(It is not Liz’s least favourite anything because she got a few chapters into the first book when she was 13, then stopped reading because it was awful. But ask her about that time she had to read So Much To Tell You in year 9 and it was incredibly triggery!)
There was a movie adaptation as recently as 2010! But this is not your usual ‘nerdy existential you’ll ruin it’ despair. OH NO. This is ‘this book series was written to capitulate on the fear of the Yellow Peril and to turn it into a tv series is to make a tv series based on the premise that Australia is at risk of the invading Asian hordes to the North, why, why must you do this to me’ kind of despair.
In all practical terms, this isn’t much of a change. Turnbull may believe in climate change and marriage equality, but there’s no sign he’s actually going to pursue any changes to Liberal policies there. In his first press conference this morning, he declared his commitment to mandatory detention for asylum seekers, so the change of prime minister just puts a new face on the same old human rights violations.
LUCKILY, Australians are good at finding the lighter side of a political backstabbing, and many memes and lols were had. No Award brings you some bits they most enjoyed/most noted. Mostly memes and hilarious rants.
Friend of No Award Ashleigh would like it noted:
Please document my very strong feelings about not giving a fuck about how this might make it harder for labor to win because stacking the deck for the future isn’t a valid argument to let someone fuck everything up for another year
No Award in fact had already adopted this exact sentiment as official No Award policy.
So here’s how it works. No Award has mental health issues. We admit that. There have been doctors involved, medication, all sorts of stuff.
An older person in Steph’s life was recently told by their GP they should consider seeing a psychiatrist. They went so ashen, so still. “Will I still be able to work?” They asked. We had to have a whole conversation about how a) there’s nothing wrong with seeing a psychiatrist, and b) their work doesn’t have to know, also.
There’s still a stigma around having a mental illness. And there’s a real danger in assuming that someone who looks sad or who is quiet might be the one who needs to be asked how they’re doing. The insidious thing about depression and suicide is that often the people you don’t suspect are the ones suffering; because depression helps you get very good at putting up a front.
Nevertheless, this is exactly what happens to Liz when she doesn’t take her Lexapro. I have sulked in MANY corners of MANY coffee shops while my brain chemistry does something unpleasant. (Art by Allie Brosh.)
There’s a feeling you get in your gut when someone who doesn’t care about your mental health enough to ask any other day of the year asks, because a campaign told them to, RUOK?
Mate, if I wanted you to know, I wouldn’t want you to ask me today.
Steph is going to quote from an Anonymous Friend of No Award here:
A lot of the people who get behind the day are the exact kind of people who would have ignored me at my worst.
Steph continues, this day is perfect for people who want to ignore the sorts of attention, friendship and actions that would actually help a person who isn’t okay.
It totally supports the Western idea that if you do one good public thing as an individual you’ve discharged your duty.
The branding and corporatisation of diseases is complicated: it’s one thing for there to be Parkinson’s Australia and the Walk in the Park (GET IT); it’s another for Steph’s workplace to have had a casual dress and barbecue day for RUOK Day.
RUOK Day doesn’t promote long term support after today, it doesn’t address societal and cultural causes of depression, and it encourages people with no experience with depression to meddle with sufferers in a way that could actually worsen their lives in all kinds of ways.
This is not to say that no good can come out of it, but, judging by the results of Liz’s informal Twitter poll, positive outcomes from RUOK day come from engagement with wider issues, rather than reducing it to one single question on one single day of the year.
For example, Another Anonymous Friend of No Award said:
At my old work, we had a nice morning tea, and the boss talked generally about mental health issues and contacting Beyond Blue etc.
It was pretty chill, and as far as I can remember, no one actually asked anyone if they were OK.
Another Anonymous Friend talked about people making her aware for the first time that there is (limited) Medicare coverage for therapy, and that made her feel more supported.
What these experiences have in common is that (a) they involved people going to the trouble of finding better resources than a random acquaintance with a four-letter question, and (b) they didn’t put the onus on people with mental illness to answer a four-letter question.
