there must be a door in the back of my head

not only do i have the capacity to believe two completely opposite and contradictory things equally and at once, but it seems now that i am able to want one thing and do things to completely ruin any chances of me getting what i want. consciously.

case in point: i am sitting at my laptop, though my back is aching, though i am tired. i am talking on msn, though i promised myself i wouldn't, though i'm probably going to get myself stuck into four-hour conversations. i am not snuggling under my doona wearing three pairs of socks, though the rest of my fam have tucked themselves in. the repercussions of this? i will not be able to heave myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of nine tomorrow morning in order to start studying for my exam on wednesday. i will be tired all day and unable to think straight. which means i will stress all tomorrow and the next day, and not do very well in my exam (let alone the one i have on thursday). in case you hadn't realised, doing well in these exams is the thing that i want. i do. really. i promise.

and yet
i am totally aware that by staying up and ruining my study plans and my body clock
and therefore
i am totally complicit in sabotaging my chances of getting what i want.


but i do love dnms, even if they're online. i would abolish small talk if i had a choice. and open up my bible in every conversation.

this is what it sounds like, when...

last week at church we were challenged to learn to be attracted to godly people.
the good news?


i think i'm learning.

sunny silhouette

i'm looking forward to...

*reading corinthians 1 and 2*

*going on rollercoasters at the gold coast theme parks*

*not having to feel guilty about posting blog entries or talking on msn*

*eu annual conference*

*seeing lior at caringbah bizzos with cool kids*

*seeing anberlin at the gaelic with more cool kids, on my birthday*

*becoming more mature*

spread my wings (lord won't you now)

there's a university in america that offers a subject in blogging.
imagine if aussie universities got imaginative too. i would suggest a subject, or maybe even a degree, in procrastinating. it would set you up spectacularly for working for the government, especially for the tax office! if they introduced that, i think my talents would be better invested by enrolling in it. i am ridiculously good at procrastinating. this entry, in fact, this blog, is irrefutable evidence of that fact.

i manage to sit at my desk for four days in a row, and at the end of it find my brain full of
a.) a detailed understanding of the difference between stabilo boss and faber-castell pink highlighters
b.) memorised lyrics by lior, missy higgins and the john butler trio
c.) a vision of the holidays
d.) trivial facts vaguely related to the subject matter i'm supposed to be studying
e.) calculations of how much my phone bill increases during months when i have exams

and my desk full of
a.) lists of 'to do' lists
b.) post-it notes stuck haphazardly reminding me of phone numbers and email addresses of uni friends i desperately need to contact to um, compare notes (shifty eyes)
c.) coffee cups with the remnants of the hot chocolate i consume once an hour
d.) pages of doodles
e.) cds i've rummaged through in order to find the best 'study music'

the exams for procrastination 101 would be brilliant. it wouldn't matter what the question was--you'd be guaranteed a high distinction if you handed in a page or so of scrawly drawings and random song lyrics. and perhaps a comparison of various pink highlighters.


in the meantime, i just realised that i've done a lot of bible-reading this week. partly because i've been a bit *down*, and yeah, probably because i'm looking for something better to do than memorise the various reasons president johnson chose to invade vietnam with 125 000 combat troops in july 1965. (and yes i had to check my notes that it was actually 125 000, and that it was in july 1965.) and it certainly is better. i will take hebrews 9:14 (how much more, then, will the blood of christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to god, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living lord!) to the grave, and beyond. but call me weird, but i highly doubt that 125 000 and july 1965 will stick with me til then. heck, i doubt they'll stick with me til my exam tomorrow!


sounds gracing my eardrums: missy higgins, you only like me coz i'm good in bed

you make it easy

god has taught me so much these last six months. it's ridiculous how much i've grown (like 10cm, haha i think i got my dad's sense of humour). it's incredible and wonderful and frightening.

i really want to say something, and it can't wait til after exams, so i'm going to do a dodgy job of saying it now.


