n=1

Dear Sketchy Tutor Co-ordinator,

A couple of months ago, you told me that my students were lucky to have a 'gorgeous exotic tutor,' and I tried to diplomatically express that I didn't enjoy being referred to in that way--"I think it would be better to say that they're lucky to have such a brilliant and dedicated tutor!!"

When I spoke to you yesterday, you referred to my voice as 'sexy.' Maybe I was being too diplomatic before, so this time I will say frankly that I don't appreciate language that is about my appearance or that has a sexual undertone to it from my supervisors or colleagues, and I find it inappropriate.

I would appreciate if our interactions could stay strictly and unambiguously professional in the future, and please be more aware of the effect of your words on your female collegues. I think that in most ways you've been brillant to work with, and tutoring the epi class has been a fantastic experience for me. I've really enjoyed it, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so, and look forward to continuing to work with you in the future.

Sincerely,
Imagynne

---------------------------------------------

I hope you know that I did not intend to upset you with any comment I made... I am well known as someone who speaks what he thinks and yes I can be a bit too frank sometimes, which can be annoying to some.

I apologise and promise you wont hear anything of that nature from me ever again :)

I hope you are not mad at me! My intention was not a bad one...

Take care Imagynne.

Sketchy Tutor Co-ordinator

--------------------------------------------

Sketchy Tutor Co-ordinator,

What you did is actually called "sexual harrassment," not 'speaking what you think.'

Imagynne

PS Fuck you.

[unsent]

16.06.2008

Cotton On Clothing Pty Ltd
77 Barwon Tce
Geelong, VIC 3220


To whom it may concern:

Over the week-end, I was at the Cotton On store at Blahblah Shopping Centre, and I saw that Cotton On had a massive sale on. I was absolutely rapt, and had gathered up a huge armload of clothes. When I passed a rack of singlets and started going through them, I realised that they had been called “The Beater.” I put down the clothes and walked out of the store.

I was so disappointed that Cotton On would trivialise the issue of domestic violence and violence towards women by referencing the term ‘wifebeater’ for their singlet tops. As a woman who has experienced domestic violence and works with women who have experienced violence in a variety of ways, I cannot support a company that treats violence against women so lightly.

I was particularly disappointed because unlike many clothing stores, Cotton On is known for progressive causes that I feel strongly about, so I’ve always felt good about shopping there. I remember when Cotton On decided to start making enviro cotton bags instead of plastic bags—and then you donated the proceeds to cancer research!

So I’m asking you to please consider changing the name of your shirts and donating the money from the shirts to a women’s refuge or women’s health centre. It would show that you take this issue seriously, and would allow me to continue shopping at Cotton On without feeling as though I were being complicit in trivialising violence against women.

I await your response to this matter.


Kindest regards,
Imagynne, MPH

I'm doing my 'Obama won the nomination' dance. Do you see it? I will show it to you! I also have an 'Obama won the nomination' song. It goes like this:

Obama won the nomination
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Obama won the nomination
SUCKAS!

Don't worry if it was too deep for you. I am all about the deep lyrics.

Hey. When I finish paying off my undergrad loans in another four months or so, my net worth will be at $0, or possibly just hovering in the black. For someone who's just kind of shrugged off having a permanently negative net worth, that rocks!

In the past three months, I've had to decide whether to stay in Australia or leave, deal with all the visa nonsense that comes with that decision, I've been effectively terminated from the job I've held the last two years and kicked out of the house I've been living in for approx 18 months, all while attempting to finish and finalise my degree and balance a new relationship.

I've been a bit of a wreck.

If it hadn't been for my incredibly supportive boy, I don't know how I would have held up.


Three months later, and...
My life rocks so hard right now. Let me count the ways:

1. I have a boy that I absolutely adore. Even when we fight. And that MEANS something, people. And word on the street is that it's reciprocal.
2. I'm out of that wretched place I had been living in, and in another place where I feel comfortable and am slowly settling in.
3. I completed my Master's program! I can officially put those little letters after my name (if I wanted to, which mostly I don't.)
4. I have a JOB. Not only a job, but a job I'm really very excited about. AND after their initial offer, I calmly but firmly stated that although I was extremely excited about the position itself, I wasn't happy with what they were offering in terms of salary. They came back with 15K/yr more, and a figure that's approx 10K more than what I'm making now. All pro-rata'd, since I'll only be working 4 days a week, but yo. It is a lot of money. For me.
5. I'm doing casework with asylum seekers one day a week (hence working four). I can't believe my good fortune in being accepted as a caseworker, as this is something I've been wanting to do for a while. AND I still get a job that will (more than) pay the bills.
6. Also, visa stuff has been sorted, so I won't get thrown into detention and/or deported.*
7. And I have a new publication that I'm extremely proud of.


