Things. Things are happening

Five weeks to Living Wage Campaign launch. One and a half days until I meet members of my committee. Twelve weeks until I head home to see my family and friends for Christmas. And a whole ten hours until I have to get up - that's right. It's my evening off.

The gaps are where I do my uni work

So it's time for a super-brief update. I've not taken anything else on...sort of. I'm doing the STAR award this year, because it essentially makes my VP role epic, an upgrade on the awesome it already is. I talked about the STAR award a little bit last year; it's a few hours of workshops with someone I respect and look up to on campus plus genuine employers from the world of real jobs. An extra six hours is really all it's going to cost me between now and graduation, so I feel I can take that on.

Living Wage is kind of planned out, and I need to talk to some people about getting other groups on board - groups like trade unions and Aberdeen City Youth Council, but also groups that don't even know they're powerful. Groups of staff in shit-paid jobs who could band together and apply real pressure to the people above them.

Aside from that, things progress. If you knew me a few years ago, as some of my readers do, you'll know I was an insufferable ass. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure there are still time when I'm that, but I think I'm getting better. Case in point: Sartre vs. Beauvoir.

N.B if you're bored by existentialist philosophy and gender roles as performances look away now.

Simone de Beauvoir (r) and Jean-Paul Sartre (l)

So: Sartre and Beauvoir, like all of the most I of VIPs, go by only one name. Sartre's existentialist philosophy is fascinating: it says we are condemned to choose. There's no God; not a God who controls us nor a God who commands us, so there is both free will and no moral imperative. If you, like young Raskolnikov, see a young woman bothered by a lecherous drunk then be assured that there is no moral imperative to act. Similarly, if you are depressed by your boss, who works you to the bone for almost nothing, then (says Sartre) you choose to allow him that. You might also choose to punch the odious boss in his pallid face and make your way through the cheering crowds - but then, you have chosen that too. Almost any person in dire circumstances, according to this philosophy (one he argues is only for philosophers, which makes a lay person like me wonder what the damn purpose of it is then), is in those circumstances as a consequence of those choices.

In an egalitarian world where everyone starts from the same circumstances I could have time for this kind of philosophising, but since it ignores all pre-existing racist, classist, sexist, cissexist and homophobic structures that already existed in society and yet were apparently invisible even to a man as smart as Sartre, this philosophy for people who've already won the lottery of life and need a reason to sneer at people in other socio-economic conditions goes IN THE BIN.

THE BIN I SAY.

Also: check out the sheer length of that sentence. This is what happens when you read French at university: you lose all sense of scaling sentences and end up writing Ulysses. 

In any case: enter Beauvoir, who expanded on the philosophy and produced a phrase that defines feminism, the problem with so-called "femininity", and is also epic in French. In English it gets fuzzy. It goes:

On n'est pas née femme; on le devient. - We are not born women; we become women.

Womanhood - and, indeed, manhood - are performances or constructs that you grow into and in doing so you completely give up your freedom. You trade freedom for security. You fit into the mould crafted for you and you don't need to choose any more; you are no longer "condemned to choice," as Sartre said above. You can go through the motions, like a character on a cuckoo clock.

So then we get all kinds of complex questions like (a) are you betraying womanhood if you take part in this construct (b) what do you mean, womanhood? Aren't we all individuals? and (c) hey, I'm a guy, I have an opinion on this and you should listen to it.

I'm super-sarcastic this evening, and I do not even slightly apologise.

If you skipped past existentialism and gender roles, please start reading again here.

Other news: big scoops with the Tab this week, but not mine. We have done a pretty good job exposing the frankly obscene amounts the university paid a company to make a super-shitty video that they finally took down. As a sort of unofficial response to that piece of crap, there's a "Reclaim the Night" march happening in Aberdeen for self-identifying women and genderqueer people. If you don't know about it yet I know you'll be made welcome if you go, and if you are in either of those groups, do please join the march. If you are instead a man, don't go. Don't be that guy.

It's that simple.

PIR - our next event is shaping up to be bloody enormous, with over 170 folk turning up. It's going to be huge, and I will be working as per. I hope people get photos.

