Ms Sundays | Episode 4: Social Media

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Episode 4, peeps. This week we talk about social media (mostly Facebook), and not much else! We didn't review anything; I'm still not sure whether reviews are something we should include in future (I already have a too-long list of things I'd like to read and watch before I die; adding to it regularly thanks to others' reviews can feel overwhelming, and I don't want to be the cause of someone else's overwhelmedness).

Enjoy.

P.S. Bec, I hope this has gone up in time for your gym visit!

Update #2

This picture is of Mo’s birthday present to me. It’s a stingray, made with paper, pencils, tape, sticks, and a frond-like thing from a plant in the yard for the tail. I love love love it.

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We’re still planning as though we’re moving to Adelaide at the end of the year, despite the fact that the chances of Alan finding a job exactly when we want him to are slim. Sydney seems to be where all the work is at right now, unfortunately for us (you suck, Sydney). I’m making back-up plans to avoid the need for a meltdown if we’re still here in November; I tend to believe that the more I get attached to the back-up plans and start thinking of staying, the more likely it is we’ll end up moving. Alan is very keen to go, mostly for the garden we’d be able to have if we lived somewhere cheaper. He spends many an evening looking through Adelaide properties on domain.com and longingly stroking photos of backyards on his computer screen. When not drooling over vegetable patches online, Alan’s been watching Breaking Bad, which I’m not watching with him (I had to ban him from debriefing with me after particularly intense episodes; I find even recaps of the show disturbing). As for Alan’s daylight hours, they’re generally busy, with five days of work now crammed into four (he’s off on Fridays now, which are my study days). And at night time he sleeps.

Moses also sleeps at night times, and wakes up at or by 6am. He’s four-and-a-half! He’s growing up! It’s weird, but also wonderful to watch. He can swim now! And he’s not happy just riding his bike, he wants to stand up while riding! And ride with only one hand! And try riding with no hands! (He fell off. He’s back to just one hand again.) He’s mastering monkey bars and trying out skateboarding and generally being a kid rather than a baby. Sometimes I watch him sleeping and marvel at how much of his bed he’s taking up these days, and remember when he was cot-sized and couldn’t walk, let alone break- and ballet-dance in the kitchen. The thoughts of Mo- and bed-sizes is all thanks to a new project I’ve started: taking photos of Moses and Roary sleeping in the same positions.

Mo’s also learning what sounds words start with, making up rhymes, recognising letters, and taking small steps towards reading. The other day at the park he pulled his bike up beside a little boy who was on the ground (I couldn’t tell if he was yelling because of a fall or a tantrum) and asked the boy if he was okay, and if he’d like Mo to ride and tell his mum she was needed? The little boy said no, and then Mo waited with him until the boy’s mum arrived (she was walking a little way behind, with a pram) and then rode off, while my heart burst with pride: Look at my kind child! Isn’t he lovely?! Later he found approximately 34 new ways to irritate Hazel, but LET’S NOT DWELL ON THAT. Watching Mo help Hazel put her shoes on is the sweetest thing ever.

Speaking of shoes, Hazel isn’t quite so obsessed with them anymore, possibly because I made sure she only had one pair that fit her this summer to put a stop to our arguments over which ones she’d wear. She’s 19 months old now. In February I realised it’d been a while since I last measured Moses up against the bookshelf (it’d been a whole year, I discovered), so I marked his height and then marked Hazel’s for the first time. A couple of weeks later, after numerous comments along the lines of “I think Hazel grew during her sleep today!” and “Does Hazel look taller to you?” we decided to measure her again and found she’d grown a whole inch. Jeans which I used to have to roll up are now slightly too short on her.

Turns out only one child was drawing with textas. The other was eating them.

Hazel loves puzzles that involve plugging things into other things: keys into keyholes, Lego pieces into other Lego pieces, earphones into earphone-hole-thingies on iPods. She likes drawing on anything that’s not the paper she’s been given to draw on. She’s adding to her vocabulary daily. Whenever she sees a child under the age of (around) 10, she points and yells “Baby!” I’ve tried explaining that this could be taken as an insult, given that some of the children are obviously more than triple her age, but she won’t listen to me. She also tries to pat “babies,” usually on the head. This is not making her many friends in parks at the moment. 