Not to be all ridiculous and gushy and whatnot, but me and the boy's six month is coming up, and we have lots of things to celebrate--in addition to all of that stuff up there, he's also getting a nice payraise**. SO, I'm planning a hot air balloon excursion as a celebratory surprise about a month from now, when (hopefully!) I'll be getting my first paycheck. What do y'all think? Good idea? Totally cheesy and/or crappy? Also, we can either do it over the city of Melbourne or out in the country. What do you think would be the better option? (Keep in mind that he's driving...to get to his surprise.)






* Well. Considering that Australia has been known to deport its own citizens, that statement can only be made with a limited amount of certainty. Also, I like how the papers that report these stories like to omit the fact that these Australian citizens tend to be of the brown variety, a fact which I consider to be highly relevant.

**I'm kind of cross, because if he weren't, I'd be able to say that I was making more than him, albeit by about $1000/yr and with much more student debt. I will now pout.

I voted today! And as I left the post office, I was v cross that spending $37.50 to make sure my ballot got in on time didn't even get me an "I VOTED" sticker.

What the hell is the point of democracy if you don't even get a sticker??

I just got an IUD put in this afternoon.

Pros: Hooray for immoral fornication sans punishment in the form of a small, undeveloped, completely dependent human! Double hooray for avoidance of such punishment in ways that do not make me crazy (ie the Pill)!!

Cons: OMG THE PAIN. Double plus ungood.

Two days ago, I was speaking to a woman who had just had her first MRI for our AI study (looking at the side effects of a specific class of breast cancer drugs). She’s a difficult participant, and the woman who manages our MRIs had apparently had some kind of difficulty with her—the participant showed up late, was argumentative, etc. After hearing all that, I really and truly did not want to go through the trouble of ringing her up for her CRF, but nevertheless.

She was in a hurry, she said. Please make this very quick. Which, oddly enough, didn’t prevent her interrupting me, talking about other things entirely, and then getting annoyed that it was taking so long. When I asked about her date of diagnosis, she began getting distressed. She explained that she had felt a lump, had it biopsied, and was told that it was benign. Eight months later, rather on a whim it seems, she asked her doctor about it again—and it was malignant. She seems rather convinced that she may have been misdiagnosed the first time, and feels that she’s been receiving unsatisfactory answers from the people involved in her care—everyone has been very ‘evasive,’ according to her.

After listening to this, I spoke to one of my supervisors to find out what I could do for the woman, if anything. She had been asking me questions that I am simply not knowledgeable enough and not in a position to give, and she deserves to have someone take her concerns seriously (even if she is one of the most difficult participants in our study). I rang her to ask if she wanted to speak to one of our clinicians in our program, but couldn’t get in touch with her—I left a message.

Today’s topic for the class I teach was screening and diagnostic testing. Quite timely. One of the clinicians was telling me about the false negative rates for biopsies—if benign cells are taken from one section of the mass, another part of the mass could still be malignant. And I imagine that a benign mass could indeed turn malignant in eight months—that long can be ages, especially for a fast-growing tumor.

There is the possibility that the woman was mismanaged, but there’s also the possibility that she’s looking for hard-and-fast answers that simply no-one has to give her. Rather like we all are, I suppose.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Another of my women may have a tumor on her ovary—after having had breast cancer. If there is a tumor, it may mean that she has a separate primary cancer (bad, and especially bad since ovarian cancer is normally not symptomatic until it’s progressed quite a lot), or it could be a secondary cancer, meaning that her breast cancer has metastasized (worse).

-----------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes my job makes me realise just how good I have it.

So it's Sat night, and I'm sitting at home watching television. But look! Back to the Future is on, and being the child of the 80's that I am, I'm all happy and hooray! But now I'm watching it, and yo. It is actually a really shitty movie and offends my sensibilities on multiple levels. This is a sad realisation.



SPEAKING OF OFFENDING PEOPLE

So I was talking to this random dude online, and I do not even know why I bothered. He's a marketing executive, and is there any possibility that I am going to get along with some random marketing executive guy? Little miss I hate all things corporate and overconsumption is ruining mankind and more important the planet? Right. So I'm playing a little personal game of 'justify your existence.'

