Internet arguments are getting better (theory)

I did some uni work today (pats self on back). But also killed a lot of time arguing/’discussing’ with people on the internet. We have a campus atheist society which could really be worthwhile if it wasn’t run by total nutjobs, but the facebook group has seen some heated chats lately. The one Christian/troll who posts is actually very well educated and has provided a way for me to learn about a lot of apologetics I would not otherwise have looked into. But he is still defeated by our resident atheist genius, who let him get started on a big debate on the role of Christian thinkers and the church in the Renaissance, then revealed he currently teaches most of our university’s courses in the area and has many more books on his shelf so to speak.

I post occasionally and feel it’s a forum that is closer than average to fulfilling the Peter & Valentine/Locke & Demosthenes ideal of allowing good ideas to float up and good thinkers to stand out. (For the one of you who likes Ender’s Game). But not always, there are plenty of hasty responses and ad hominem attacks there too. Best to go back to the wind pressure calculations sometimes.

Oh the title – well I think as a society we are working out what rules are best applied to our online discussions and how to enforce them. It’s actually really exciting to see.

Well that only took another 20 hours to sort out during which I had 3 hours sleep from staying up waiting for emails – you know when you’re just too tired to appreciate that it can wait for the morning? And how the time seems to go so fast after midnight?

Anyway I had about 10 hours the next night and I think Boy can be friends now, well not actually friends but just neutral. I get so excited when he’s nice to me, it’s almost a game-neg thing, a break from the monster. Then I actually start talking to him a lot, and then he starts doing mildly shitty things like trying to pretend he’s seeing all these girls, talking like he’s taking over my sailing club, and I just get so defeated. Obviously he is still hurt and feels the need to score points – the trouble with him is that he is smart enough to be very passive-aggressive but has never been called out on it growing up – so he lies to himself about doing it. He has never been taught to reflect on the motivations behind his actions and believes they are pure. I know why he winds his family up so much….

At least now I have enough time by myself to reflect and to step away from all the nonsense. I am able to explain things better without the pressure of someone demanding answers right away and 7 days a week. Like explaining that I feel irrationally protective of my club. Or that I can’t resist driving/getting a lift to uni because I am congenitally late, but I actually prefer getting the train because I can relax – so when you claim that you do so much for me because I often get a lift, and I say I don’t actually want a lift, that’s what I mean. I have done so much driving this week I am quite over it. It couldn’t really be helped except Friday just because of all the things on.

We played again yesterday and got 46-5 over Penrith. I played the second half, I didn’t touch the ball :p but I definitely tackled someone. Whether she dropped the ball before or after I hit her is unclear – but it was cool! Would like to play teams who actually have possession and get the ball out wide because defence is fun!

Yachting was ok too, I didn’t wear enough clothes and it started raining so it was a bit unpleasant. But the boat was nice, she looks a little dull from the outside but has a fancy carbon fit-out by a ‘young wealthy owner we like to attract to support the YSA’ as Pam put it to me when I ran into her. There were two young guys I know as well as my friend from women’s squad who invited me. The owner was going to get them to steer and do main next week, and my friend is doing pit, so he is clearly supportive of young people (and girls) getting in there, but seems like the spots are all taken :p  I’d be very happy with primary trim actually but don’t know what the owner himself would then do. Maybe tactics then we would all be happy So I’ll see if they ask me back. I did all my jobs at the right time but find it hard to really jump in when I don’t know the boat and am semi-hypothermic.

I have so much uni work to do and have done nothing this weekend. Need to get back in gear again… I can kinda blame Boy for putting me in a state of mild tension & waiting. Must forget about him and think about engineering. Hard because everything is hard at the moment. So much easier to just throw all these assignments and pull out a credit from my exam game – but I want better than credits.

mates is when you are late to the pub coz you had a stupid fight with your ex and you don’t want to order food coz it will be too late and you are upset, so they all give you part of their food <3

In related news I gave the 5th grade manager the finger? And my angry face, I don’t even know what my angry face is but it was definitely being used. That will do a ton for the image of the women’s team :p

We had a sneaky game last night (I told Dad I was out to dinner haha) at Parramatta because of a rain a few weeks ago. I didn’t get a run – not a wasted drive to Parramatta and back because I wanted to support the girls – but a wasted drive to Lilli Pilli and back that morning to get my kit! I spent so many hours in the car I developed an affection for the triple j presenters and begrudged them less for not playing music continuously. The Parra girls are probably the team to beat for us, it did look pretty tough out there and we only got a draw. Watching them run over my team was painful but when they came off the field, shiiiiit their fat girls are a head taller than our fat girls and the rest of them better padded as well. We have an easier team on Saturday so I’m keen to make some hits…

Today I used Mum’s office keys to go study in there and park the car in their secret carpark, and scavenge from their kitchen, all the joys of a swipecard.

yachting, school and Mongolia, of course

I haven’t been on a boat for 3 weeks which feels so long, and the yacht probably for 2-3 months…. I have been delaying trying out a new boat for the Winter Series as I feel too busy to commit to one, but a friend asked me to fill in on L’Altra Donna this weekend so I’m going to do that. They have had some good results, but not in this series so far so we will see.

