Competition

Some people would classify me in the Type A personality category; I'm a perfectionist, competitive, impatient, and a highly strung kind of person.  I definitely don't love the category, but I do fit well into the box.  If you ask my fiancée about how emotional I am he will say I am quick to react angrily and that I apply my standards to everyone else in a me-centred universe (which clearly makes it hard for people around me who don't live up to my high expectations!).  A side note - i've also heard this type of behaviour leads to heart attacks - go figure!

Being a perfectionist and competitive can lead to great success.  Many of the great leaders, thinkers and sports people in history have had these personality traits.  My undoing is in the competition.  It's where I am at my most vulnerable and insecure and I crave winning more than I should.

On Tuesday night, I was playing netball (yes I have taken up a team sport).  I can see you frowning thinking, oh god help your team mates and the people on the other side (Mum - I know you are smiling at that).  The mature part of me has learned not to be too competitive.  I embraced the game and am happy to just have fun and get the exercise at the same time every week.  But we have lost the game every week.  Every game.  LOST. 

As we began to improve each week, the competitiveness came out in me.  I updated my twitter and facebook status with our improvements, how close we had come to a win and to be honest I had a feeling we could win last week.

The courts were a little wet.  It has been raining in Sydney for pretty much 2 weeks now.  It was the end of the second half and the game was close.  I was playing goal keeper (defensive position for those of you who aren't into sport).  With not long in the game to go, I lunged forward for an intercept and in what felt like slow motion (that I couldn't do anything about) my right ankle rolled 180 degrees and I fell with a huge thud on the ashpalt.  I already knew it wasn't good.  The pain shot through my foot like fire.  I took in deep breaths, sucking the air down and all I could think about was the fact that we had come so close to winning the game and I had just ruined our chances!  I ribbed my bib off and handed it to the girls and told them to go on playing while I lay beside the court with a frozen water bottle on my ankle feeling sorry for myself.

The whistle blew not long after my injury and the girls came over.  Much to my surprise... WE HAD WON and instantly the pain disappeared!! Well.... not really... but for a moment there I swear it did!  It was all worth it!  I think I was more excited than everyone else. 

After less than half a week on crutches, it wasn't worth it.  I've got to stop with the competitive behaviour... it never seems to do me any good.  Damn you A type personality.

I know I know... it's not the personality type - it's just me.  I'll work it out eventually... maybe.

ps.  I've ordered some gumboots for those of you who were interested.  Stay tuned for pics when they arrive.

Elle

Maternal instincts

Lots of people have them. I would generally include myself in that group of people who have them. Maternal instincts however do not equate to wanting or needing babies and that is where my story begins.

Maternal instincts can be found at an early age. A good indicator of them is when you see a child with a doll. They clothe it, bathe it, feed it, dress it and generally take care of it.

I hated dolls as a kid.

I wouldn't be caught dead with one. The few porcelain ones I had were certainly not chosen by me. My sister had all the Barbies.  I preferred Big Bird and teddies of all kinds. I didn't dress them up either! Psychologists however insist that the doll instinct is not the precursor to parental/maternal instinct in a human being. I would say that it unequivocally is an indicator of maternal instinct at its most basic level.

Another example of maternal instinct can be seen where an older child gets a younger sibling and they take care of them. This is where I believe my maternal instincts came from. I would help by getting the talc, finding the nappies, making the sibling breakfast as they got older and I eventually babysat said sibling while Mum was in the shower, or on the phone, without even realising it. The third sibling came along in my life, and I practically took over. Then... the babysitting never ended.

Instincts in the animal kingdom at their most basic level, are usually a fixed and rigid thing, but we, as human beings, are a more advanced kind (at least I hope we are) and our intelligence gives us the ability to override those instincts or refine them in a way that is suitable to our needs, our community and our lifestyle. In other words, we have the ability to shape those instincts to suit our situation.

Here's my gripe... if you haven't worked it out already... maternal instincts do not necessitate a pathway to having babies.

For some people, they believe this is absolutely the case. Maternal instincts = I must be a mother = it was that which I was pre-ordained to do = no other choice.

We are an intelligent species. Feminism has come a long way, but perhaps not far enough. I don't use that word lightly, I would hardly consider myself a feminist. However I do thank feminism for the progress that has been made thus far. Why is it however, that there is a belief among our species (men and women alike), that women who have maternal instincts will therefore produce babies. The equation is flawed. The equation should look like this:

X has maternal instincts = the choice to have babies or not is a considered, intelligent and educated decision, not a pre-determined one outside of their consciousness.

Similarly...

X has no maternal instincts = the choice to have babies or not is a considered, intelligent and educated decision, not a pre-determined one outside of their consciousness.

I am not an expert on the subject of human behaviour of maternal anything, but it rocked me recently when someone asked, are you really not going to have babies? When I said that would be my preferred future direction (i.e. not having kids), they looked at me like I was some kind of alien lifeform.

It's simple people. I'm an educated, open minded, intelligent woman who doesn't feel the need to have babies to be satisfied with my life. It's a choice.

**This post in no way suggests that I won't have babies, ever. I am simply pointing out that human beings are more capable than we give ourselves credit for, and instead of falling prey to our animal kingdom instincts, we are truly able to choose a life for ourselves that is fulfilling in many ways other than procreation**

Elle

Winter in Sydney

Have you ever noticed how quickly the puddles form and the rivers in the gutter flow when it rains in Sydney even for a short time?  It is truly amazing.

Today I honestly could not work out what to do about the shoe situation.  I like shoes - to look at... but not to wear.  Me and shoes have a history.