Then there’s Doggy, and also Back-Up Doggy 1 and Back-Up Doggy 2 (the latter two are Duplo dogs which look absolutely nothing like Doggy, but seem to be satisfactory replacements simply because of the fact that they are also dogs). Doggy goes everywhere with Hazel, unless she’s put him down and forgotten where he is, in which case Back-Up Doggy 1 and/or Back-Up Doggy 2 go/es. There was one outing where Doggy, Back-Up Doggy 1, Back-Up Doggy 2 and a mini soccer ball came along with us, but I found it was too stressful keeping track of this large an entourage, so I’ve now limited it to one Doggy per trip. Hazel also sleeps with Doggy (or a Back-Up Doggy, if Doggy can’t be found). Alan’s worried that the bones in her hand are becoming Doggy-shaped thanks to her tight, 24-hour-a-day grip on Doggy. She also loves (LOVES!!!!!) real-life dogs. And geese.

I think that brings you up-to-date on all of us. Oh, and Oranges and Sunshine was heartbreaking and awful (story-wise) but good (movie-wise).

Ms Sunday Podcast | Episodes 1, 2 and 3

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Here are the first three episodes of our podcast, now in one convenient location for your listening pleasure! And stuff! You're welcome.

Episode 3 | Feminism


Episode 2 | Ms Sunday


Episode 1 | The Introduction

Update

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Hello, Blog! I’m sorry I’ve neglected you lately, I don’t have much bloggy time while classes are running and unfortunately my two-week break between my first and second subjects coincided with my medication’s awesome effects dropping off and leaving me low and completely uninspired for a while. I’m on a higher dosage now, and am just starting to climb out of the dumpy hole I was in, although I’m still feeling excessively tired and spaced-out and spend a lot of my time reminding myself to focus on the conversation I’m currently having rather than daydreaming about curling up on the ground and having a nap. Along with my desire to be awake, the antidepressants have taken away my libido and my ability to reverse park, both of which I miss terribly. I’m not feeling very loving towards the medication at the moment, though I can’t remember what life was like before it was around. I’m seeing a psychiatrist at the end of the month to start what is hopefully a short process of figuring out if there’s another magical tablet that will lift my mood, keep me alert, restore my driving capabilities, improve my singing voice, motivate me to exercise and cook dinners for me, but I won’t hold my breath.

Here is a brief update of life at the moment.

I’m up to the second week of my second class for Psychology. Last week’s topic was social psychology, which was so cool – I’ve heard of some of the studies before (Milgram’s Obedience Study and Elliott’s Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise) but never in much detail, and it was fascinating to watch videos of them and think about how I might react in the same situation (Asch’s Conformity Study especially! I’d like to think I’d say the right answer, no matter what). The one I found most interesting, though, was Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study (the clip’s below), possibly because I saw it around the same time as the many articles were being published about potential links between complementarian theology and domestic violence. It made me reflect all over again on the way being placed in roles of power changes people (and reminded me of this post I wrote a couple of years ago now). I wonder if there’s any link between complementarian theology and smacking one’s children? It’d be difficult to test that, though... (This is how I think now – everything is a potential study.)

Apart from uni work, making the podcast is another thing I’ve been enjoying in the absence of blogging inclinations. We recorded our third episode last week, on feminism (it was International Women’s Day on the date we were supposed to record it, so the topic seemed pertinent). I think we’re getting the hang of this podcasting thing! This episode in particular makes me cringe more than others because I talk more in it (and I say “fundamental” Christianity instead of “fundamentalist,” which I would chew off my toes to be able to go back in time and correct. Alas.)(“Phew,” say my toes), but I’m getting better at not giggling quite so much and at interrupting Sarah and Sonia less. (We probably still talk far too quickly, Grandpa, but I’ve taken your other comments on board.)

