muppinstuff

girlpower, or the day we got our first woman prime minister

This afternoon as I was sitting on the steps waiting for the school bell to ring, one of the other mothers raced in and with a big grin on her face, put her fist in the air and proclaimed "girl power". I guess I wouldn't call Julia Gillard, who is a year older than me, a girl, she is most assuredly a strong woman in the prime of her middle age, but hey, I totally got the exuberance. I've been feeling it all day. Today, Australia got our first female Prime Minister and it feels historic and special. As feminists, as women, how could we not celebrate?

Change was in the air and it was definitely the talk around the school yard this morning. As I did a load of washing and the dishes, I had my ear to the radio. At twelve, I sat down with my knitting to listen to the outgoing Prime Minister - Kevin Rudd - make a speech that was just so excruciating, so raw, but also so good that I couldn't help but admire him. He might have been a crap boss but he achieved some good things. Like the apology, of which we can all be proud. I also noticed at work that when Labor came to power, things changed, a softening around the edges if you will. More money for the poorest of our poor. Not enough, but more than before. And if homelessness hasn't exactly been tackled, at least it is firmly on the agenda. 

So as I ripped back my knitting ( in depth knitting post due soon) and placed the stitches back on the needles I listened to Julia Gillard address the press. And wasn't she impressive! So intelligent and assured. I greatly like how she is clear that she can't let the country fall into the hands of Tony Abbott. That education and health are too important, that she called the mining companies to the table to negotiate the super profits tax but that she is clear that all Australians deserve a fair share of our mineral wealth. I watched her again on the 7.30 report and she makes no apologies for being a politician and avoiding certain questions. Indeed she does it with a great deal of grace. But it's not the specifics that are important really - I'm sure on some level she will disappoint, she has admitted as much herself and after all she is a politician and politics is is full of compromises and deal making. Or as one of my friends (that would be Mel M) said on Facebook and I quote "Governing a country is like riding a massive beast with 100 heads and 100 heads trying to go in 1000 different directions, while every kind of spear is thrown at you from the sidelines. Whether some of us like it or not - and whether anyone in the Greens except Bob Brown ever matures enough to realise it - democratic government is, by its very nature, incremental." Somehow I think Julia is up to it, inasmuch as anyone can be. And that makes me happy.

I also admire how she has decided not to move into the lodge until after winning the next election. Practical and symbolic. And how she brushes off the first woman Prime Minister thing. Sure it's important but that's for us to make a fuss of, not her. She's got a country to lead. It also intrigues me that she may well be our first unmarried prime minister - so she could be living at the lodge with her manfriend, or even on her own, both of  which seem very modern to me. There were comments today on the radio and there has been controversy in the past that she can't lead because she doesn't have a family and therefore doesn't know the issues facing working families (to use a Ruddism) but that's utter rubbish. Of course she has a family, she didn't emerge into the world fully grown or magically appear under a cabbage. It's just that she has chosen to follow a career in politics. And why shouldn't she? Choice is meant to be one of the important things feminism gives us, and her choice has been to pursue a life other than motherhood. It's not my choice, but I have a different, much more ordinary life. Obviously. But somehow I imagine I and others will benefit from that choice of hers. Anyway I can't imagine how one would balance being PM with motherhood, or even with fatherhood for that matter, but that's a whole other issue. Although I'd be interested to see if we could have a PM who was also a mother. I'm also wondering how she will do without a "wife", will her manfriend fill that role? does it matter? Obviously she has already geared her life so that she can operate as a high level politician. And I guess that's what excites me, I can say to Grace that our Prime Minister, the boss of our country is a woman. That a girl can grow up to Prime Minister. That men can be led by women. Please let her win the election. Because I would really like to see how this pans out. I expect remarkable things. I really do.

High School for Coburg

For the last two weeks the HSC website has been my magnificent obsession. I've learnt more about blogger and html and other random things than I thought possible. But it's as done as it's going to be at this stage.

 

Tomorrow night, Wednesday 19th of August HSC is holding a free public information evening and all are welcome. If you live in the Coburg or Preston, come along and have your say on the future of secondary education in your local area.

Wednesday 19 August 2009
6.30pm
Coburg Town Hall
90 Bell Street, Coburg (free parking available)

Keynote speaker: Chris Bonnor
Also featuring Rod Quantock and Catherine Deveny
We invite all parents, grandparents and residents to come tell us your ideas and thoughts on secondary education in our area. Attending will be City of Moreland councillors, politicians and education experts.

Don't miss this opportunity to have your say!

wednesday night debrief

It's been a long, long three days. Three days in a row is much more intense than three days over four. It's better having the lovely long weekend with lots of home, family and even a fair bit of me time, but man, those three work days are intense. By the end of it I'm wiped. Tonight is no exception. I don't know how the full timers do it. 