Imagynne: I work in breast cancer research
Guy: cool, you should check out our brand mt franklin water
Imagynne: see, the thing I don't understand about most marketing
Imagynne: is that it's just trying to get people to buy things they don't need in the first place
Imagynne : what is the point of that?
Imagynne: like bottled water
Imagynne: who needs bottled water?
Imagynne: what is the point of selling something that no-one needs?
Guy: because evidently most of the population wants it
Imagynne: but they only want it because people in marketing have created the want
Imagynne: rather circular, really
Guy: go check out this site imagynne .. thewellofpositivity.com its definetely good marketing, its mt franklin but it relates to yr industry and its a cool cause as i as most people have personal interest in loved ones with breast cancer
Guy: click on "add a thought" and get coca cola to donate money
Imagynne: see, the thing is
Imagynne: I actually think it rather cheapens the experience of people who have breast cancer to use that experience to sell more of your product
Imagynne: whatever your product happens to be
Guy: well u should go check out the site all see for yourself, i dont agree with you at all
Guy: my sister who has breast cancer thinks its a great idea, so i think your opinion is pretty offensive
Guy: so ciao my girl

Great, so now I feel bad. Except for the fact that I still stand by what I said. If Coca-Cola cared that much about BC, they could just voluntarily donate a couple of the billions of dollars they make in profit every year. Instead, they use the fact that this disease exists to boost their profit. How is that not exploiting and cheapening the experience of people who have breast cancer?

So basically, I would feel bad except for the fact that I'm right. As usual.

Hey, guess what? I'm heading back to North America in six months.

How weird is that?

Within the last 5 days, I've had 2 friends tell me that either they or their partner is preggers. While of course I'm happy for them, it's still weird as hell. I mean, both of them are older than I am (35 and 29), but STILL. You'd think I would start getting used to it.



ION, people on both sides of this story are full of suck. Putting up ads saying, "ZOMG, your baby is going to die if you don't breastfeed!"=full of suck. Mothers (esp new mothers) tend not to need even more guilt and scaremongering. Federal health officials blocking such ads because the infant formula industry (which is incredibly corrupt) wanted them to? Equally full of suck. The US has one of the lowest rates of breast-feeding in the world, which is ridiculous, given the health benefits. Of course, we're also not really that great with the infant mortality rate so hey! maybe we as a nation just don't like babies all that much.



I've recently noticed that I've started using "we" to mean both Americans and Australians, depending on the context.

God, I'm ready to leave Australia.

I shouldn't say that. I should enjoy and appreciate the time I have here, because it'll be over soon enough and I'll miss it. I know I'll miss Melbourne once I leave. One of the (many, many) things I want to work on is being content with what I have at the moment, rather than rushing into whatever the next thing might be.

Although it is hard when 'the next thing' is a couple months in the Caribbean, I must say.

It's hard to strike a balance between wanting to do different things and challenging myself on the one hand and being content with what I have on the other.

Unfortunately, I don't know if I consider my life to be all that interesting at the moment, but I can wholeheartedly get behind today's xkcd.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/interesting_life.png

God, I'm ready to leave Australia.

I reckon it's the last line that will really make his day.

Dear Justice Spender,

I’m writing to thank and commend you for your ruling on the Haneef case. Well done! It’s such a relief to finally see something positive happening with this case, and to have evidence that there are still some checks on a government that increasingly seems to believe there should be no limits on what actions it is allowed to take under the guise of fighting terrorism. Also, I firmly believe that anything that gets Immigration Minister Andrews as upset as your ruling did must, by necessity, be a good thing.

Thank you again, you are now officially my favorite Federal Court judge.

Kind regards,
Imagynne


Honestly, this ruling warmed the cockles of my cold, black, cynical heart. I don't know if the Haneef case has actually made the news across the way--I don't think I've seen it on any of the American news sites--so for background: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/government-to-appeal-haneef-visa-ruling/2007/08/21/1187462228620.html

Basically, if you have ever spoken to or are related to or have any 'association' with someone who commits a terrorist act and are brown, Mr Andrews wants you out of the country. Even if you go out of your way to attempt to help authorities WRT the terrorist act. It's pretty great to have an Immigration Minister that goes by that particular policy. Helps cut down on all those brown terrorist types coming into the country, and isn't that the primary concern of an Immigration Minister?

I submitted a statement of interest yesterday. IOW: please give me money. Please. I beg of you.

Me: Hello, Imagynne speaing.
Them: Hi, good afternoon! This is Maria with X Foundation! We received your letter, and I love what you're doing. Your project fits in perfectly with our principles of social justice for marginalised women and children.
Me: Oh, that's really excellent to hear, thanks for getting back to me so quickly! (Hurrah, they're going to give me money!)
Them: Unfortunately, we're restructring at the moment, so funding for all projects are on hold. But we'll get back to you in about two months, when we have everything settled. So why don't you just wait around and sit on your hands in the hopes that we might eventually decide to fund you, okay? We look forward to working with you!
Me: Definitely, of course! Thanks for keeping me updated.

PS: I hate you. May you burn in the circle of hell reserved for all the people that are conspiring to keep me on this bloody island indefinitely.

MONEY

Blah, I am spending way more money than usual this month, and it is only the 15th! Between a higher-than-usual phone bill ($105--apparently calling to Thailand is more expensive than calling to the States), the ticket to Brisbane ($198), an overly high heating bill ($97), and spending way more than I should on eating out (although this is a monthly occurrence, so I really shouldn't even count it), I'm currently 37% over budget this month. On the 15th. Oh. And I'm paying about $1700 in school fees in a couple weeks.