god has surrounded me with so many fantastic christian guys this year. i'm not going to name them because most of them would hate the publicity and all of them know that they owe everything to god anyway. i think i thank my girlfriends all the time for being there for me...which is right and good, and, keeping in mind how screwed up my head is sometimes, they've really earned it by offering their ears and their hearts. but i think--i know--i neglect my male friends. i don't want to get too psychoanalytical on you all, or too mushy either, but: it's true that i don't like being single and that it's easy to blame guys, in general, for that fact. which is completely and utterly appalling. but it's the way my sinful mind connects the dots sometimes. it's true also that there have been times when guys haven't treated me particularly well, intentionally or otherwise. but there are so many more times guys have been wonderful to me. in the end, i remember the beautiful times and forget the rest.

thank you to my guy friends who respect and love me as their sister. thanks for being there for me and putting up with me, just as my girlfriends do. you are a blessing to me.

and i'm deeply sorry if i have offended any of you by posting ridiculous comments about the male variety on this blog. know that those comments are the result of the melodrama that inspires so many of these blog entries, and undoubtedly my insecurities and my attention-seeking.

please pray for me that i will find comfort in my relationship with christ jesus, and not take out my frustrations on the (undeserving) male race.


much love,
alix

i got the blues, brother

ten reasons i am alone:

one. i expect too much.

two. i'm very annoying.

three. i can't trust my own feelings to even know if i actually do like someone.

four. most days, i'm a train wreck loosely disguised by a perky pony tail and some colourful clothes.

five. i'm ridiculously self-involved.

six. i don't own any tact.

seven. i'm impatient as and ruin everything before it has a chance to begin.

eight. i'm too far from the gentle and quiet spirit that a godly guy is looking for.

nine. creation is groaning; everything is out of order.

ten. god wants me to be alone right now.

five reasons i don't like being in like with a boy:

one. it brings out the very worst in me: jealousy, exhibitionism, etc etc.

two. i explode everything in my head and it takes on an unhealthy life of its own.

three. i become ridiculously preoccupied and neglect my relationship with god.

four. it's scary. and besides, boys are stupid and we should throw rocks at them.

five. whenever someone likes me, i don't like them. whenever i like someone, they don't like me. it's a vicious cycle.

one reason i'm being all angsty and dumb:

one. i'm struggling to be content, even though god has given me the secret to contentment.

as cold and numb as you

there is a glass window. with curvy, brash, childlike letters slapped upon it. G O O D M O O D. rose-coloured glass. i have looked through it for the past three weeks--a record amount of time.

last night, the shrill, piercing high notes of the proverbial opera singer started to splinter the glass. cracks appeared, shots of the dull world behind the rose glass seeping through.


today, the glass shattered.

this race / there's no first place / at all

therefore do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will worry about itself.
each day has enough trouble of its own.
matthew 6:34

i feel like god has implanted that verse into my head. matthew 6 has come up--in conversation, in studies, in sermons, in prayers--an uncanny number of times, ever since that day after trials last year: i flicked my bible open in a mood of despair, and that chapter came up. god blessed. god sent.

a little while ago we had a discussion bible study, where we got to grill two visiting moore college students. a chance to bring up any questions or comments. i'm not sure how, but yet again matthew 6 surfaced, fought its way past all the other verses and books and jumped into the middle of the discussion. one of the students said something that has really challenged me this term.

"i think it's easy to forget that worrying is a sin."

now: exams. and i am not stressed at all. partly because they are still a week away. but mainly coz the minute i start to feel a twinge of anxiety in my stomach or start thinking through the prospect of--shock--getting a credit, god just goes, all matter-of-factly, echoing in me, duuude. what are you doing? don't you think i've got it under control? whatchu doing girl?



sounds gracing my eardrums: what if, coldplay

bananas (b-a-n-a-n-a-s!)

i'm in the process of writing notes on online journalism. yes i've started studying! and it's only the sixth day of uni study break! i'm slowly making my way through a chapter of david conley's dirge-like textbook, the daily miracle: an introduction to journalism (2nd edt. though why anyone would agree to re-publish such convoluted and verbose writing is beyond me).

and i come across this:

"When the author was twenty he did an internship

with his small hometown newspaper in the USA.

