You're an idiot

I like to think that I'm pretty tolerant of other people's beliefs. I may not accept them and I may not even respect them, but hey, think whatever you like. However, there are some things that I take real issue with and I have to get this off my chest:

If you believe in a secret communist new world order, you're an idiot.
If you believe that 9/11 was an inside job, you're an idiot.
If you believe that Obama is a Muslim, you're an idiot.
If you believe that Obama was not born in America, you're an idiot.
If you believe that Obama is a communist, you're an idiot.
If you believe that vaccinations are a government conspiracy to infect children, you're an idiot.
If you believe in chemtrails, you're an idiot.
If you believe that humans and dinosaurs coexisted, you're an idiot.
If you believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, you're an idiot.
If you believe that Al Qaeda was created by the government as an excuse for war, you're an idiot.
If you believe that Jews are controlling the world, you're an idiot.
If you believe that global warming (or climate change in general) is a lie, you're an idiot.
If you believe that liberals hate their country, you're an idiot.
If you believe that racism underlies conservatism, you're an idiot.
If you believe that the starving and homless had an equal opportunity to succeed and are only there because they were lazy or made bad decisions, and are thus undeserving of any assistance, you're an idiot.
If you believe in hidden backwards messages, you're an idiot.
AND
If you believe in anything without question, without evidence, and without applying any critical thought .... yep, you guessed it, you're an idiot.

Day 21: A picture of something that makes you happy

I thought I'd incorporate two things into one with this photo: Jack and Christmas.

I love Jack more than I've ever loved anything (and almost anyone) before. He's more than just a pet: he's my baby and I adore him. That probably sounds lame to some people, but anyone who has ever had a dog will understand. He loves me unconditionally and follows me around everywhere like a shadow. Right now, he's sleeping on my bed behind me. No matter what sort of day I've had, I'm always happy when I get home and see him. Whether I've been gone for a week or just stepped out the front for 10 seconds, he'll jump all over me, lick me to death, and run laps around the living room in excitement when I return. He's gorgeous (the photo doesn't do him justice), intelligent, loving, and just so happy all of the time. How could he not bring a smile to my face?

And then, of course, there's Christmas. Other than singing Christmas carols and acting in nativity plays as a child, I've never much cared about the religious side of the holiday. But it's an amazing time of year and I love it. I love the atmosphere: the decorations around the city and shopping centres, the frantic shoppers, the sales, the rising summer temperatures, and the feeling that December 25 is just around the corner. For us, it has always been a time for family, despite how small that family may be. It's always spent at home with mountains of traditional food: turkey, ham, pork, yorkshire puddings, trifle, mince pies, plum pudding, candy canes etc. There are carols and presents, and the post-lunch turkey-induced nap is usually followed by some time spent swimming and sunbathing around the pool. It's a fantastic, lazy day and is something that even the most secular of us can enjoy. Absolutely my favourite time of the year.

Day 20: Someone you see yourself marrying or being with in the future

If you're asking me to point out a specific person in my life, then I can't do that. There's nobody I know at the moment whom I could see myself marrying ... not happily, at least. But if this is about describing a hypothetical person, then that will be fun:

Physically, he'd be taller than me, probably around 6'1". Average build with nice arms, but not a full set of rippling abs. Not a gym junkie, just conscious enough of his health and body. Blue or grey eyes are ideal, and I'm cool with any hair colour that isn't red (no offense, redheads). It'd be great if he were one of those rare men who could actually pull off the stubble look too.

He'd be older than me, more experienced, and probably around the same level of intelligence. But while some of our areas of expertise should overlap, others shouldn't: I want to be able to impress him with random facts and have him to be able to do the same to me. He should be able to speak another language and have a sexy accent - sorry, Australian accents just don't do it for me. He must love science and reason, be a staunch atheist, and be fairly political liberal. I just don't think I could live and raise children with somebody who disagreed with me religiously and politically. He should have an awesome sense of humour, able to come out with both offensive politically incorrect one-liners and cringe-worthy dad jokes. He'd be the kind of guy who gets along well with his family and genuinely wants one of his own.

He'd sit somewhere in the middle of the extravert-introvert scale; able to have deep conversations but also good at working a crowd and pulling me out of my comfort zone. But I don't want him to be one of those über social butterflies who stop every 10 steps to have a conversation with some other familiar person along the way. He should enjoy sports - I worry about any man who doesn't - but should enjoy knowledge more. He'd be a white collar worker, well educated at university, and earning a decent but not excessive income. They say that happiness peaks at $75,000, so somewhere around there, I suppose. He'd also need to have a sense of adventure, a desire to travel the world, and always be up for trying new and unusual things. A dominant personality. Somebody who is my equal, but whom I can also look up to when things are tough. Essentially, I want a slightly more exciting, motivated, and funny version of myself. And most importantly, he would love me for who I am. He'd never want me to change and would protect me, adore me, and always be himself around me. That's the kind of man I want to marry.

If he exists, can somebody please find him for me?

Day 19: Nicknames you have and why you have them

I don't have very many nicknames and they aren't that interesting, but ah well:

Niklips: This is mostly from my best friend and not used that often anymore, mostly just in text messages and the like. I know it started back in high school but that's about it. I guess we all had an obsession with slightly amusing body parts back then and it just kind of flows.

