a joke or two, maybe a kiss. They might even get married, buy a house, get a dog. Sometimes they would even buy a car before they took the plunge. But eventually, and somewhat awkwardly, they would bang. When I say bang, I mean I would quite literally bang Barbie and headless Ken together until they made a baby.

 This would happen in the bath - and only in the bath - because in my nine year old brain my only conception of sex was that one needed to be naked, and that it wasn't a clean thing (both physically and morally). I didn't enjoy these moments of carnal lust, but even as a child I thought that despite these dirty associations, sex was an inevitability. Like growing up, getting a job and learning long division, sex was just something that happened to you in life. This worrying revelation came at about the exact same time I decided to become a nun.

 With my keen 4th grader intelligence I realised that 'nun' was the only profession in the world where a woman could release herself from this life contract. I spent a good year and a half curdling in my own ambition, watching my Sound of Music VHS over and over, cursing Maria for leaving the convent and dreaming of a chaste life in the hills of Salzburg, fighting Nazis and singing about brown paper packages tied up with string. Being a nun for me had nought to do with God, and everything to do with protecting myself from sex and all its insidious connotations.

 That I felt a need for this protection at such a young age shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone living in a Western culture. Sex is prolific, violent and submitted to every day. It's in songs, on billboards and celebrated in architecture. It's subverted in children's cartoons and featured on food packaging. The internet is a sexual hub, a wonderland if you will. It's embedded in our culture and it's really impossible to escape. Is this a bad thing? I don't think that's a relevant or interesting question to ask. It's like asking if a proliferation of food iconicity is a bad thing. Yes, and no. Next question, please.

 A friend told me today that she had felt a truly terrible pressure to have sex last night. It is a disturbing circumstance and one women more often than not succumb to, but the more enlightening aspect was she felt this vehement pressure not from her prospective lover, but from her group of friends. It sounds dreadfully immature to listen to friends about such matters, but when your besties are all ganging up on you, egging you on to go home with that ridiculously good looking guy after you've had a few, it becomes a less than pleasant experience trying to fight drunken pack logic with clouded reason.

 It's really not that uncommon to be pushed by friends into sexual situations one would prefer not to be. Ask any girl who has that awkward photo of her making out with her best friend at a sleazy club creep up on Facebook four years after the fact. Watch as she groans, sinks her head into her hands and promptly untags herself. I've personally been abandoned more than once by friends at bars with attractive strangers to either bite the bullet or pay a mountain of money for a taxi home. I like to call this awkward situation the reverse whore - you pay not to have sex.

 The right question to ask, particularly under these circumstances, is not whether or not the proliferation of sex is a good or bad thing, but whether we might be reading this proliferation a bit wrong. Why is it that when a hot guy enters a bar it seems that the single girl is expected to throw herself on top of him? It may be a stunted beer commercial trope, but I see it happen consistently with friends - anywhere from a nudge of encouragement to an all out drunkenly slurred 'my friend says your hoooooot' when you, in fact, said no such thing. Recently I became friends with an attractive guy and was told by numerous people that I 'should have sex with him'. When I asked 'why?' they responded meekly with 'why not?' as though it was a perfectly reasonable next step. I immediately pictured myself atop a steed, sword in hand shouting 'Hark! He has a penis! It must be mounted!'

 'Why not?', indeed.

 It's as though we are conditioned to believe that our obsession with sex in this culture is a reflection of its significance. It becomes something that is important, expected, necessary - it is a part of life and our mission is to help make as much of it as possible. Yet it is also completely arbitrary. This is a banal, barbaric and oversimplified logic that may stem from two often opposed (and somewhat Americanised) assumptions - that sex is special, pure and beautiful, and that it is a common right grounded in instinct, like freedom, and love. And just like freedom and love, we should use it, spread it, give it, share it. Under this logic virginity is almost something to be ashamed of, or at least pitied. Unless you are a nun, a priest, or religious and unmarried. Then of course you have an excuse, because you value sex differently to the 'norm', but in an accepted, and often respected way.

