why we forget the pain of child birth and travel plans

there is this theory (linked to darwinism i think) which is fairly widely held as true, which says that women forget the pain of childbirth so that they will have more than one child. makes sense, i mean, what thinking being would willingly and knowingly put themselves through that twice or ever three times? in fact, i'm even unsure about whether i want to do it once.

and i think that travel plans are the same. if we didn't forget the pain of organisising a trip then we would never go on more than one trip. i can't think of an evolutionary or biological reason why we would need to go on more than one trip, to be honest, but that doesn't mean that it isn't true.

i have to get a new passport becasue my old one is going to expire in october (and believe it or not i would like to get back into australia at the end of it), i have to buy a ticket and i have to get visas. i know, i know, these things should have been done some time back…. oh well. such is life. and then there are all the other little things that spring into your mind and 3 o'clock in the morning and stop you sleeping for the rest of the night…

i can't wait to be on the plane and be thinking, well theres nothing i can do about any of it now. i think that relief lasts as long as it takes to realise you're in deep poo because you forgot, i don't know.. your passport or something! 

idiots on the radio

have been trying to find comprehensive transcripts of the infamous allan jones during the cronulla beach riots for another essay- i hit upon heaps of interesting articles all saying how terrible he was and how much of a role he played but i couldn't actually find a real transcript would you believe. i found a few short snippets of some of Jones' program (where a listener surprisingly tried to reason with Jones' but i suspect her microphone was probably turned down and Jones' continued his rant) as well as this short excerpt from Brian Wilshire on the ABC website. It was mostly Jone's that copped the critisism in the other media outlets but to be honest, if Jones said anything worse than what Wilshire said… my god its incomprehensible. there are some idiots out there. i supose the whole cronulla beach incident should have demonstrated that fact without the idiot radio presenters on top of that. you just expect that they should know better don't you.  

readdress the image

am a little concerned that this concientious student thing is a little too common a theme at the moment. must debunk this image immediately.

I play hockey. Hockey is a great game. theres nothing pretty about hockey. Its rough, its skill, it can hurt, and it offers you a 'pleasant release' as i like to call it, by means of swearing, yelling, throwing your arms around at the umpire, accidently hip and shouldering that annoying player ono the opposite team (or tripping her over), stroming around or hurling a stick at the ground (or the sky) and being able to hit something as hard as you possibly can. but the 'training nights' held at the pub are good too (team bonding sessions).

I…. am about to buy tickets to Sri Lanka and India and its ppossibile I may end up in Nepal. I'll be in sri Lanka with my good friend Sam and maybe in india alone or with another very special friend, Erin, who incidently married Jack in Nepal a while back, congratulations Erin!

I'm into music and films and i talk back at the TV when i don't agree with it.     

wikipedia wonder

how great is wikipedia.

i was struggling to find critics of the theorist, Edward Said even though i knew he has many. Wikipedia has basically given me everything i need for my essay on a plate! only problem is i can't use wikipedia as an actual reference, but at least i know who eddy's enemies are now and where exactly to find them. its cheating a bit, the great bards and schollars of the past didn't have it this easy i know, but hey, there have to be some perks to living in the noughties right!?  

while on the subject…

While I'm on the subject, it struck me that without even thinking about it i'd made a sort of a feminist leaning short film. it was part of an assignment i did over the summer in putting a new media film up on the web so you might find it interesting (for those with broadband and quicktime, those without probably won't find the black screen interesting). I did some interviews with my two wonderful grandmothers, essentially trying to include Hagen and Rees ( my grandmothers' maiden names) in my identity as Jessica Noske-Turner (the combination of my grandfathers' names). Feminist or what!? check out Jessica Hagen-Noske-Rees-Turner  

And let me know what you think!

a feminist reading of a sneeze

Ok so i said i was going to diverge from the Nerd persona but I just can't help myself; Once a nerd, always a nerd.

So I was listening intently to a really facinating lecture about feminist film theory in documentary after having seen two documentaries with very different approaches to feminism this morning. Even though its not really cool anymore to say you're a feminist (it implies smelly/hairy armpits, ugly clothes, whinging women who see female oppression by males in the science around the 'black holes' phenominen in space (yes, apparently black holes actually signify men's fears of vaginas- and yes, I have had a lecturer stand up infront of a lecturn and say this in all seriousness)) so i avoid saying, 'I am a feminist'. However, i have to say that discussions around feminism get me quite excited and i have had my fair share of arguments with idiot males (and idiot females for that matter).

so there i was excited in the lecture, scribbling down notes profusly until i looked up at a lecture hall full of faces laughing- yes laughing and looking at me.

… quick rewind… what was Allan saying? do do do …'So therefore what this theory suggests is that by the very form of cinematic… Wow thats the most delecate sneeze I have ever heard'

Think Jess, why is everyone looking at you… oh my god, I sneezed. Everyone is laughing at my sneeze. My delecate sneeze. My delecate sneeze in a lecture on feminism. Well done Jess.           

why non sequitur?

This is where the real meaning of this blog's title comes out. from the first 2 or three blog entries you'd probably have a certain impression of me. Forget it. i'm about to blow that out of the water.

Jess, Queen of the Nerds, is about to come to your computer.

Last night i went to a talk by Jeff Lewis and Peter Horsfield. Who are they? Jeff is the author of Language Wars:the Role of Media and Culture in Global Terror and Political Violence, about the interaction bewteen media and culture in a post 9.11 context and Peter Horsfield… well i have the pleasure of hearing peter talk every wednesday. Yes, Peter is my lecturer in Theories of Persuasion and Communication and i gave up my tuesday evening to hear him talk…. VOLUNTARILY. and not only that, but when i arrived another of my tutors, Terry Johal looked at me in surprise and said "yeeesss, one of my students is here.' Hmmf.

Well, apart from the content of the talk which was extremely exciting and thought provoking (see, i told you i was a nerd, it actually kept me awake last night), i found it a fairly amazing atmosphere to be included in such an intimate room (there were less than 20 of us) talking about the state of the media and the state of the world. i was way out of my depth in terms of knowledge and intelligence so i mostly shut-up-and-listened, but to be there for that converstaion was something else. 

so what was it about? well go read the book!

Jeff had some really amazing takes on the way the media and the goverment and the society have framed the news events. His distinction from other theorists was that its not just those in power, but that we as a people have some responsibility and therefore some guilt in what has happened around the globe as well. much of his discussion is around the way language frames events, so that it is impossible to get truth out of a representation through language (i think that extends to audio and visual language as well. I'll stop now because i am mixing up what he said with other theorists so i'll have to check it up.)

But wow, here my documentary studies, my essay on Orientalism and my major in Asian media and culture all link and interwine around the same issues.

so ends the rant of the queen, next time i promise to take on the persona of someone much less boring, and much more attractive and interesting, but probably as equally out of line with your expectations!  

My non-sequitur!          

and a couple more….  

Back in april my beautiful aunt married one John Mackley. I was the bumbling photographer on the day (with the help of grandpa's SLR) and managed to reel off 5 rolls of film.  

This is my initial choice of photos for Sian and Johns frame from their wedding (the frame has three portrait spaces). what do you think? i'd especially like to hear from the Turner Tribe for suggestions. i will hopefully add some more pics when i have a little more time.     

procrastination queen

I have 3 essays, a test to study for and an assignment and i decide to set up a blog. good thinking.

Well, the genesis really goes back to when I bought myself a spunky new digital camera to work alongside my old faithful SLR passed down to me from my dear grandpa. I figured that if a digi camera is good for anything its kick starting you into starting a blog. So here we are.

Welcome to Non Sequitur!