rhyll | Treats and irritations: apparently life is granting me balance.

Before I talk about me, I need to encourage you all to take part in the Australian Readers' Challenge. It is all kinds of nifty, and supports indigenous literacy. If you don't do it, you will probably get some sort of skin rash. Caveat: haven't had time to properly read up on it yet. I am rushing headlong into enthusiasm. I do know, however, that if you complete the challenge you get a certificate signed by Ian Thorpe. If you think he is nifty, the benefits are obvious. If you do not, you get to contribute to the onset of signature-related RSI. (If you are one of my hip and postmodern generation, you could value the certificate ironically.)

Maybe it is just the language difficulties, but I am getting somewhat irate that the last two or three times I've tried to explain to someone how irritating it is getting stopped in the street and told that I'm beautiful, the man I'm complaining to has interrupted by saying, "Yes, it's true, you're very beautiful." Obviously I am not making it clear enough that having men tell me that for no good reason is precisely the thing that is making me uncomfortable!

It is also hard to interview activists when much of the conversation goes like this:
Guy: What do you think of my farm?
Me: It's lovely!
Guy: Yes. Just like you.
Me: Um. How many acres do you have?

Again, I don't feel physically threatened, and I am fairly sure that the men who are giving me these problems aren't going to try anything. But it makes me feel rather awkward. Especially as quite a few people have gone beyond just telling me I have beautiful eyes and extolled my personal/moral decisions as well. (Not, in my experience, a conversation that is likely to end well.) I'm going with a combination of ignoring it and redirecting conversation, and talking lots and lots about my lovely fiance` and upcoming marriage. (Don't fret, I'm not sending out invitations just yet.)

And don't worry - if necessary I am perfectly willing to leave, yell, or punch. (I don't think it will come to that, though.)

On the plus side, the guy I was interviewing was fairly nice, and has a really cool organic farm. He uses the 'zero budget' organic farming that is gaining popularity here, where you don't need to buy anything from the outside (once it is set up) - fertiliser, pest control, etc are all produced on the farm. Especially beneficial for small farmers (2 or 3 acres). Plus I got to have more fresh-coconut-off-the-tree, and got two punnets of fresh organic strawberries picked just for me.

In other news, my social anxiety is building up nicely now, as I have a few friends who are requesting my presence. So, of course, I am doing my best to avoid them. Thus increasing my anxiety about not only seeing them but even talking to them. (Argh.)

There are muslim girls here in black robes decorated with tiny sequins. The scarves over their hair look like hoods, and I imagine I am walking down a street full of witches carrying schoolbooks.

A lot of the schoolgirls here look just like girl-Frida, pleated skirts and plaited hair looped up and fastened with a flower.

I have been reading 'Interpreter of Secrets', by Jhumpa Lahiri. I must have read it before, years ago, because I remember just this line: "we combed out her hair, remembering now and then to change the part in her scalp so that it would not grow too broad". Apart from that line I remember nothing in the book, and it is unsettling because the stories are the sad and sweet sort that seem to make the world more full of wonder, the sort of stories that I like best.

A Japanese professor on tv demonstrating the effects of electromagnetic pulses: a candle flame turns downwards, he shows, singing 'toong toong toong' as he taps the Van der Graaf generator. He makes crawfish line up, saying "look! Now they are surprised!"