It's not really a big deal. Annoying, and it means that I'll have to watch it next month (esp because I'll be going to Brisbane in October and don't want to have to watch what I'm spending too much while I'm there), but it's okay. I'm increasing my hours to 30 hrs/wk next week (Oh, goodbye, life of leisure! How I will miss thee!), which will be nice. And I reckon that when I can look at a $1700 tuition bill and my reaction is along the lines of, "Huh. Well, that's irritating," I'm doing pretty okay.

But part of me still wakes up in the middle of the night, panicking about ending up homeless and in the gutter (hello, biggreenbeacon! You are a good person to call when I am panicking at 3.30 in the morning).


BETTER THINGS
1. I'm going to be working on a study looking at cognitive funtion in postmenopausal women! Do you know how completely fascinating cognitive function and the study of it is? Because it is fascinating. I don't have a central role in the projects, but I'll be there on the sidelines and I get to learn how to administer congnitive function tests and learn about cognitive psychology (hi, Jen!) and basically get all of the "Oh my God, this is so awesome" factor without having to, like, care too much about the study itself. Because it's not mine! Hurrah!


Okay, that was actually only one better thing. A not-so-better consequence is that even though I'm really pleased that I am doing/have done so many awesome things (work with asylum seeker and refugee populations! and trafficked women! and breast cancer! and at-risk teens! and and and!), I'm feeling very jack-of-all trades, master of none. V unsettled, and I think it's contributing to a lot of my anxiety lately. When people ask (that fucking annoying question), "So, what do you *do*?" I don't know how to answer. I don't know what continent I'm going to be living on after March. I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish my thesis project. If I do go back to Boston, I don't know where I'll live or how I'll support myself.

Oh goodness, I am scared.

People love me! In the past twenty-four hours, I have:

--Gone to a dinner where a woman I am absolutely in awe of was speaking. Not only did I get to attend an awesome event, I won her newest book by guessing the life expectancy of Costa Rica*, and, like, actually talked to her. Made an ass of myself in the approximately 1 minute and 36 seconds I spoke, but you know.
--Got a response from my ex-supervisor, who I love and adore and said that I could stay with him and his family for a few days in Brisbane.
--gotten an offer for a student placement which is...
a project aimed at increasing the awareness of positive body image to young women attending Blah Secondary College. It aims to provide an opportunity for young people to better understand the barriers to positive body image and to devise and promote strategies for communicating issues surrounding positive body image and self esteem to other young people. The project will facilitate the development of an audiovisual resource that will enable key messages to be disseminated more widely.

*US's GDP: $13.13 trillion
US life expectancy: 77 years
Costa Rica's GDP: $50.89 billion
Costa Rica life expectancy: 79 years

Equity in health care, kids.

I don't know how many of y'all are familiar with what's been going on down here, but about a month ago, the PM announced that in response to reports indicating a high level of sexual violence against children in Aboriginal commumities, he's mobilising the military and occupying Aboriginal land, passing restricitons on pornography and alcohol, and subjecting Aboriginal children to anal and vaginal medical examinations.

Howard has no authority to invade Aborignal land, and most people accept that he's doing it in an attempt to gain control over the land for mining and other uses. The government has been trying to get Aboriginal people to move off the land in various ways for years. The report that Howard claims he's basing his policies on (Little Children are Sacred), does not recommend any of the policies that he's instituted. Some of the policies go directly against the report's recommendations. Children are starting to be taken away from their families in an echo of the Stolen Generation policies, which fulfills the criteria for genocide.

Here's my letter on the issue. It's not particularly eloquent, but you know.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To whom it may concern:

I am absolutely disgusted with the recent policies undertaken against the indigenous population in the Northern Territory. Howard's policies are an election-year stunt, designed to give the illusion of caring about Aboriginal children while setting the scene for another Stolen Generation. Howard is insisting that his policies are based on the Little Children are Sacred report, but the actions taken have NO resemblance to ANY of the recommendations in the report. How horrible that Howard would take a report aimed at protecting and advocating for some of our most vulnerable citizens and mutilate it for his own agenda. It is revolting that our Aboriginal populations, whose land we are walking on, are still being treated as less than second-class citizens.

I am angry about these decisons, but I'm also sad that here in Australia, instead of standing up against injustice, we are continuing to perpetuate it against our own people. The Australia that I want to see represents fairness and decency, but how can that possibly be the case when we are perpetuating a genocide within our own country?

I await your response.

Regards,
Imagynne

Dale's out of surgery! Everything went well, she was in some pain and a bit groggy, but is sleeping now. I should be posting this to her journal, but don't have her password, so.

Oh my goodness!  Dale is in surgery *right now*.  Send good vibes, y'all.