Niggy: This one pisses me off and my friends know it. We went out clubbing one night and a black man started dancing with me. As I yelled in his ear that I had to leave, my friends snapped a blurry photo and it sort of, almost, not really at all looks like I'm kissing him. That was at least 18 months ago but they still won't let me live it down. Now, almost every time a black guy appears in a movie or somewhere nearby, my immature and racist friends will make a joke about it. *sigh*

And then, of course, we have strange nicknames in my family. My brother and I sometimes call my dad 'biatch' and we get called it in return too. It started out as an in-joke from somewhere, but now it's been so long that we've all forgotten where it came from. I call my brother 'boyyy' in the same way Foghorn Leghorn says it and so he calls me 'girrrl' in a similar voice. I actually can't even remember the last time we used each other's real names. My mum generally calls me 'Nik' or 'Knickers', but sometimes goes with 'girrrl' too. All of this would probably be quite shocking to other people looking in (especially us calling our father 'bitch'), but we still respect each other. I guess it's just ... amusing.

But most of the time, for most people, I'm just 'Nik'. And I like it that way. Some people hate when people shorten their names (almost every David I've known has despised being called Dave), but I like the bonding that comes with it. I always get a little excited when a new person calls me Nik for the first time because it shows we've made a decent connection and that they're comfortable with me. And for someone like me who never pays as much attention to people and their feelings as she should, that's really helpful.

Day 18: Plans/dreams/goals you have

Plans, dreams, and goals. My favourite.

I suppose they work down in a hierarchy of likelihood, don't they? Dreams are the crazy things that we'd love to happen to us but probably never will. My dreams are to win lotto, travel the world, marry rich and spend my days as a trophy wife, or become dictator of the new world. Marrying rich is a possibility, I suppose, as is travelling the world. But I have no chance of winning lotto because I rarely buy a ticket and, alas, the world seems rather hostile towards dictatorships.

So I guess that brings me to goals. These are the more realistic ideals you set for yourself: the things you think you can achieve with some work. As I've said before, setting goals is not one of my strong suits. At least, not in the short term; I suppose long term goals are easier to think about. For one, I'd like to do a PhD. From there, I'm not sure. I wrote some time ago about how I feared I'd be trapped in the realm of academia. But now that I've found something I like, the idea of that isn't so scary. In fact, I think I'd actually like to work at a university. I don't know if I'm confident or interesting enough to teach - I suppose I could test it out by tutoring after I have my bachelor's degree (if they'll have me, of course) - but definitely research. I'd like to do something in the fields of artificial language or language pathology ... at this point anyway. I may find something more interesting along the way.

Then there's the family side of things. I want to get married to a nice man: older than me, with piercing blue eyes, a sharp mind, a brilliantly awful sense of humour, and a loving nature. I also want children, which is something I never thought I'd say. Inquisitive young minds ready to absorb everything, onto whom we can pass everything we know - god, I want that. I want a big (but not obnoxious) home, in a pleasant suburb not too far from everything. And I'd like all of this before I'm 35, thank you.

I'm also hoping to get active and fit. Maybe take up a sport, possibly get back into karate. Something. I'm aiming to expand my social circle, befriend a wider variety of people. My current groups of friends are quite different, sure, but in the end they're all white, liberal-ish, middle-class people. That's just not very exciting, is it?

And then plans? I suppose that's what you're planning to do to go about achieving your goals. Or just in general. Tomorrow, I plan to eat breakfast, go to uni, listen intently to my favourite lecturer and then ogle my attractive tutor. In the longer term I plan to go to the Hopman Cup, go a little bit over the top with the outfits and face paint in order to get noticed and get on television. I also plan to find a job because god knows I'm running out of money and desperately need one. Even further into the future, I plan to go on a Pacific island cruise, spent sunbathing on the top deck, blowing all my money in the casino on the lower deck, and trying to avoid dangerous creatures and tropical diseases in New Caledonia. But if I look ahead more generally? Well, I plan on doing brilliantly at uni, staying on to do Honours, then a PhD - or possibly a Masters in between if that's required. I plan on doing some volunteer work too, probably for some minor political groups I agree with and some social equality programs.

Basically, I plan to do whatever it takes to achieve my goals, perhaps even some of my dreams. And honestly, I think that's about as much as I can control for now. Whether or not all of those plans are followed through with ... well, that remains to be seen!

Day 17: Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why

I don't care how lame this sounds ... a top secret spy in the CIA. Yes, I'm sticking with the term 'spy' because 'intelligence officer' just doesn't sound as exciting. And I'm saying CIA because ASIS doesn't seem to have the same appeal. Everyone knows the CIA is where it's at.

It was always my dream to be a spy and travel the world masquerading as someone I'm not in order to elicit important information from others. What a lifestyle. I know it wouldn't be all action and jetsetting, but I can handle the desk job part in exchange for some excitement like that. Also, getting to be privy to secret information and knowing things that others aren't allowed to know ... doesn't that just sound amazing?