This meant both writing stories and taking photographs."

how incredibly stupid does that sound? i mean, i know virginia woolf thought that "'I' is only a convenient term for somebody who has no real being" (no really, she did), but come on--why the paranoid refusal to articulate that letter. the letter i. I. it makes me want to repeat the letter i (I I I I I) as many times as i can, like when my sisters and i used to shout 'die die die die die' at the tv's personified energizer battery whenever that ad came up and he said smugly 'never say die!'

wow, study makes me witty as. and hella sarcastic.

as if it's not enough to show the pretentious insecurity of a journalist scared of the 's' word (subjectivity), 'the author' continues thus:

"From the beginning it was clear that simultaneously

thinking text and pictures put me at a disadvantage

with other media that could send both a reporter

and a photographer to a news event."

like, what? so then he embraces 'me'? and goes on to use 'i' repeatedly, apparently without any qualms?


i can't be expected to work under these conditions.

spies

i don't think it is possible to live as a christian inside the big brother house.

suppose, against all odds, a christian made it onto the show. quite apart from having to reconcile themselves with the idol-worship encouraged by the reality genre--with the prospect of being elevated as a celebrity based solely on the merits of your personality, of walking down to the stage high with the exhilaration of popularity, selfishly won--i think the house is fundamentally, diametrically opposed to the christian life.

1. no reading matter permitted
this means no bibles. god's word is the sustenance of the christian walk. it fuels our steps closer to the living lord; by it we learn to fashion our lives more closely to jesus' example and so grow an intimate relationship with our father. the christian person has to give up the privilege of god's word not for a few days, but potentially for three months straight! i know how terrible i feel (not a guilty feeling, because i'm saved by faith not works, but i find it emotionally draining to face the world without god's word in my ear) and how much the world seems to crash in and permeate my sight if i neglect my bible-reading for more than a week. three months? unimaginable for the mature christian dependent on solid food.

2. nominations = bitchiness
each housemate must nominate others to determine the candidates for eviction. not only must they, critically and judgmentally, single out others...but they must provide reasons for voting. a lot of the time the housemates struggle for reasons to nominate, and for answers to the all-important question: 'how does that affect your time in the house?' so yes, a christian could vote purely on the basis of things like not helping out, or not cleaning. but then they would have to provide a personal justification...explain how their housemate not cleaning makes them 'feel'. i can't see that this isn't anything other than forced bitchiness. even if, somehow, the christian housemate is able to dispassionately nominate and provide dispassionate but sufficient reasons for doing so, the nomination process sets up a context in which one is encouraged to be overly critical of others.

3. nudity and depravity
this series in particular, sees a house populated with a bunch of losers--in my opinion anyway. usually there's one or two decent housemates that have you on side from the beginning. trev last year. reggie the year before. just likeable, good-natured, fairly down-to-earth people. i watched the first episode of this series because, well, it's nice to have some mindless but addictive tv to break up all the study etc. i guess my overall impression looked a lot like the little 'shocked' emoticon on msn messenger. now, i'm pretty naive (proudly so), but i'm not completely ignorant of the secular world of the sexually promiscuous 20-something. hell, i saw some pretty crazy stuff on the schoolies cruise last year. nonetheless, i was shocked by this batch of housemates. more than one of the women declared that other women hate them because they're jealous of their beauty and talents. or something to that effect. almost every male housemate announced that they treat women badly. the criteria for housemates this year was that they were single. further criterion are added when one considers that the sydney auditions involved producers asking candidates what the most outrageous (implying sexual) thing they would do in the house...and then proceeding to ask them to demonstrate those acts. accordingly, this season has seen marathon kissing sessions and questionable activity in a rewards-room bath. i mean, come on, the producers set up a pole dancing area in the house! and one housemate bought a kinky nurse's outfit in!
interestingly, big brother's ratings have dropped since last year. it would seem that a newly sexually-charged house isn't exactly what the public had in mind. i'm both surprised and glad about this.
but what of a christian amongst the drunken stupors and crude jokes? or, even, amongst a bathroom of housemates who, bar one i think, choose to shower completely naked (and together) in front of the entire country? i have been thinking a lot about what i wear, and what is appropriate for me to wear to church in order to be loving to my christian brothers. it's a telling contrast: me choosing jeans over a miniskirt, the housemates choosing neither.