Now everyone who reads here most likely knows where I work. Taking forms from a long line of people staring at me and my colleagues (especially when we scuttle away from our desks to take a turn for tea or lunch break). I process, stamp and initial these forms, then make sure that the payment goes through (otherwise I don't sleep at night). It seems that I generate and stamp a ridiculous amount of paper. Indeed in my head I refer to my job as stampy-stampy. Every now and then I might make a difference, but mostly I settle for making it as pleasant and human as possible for me and the customer sitting in front of me. Someone commented last week that I did help it feel less like a walk of shame. That's a feeling that's creeping in all around as the global financial crisis (or maybe I should just bite the bullet and call it a recession?) means more people lose their jobs. I'm starting to have to explain over and over how the system works and why a person may have to do things that sometimes seem pointless or even counter productive to them in terms of getting more work.  

On my good days I can get to a point with most people where I say, "let me explain how it all works and then you will have some choices about how you deal with it". And most reasonably bright people will accept that and as we go on will grasp that there are things that I can't say outright, but will catch my drift. Not so the very well educated lady I saw yesterday, who had not completed her form properly or in any way that I could consider acceptable (I'm a softie, I look for ways for people to be right) and would not stop arguing about the unfairness of it all for long enough for me to explain anything. I felt my ire rising and rising. I tried to explain again, fumbling in my efforts, confusing the fact that everyone has to comply with the same legislation with the other fact that everyone's circumstances are different. Inside I was agreeing with many of the points she raised. And then I felt like the petty bureaucrat. Then my anger rose inside again as I remembered my times on the dole and how I would just fill out the bloody paperwork and do what I needed to do keep getting the money to pay my rent.  In the end, I asked her to stop speaking until I had explained what she needed to do. It wasn't a happy interaction.  And then I felt angry because there are so many people who have been doing this for so long that they don't question the system, they know it as well as I do. And others might look down on those people, thinking but I'm not like that. And for some reason that really sticks in my craw. We're all different and unique, but all people, no matter what our circumstances. How times are a changing. Again.

Now I guess I had such a crap day at work yesterday because I didn't sleep that much on Monday because that was crappy too. My office has a system of seeing people based on when they come in and there was someone who had been waiting an hour to lodge a claim. That's not acceptable but we work as hard and as fast as we can with what we have and when a busy patch hits a small office, well it's like a small restaurant being slammed with orders and the kitchen getting backed up. Anyway I swapped from my other job to help out and when I went to greet her in the waiting room, she nearly bit my head off. She'd been waiting, she didn't have time for this and basically she wanted it done five minutes ago. I told her it would take about ten minutes and there was more snapping. Normally people vent, then settle, but this woman kept on and on. She was so nasty that I had to say that unless she could stop being so hostile, I would not be able to take her claim and she'd have to see someone else. I'm usually pretty tough at work but this time I was shaking at the photocopier. The worst thing was she had a child with her, and every time the poor kid moved or spoke there were harsh words. Despite the fact that kids run all about our waiting room and that everyone understands that kids will be kids and despite the fact that this kid was behaving far better than I would expect any kid her age who'd just waited for an hour in a boring government office with nothing to do. Now I can be pretty strict with Grace, but I so don't want to be that mother. Let it out and Breathe.

And today. Well, today was just long and tiring. With a headache that warranted two sets of panadol fairly close together. But towards the end I saw a lovely customer and she asked, how are you? To which I replied, tired. ..That's an honest answer, she said and there's not enough of that in this world. She was tired too and we laughed. Real laughter. Just one of those small moments. It was a good way to end the day.

I'm going shoe and opshopping tomorrow. Yay.

ps, that's not a picture of where I work but some snaps I took of the Coburg library one day when I was out shopping.
pps I feel like I shouldn't really write about work, but I sure needed the therapy. It's really a pretty good place to work overall. 

day of mourning

Today was a National Day of mourning for victims of the worst bushfires in Australian history. Two hundred and nine people dead, over 7000 people homeless or displaced, whole towns burnt down. Not  where I live, but on the fringes of my town. While Grace was having her nap, I watched parts of the service on ABC online. Had a cry. As I went about my day today, I gave in and let the sadness just be, without analysis or thinking about what can or should be be done.  Thoughts about those people who died, or who lost someone dear to them. Parents who lost children, children who lost parents. People who lost grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbours. People who had a home and now they don't. Whole towns full of grief and loss.

I thought about the firefighthers and the relief workers, the people who search the houses and paddocks, the police and the bureaucrats, all the different sorts of helpers. About the people living in adjacent areas. How strange it must seem to be carrying on as usual. Or not quite as usual. Or definitely not as usual, as some towns are coming under renewed fire threat when the weather heats up again tomorrow. About how people have been really brave and how recovery efforts are already underway. About how schools are re-opening. 

Under all the action there must run a river of sadness. Even here, where people in my part of the city are going on as usual, there's an undercurrent. Like the grey tinge at the edge of the sky sometimes. I guess it's to be expected. It will take a long time for this to pass.