My dreams are still filled with top secret missions, and running for my life from masked gunmen. While my friends are dreaming about sleeping with celebrities, I'm dreaming about advanced computer hacking programs, classified documents, intricate cover stories, walking straight into danger and then talking my way out of it, and exciting action scenes that could be straight out of a Hollywood movie. It's probably because my real life is so mundane. I love what I'm studying at university - god, do I ever - but I just need some more excitement. And what better to provide that excitement than working for the CIA?

Is the spy lifestyle really like that? Is it really as exciting as they show on television? Probably not, but I'd sure love to have a day to find out.

Day 16: Another picture of yourself

This photo always manages to make me laugh. It was taken back in our year 12 drama class while we were rehearsing for a performance, which turned out to be terrible. It was set in a psychiatric institution and my character was having flashbacks to a war where her parents and siblings were taken away, while the rest of the characters had their own crazy delusions. I can't even remember much of the plot, but a friend and I originally wrote a lot of it, only to have it changed significantly by our teacher and others. The whole thing was very symbolic and the above photo comes from a scene where everyone was wrapping me up in some cloth. I just popped a friend's pair of aviators on, got someone to take a photo, and it ended up looking even funnier than I'd imagined. And yep, that was a pretty typical day in drama.

Day 15: Put you ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play

At least this is an easy one today.
*gets ipod out*


1. Sleipnir - Manowar

2. Tribute - Tenacious D

3. Vuelve - La Oreja De Van Gogh

4. 9 Crimes - Damien Rice

5. Uprising - Muse

6. On Ne Changera Rien - Pleymo

7. Blue - A Perfect Circle

8. You Raise Me Up - Westlife

9. Isabel - Il Divo

10. Forget December - Something Corporate


There we go!
I think that's pretty representative of my music too, which was convenient. A bit of power metal, a bit of foreign stuff, some pop, some rock, and a couple of things that are hard to classify. Nice.

Day 14: A picture of you and your family

Again, I have to skip.

I don't have any photos of me and my family because my mum refuses to let anyone take a photo of her. I think the only thing even close to a family photo is one of my dad, brother, uncle, and me at Christmas about 10 years ago ... and I wouldn't have a clue where to find that.

Also, speaking of my uncle, I just found out he had a stroke today. So even if I could find a photo, forgive me for not being in the mood to write a lot. He may be a complete arsehole, but he's still my mum's brother. And as much as she despises him, I know it will still kill her when she gets home and finds out. Family is family, after all. So I just feel for her at the moment.

On a less compassionate note, I'm trying to do an assignment on aphasia at the moment, and now all I can think about is if he'll have some form of it because of the stroke, and if I'll be able to diagnose it. I know that probably sounds incredibly heartless, but I can't help my inquisitive scientific mind. You see what you're doing to me, linguistics?

How progressive are you?

A lot of interesting things pop up in my twitter feed and this was one of them:

How Progressive Are You?

It's 40 statements and you just decide how strongly you agree or disagree with each. Simple. You receive a score out of 400 at the end so that obviously means you're getting a score out of 10 for each answer. I would debate the reliability of that sort of scale: just because I don't throw myself so completely and passionately behind an idea so as to pick 0 or 10 doesn't mean I'm less progressive on that point than someone else who does. And that's pretty typical for me - I leave myself open for doubt and it's very rare that I'll ever choose the most extreme answer on any sort of questionaire. But I digress. You're going to find that sort of thing with all internet quizzes anyway. Maybe I'm less INTJ than the internet tells me too...

I scored 293, which apparently makes me "very progressive". I wouldn't argue with that. There seem to be a few examples "change for the sake of change" floating around at the moment and those grind my gears a bit, but for the most part I think we need to be moving forward (damn you, Julia) progressing as a society and that means a whole lot of things need to be addressed. Gay people are still rallying for equal rights, public hospitals are overflowing and nobody's doing anything about it, the divide between rich and poor is ever-growing, refugees are being kept in prison camps, and don't even get me started on that Queensland couple who faced trial for procuring an abortion and the government's refusal to change the laws. What century are we supposedly living in here?

Back on the topic of the quiz though, it was interesting to see the averages of other groups. Unfortunately, it's American though, so the scores are likely to be more on the conservative side than what you'd find here in Australia. At the bottom of the scale, conservative Republicans averaged a score of 160.6, while Liberal Democrats topped it at 247.1. Women (214.3) were more progressive than men (204.3), while Latinos (228.4) and African Americans (224.3) scored higher than Whites (203.7). What I found most interesting about that result is that Latinos and African Americans are typically more religious than their white counterparts, so their progressivism is somewhat surprising. Perhaps it's that they tend to be the ones who are disadvantaged by America's often backwards society, whereas whites enjoy a more privileged existence in which capitalism and social conservatism is less of a hindrance. Pure speculation, of course, but it's one suggestion.

Incidentally, the results also demonstrated that those with a post-graduate education were more progressive (227.0) than those who had completed only high school or less (206.4). But, as we already know from those conservatives who claim they'd rather their children were educated by the first 50 people in the phonebook than by the liberal staff at Harvard, higher education does make you more progressive. What a surprise.