this is all hypothetical. i doubt a christian would ever pass the auditions in the first place, particularly this season with its new and 'improved' criteria. and, even if the producers slipped and accidentally let in a rogue christian, as if they wouldn't be voted out in the first eviction! a christian with a peace-making streak and a passion not for threesomes but for the bible...i don't need to wonder how that would go down on national television.

i think it'd be cool to chuck a christian in there, to exaggerate by comparison the craziness of that house. it'd be mad to publicise the purity and goodness of christianity, to provide a christian example to mainstream australia. but it just wouldn't--and couldn't--happen.

miss independent

today, a girl pushed in front of me when getting off the train.

she walked up the stairs a little before me, since she'd pushed in front of me.

she was short, perhaps indian. fine cheekbones and clear skin. long, straight black hair violated on the ends by orange-red hair dye. pulled back tightly in a neat, perky bun. she wore a figure-hugging black pinstripe suit, which accentuated her small waist and shapely hips. pink, shiny beads dropped from her earlobes and, with the hint of surprise that accompanies eclectic elements, a bright sky-blue astroboy bag dropped from her padded, tailored shoulder.

i noticed all this detail because she led the way down to the traffic lights and, after lighting up a cigarette with one hand--a business-like, snappy movement--and thumping the round silver button impatiently with the other, she pushed in front of me again on the other side of the road.

i had to walk extra slow to avoid the cloud of pernicious grey smoke that flared up around her pretty head rhythmically. inhale. exhale. keeping a few metres back, i heard square-toed enclosed feet walked, almost stomped, atop chunky black heels. i tried to decipher confidence from determination from insecurites masked by confidence and determination. she was very small, but very forceful in her movements. as if going somewhere. by a certain time. on the dot.

despite her fiery, get-out-of-my-way, i'm-going-to-push-in-front-of-you-and-pretend-i-don't-see-you exterior, she was not fully certain that she wanted to push in front and pretend she didn't see. the way she placed her hand upon the bag that sat upon her hip...carefully, arm slightly tensed, unmoving. like she was guarding secrets and half-truths bequeathed to astroboy alone.

i looked up at the sky above me. she looked at the ground in front of her.
i breathed deeply air scented with the winding down of the end of a long day. she stabbed her lungs every time she inhaled.
she was probably a few years older than me, but she seemed young.


i walk lazily, letting my red and white spotted thongs wear away by scraping the gravel. not shuffling, but not lifting my feet.

she disappeared around a bend and out of my sight, and she became a past tense. a 'she was'. a 'she had'. she exists like an extra in my movie. appears briefly in a few frames but travels outside of the range of my camera. to be edited out at a later date.
the whole world's a stage?

smile like you mean it

some things various boys have told me this week:

*i am outlandish and self-opinionated.

*i look like a juice bar chick.

*i am gorgeous on the inside and well as on the outside, and god loves me heaps.