 My friend had the fortitude to walk away from last night's situation, but still felt the same pressure the next day following her around, tapping her on the shoulder, whispering in her ear. Was she being silly turning him down? Should she just go for it? Should she just say 'fuck it' and fuck it? The only real advice that sprung to mind was that it was just another form of peer pressure, the kind we learn to ward off in primary school. Don't smoke, don't do drugs, don't cut class, no matter what your friends say or do. If you make these choices, make them on your own terms. Don't let your friends tell you who you should have sex with.

 Don't let society tell you that you have to have sex.

MERRY CHRISTMAS DEAR READERS

 It's been an interesting year. Full of joy, woe and loads of love. Thank you for reading my thoughts throughout the year. And thanks to my friend Clare for the very accurate depiction of me this Christmas, pictured above. 

Here, have this lovely German Christmas tale, on me. 

Christopher Hitchens and a Purple Velvet Sack

 I was nine years old, sitting in the pieu at my best friend's church - a small one room home that sat behind a large vine covered fence, tucked away from the busy road. It was summer, the room hot and filled to almost capacity with finely dressed adults and children of all ages, the women wore hats and ankle length skirts, the men wore long sleeved shirts and ties. A bald man stood in front of all of us, lamenting the fate of humanity, our wickedness and inevitable fall from the grace of god. He spoke of rapture, and hell, and the beasts we'd surely become. He scorned us all, and I, rattled in my bones, clutched the hard wood of my seat and held on for dear life. 

 An old woman sat to my left, one row ahead of me, small framed with a smell like blue cheese. People appeared in my peripheral vision, either side with long wooden sticks tied to purple velvet sacks. I tuned out the drone of the bald man, dismissed him by reasoning he was like any adult who had forgotten what candy tasted like. The sacks were jutted into the faces of the people around me, little bobbing alien heads intruding on private thoughts. My friend's parents put blue notes into them as they sniffed live ravenous dogs at their clothes. 

 The blue cheese woman was shaking. She looked old in the same way buildings do, with crumbling exteriors and chipped paint. I watched as she pulled four glistening golden notes out of a tattered purse and placed them in the purple alien head. Her eyes were watering. She didn't make the sign of the cross but I remember her as though she did. Or should have. 

 I looked from her eyes to her old clothes to the empty seats around her and all I thought, all I remember thinking, is that she probably really needed that money. My friend's parents insisted I put a fifty cent coin into the now bulbous sack. I wanted so desperately to give the money to her. 

 This is not the story of when I lost my faith, but when I realised I never truly had it to begin with. A belief in a god, or gods, isn't something we are born with. It is thrust upon us by the people who surround us, by those who influence us the most and the words they relay to us. It is a choice, though for some it may seem a terrifying obligation. 

 I dedicate this memory to a man who was brave enough to tell the world that all religion is wrong. He was a hero of mine and a great influence on me. 

RIP Christopher Hitchens

Why Employment Doesn't Suck

 For the first time in almost 2 years I have a real life actual job that pays me money so I can buy pretty things. Obviously, I am devastated. For so long I managed to survive on the money found in that nether region between the sofa and the wall, by eating into my worked-since-14 savings, or through the occasional baby-sitting job where I'd simply ply kids with candy while devouring the contents of someone else's fridge. Regretfully, now that I am no longer a student, I have absolutely no excuse to be a fat lazy bludger.

 It did take me a lot of searching to find this job because apparently an honours degree in English only qualifies you to be a pretentious douche at parties. Now I have it, I just want my years of writing 4000 words a few nights a year while marathoning episodes of Gilmore Girls back. But a friend told me that I have to find some enjoyment in my work, or else doom myself to an eternity of wishing I was living in the good ol' days where I had a perfect excuse to become pleasantly plump with inactivity - 'studying'. To counter my sufferance, and to heed my friend's advice, I've decided to compile a list of reasons why having gainful employment doesn't suck.

Uniforms

 The job I have right now came off the back of a job in which I had to dress like this:

 Needless to say, after 8 hours of being called a 'ho ho hoe', I wanted to quit. The next day I did, and was luckily offered a better job with a killer uniform.

 Uniforms have all the same perks they did back in High School. You don't have to decide what to wear every morning, you don't have to spend a butt load of money on work clothes you could be spending on booze and everyone looks relatively the same so you can pretend, if only for a moment, that you live under a communist dictatorship.