Last Friday we had a 5-year reunion at one of my schools – not where I finished but I spent 8 years there so it felt natural to go. They took us on a tour of one of the new shiny buildings since we were there and then had drinks in the foyer. Everyone seemed very tall and gorgeous, of course they were generally wearing heels and were very carefully made-up. I was only carefully dressed and felt rather good about myself walking around engineering during the day, but shabby next to these girls. Maybe more of the trophy-wife contingent turned up…. (about half our grade were there).

The new principal spoke and seemed like an improvement on the one when I finished, who was borderline incompetent and took the school in a conservative Christian direction where they had been considered somewhat educationally innovative before (and very innovative in the Junior school – eg. myself and J skipping two grades). The new direction seems to be upmarket – Latin and rowing have been introduced – and fair enough, the infrastructure is certainly there. It’s such a contrast to Sydney Girls where we had 2 buildings – a multi-purpose hall and a class building – for 900 girls, or about as many as at my whole old school with about 10. Oh and at my old school only school blazers, not school jumpers, were acceptable to wear off the grounds. To go to a school where the tie was optional and could be worn (to quite a smart effect) with the knot at the sternum below your undone buttons…. it was quite a shock! And girls without their hair tied up… anyway I don’t think I will ever be nostalgic for school and especially that one.

I got to talking with one of my old friends about her younger brother, when I left he was 12 and just a standard ugly little midget, she showed me photos of him now and my goodness, he is tall and fit. On the Scots rowing team (and rugby) which apparently involves sleeping at the rowing shed 3 nights a week. She summarized it as all rather Little Lord Fauntleroy. I ended up having pizza with these girls – the nerd group I was in – while the other girls all went off to the pub. I could have made that statement – I am not that fond of my old group - but, you know what, I am also not that fond of anyone else and at the end of a day it’s a dodgy pub, and any talent that might have been in there would have been covered with my beautiful classmates.

We got 32-nil at Waverley on Saturday. I wasn’t on for very long again (seems like old players are trickling back in) and the extent of my involvement would be ‘definitely involved in a ruck and possibly ran in support a couple times’. Someone like Cas just doesn’t need to call on support, people who tackle her come off worse! Apparently she has been a Wallaroo’s prop I learn today…. My fellow winger Theo scored a try, that was cool, she was a bit dropsy in the last game and started on the bench.

I have the car this week because Mum’s in Mongolia doing some special project. With a very small contingent, to be joined on the weekend by the Governor of NSW Marie Bashir who apparently has some sort of Mongolia obsession? Anyway she got to have lunch at Kirribilli House I think so that’s what you get for catering to important people’s obsessions. Hearing about the health system in Mongolia has been very interesting but I’ll save it for later.

you can’t hate someone whose story you know – and I am seeing my story, gentle reader, even in a different form. but it’s still a struggle to let go of my hate and derision. primitive tribal jealousy doesn’t work in this giant new world.

umm… you know you’re tired when you make two posts about the same thing without noticing. In my defence, I think I know what happened, I wrote one on my phone and then it had an uploading problem so I wrote one on my computer. Then the phone got its shit together behind my back.

someone I drove all the way to Jannali but I can’t remember her name, myself, and Michelle

Well the game went ok, just a casual 58-nil run in the park, I can’t say I contributed but I did actually catch my one pass, hold the ball for a few seconds, and then well I’m not sure what happened but something something staring at the sky 2 metres into touch…profit? Apparently everyone thought it was a pretty big hit and one of their many illegal shoulder charges with no arms. They didn’t get penalised though, only we ever got penalised and it didn’t exactly stop us…. Oh and that’s 58 in 60 minutes, we are doing short halves in the league games this year apparently to lessen this sort of disparity! Everyone was very congratulatory to myself and Michelle, the other new girl. To be honest she did heaps more than me, I just look more fragile. Am now inspired to actually learn things and get more game time.

My parents came to watch because it was close which was nice. It was Dad’s birthday so we planned to go out for breakfast, of course he was on call for the public and ended up doing two caesars in the morning and not home till 10am.

everything else that has happened

I have saved my exhaustive rugby writeups for myself coz I’m sure they are boring, but in brief we did heaps of contact skills and rucking games on Tuesday and I won’t lie, really enjoyed it. Thursday I had a bit of an emotional moment after dropping one too many passes and got special coaching from both our amazing team mums/assistant coaches/former Wallaroos (national side). They were really sweet – you’re on the team now and we won’t let you down etc. I got better and joined in on the pattern work as a back rower, I don’t know if I will be there for the game but it was pretty fun because you get to run around with your own little forward pod (pretending to) clear out. Just easier for me to know where to go if I get to follow our no 8 all the time! Unlike the other week, we were slightly short of forwards.