Right. That's a massive update. I'm well, I'm doing many things, and I shall shortly be kicking some buttock or at least poking it with intent to harm. I hope you're all well and if you've got this far have a prize of my friend John using the phrase "penis monsters" in a chat about his sexuality. 

References to Crime and Punishment are all well and good, but for humour there's nothing better than an Englishman using the word penis.

It's done, it's finally done

21 days and 8,000 researched and referenced words. Quite frankly I'm not sure even I believe it, and I wrote every one of those words. It is without doubt the biggest task I've ever undertaken, and if I could go back in time there's no doubt I'd do the whole thing again exactly the same way.

What can I say? The month I should have spent writing I spent working in an organisation I'd love to go back to, so it wasn't wasted. I wouldn't have given it up for all the sleep I haven't had these past three weeks - though perhaps I'd have asked for just a little more time, so that I could have got home to see my mother, whose birthday I missed due to this enormous project.

With that particular enormous project out of the way, though, it's back to other enormous projects.

• My VP project - to try to encourage Aberdeen's big businesses to move up their minimum wage. It's looking likely anyway - both the Conservatives and Labour have been making noises about it - so my argument's going to be simply that if they do it before they're forced to, they look like positive, pro-active members of society rather than the vile, tax-evading corporate monsters they are.
• My PIR project - generate coverage for our trips. I'm going to involve the Loch Ness monster.
• My Tab project(s) - cover something big. Really big. Like a pyramid. Wait no, not like a pyramid. Wrong kind of big.
• Degree classification - this...probably shouldn't be at the bottom of the list. Still: it's got to be a 2:1. 2:1 or nothing baby.
• Life project - don't take on anything else between now and graduating. Kick me if I even think about it.
• Post graduation projects - apply for every job going. I've already got one well in hand, another in progress, and others are lining up as I speak. There are a few I can't start until next year, post-graduation, but until then I can keep plugging away at the ones that accept predicted grades.

See? When I make a list it doesn't look at all like a Sisyphean boulder I have to push up a mountain. Besides, even if that is what is resembles, I'm getting into Camus again (via Sartre's more-than-a-bit-privileged-existentialism and these bloody gorgeous comics) and that means I can he happy about my Sisyphean task, because it gives me purpose, and without purpose (even if that purpose is meaningless) we are nothing.

A cheerful blog today then.

And just to round it off, here's my front page: a work of art and a challenge to the laws of language; a 30-page, mildly acerbic, poorly written assault on laïcité that stretched the word "no" into 8,437 words.

In terms of words per minute, formatting this page
was the hardest thing in the entire paper.

The countdown begins here

It's dissertation writing time! As well as working tonight time!

And instead I made a video time because I'm struggling to find a working definition of laïcité because it's a thing every French person knows, expect others to know, and therefore do not explain.

So I'm going to go right ahead and ask a Belgian.

This guy. I hope he has an answer.

So: I made a video, because I've been thinking about it recently. It's not well lit or as lively as I'd like, but it's the first and hopefully they'll get better. Hopefully there'll be more. Hopefully there will always be more of everything - I like creating things, which you'll know if you follow this and read the odd things I write and create.

And yes, of course that's a problem because I should really be focused on my dissertation but it's not possible to work full-time on something like that. I've got a plan, though, and it's pretty detailed. In the Frankenstein of my dissertation, I have a skeleton and some major organs. Now I just need to fill it with muscles, and blood, and this got suddenly very creepy.

But it's Saturday, and I'm working this evening - Mrs Brown's Boys and How To Train Your Dragon 2 both came out yesterday so I imagine tonight will be more than just a little bit busy. Still: I quite enjoy that. The more I work, the faster the day goes, and that's just fine by me.

Before I close up, I had a fantastic meeting yesterday and learnt that Kilau is pronounced Kilo, which quite frankly has completely thrown me and I'm not even sure what my own name is any more.

Aside from that: in ten days, I find out if I'm on the +Hill+Knowlton Strategies UK shortlist for my competition entry - that poem that I'm sure you all read. I'm really very excited about that - it'll be an amazing opportunity even to get on the shortlist. I was also approached the other day for a very interesting position, though it'll mean graduating six months later.

Much to think about. In the meantime I made a video and I invite you to watch it and tell me what you think.

That's all for now. Probably.

Many spontaneity. Such luck.