Episode 3 | Feminism

I was going to fill you in on everyone else in the family, but I’ll save them for later – I borrowed three DVDs from the library during my uni break and ended up reading books instead, but the movies are due back tomorrow and apparently Margaret and David think Oranges and Sunshine is worth watching, so I’m off to watch it now. (Who will I turn to for advice on whether or not to see any movies that come out this year or after? WHO?!) Ciao for now.

Ms. Sundays

So the podcast has a name now. It was just going to be called Sundays, but we gave our second episode the name Ms. Sundays and decided we liked that better (now to figure out whether ‘Ms’ needs a full stop; google is offering conflicting advice…). This second episode includes less giggling and less Alan than Episode 1 (which you can find here), and I actually manage to get out a few bumble-free sentences, unlike the first time around! Hurrah! As I’ve mentioned before, I much prefer me-in-writing to me-in-speaking, but I’m enjoying this opportunity to work on becoming at least slightly more articulate and less panicked about expressing myself verbally. Perhaps there’s hope for me yet.

This week includes a little more conversation about the idea of dressing for other people and self-esteem (following on from last week), as well as a brief discussion on using Miss, Ms. or Mrs. We then realised we were running out of time and squeezed in reviews of Citizenfour, Still Alice (the book and the movie*), and A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. Enjoy!

* I don’t know if I was unfair on the film version of Still Alice; I wasn’t feeling well, so probably shouldn’t have even watched the movie last weekend, let alone reviewed it. My mum saw it with me (she hadn’t read the book), and she rated the film 3.5/5. Just so you know.

Episode 2 | Ms. Sunday

Dream/future film

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I’ve been having incredibly vivid dreams lately, which I’m blaming on the medication. I hope you’ll forgive me for writing about one of these dreams here, I keep thinking about it and it seemed so much like an awesome B-grade science fiction film that I wanted to put it on my blog in case someone comes up with a similar idea and I can point back to this post and be all like, hey, you totally stole my story, and then I’d convince them to let me work on the movie alongside them to make up for the theft. Or something, you know, I haven’t fully thought it through or anything.

So it’s set on a giant mountain, which is kinda the whole earth, and there’s a spiral path leading all the way to the top, and it’s very leafy and wet (I’m just going to come right out and say THINK TWILIGHT MOVIES). There are many levels, or “Altitudes,” on the giant mountain, which have to do with both the distance from sea level and also the idea of clans or countries, or something in between – like, you’d say, “I live on the 7th Altitude,” which would be (in our, actual, non-dream world) the equivalent of saying, “I live in Australia,” except with more of a class-system thing happening. (Dude, I am COMPLETELY cool if you want to go read something else now. Seriously.)

So the main character’s this girl/woman, who may or may not be me, and she’s a star runner (running seems to be a thing on the whole mountain, or perhaps just on/in her altitude/Altitude – lots of people run, but slightly more quickly and sustainedly than normal, non-dream people; it’s kind of a lukewarm version of a super power). So this girl/woman and her running group go on a camp to a higher altitude/Altitude and somehow the teachers in the group accidentally do something which means a massive explosion is nigh on wiping out at least that entire Altitude, but possibly also every Altitude below them, and they urge their students to run further up the mountain to try to get away ASAP. And there is fear and panic amongst the group, and then the girl-who-may-or-may-not-be-me spots a giant mushroom cloud in the distance, turns around, and bolts.

When we next see her, time has passed and she is inside a community centre-type building, higher up the mountain, and the people there have stockpiled food and are doing what they can to protect themselves from the effects of the explosion on the lower altitudes. The girl/woman is trying to be part of it all without revealing too much of who she is in case someone finds out that she was a member of the group that caused the explosion, and the leader of the stockpiling-food group, a dashing young man, is convinced both that there’s something shady about this girl/woman and also that he might be totally in love with her (look, I was asleep, okay? It’s not like I wrote this thing while conscious). Then people start running in from further down the mountain yelling about how the fumes are coming and they’re all going to die, and a wave of polluted bubbles starts moving towards them, and eventually they all suffocate on the bubble-filled air and die slow and painful deaths. THE END.

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If you know how to interpret dreams, and/or would be interested in turning this into a Hollywood blockbuster, please get in touch.