*the funkiness of my glasses makes me appear less intelligent than i am.

how can four letters mean so much?

whenever i'm impressed with a boy or i start thinking i might have feelings for a boy, i do the 'loves' game. in the hope that it might affirm my feelings in some pathetic, school girl way.

alix baumgartner

LOVES

john smith

1 1 0 1 1

2 1 1 2

3 2 3

5 5%

it's not because i don't trust in god to lead me and to provide me someone to love, if it is his will, in his time. partly it's because i can't trust my 'feelings' as my head and my heart are pretty screwed up...so i might as well try my luck with the prophecy of alphabet.

and partly it's because i am (and probably always will be) a kid at heart, doodling love hearts on the front of my school diary.

hang the baskets on the wall

i am quite content to do nothing. more than content--i thoroughly enjoy it. i love, especially, having the entire house to myself. turning my music up nice and loud. dancing around my room in my pyjamas. stealing chocolate from the cupboard (or at least sneaking spoonfuls of nutella from the jar). it is not so much enjoyment derived from watching dvds or surfing the net, but enjoyment derived from the fact that i can, if i choose to, watch amelie or check out homestarrunner. it's that blissful feeling that comes from knowing that i don't have to stress about anything.

having time just to being alone is a big part of me being happy. as much as i love to go to a cafe after church with everyone or do coffee with one of my lovely girlfriends or a gentlemanly boy...i need that time alone. it's only the last few months, i guess, that i've reconciled myself to that.

i think the capacity to be alone with oneself is telling of how one feels about themselves. a couple of years ago i resented catching the bus home from school by myself. but now i relish walking to the station and just spending time with god. it's nice to get away from everyone; it's nice to look up at the expanse of sky and feel totally alone, or rather, totally alone with god and--er--sky. i don't feel pathetic anymore on the occasional saturday night spent curled up in a doona at home, shuffling around the house like a fluffy caterpillar. (and yes, i think caterpillar because john marsden uses it as a simile in the tomorrow when the war began series--i can't claim it. actually, i'm shocking when it comes to similes. i've got nothing as far as similebrain goes.) but i think now i can deal with the reality of 'me.' that sounds very silly. but: there's not really anywhere to hide when you're all alone. when other people are around you can defer self-contemplation and, indeed, any expression of your unadulterated self. it's when i'm alone that i have to face my sinfulness, and, conversely, the gifts that god has given me. it's only then that i can truly give it all over to god. it's only then that i can fully say, with my whole being, both 'thanks for making me your perfect creation, heavenly father' and 'i'm so sorry that i screw up so much'. most significantly: it's when alone that the immensity of the cross bears down on me most forcefully.

there's perhaps more to it than that, for me. i like being alone because, as i said, i can for example dance around in my pyjamas. makeup-free. hair naturally oiled. sleepy eyed. enormous pj pants that sit halfway down my butt, announcing 'i'm three sizes too big for you!' as they slide. dancing ridiculously, moves that scarily resemble the routines of 80s film-clips. this is a picture of me at my worst. at least according to society. but what freedom to be ugly in society's eyes! to be a true alien of society! to be a total stranger to the image the magazine pages and tv dramas promote in glossy whispers to teenage girls like me!

i'm not confident enough to be this messy-hair, imperfect-complexion alien in public. for now, i revel in the freedom afforded by escaping society's gaze. aloneness means not having to worry about whether i look pretty or intelligent or 'cool.' aloneness means not having to shape myself according to what other people want to see.

aloneness allows me to be myself.



(and no, 'aloneness' isn't a word.)

i know you blanket your mind so much that I am blind

HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA:
THE NEED FOR A NATIONAL NARRATIVE
By Alix Baumgartner


In 2002, I entered Year 11 at high school, and a new history syllabus for Year 10, with a compulsory Australian History component, was introduced. The half-teasing, rueful grin I gave my friends in the grade below betrayed my unintentional aversion to any kind of Australian history—how I pitied those whose fate was swallowing the details of a national story I so avoided! Many of my fellow university students, normally passionate about historical pursuit in all its variety, flock to lectures on American, European and Asian history in an effort to distance themselves from the vaguely known and little understood discourse of invasion and land rights, immigration and multiculturalism, stolen generations and convict supremacy. The resultant deficiency of general knowledge about the Australian past translates to a national narrative insufficient to sustain a society of myriad experiences.

