mmoa_writes

Things I feel Strongly About
Gay Uganda

I'm currently on the 8th week of a C++ programming course an I have to say, it's the best thing ever. When my programs work, they're perfect. When they don't, they are completely made of fail. There is no middle ground about this, no compromise. My current program actually had me trundling upstairs to the lecturer of the course to ask for help - it had managed to defeat several lab assistants/demonstrators and a very very able friend of mine so I felt that was the only option and frankly, I don't want to fail this unit. Especially not because of an error that several experienced C++ users couldn't find/fix.

The one lesson I have learned so far - apart from that I was a naive girl child to think being a theoretical physicist was fun (pah!) - is that anyone who wishes we all thought or behaved 'logically' like computers either hasn't actually used a computer (ie, done programming) or just has a really odd definition of logic, because I have seen the mind of a computer and it has all the logic of a four month old baby.

In fact, I'd say a bit less, because I know some pretty logical four month old babies.

Anyway, so I'm here and awaiting the diagnosis. I felt a bit bad knocking on his door as he was anticipating the start of an address from the head of the ATLAS project (I had no idea he was one of the Departments theoreticalists who are working on that project - learn something new every day, I suppose!) which did - in those brief minutes - reinvigorate my ambition to become a proper scientist. He was very good humored about it, though, and took to explaining what certain terms meant etc. which was cool of him and made it extra interesting.

There has been some source of win, however. I've been accepted for the Student Associates teaching scheme come June, which should be an awesome experience. I've been advised to wait until the new year about possibilities of research placements in the University, but, with the SA acceptance, I won't be able to do any corporate research experience (so goodbye National Nuclear Lab, even if I were good enough to get in) because it would cut into the term of employment. I will definitely apply for other Universities, however - York and Lancaster are the nearest but *sighs* Imperial and UCL would be worth checking into as well, in case I start craving the London scene again.

Last night - apart from an amazing Choir Practise - I attended a discussion about the dissolution [or evolution] of the family unit. The speakers were really good - there was the obligatory conservative catholic woman (who, although completely wrong about many things imho, was a very clear, witty (incredibly dry), speaker who nonetheless made very interesting and important points, albeit mostly about the general... culture surrounding these sort of discussions, rather than the actual topic at hand.) , the obligatory liberal secular philosopher and a rather interesting specimen of wishy-washiness somewhere in between who, like so many wishy-washy things, found herself uncomfortably dragged over to and associated with the conservative catholic.

The talk was definitely worth attending, but infinitely frustrating. Of course to begin with, when the discussion was first opened to the floor, everyone jumped onto the points made by the conservative catholic which I personally thought was a waste of time and also quite distracting, especially as no one seemed to get to the meat of the problems with her statements in regard to the topic at hand. There was so much in her actual opening statement that was worth getting into: why is it that a respect for marriage, for example, has been hijacked by the moral/religious right to also include a denial of gay rights or the benefits of a responsible sex life (which again, is always taken to mean a chaste sex life, but shouldn't be). One comment about the fact that 'gay marriages' 'open the way' for multiple marriages also needed to be checked. Although made in satire, as someone who does from a - no matter what they like to say about it - polygamous society (and, if historical research is to be interpreted correctly, in past times occasionally polyandrous) I can safely say that there is no reason why multiple marriages should either be illegal or morally suspect, not so much in light of state allowance of 'gay marriage'(*scoffs*) but in light of marriage as a legal contract full stop.

There were some interesting points made by the middle guy (well, lady), such as the basis for marriage being inherently biological (true, but not so much for the male and female to be parents as it is the social need for homo sapiens to have - admittedly not always, but mostly - sexual companionship), but the more pernicious guff about children deprived of natural parents was not challenged as much as I thought it would or indeed should be. Even if there was some huge disadvantage for children growing up without a biological parent, how great are those disadvantages in comparison to the counter effect of the deep social bonds humans are able to create, which are capable of running far deeper and stronger than biological ties? The point about children born from artificial insemination/anonymous donors desiring contact with fathers was a fact that I would think has more to do with the social demand that children have, or be aware of, some sort of father-figure - which for some reason still means whoever impregnated your biological mother as opposed to a male human who helped raise and nurture you. Go figure - and not some deep biological urging to be in physical contact with or have awareness of the inseminator.

The liberal guy was a good speaker as well. He was the sort of philosopher who makes you wish you'd studied Philosophy at University (some just make you wish you read more philosophy books which is a different thing entirely.) although he had his blind spots too, though, in comparison, they were the most orthodox so no one seemed to notice.