 Uniforms also generally make people look quite slick, the above example notwithstanding. Pilots, doctors, chefs, tradies, armed forces, concert pianists, clowns - all these people manage to look somewhat attractive in their uniform, regardless of how they look after hours in their crusty old Nickleback t-shirt and unwashed stubbies.

 Finally, if the uniform sucks, at least you aren't the only one who has to wear it. You can all look stupid together.

Complaining to Fellow Worker Bees About the Daily Grind

 I had a conversation today with a man at a servo about having a 4am start every morning. It was awesome. We both lamented about sleep schedules being out of whack, not being able to attend parties the night before and taking disco naps only to wake up in time to eat dinner and go back to sleep again. I've only been working like this for just over a week, he's been working like this for years. I can only imagine how satisfying the conversation must have been for him.

Weekends (or a Day Off)

 When you're a smelly student you really don't understand the true value of sitting on your arse and doing absolutely nothing. Having time to clean your home, walking out your front door with no other purpose than to see the glorious day, not showering, or sleeping the fuck in are all choices you hold in your silky smooth palm every day. This is because having all that free time is your life. Working full time strips you of all these joyous possibilities, especially the not showering thing. In return it gives you the true capacity to enjoy these experiences, and never take them for granted again.

Excuses

 You love your friends, and another Harry Potter and the One Ring to Rule Them All Rowling/Tolkien Mashup themed party sounds just lovely, but you hate the idea of leaving your cozy bed and you're half way through A Storm of Swords. 'Oh shit guys! My stoopid boss has called me into work AGAIN. Fuuuuuuuuuuck. Have an aaaawesome night. I'm so sad. I was gonna be what would happen if Legolas and Dobby had a baby and EVERYTHING. *tear*'

Money

 There's a good reason why having money does suck. You spend it, mostly on useless crap. For me, it's online spending. I don't have to go to the ATM, or leave my bedroom, and BAM all the money is gone and my new Doctor Who T-shirt is shipped to me (which, coincidentally, came in the mail today). I end up wallowing in self-pity over diminished savings and an inability to purchase proper adult things like a car or a house. On the other hand, now I have an adorable Doctor Who T-shirt with owls on it dressed as all eleven Doctors. 'Nuff said.

Anthropological Study

 If you're anything like me, you are fascinated by the ethnographic understandings of various cultures. The workplace is a highly evolved culture, with its own hierarchy, ritual, language and teleological pursuits. Entering into a workplace is, I'd imagine, a feeling not unlike what Dian Fossey would have had when she had to ingratiate herself into the lives of a band of Gorillas. On my first day I found myself in the midst of a bitch session about a co-worker I'd never met in my life. I found myself nodding and saying 'yeah' a lot, against all reason and coherency, but also stepping outside of myself and taking furious notes about hand gestures, eye contact and strange grunting noises.

 I also currently work in a situation where I must interact with people from all over the world. It's already taught me an enormous amount of useful things about humanity. For example, that everyone loves a smile and to be submitted to in a very polite way, and that no matter what colour or creed you are, you are capable of being a total dick.

 Having Purpose

 On my top ten list of things that suck about being a student, number one would be feeling as though you are accomplishing absolutely nothing with your life. It may feel different for those who are studying medicine, string theory or what have you, but this is the bane of the arts student's existence. We spend all this time reading, studying, working hard (a few days a year, at least!) and what comes out of it is a piece of paper that potential employers consistently laugh at in interviews.

 Being employed can feel a bit like this too, especially if you are working a menial job such as goat herder, or that guy who dresses like a hotdog. But unlike study, work is a place where you get out what you put in. What you get out of hard work isn't just a number on a page that tells you how much smarter you are than your peers - with hard work you can actually move up from your plebeian existence into something semi-important/ less demeaning. If you make a really great hotdog, you can become the guy who yells at the hotdog if he's late, and then the guy who owns the hotdog company, and finally the guy who knows the real secret behind what they put into hotdogs.

Oh. Oh God.

 At the end of the (long, mindless trudge of a) day, work is what you make of it. That's what my friend told me when I couldn't come to an Explosions in the Sky concert cause of bloody work, and that's what I'm sticking to or else go completely mad.