This insufficiency manifests itself in a superficial patriotism. The Australian brand of patriotism is preoccupied with cricket, beer, blow-up kangaroos, and Ian Thorpe. The Australian Election Study of 1996 revealed that while a high proportion of people were prepared to say that they were ‘very proud’ of Australian sport, there was great contention—particularly among the better educated—about the role of history and the matter of pride in Australia’s past.[1]

According to Bob Carr, “patriotism arises from a profound knowledge of your country’s history and geography. And Australian patriotism is our reflection, our response to the interaction of this motley people and a unique land.”[2] Patriotism that constitutes more than a taste for meat pies is dependent on a “profound knowledge” of history that the typical Australian just doesn’t possess, and in fact deliberately, if perhaps subconsciously, shies away from. Although the history wars consume copious amounts of newspaper ink as commentators brandish their pens over whose version of what past Australia should be remembering, the stereotype of Australian history for students is that it is repetitive and uninteresting. Christine Halse’s research into the state of history in New South Wales secondary schools betrays this sentiment. Said one student, “I would rather watch paint dry” than study Australia’s past.[3] This is nothing new. In a 1975 survey, one Victorian student said that their class had “wasted too much time learning Australian history, about which there is very little of interest to learn. It is time we faced this fact instead of trying to pretend that Australia has had a very interesting history.”[4]

In the 1990s, research revealing low levels of ‘historical literacy’ culminated in a massive government effort to increase civic and historical understanding. The realization that only 18 per cent of young Australians knew who Edmund Barton was led to the national ad campaign that asked: “What country would forget the name of its first Prime Minister?” Such results, wrote Anna Clark in the Melbourne Education Age in February 2004, are worrying because history “gives context—it enables students to think about where they come from, and the ideas and institutions (good and bad) that have made Australia what it is.”[5]

The American John Ross lamented the suppression of his country’s history in ‘Against Amnesia’:
In my own country
amnesia is the norm,
the schools teach us
to unremember from birth,
the slave taking, the risings up,
the songs of resistance,
the first May first,
our martyrs from Haymarket
to Attica to the redwoods of California
ripped whole from our hearts,
erased from official memory…[6]
The problem in Australia is not official censorship, evidenced by the enormous body of revisionist Australian history developed after the 1960s. Instead, Australians are themselves complicit: we effectively ‘rip whole from our hearts’ our cultural legacy by collective ignorance. We suffer from self-inflicted social amnesia. A person suffering from amnesia is thrust into an unknown, uncertain world, and consequently becomes acutely aware of the extent to which their identity is tied up in their past. Loss of memory constitutes loss of self, loss of identity. The parameters of our knowledge of the world are historical. History, as the famous dictum reads, is society’s memory. It is the only steady foundation for societal growth.

So, is the answer a Bob Carr-style history syllabus? The compulsory New South Wales syllabus has, after heavy criticism and disappointing student results, just been rewritten. What is needed, suggests Michael Spur, professional development coordinator for the History Teachers Association of Victoria, is a “real narrative” so that students can find the same sort of drama more obvious in the German or American contexts.[7]

Indeed.

Keith Windschuttle has attempted to provide such a narrative. Just as Alfred Deakin believed that nothing less than the “national character and manhood”[8] were at stake in enforcing his White Australia policy, Windschuttle, more than 100 years on, believes that this “national character” is at stake—in the writing of history. His revisionist The White Australia Policy, published in December 2004, is the latest installment of a larger political undertaking: the project of redeeming Australia’s national honour.[9] Arguably a professional confrontationalist, Windschuttle continues in the combative and polemical strain of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History.[10] “Australia is not, and never has been, the racist country its academic historians have condemned,” he declares.[11] In Windschuttle’s view, history should serve the nation. Thus he writes as a patriot, determined to rescue Australia’s reputation from those who, in his view, seek to impugn it. The academic historians he flays are a diverse group who, in actuality, disagree with each other as much as with Windschuttle, but “political combat requires the fantasy of a powerful and unified enemy.”[12]

