Caroline@56: My method was twofold.
1. I had recently parted from my partner of 15 years, who was also doing a PhD. We had three small children and I was working full time and my supervisor, noticing me slowing down, used some basic reverse psychology: "You're not going to let him get the degree first, are you?". Not proud of it, but base competitiveness did help.
2. The 'arse-glue' method. When I sat down to write I made myself stay on the chair for 90 minutes at a time. After about 15 mins of staring out the window, not being able to get up and do something else, you get so bored that working on the dissertation is your best option. After 90 mins (which is a reasonable, but also bearable length of time) I could get up and hang out the washing or something. Next time I sat down, the 90-min rule kicked in again. 4 lots of 90 mins in a day can get quite a lot done, and once you are rolling, momentum takes over.
The things we have to do to trick ourselves. But boredom with your project can be productive -- it motivates you to get it out of your life as quickly as possible.
Mez @75 beat me to the obligatory Southern Hemisphere observations. Definitely Spring in Sydney -- I am too chilly when going out in the morning, and too warm coming home in the evening. But oh, the bliss of daylight saving, and being able to say hello to my chooks in the light when I get home. I love that feeling of the days getting longer when you can feel the southern hemisphere tilting towards the sun. The jacarandas are just coming into flower -- I walked over the first purple blooms in Town Hall square this morning.
Chris @ 22
Actually all of Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere. And almost all is inhabited, albeit sparsely in spots.
Australia's worst mass shooting occurred on 28 April 1996. It led to significant changes to gun laws in Australia and nothing like it has happened since.
elise @ 147:
Nice story, and I'm mentally filing the phrase. I think my Nominated Next of Kin scheme should have a (largish) number of lines. After all, there are lots of kinds of special people.
Zelda @ 142 "How about if we start from a presumption of all adults being responsible for themselves, and then those who want to give or receive lifetime dependence sort that out the right way to suit them?"
Yes, she said, Yes, yes....
Exactly. Watching several friends and relatives go through nasty divorces, it always seems to me that the relationships premised on some sort of dependence, be it financial, emotional or other, are the ones to create the most bitterness, vindictiveness and general horror for all involved. Breaking up is painful enough. Mind you, it also helps when you have very little in the way of assets to fight over.
Maybe if we started with the presumption Zelda outlines, those same adults could start acting more responsibly towards the people (mostly children) who actually depend on them ...
Emma
KeithS @138
I think I've answered the first question, why I don't go and sign the paper, @137. Why should I have to register with the state? If there is a dispute over children or property or inheritance that needs court arbitration, then I'm covered retrospectively under Australian law. If my ex and I can negotiate successfully like adults should, then the state has no part in it. I have done this and it should be an option for anyone else who wants to try, gay or straight.
As for the hospital thing, how about a system where adults starting at 18, can indicate a next-of-kin of their choice? This could be each person's own responsibility to keep up to date. The state would have no part in determining what kind of person (other than adulthood) can be your NOK. You don't have to be sleeping with them, or a blood relation. Would that be more rational?
I do realise this is highly unlikely ever to happen. I'm a historian by trade. Sometimes it's fun to speculate however.
Emma
lorax @ 136
Yes, I understand it is a tactic. I was trying to indicate that I don't think it is the best tactic. Especially where I live, in Australia, where as I indicated, no such contracts are necessary, in general. Of course, activists of all kinds are entirely free to choose the tactics they themselves prefer for their own struggle.
For my part, though I could easily partake of the privileges of marriage, as you point out, I do not, because I don't agree with those privileges. Partly because my lesbian sister cannot easily partake of them, and partly because many of them issue from the long and inglorious history of marriage itself as an instrument of the oppression of women and children, among other things. YMMV, of course.
If I were designing a sane system of family creation, I wouldn't start with what we have now. A small point, but my own.
Emma
KeithS @ 133
Well, yes, I know. However, in New South Wales, where I live, the family law, inheritance, support of children and etc were extended to cover 'de facto' heterosexual couples decades ago, without huge fuss. To qualify, you have to have been living together in a bona fide domestic relationship for 2 years. This will soon be extended to gay couples. This seems to me to recognise the reality rather than whatever variant of ceremonial procedure you've chosen to undertake. Might knock out the drunk-in-Vegas marriages too.
