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Fuck Politeness

“This is a revolution, not a public relations movement”

April 27, 2008 Essays, pirate jokes and shadenfreude

Hmm…essay writing time, that special time of my life where I become sick with anxiety, afeared my cover will be blown, the powers that be will discover I am a charlatan and a fraud, that in fact I know nothing and should be booted from university immediately on the basis of being too stupid to be allowed in such hallowed halls. Traditionally by now I’d have had several sleepless nights, be in agony over the concepts, wired on caffeine and nicotine, unable to talk to anyone about anything other than the excrutiating process of my brain being turned inside out trying to answer a question…

This time? Meh. It’s the night before it’s due, it’s 2/3 done, I have a day off tomorrow, I have time tonight to reread a section I need to be clearer on, I had two coffees this morning (the regular number), I’ve worked and fitted in social activites AND I realised with a sense of great victory not ONCE have I had that maddening desperate desire to rush off to the nearest convenience store for a pack of cigarettes. Nor do I feel that sense of impending doom and crippling idiocy. Yippee! Perhaps it is because I realised they let morons tutor this course, so my 1500 word essay should shit it in, though I’d like to see it as a sign of personal growth. Also I think that I gained some clarity and realised that if lawyers, theorists, philosophers etc have been grappling with ‘the particular concept my essay is on for several hundred years and haven’t really satisfactorily explained it? They were not ACTUALLY expecting me as an undergrad to mosey along and crack it in eight pages, double spaced, twelve font. Y’know? Little perspective eh?

Thanks to my boyfriend for making me laugh hysterically with a beautifully timed nautical joke and telling me possibly THE best get-your-come-uppance story EVER! For those of you not from Sydney there’s been quite a bit of panic over people using lasers to shine in the eyes of pilots causing planes to divert from their paths. Well a Channel Ten guy who rides in one of their traffic helicopters was recently in the papers with his story of indignation, claiming to be the latest “victim” of the Laser Pointer Terrorists (ok, that’s me putting words in his mouth, I didn’t even bother to read the original story beyond glancing at the sensational pictures with words like “latest laser victim” splashed across them). But you know the scenario “The sky is falling! Society on the decline! I’m under attack! I’m so important, blah, blah, blah”. TURNS OUT!!!!! Turns out the  “laser-beam” was not an attempt by a coordinated group of terrorists to undermine the important democratic work of the traffic chopper but the lights from an ART INSTALLATION! Oh, that is worth a thigh-slappin belly laugh. Egg. On. FACE. Mwahhhhhhhhhhhahahahahaha! Is shadenfreude necessarily BAD if the person was a toolbag riding a media wave in the first place?

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