As Windschuttle told the Sydney Morning Herald, “My broad agenda is to criticise my own generation, people who were educated in the sixties and took on board a whole range of ideas which I think are socially damaging, of which one is…hard multiculturalism, and the idea that Australia is a shockingly racist country comparable to South African apartheid.”[13] Politically driven history, which charts such a “broad agenda” and simplistically casts historical subjects as heroes or villains, can pose a barrier to understanding an ambiguous and complex past. Indeed, in arguing that Australian nationalism was not race-based, Windschuttle not only engages in perversity, but erects false dichotomies. Defining Deakin, for example, as merely a “cultural relativist” is tenuous at best: Deakin was overtly racist, recognising that the empire comprised ruling and ruled classes and insisting that, as white men, Australians belonged to the former. If nothing else, as Marilyn Lake notes, such an argument is not a fruitful way to understand “the range of race thinking and subjective identification that characterised the federation period.”[14]

Windschuttle’s ‘narrative’ of the Australian past is too simplistic. He is right, though, to observe that the central unanswered question of Australia’s national story is a racial one. Today, the noble stamp of egalitarianism is a primary source of pride for real-life Ramsey Streets with their token Asians, Arabs and Africans. Yet, Australia’s history has never been reconciled to Australia’s present. While university students keep a hand on their purses when exiting Redfern Station, John Howard’s refusal to articulate official reconciliation reflects the fact that modern-day Australians do not accept ownership of their history. The dispute over the term ‘invasion’ has echoed all over Australia, each state experiencing its own struggle over the language of Australian history syllabuses.[15] It proves not only that the teaching of Australian history is a contentious business, but that Australia exhibits significant historical problems which remain unresolved. There are enormous deficits in Aboriginal-White Australia relations, which poke as many holes in our national identity as there are stars in our southern sky.

Windschuttle is also right to assert the need for a national narrative. Yet this narrative need not be simply a black armband interpretation, or, conversely, a Three Cheers celebration of white settler achievement. In the words of Bob Carr,
Those two stories of our history for…Australians exist side by side. One can take pride in the achievement of these white intruders while at the same time acknowledge [sic] the tragedy of Aboriginal dispossession. One story doesn’t exclude the other. History is a complex contradictory process and it requires rigour to disentangle the different threads that comprise the tapestry, and it’s true of the story of our history. Those stories, those experiences…are valid for the people who lived them and both are components in our national character.[16]

Even though we may have an unexhilarating national anthem (or an inspiring disco version, as evidenced at the 2005 New Year's Eve Sydney fireworks display!), or a flag design we can't all agree on, there is a need for a more complex—and accurate—national narrative. The superficiality of Australian patriotism is evidence of flaws in our national identity. We are amnesiacs, suffering because of a lack of comprehension of our past. Our present condition must be remedied.


[1] Katherine Betts, ‘Patriotism, Immigration and the 1996 Election’, People and Places, vol. 4, no. 4 (1996), 29.
[2] Bob Carr, Heritage Week (National Trust New South Wales) Speech, 22 April 1997, at
http://www.isis.aust.com/afnt/carr.htm, viewed 1/4/2005.
[3] Anna Clark, ‘The Great History Debate’, Melbourne Education Age, 9 February 2004, at
http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=673&op=page, viewed 6/4/2005.
[4] Anna Clark, ‘The Great History Debate’.
[5] Anna Clark, ‘The Great History Debate’.
[6] John Ross, reprinted in Michael Parenti, History as Mystery, City Lights, San Francisco, 1999, p. 1.
[7] Quoted in Anna Clarke, ‘The Great History Debate.’
[8] Quoted in John Wilken, ‘Racism in Australian history: Two episodes’, Compass, vol 37 no 3 (2003), 12.
[9] Keith Windschuttle, The White Australia Policy (Sydney: Macleay Press, 2004).
[10] Keith Windschuttle, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History: Volume 1; Van Diemen's Land, 1803-1847 (Sydney: Macleay Press, 2002).
[11] Keith Windschuttle, The White Australia Policy, p. 10.
[12] Marilyn Lake, ‘The White Australia Policy,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 23 December 2005, at http://smh.com.au/news/Books/The-White-AustraliaPolicy/2004/12/22/1103391831142.html, viewed 10/4/2005.
[13] Quoted in Deborah Snow, ‘White Australia now has a history shaded grey’, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 December 2004, at http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/White-Australia-now-has-a-history-shaded-grey/2004/12/03/ 1101923341702.html, viewed 29/5/2005.
[14] Marilyn Lake, ‘The White Australia Policy’.
[15] Detailed in Stuart Macintyre & Anna Clark, The History Wars (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2003), pp. 171-190.
[16] Bob Carr, Heritage Week (National Trust New South Wales) Speech, 22 April 1997.