As a child I would run around barefoot the entire winter with my mother yelling at me to put some socks on.  Years later she would tell me not to go outside in my socks and to put some shoes on.  But now I've got plenty of shoes and socks and I'm happy to wear them but none of them are truly suitable for a Sydney winter.

You know the kind of winter I'm talking about - it rains... non-stop for days at a time.  It's not cold but it's wet. 

Today I procrastinated even turning up to uni because I couldn't work out what shoes I could wear which would prevent my feet from getting wet!! Pathetic I know - but this is a serious problem!!

Despite how truly unfashionable gumboots are, I think it is time that I got some.  I jumped online (in class of course) and browsed the web for some slightly decent looking gumboots.  I'm thinking about getting these - they're kind of funky and I could wear my skinny jeans with them.  What do you think?

Elle

We doth protest too much, methinks

I'm sure you know... I'm a busy person.  We're all busy people.  Most of us have plenty of people in our lives; colleagues, family, friends, people we say hello to when buying coffee, people we talk to on facebook or on the phone etc.  We're surrounded by people, via technology, in person or otherwise.

What interests me is the theory that despite the fact we've got more people around us who we can talk to, what our generation (Gen Y) is beginning to really lack, in our busy lives, is that person to person meaningful quality time that we crave so much from our childhood with those we love and hold close to our hearts.

Some of my favourite weekends are hours spent in living rooms or kitchens of girlfriends houses (or my own) or a long night out just chatting, drinking and eating with nowhere to go and no urgency or purpose to the catch up - it's just because.  It's therapeutic for the soul.  That's also what I enjoy most about going home and seeing my family.  My favourite times with them are spent one on one with no purpose other than to just enjoy quality time, but it's always so infrequent.

It is that which is familiar to our generation and many generations before us.  We have seen a huge communication shift in such a short period of time (which might I add we have been early adopters of).  While we sprout off about the convenience of blackberrys, iphones, email, skype, facebook, blogs, google and twitter, the reality is we seek that person to person time, to really connect, to unwind, to be in our natural state - perhaps as was properly intended for us, from the dawn of time.  Will the following generations (like my neice or nephew to be - yes I am going to be an aunty) whose impending births are announced on facebook, seek, need, want and miss the human connection element or are we predisposed to it?

Here's what I think:

1. Person to person contact is necessary - it's a human thing
2. Quality person to person contact is absolutely vital
3. There are some special people in your life who you REALLY need preson to person quality time with
4. Without it we feel alone in the world
5. I feel half of myself without it

Does this just apply only to me? to women? do you feel lonely without that quality person to person contact? How does it affect you, if it affects you at all?

My experience of late is that when I am in the study bubble, I can't make plans, spend long chunks of time or do anything other than sit myself at the desk and try to focus.  It's only been a month of that and I am exhausted, drained and lonely.  I've seen plenty of people, had lots of chats, been more in contact with people than ever before - note my $280 phone bill last month! yikes! but it is incredible how disconnected you feel when you are in every sense - connected.

I think Gen Y will always yearn for some person to person quality time - no matter how much we harass our parents to adopt internet banking, email and skype.  We doth protest too much, methinks.  What we really want is the connection and no amount of email, facebook, skype or otherwise is going to replace it.

Hope you are spending quality time with loved ones, particularly this weekend, on Mother's Day.

Elle

Achieve, be fabulous and want more

It's a typical Gen Y thing to do. Be a high achiever and keep on wanting and achieving more. But more often than not, that notion is criticised. What annoys me about that criticism is that they (generally our parents) are the ones who criticise it - they want us to work hard but not too hard, and have a family but don't let it rule our lives, to buy a house, but not one too big. For so long they were the ones sprouting off about wanting more, the bigger house, the better car, the European holiday, the investment property. Why is it that they are the first to criticise or question our motives when we want more for ourselves and want it now?
After reading Nicole's blog a while back I realised I'm one of those people who likes to live on the edge. I want more. Striving for more ads that bit extra pressure which leads me to achieve my goals or fall short of them and want a bit more after that. I realised this on several occasions - when I got my university marks for last semester and they weren't what I was expecting. Not only did I want more marks but I expected them too.

The difficulty for me is my want versus my expectation. I know they sound the same but they're really not. In this particular case I wanted better uni marks but I had also expected them perhaps without seriously hard work. I would have thought hard work would pay off in those results but it turns out that maybe I needed to work harder or smarter - or both. But how much harder or smarter?!

This semester I've spent many weekends writing assessments and saying no to social occasions just trying to keep on top of my readings (which I’ve slowly managed in the last 3 weeks to get behind in, because of the assessments I have due).

Right now I want for them to be over. I don't expect they'll magically disappear - I have one more weekend to get it all done before 4 mad weeks of catching up on readings and beginning to prepare for end of session exams but I really do want for my assessments to be fabulous and for them to be done (*waves the magic wand*) - if only that were true.

In the midst of all this I’ve perused the domain magazine looking at places I’d love to live in, looked at holidays I’d love to go on, found a dress I’d love to buy for our wedding and looked at recipes I’d love to cook if only I had the time. I’m a ball of want right now with no expectations because I’m stuck in a bubble of uni madness with no money and no life – I’m working harder and smarter in the hope that my want for those top marks and my expecting those marks might end up converging and producing a fabulous result.

Is there something you want and expect and are willing to sacrifice to get?

Elle
p.s. Wishing all the Mum’s out there a Happy Mother’s Day for Sunday.