His point about teenage mothers irritated me, especially when he started comparing attitudes of other countries and the comparative rates of teenage motherhood - when will people stop getting off from comparing the UK to the Netherlands, or Sweden? Different countries with very different cultures and different cultural heritages. The main problem in the UK is not to do with sex ed - even though I'd agree it is necessary to be taught in schools as young as possible and yes, it's current state in the UK is applling - but to do with attitude. The girls who now are getting pregnant at 13, 100 years ago would have been housemaids or housewives bearing sons to be the tomorrow's soldiers of the Empire. The only reason we don't like it now is, quite frankly, because there's nothing for them to do. They - like so much that is 'working-class' - no longer serve any purpose. I wish people would just listen to these girls and take them seriously when the majority do seem to be saying they wanted babies/were sexually irresponsible because there was nothing else for them to do and frankly, why shouldn't they get pregnant, especially when they can get benefits to help ease their way. You say it perpetuates a cycle of poverty, therefore it's a bad thing, but the fact is that it's a lack of social mobility that perpetuates poverty and an unsympathetic culture towards the poor, even from the supposedly liberal, doesn't help. If you're thinking of bringing back the jobs you (from an economic perspective, quite sensibly) outsourced to keep other working class girls from getting pregnant at 13 in countries like China and India, then maybe your incessant whining would be worth listening to. As it is... /rant over - but some of his points were verging on the genuinely interesting, particularly his point that the real 'problem' is a change in social attitudes that no one is willing to be responsible for or at least to admit to. We are trying to have our cake and eat it. We cannot complain that the state does too much, for example, when the fact is the state only does too much because the citizenry does not do enough. We cannot complain about the state intervening more into personal lives when the bulwark of privacy - the family unit - is either not taken seriously enough (ie, our ideas about what it means have not moved on in light of our new attitudes to sexual relations and child rearing, for example) or provided enough support. He mentioned the plight of social workers as an example wherein they are damned for being too involved, but damned for not being involved enough. We cannot complain about the state of the younger generation and at the same time extol a type of individualism that does not provide a healthy culture for children to grow up in (or at least, the type of children we think we want). Unless we 'grow up' about what we think the family unit should and could be, we will be stuck in this malaise for a while.

Which, as you can imagine, I am in full agreement with. It made me laugh when the middle speaker mentioned the difficulty that registrars in Canada face, with, say, who is the actual parent of a particular child and of whose lineage those children should be considered as to belong to, because I thought that if African village towncriers could deal with it for centuries past, you bet a registrar with a middling ancestry-finding software would be able to! Yes, yes, here she goes again with the obligtory Nigeria/Igbo cultural reference but but but it is relevant because according to Igbo custom, if one shares so much as a great great great (great, I think.) grand parent with someone, that is enough for there to be a taboo against marrying that person. This means we do not so much have families as we do clans and tbh, I know this is true for the majority of cultures worldwide. The family unit is considered to be much more than just biological. Who is my mother? It could be my mother's best friend or her third cousin removed. My father? That could be my second cousins removed, my uncles, etc. Don't even get me started on who I must call grandfather/grandmother (just about anyone over the age of 50, tbh). The family unit as mother, father and children is as much a recent invention as steam engines ie, they might seem quaint and old-fashioned but in terms of the history of human innovation, they are really very recent indeed. So this Victorian ideal is dying/evolving. Well good. The older version seemed to have worked much better and I think the family unit as clan.2 where a mother could be your biological mother, her partner of either sex, her ex or best friend etc. will serve even better, no matter how odd it may seem on the surface in this more individualistic day and age.

*blows fingers*

Oh yes. Choir pactise was amazing. We have a mostly Russian repertoire which includes the Coronation scene from Boris Godunov (which, which - listen to me! - happens to be the musical theme for the 'Fountain of Youth' episode of the Mighty Boosh series 1. Amazing eh? Unfortunately it means I crack up laughing every time the tenors sing 'Da zdravstvuyet Tsar Boris Feodorovich' because those are the exact bars with which the 'King' of planet Xooberon is announced. Ah, lol), two Cherubic hymns (which make me want to convert to Russian Orthodox) and the Polovetsian Dances from Prince Igor. It is all luvverly and now that my throat cold has gone, so wonderful to sing. Magic.

Saturday saw me at Leeds which was even better than the Birmingham convention - which I will now never blog about but was very cool because I met a fantastic inker and Christian Quesnel, a Canadian comic artist with whom I had really good (and completely unintentional, I swear!) conversations about being French Canadian and historical issues between them and the 'British' Canadians, racism in Canada and France and attitudes to Islam in both countries. Yes, it was completely unintentional. I save my annoying issue-ism for all of you guys here in cyberspace - even though the signage was abysmal. No signs anywhere whatsoever. Get your act together Leeds!

Met up with some old friends, made some new ones including Sam Johnson the creator of Geek Girl which is an original superhero I like muchly. The whole day was awesome - got midly berated for not getting my stuff read for printing, got positively appraised for my newspaper stuff which I was pleasantly surprised by, and some interest in the new Captain Hamish comic which I am getting all nice and neat as soon as possible. There's a three page sample ready, but that's a bit crap tbh.

Also attended my first cosplay catwalk and bumped into some kats from Japanimation Soc. As ever, there was soooooo much cool stuff that I know I will link to soon, but for once, I did not spend too much and had enough left over for a healthy McDonald's at the end of the day.

So... I'm feeling more or less content and have been for a week which is such an improvement. It feels amazing. I suspect I was just doing too much at the beginning of the year, but now I've cut out some societies - unless they're doing something genuinely interesting - I have spare time to focus on my degree, you know, the thing I'm actually getting money for *sighs*.

On a more devious note - because I want you all to be too distracted by the gorgeousness to do any work, comme moi - here are shiny new webcomics:

Moon Town

The Meek

Mathema

The last two are more recently started, so now you'll look extra cool by reading a webcomic not many people have heard of. That is, of course, until I publish this post and my MILLIONS of readers spread the word about their marvellousness.

...

Goodness but I am in a good mood.

Off to break my neck in Jiu jitsu!