don't figure me out

only one assignment and three exams until this semester is completed!

SEMESTER ONE MARK TALLY
media: D, HD, D
history: HD, HD, HD
english: HD, HD
other stupid english: D, HD, HD
(sorry, but i don't have anywhere else to gloat.)

it's a mad feeling showing my mum my hd in my 40% history essay, knowing that while writing it she was telling me i was going to fail uni because i haven't been doing enough work.

i love uni. i didn't realise this until last week. but i've been hanging out with some fantastic people, and my quest to become a normal person (and not an insane stress head who locks herself in her room for whole weekends) is going far better than i expected it would. the christian stuff on campus is so awesome; yesterday there was an excellent talk at eu about the bodily resurrection of christ which i found incredibly rewarding. the pumpkin toasted things and the tandoori chicken wraps at manning. playing with bouncy balls in my english tutorial. dancing with spally after studentlife. happy hour with bel, jeremy, jacob and phil on wednesday. death tuna monday. monday dinners with claire (though, unfortunately, we weren't heaps consistent with them). borrowing my first library book from fischer...not to read, but as a prop for a group presentation. laughing hysterically at the sign in the library that cautions students to refrain from putting their library cards into their mouths. laughing at jacob laughing at me. surrounding myself with people who really build me up, or at least indulge my self esteem by laughing at my stupid jokes or the way i get all excited when telling stories about blackstump. having insane talks with non-christians about christianity during media lectures, or, alternatively, at midnight on msn. not going to university english. learning the shortest route to bosch from woolley (hey, it only took us six weeks). finding out this girl in my history tute was a christian. having the same people crop up in basically all my lectures and tutes: god really does connect people. meeting someone who knows who the bees are. having a four-day week.

sure, there's a bit of dodginess that filters through all the 'i'm a cool uni student' stuff. but the balance sheet of semester one is an overly positive one (unlike the balance sheet of australian history, john howard). wow, was alix just political? break it...down.


sounds gracing my eardrums: lior, superficial

fly me to the moon

have you ever liked someone but not known why, exactly, you like them? been attracted to someone even though they're not particularly your type? someone very different to you? someone...who just seems an illogical choice?

it's a confusing and surprisingly exciting feeling.

i can see clearly now

i've had such a fantastic mondaytuesdaywednesday. just chillin in da club pimping wit mah money--well actually my parties are more like chillin in the sun with tea and milk and honey. (first person to pick song and artist for that random quote wins! wins what? just wins!!) i'm playing the uni student role soooo well, bar the whole drinking while proclaiming strident political opinions thing. breezy. hanging with lovely people. it's been fantastic.

i was praying on my way home tonight, and just swept up in how brilliant god is and how intense his love for us is. wow!

and today was extra cool coz i met new people at eu...and admittedly scared some of them i think because i was in a crazyhappylaughinginsanemood. and then paul and i sang and stuff for a while and it was cool. what is cooler that we are mad tight friends eh! wooot! *you're HOT paul!* LOL!!!


i heart god sooo much! *grins*