We went to the pub afterwards, they sponsor us so we have to try and go but it’s not exactly an imposition when they give us cheap meals as well. Don’t know if I will keep doing that though as I end up home 10pm at the earliest and Dad I know would often prefer to go to bed by then.

Speaking of which, first game tomorrow and I’m up late, terrible!

And the last thing – we had our AGM and I have officially resigned my presidency and can try to stop worrying about everything! Such a relief, I might even go on our next trip knowing I am not fully responsible and have a good time. Two of the racing team signed up for positions which is excellent and great to see the engagement finally happening. All in all the club is in a good state and I am proud to hand it over as such.

I wrote to my old youth squad casually enquiring about yachts looking for crew, not sure if they would even want to help me since I’ve left, and got a whole list of good boats who are apparently keen for sailors. I have too much uni work to do this weekend but next Sunday I will give one of them a try – a TP52, not a quick one but probably doing Hobart.

Aaaand (I guess it’s been a big week) it was a quick AGM because I had to get to mum’s book launch which went very well. We went out for dinner afterwards – degustation menu at Bistro Ortolan – these things seem to be getting more frequent in my life which is rather bizarre. This time it was 8 mains, 3 desserts and cheese! We didn’t go for the wine flight (what a name) this time, thank god. I was feeling ill just after all the food – the petits fours were hovering on the edge of pleasure and pain – but it was amazing.

State Teams Racing

Over the weekend we did a big sailing regatta – state teams racing championships – and came second. Going to skip shorten writeup by linking to one of my team’s blog http://jessicawritesatravelblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/states-regatta.html There are a couple of very cute photos of the team on Facebook as well. Last year I forgot to get a team photo (we had 18 sailors!) and was very annoyed so yay.

Teams racing states

We came 2nd! It was a pretty great weekend.

Saturday morning started at 8am awkwardly introducing my team members to each other. The regatta had started on Friday for the schools teams and the first announcement was they would try and finish the last schools round robin and then start on open rounds – basically another hour of waiting for us – I hate getting people out of bed early who don’t need to be, even though it wasn’t my fault!

We only got to do 5 races on Sat as it was a bit light, but it was fun hanging out on the ferry with a lot of sailing friends (and a lot of little schoolkids underfoot!). My fellow president promised me everyone was going out that night, in the end it was his team, myself and one other from USYD. We still got into it to a degree not worth detailing here, and painful the next morning… I had a headache, caught the wrong bus and was rather late, thankfully so are WSC!

I was glad I wasn’t steering as mental acuity would have been poor, at the beginning of the day it was a hangover, at the end the result of 8 hours shivering. It was around 15 knots with big gusts and genuinely cold for Sydney. A few capsizes (I would probably actually have died of hypothermia so thank god) and gear breakages occured.

By the time we made it through quarterfinals, semis and got to the finals, I actually didn’t care about the result, just wanted to be tucked up in bed! We only got to do a 1 race final which is pretty sketchy in teams racing, as it was 5pm and getting dark, but in the conditions weren’t too fussed. I will say we could have beat them over three races though…

I’m just going to keep doing this as a journal. And rugby is the thing that makes me most happy at the moment. We played touch (hopeless again) and then sprinting stuff with our young coach who I am no longer so happy with – it was really hard! My legs were still a bit sore from Tuesday as well. I will be genuinely fit if I keep this up.

We split into backs and forwards and the forwards went off to the scrum machine. I stayed with the backs and we only had 6 so they got someone else back to fill in – I thought they would probably be more short of forwards but it’s actually the other way. It was nice working in a small group with coach and the older girls having to help me a lot as we were doing some set play type of things. Need to work on the catching and passing, and um, everything. The french girl I injured was back not looking bad at all so thank goodness! She said she has been playing rugby for 16 years which surprised us all, turns out she is going on 30 but looks much younger – the European staying out of the sun thing.

One of the other new girls turned up and they sent her with the forwards. I am kinda jealous because I’d like to scrum but it seems I’m cut out to be a back and they need me more. Then everyone came back and did some phase play with 15 people on the field - we didn’t want to get in the way as much as would be inevitable so just watched.

People kept asking me if I could come to the game and talking about what position I would be in. Of course I have sailing but it still felt cool. This week is at Warringah which is absolutely ages away so a good one to miss. The next weeks are Rockdale nearish to us, Waverley in the east is also not bad and then 4 weeks at home so yeah… I guess I am going to play, still a bit of a scary thought!