Because that’s the part that sets Liz’s anxiety off, and judging by the Twitter results, a lot of people feel the same way: living with a mental illness — even a minor anxiety disorder — there is a lot of pressure to be normal. Whatever normal is, and it’s a concept that can change with the setting.
If I’m having an anxious day, I don’t want to dump all my feelings in a colleague’s lap — and it’s not fair to them to make them deal with that either. I don’t know what their other problems are! It’s none of my business!
But I also don’t want to feel the pressure to say, “Yes! I am okay! 100% okay! Please hold while I grin nervously and sidle away!”
It’s all very well meaning but No Award does not endorse this day.
We also do not endorse advertisements … shaming you for exacerbating someone’s mental illness by not calling them? Is that what it’s doing? Come on, Virgin.
Here we are, solidly a “week” into “Spring.” In Melbourne, this means there’s nothing different to last month; it’s max 13C, there’s winds and rain, and this afternoon the possibility of hail.
So now seems like a good reminder: Spring is an artificial concept imported and imposed upon the Australian landscape when those invaders should have been chatting to the Traditional Owners about the six (or seven, or two) seasons. (It goes without saying that it’s all about imperialism and racism that we don’t talk about this stuff even now, but comment if you wanna chat about it)
Being from Perth, Steph is about to focus on the six seasons of the Nyoongar people, with brief diversions into Wirrudjeri (Eastern) seasons.
We’ll start with a reminder that seasonal calendars don’t match up with the Gregorian calendar, because the Gregorian calendar is an artificial concept imported and imposed upon the Australian landscape, along with the completely illogical European seasons. And of course there are different seasons across the whole continent, but Steph is only talking to the ones she knows. Okay, good. Now:
Perth. The South-West, a huge chunk of the continent. The Nyoongar seasonal calendar is six seasons long, yes, perfect. They don’t match up with the Gregorian calendar, but approximately:
When Sergeant Hayes is called to Yoorana cemetery in the middle of the night, he makes a discovery that turns his world upside down – six people with no memory of their identities. Who are they and what has happened to them?
Sergeant Hayes and Team I See Dead White People
It took me a while to get around to watching Glitch, because I’m neck-deep in The X-Files right now, and frankly, season 7 is so dire that I’m slightly afraid that if I stop now, I’ll never start again. But then came “Hollywood AD”, and I was like, “Right, we need a break. It’s not me, The X-Files, it’s you.”
On Friday I was chuffed to attend the 2nd Asia Pacific Writer’s Forum held at the Wheeler Centre as part of the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. Our topics for the forum were “Increasing Diversity,” “Media Control”, and “The Literary Economy”. I live-tweeted the event, and Peril recorded it for future analysis but I am cheekily getting in first with my feels.
This post is a combination of note taking of the discussions and translations into my feelings and continuing thoughts.
But relatedly, and above the cut: today I issued a challenge on twitter:
No Award is totally not yet grown up, and as such has role models. They’re under the read more cos this got long, turns out we role model many Australians.
Mr Raff said body corporate and property owners were footing bills of between $800-$1000 for the installation of cameras down drains in unit housing to determine who is responsible for clogging drains, should the problem arise.
Cameras to look at who is flushing wet wipes! We hope the cameras are in the drains, not in the bathrooms.
Netball: The sport America invented, then lost. Liz has a lot of complicated feelings about netball, mostly because it was compulsory for girls at her primary school, and the teachers just assumed everyone knew the rules. Plus, she was tall (yes, really!) and much better at basketball. However, netball as a cultural artifact is really interesting!
(MONA is not a great place to visit if you are asexual, have triggers relating to graphic depictions of rape, or have issues around cruelty to animals. I mention this because it didn’t come up in any of my pre-trip reading, and I personally would have liked some warning. Also, I can’t figure out why people were upset about the blunt knife in this piece, when the real issue is that the bowl is too shallow and the fish are hanging out in their own excrement.)
On the upside, I have yet to produce a museum review as terrible as this one.
