Tuesday 20 March 2012

Chandler's Victory Dance

Well, dear readership, it would appear that I didn't keep my New Year's Resolution that I pledged in my last blog. The one about blogging regularly, not the other one. That one I certainly kept. All I can say is that I must have slipped into some sort of time/space vacuum on posting my last offering and have only just now been returned to the living, breathing blogosphere that is normality... or something. I think aforementioned vacuum is locally known as 'third year'. Diabolical lapse in efforts, I realise; I can only apologise and rather than promise to keep you posted on all future inane thoughts, tell you all now that I'm horribly unreliable and any commitment to this blog is commitment best committed elsewhere. I hear challenging and pleasurable reading can be had on various internet sources and point you in the direction of those, namely 'Wikipedia' and 'Jezebel'.

Many a metaphorical bomb has been dropped since my last post, all the way back in 2011. Ah, the good old days. That was before my dissertation was a tangible brain-munching shitstorm and existed to me only conceptually, like DisneyWorld Florida - I refuse to believe that's a real place, it's too perfect and simultaneously too appalling. That was before KONY 2012 reared its morally questionable head and then promptly retreated, tail between suspiciously attractive legs. That was before the American presidential race really kicked off, before I knew what 'Santorum' really meant. I advise you google it if you remain in the dark. And speaking of political races - if I really have the gall to call it that - that was before the SUSU elections, the annual churning out of six top notch soon-to-be-graduates who will attempt to handle the wild beast that is 22,000 unruly students. Who would be stupid enough to take on that responsibility, eh? ... I'm guessing that 99% of readers (Harri, Mike Fisher, my Ma) know the punchline, but just in case you have stumbled across this blog by mistake while searching for reviews of Britney Spears' latest album: I would be that stupid. Old muggins over here. The one wearing the daft grin with the ridiculous hair and absurd mole count. And in case anybody was wondering, that album was dire

I'm still in a state of perpetual shock, confusion and incredulousness. Though with a vocabulary that allows for atrocities like "incredulousness", it's no wonder I'm not relying upon my English Literature degree to find me work. Of course I'm terribly chuffed; I actually get to do a job I'll enjoy next year. If I didn't get elected my other option was to head back to Dorsetshire to reclaim my job alongside a dozen fourteen year old girls working in my local Chinese take-away for £4 an hour. You may laugh but that's what got me to university and that's what would have been greeting me on my somewhat dismal return. Forget a street party with a massive paper dragon, I would have been given a packet of prawn crackers and a slap on the arse: it would have been like I'd never left. For that alone, I thank those who voted for me. From the bottom of my chow mein ridden heart. Number 9, £4.80.

But seriously, I'm not quite sure how this has happened. When I retrace my footsteps, I can only feel like some mistake has been made. Year one was spent being praised and condemned - in equal measure, I may add - for my rather unprepared and inarticulate run-in with PM-to-be DC; off to a good start with the liberal voters but despised by the majority of Southampton students. Go figure. Year two was full of KitKat bashing and feminist ranting; my potential voters must have been quartered, the haters thoroughly and justifiably now running amok with scorn. Year three was quiet, I was biding my time, behaving myself and now this? What madness. I have no idea how a hairy-legged socialist feminist with a penchant for ethical tirades and ovaries has won what is essentially a popularity contest. I feel like that day was a good day: for me, for feminism and for the world I hope to one day live in. There is hope for us yet. The apathetic masses - and various others - will disagree I'm sure but the voters have spoken. Cue Chandler's victory dance.

Life goes on: books need a'reading, essays need a'writing, gay porn needs a'watching. All for academic purposes, of course. Currently Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things is keeping me up well into the wee hours, that and the thought of the representation of queer identity in AIDS narratives from 1988-1995 ... It's a long story.