Things other than blogging I should be doing right now:

• Prepping an essay, topic: "Discuss the representation of the body in Mistriss Henley" as I will need to hand it in at least a day early.
• Ringing round various hotels and conference centres to ascertain prices for a grand, black-tie event in May. It's going to be cheap...right?
• Learning approximately 100 new cocktails
• Learning five new words in Russian
• Tidying my flat
• Reading the frankly spine-busting pile of books about French secularism I have accumulated
• Reading the impossibly thick book on the same that is its own pile
• Re-reading The Great Gatsby and annotating the life out of it
• Preparing exercises on further trigonometry (ie doing them)
• And other things which I have, for the moment, forgotten - but will no doubt spring up on me half an hour before their due date.

Things I am actually doing:

• Looking at doge memes
• Blogging
• Seriously considering taking a nap.



The Internet. It speaks the truth. In a Pythian sort of way.

The thing is, there is much new in my life and all of it seems so dull compared to last year - I genuinely think I'm never going to get over the time I spent there. Everything will be compared to it. It is the ultimate in awful breakups, when you never quite get over the other person and everything reminds you of them. Food - is that a baguette I smell? Sights - was that a glimpse of a beret worn non-ironically? And sounds - my head now pivots so quickly when I hear spoken French that my eyes roll the opposite way as inertia takes over. If you can't picture it, don't worry - Walt Disney could. And did.

"Et moi, je lui ai dit...mon dieu, qu'est ce qui t'est arrivé ?!"

However, to take my mind off that French love, I'm going transatlantic for a short fling with a country I only recently left - those fifty United States of America. More specifically, I'm going with the Politics and IR society, and we're going at the end of the month - on the 27th. This is why I need to submit that essay a day early; I'll be somewhere over the ocean at hand-in time. Once Stateside, we've an interesting itinerary with a lot of free time - so I think introducing my classmates to The Book of Mormon or Matilda, if it's still running, might be an excellent idea. 

The itinerary includes a tour around the UN and watching a game at +Columbia University (and hopefully chatting to professors about postgraduate possibilities!), and then we're off to DC to have a tour around +The White House and the Pentagon and various other internationally renowned buildings. Plus more free time. I am disgustingly excited. Friends of mine on politics/IR courses are threatening that they shan't be my friends much longer if I open one more conversation with... 

So the Capitol building, is that where the President lives? Oh, never mind. I'll just ask on the tour.

...or something similar.

I am a good friend. Honest.

Tickets are booked, thanks to the voucher I got from +American Airlines for being a good sport and giving up my seat coming back from Chicago, and all is in readiness. Now I just need to make back the money, which will hopefully be a little easier now that I have a job at TGI Friday's. The whole process was surreally easy; I dropped in and asked if there were vacancies, someone took my CV, and then a second later I was chatting to the GM. The next day I came in for what they call an "On Job Experience" - essentially a trial shift - and was offered the job on the spot. I signed my contract today and got my training book. (Nerd alert).

I'm actually really excited about this because it reminds me a little of Revolution, which has (to date) the best training program I've ever experienced - really well structured and with good supervision and coaching.  In addition everyone on the bar seems wicked and the floor staff seem to have fun all the time, so I cannot wait to get stuck into the cocktails. Unfortunately I can't share them with you here -

Those are some serious legal words, but you can understand why - can't have people nicking recipes.

- so you'll just have to come in and try them.

Since TGI Friday's started in New York, I'm actually planning to see if I can blag my way onto the bar where it all started - and interestingly, the company actually has an internal social network, so I'm hoping to connect with the staff over there beforehand. Hopefully then I can jump on for some photos and Anglo-American high-fives and collaboration. It's going to happen people. Let's do this. Hashtag getJonathanonthebarinNYC

All joking aside, I'm really excited about this new job and the energy everyone has, and I can't wait to feed into it.

Alright, enough soppiness. I have a job, I have good friends (to whom I'm not always a great friend, so - sorry), I have ten thousand projects to keep me busy and I have you, mostly anonymous 100-odd people who read this weird ramblings. I am incredibly lucky. Plus, soon there'll be ASCAs and then...the world.

Oh, and why's it called the Pentagon? Ah, you know what? I'll ask on the tour.