Huw Parkinson of the ABC has found his calling: Australian politics and pop culture mash-ups. The only aspect of this Bronwyn-Bishop-as-Lucille-Bluth clip is that Tony Abbott isn’t Gob.
On a related note, Friend of No Award Ash has drawn our attention to a highlight of Bishop’s Wikipedia page:
Bishop was educated at Roseville Public School, completing her primary education in 1954. Bishop undertook a five-year LL.B. program at the University of Sydney. However, she was deemed ineligible to continue after failing a number of subjects multiple times. Bishop failed a total of 11 subjects over six years. In her first year in 1960, she failed all four core subjects. In 1964, she failed four subjects again and repeated them in 1965, in which she failed three again. The policy of the University of Sydney at the time was that a student was required to show cause why they should be allowed to repeat a subject for a third time, and Bishop was deemed ineligible to continue.
…Bishop first worked as an articled clerk and played an acting role as a barrister in the 1960s Australian television program Divorce Court.
Finally, Liz had one ongoing problem in Tasmania: the underwire of her bra kept popping out and trying to stab her. But Google has provided a solution! (No, it’s not “don’t wear bras without underwires”. They don’t exist in my size, and aside from the occasional stabbing, I prefer the support that comes with a bit of metal in one’s undergarments.)
This link has “borrowed” content and gender essentialism, but it also has more useful illustrations than the original source: How To Repair An Underwire Bra, featuring cheap corn/bunion pads.
If you chat with Stephanie for longer than about half an hour, you’ll probably discover her very loud opinions on capitalism. She has opinions. As a Chinese-Australian, from a South East Asian economy, from a variety of colonies, capitalism looms large and angrily. Capitalism is at the forefront of her mind when she rails against environmental degradation, against the injustices of our social system.
One of the major components of environmental action and changing the dichotomy in Australia is often about capitalism, and how we need to find a new paradigm. At No Award, we applaud anyone trying to engage with the capitalist storyline and changing it. We especially applaud anyone bringing other people with them.
Here’s an email Steph got from Liz when she was like ‘maybe we should No Award about this’:
I THINK NO AWARD NEEDS FIVE POSTS AND THEN TO GATHER A CROWD OF VILLAGERS WITH PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES TO STAND OUTSIDE THESE PEOPLE’S SHACKS AND TELL THEM TO CUT THEIR HAIR AND GET JOBS.
(Please note, No Award is very fond of long hair and also not having jobs)
Two West Coast supporters were evicted for racist behaviour and Goodes was continually booed throughout the match, prompting teammate Lewis Jetta to do an Aboriginal war dance after scoring a goal as a show of support for Goodes.
One of the ejected spectators yelled that Goodes should, “go back to the zoo.”
Former Brisbane Roar goalkeeper Griffin McMaster has weighed into the Adam Goodes racism controversy by suggesting the dual Brownlow medallist and former Australian of the Year should be deported.
I cry laughing every time I read this quote. Adam Goodes is an Indigenous Australian AFL player who was Australian of the Year. He is literally – like – there is no way to be more Australian in this country.
“Adam Goodes calls Australia Day invasion day,” McMaster wrote in a since-deleted tweet.
“Deport him.
“If you don’t like it leave.”
AN INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN AFL PLAYER WHO WAS AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR.
I
CANNOT
I’m probably actually going to be sick I’m so angry.
I’d be happy to see every Indigenous player from now on perform the war dance every time they kick a goal. That would rub it in all our white faces until we truly got the message that you are part of this culture on your own terms and not on the terms that white society deems to be acceptable.
Finally, in other non-racist news, Andrew Bolt has been busy posting clips of Martin Luther King speeches. He’s running a campaign against the ‘race war’ in the AFL, a war conducted, not by the booing fans, but by Adam Goodes, who seems to be singlehandedly oppressing all of Australia’s white football followers.
Yes, that’s right. You see, MLK had a dream that white children would, one day, be able to say whatever they damn well want – and that non-white people would sit there and take it.
Happily, here in Australia, that noble vision seems on the verge of coming true.
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