(I keep getting mental Monty Python echoes: 'Strange men hanging around in churches is no basis for a system of family law! Supreme relationship power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony....'
Australia is a different case and I anticipate that the law will be equalised here, before it is in the US, because of the relative weakness of religious nutjobs. The huge emphasis on marriage, though, works actively against those of us, gay and straight, who choose not to marry. I want my special person to visit me in the hospital too. Why not just make it possible for everyone? Chosen family is not that unusual these days, whether you are married or single.
Emma
I don't actually get the underlying urge to register one's important relationships with the state and/or church. It amuses me that even the most rabid libertarians seem to think it is a good idea. I've spent 29 of the last 30 years in important relationships (n=2) but I haven't felt it necessary to register either of them. In fact, I've greatly resented the fact that I've had to note them on tax returns in order to get family allowance from the government. Of course, sexual orientation should not be a basis of discrimination in any field, but I agree with Zelda that signing up to some state or church written contract seems unnecessary. And counterproductive.
There are (or should be) ways to divide property in dispute, protect children, organise inheritance, nominate next of kin, etc without forced registration of relationships. This would help interdependent groups who are not sexually involved, such as siblings, old friends, and so on. Then everyone can have the parties and say the vows they like. Works for me.
Emma (a dfferent one)
In Australia they've just instituted whooping cough (pertussis) boosters for 10 year olds and not a moment too soon. My fully immunised twin boys both caught it at 10, and while it was horrible for them, it was worse for my cousin's four month old who spent some weeks in hospital, after we gave it to him. The young doctor I consulted about the dreadful cough my boys had, didn't diagnose pertussis because she had never seen it. My aunt, who trained as a children's nurse in the '50s, recognised the cough immediately, but it had already spread to the half-immunised baby. The guilt was huge, though he came through it ok.
My boys had recurrent severe coughs every time they got a cold for several years. Pertussis is a really horrible disease, even when it doesn't kill you. Needless to say, I am a total immunisation nazi, and liable to rip the throats out of foolish anti-immunisation types who are hapless enough to cross my path.
Australia's new(ish) government is likely to try and break the connection to the root DQN, by moving towards a republican constitution. We tried this once before, and it failed, largely because the anti-monarchy forces were divided over how to replace the LDQN. It now seems that the monarchy here is likely to last until the current incumbent shuffles off the mortal coil, and arrangements will then be made to replace the LDQN, with an elected or appointed ceremonial parliament-opening officer, with no real powers. This seems pretty popular, although the difficulties of changing the Australian Constitution remain (it requires an absolute majority of voters, in an absolute majority of states, which is very hard to achieve, and gives the smaller states huge leverage).
I can't do the programming talk to describe this solution, but maybe someone else can.
Nicole @24
PM Gough Whitlam reportedly tried to bypass the rogue LDQN in 1975 in Australia, by contacting HM direct and asking her to disable the LDQN before he could act to ask the Opposition Leader to form a government. Meanwhile, Labor members of the Senate were trying to use arcane parliamentary procedure to get the budget bills passed while conservative Senators thought their party was about to be in power. It didn't work, because HM declined to intervene.
We also have local LDQNs in the States, called Governors. One of them has dismissed an elected government too, in 1932, when the Premier of NSW decided to forgo payments on British loans. That was a very clear case of LDQN activity in the interests of Great Britain and not New South Wales. When our Governor General is away, a State Governor steps up into the position.
Another Sydneysider here -- just to make some USians even more jealous, Australia has a legally independent and neutral statutory authority called the Australian Electoral Commission which conducts all elections, does the research and makes the decisions on electoral boundaries as populations change (redistricting) and cannot be interfered with by politicians of any party. It is in demand to advise on the conduct of elections in new democracies around the world. It uses the latest technology to transmit accurate count numbers directly to media on election nights, so it's rare for wrong predictions of the count to be made. And yes, with compulsory voting, and paper ballots, our elections are easily able to be recounted.
To my knowledge there has not been a case of electoral fraud in decades, as a result, and Australia's electoral boundaries are fair and equal as they can reasonably be. We are lucky.
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| 2009 | 11 |
| 2008 | 3 |
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