Tag Archives: complete mediocrity

Things I have learnt in the past week

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–I can be an “active” person

–getting out of bed when ones alarm goes off IS actually possible

–I crave approval like I crave hot beverages

–cheese; yes

–beer is still awesome, though

–when one comes upon a beer named “black lung” one should follow ones instincts and walk away

–protests can be tricky and rough and odd and divisive

–giant demon babies populate my city

–I am not as good a dancer as I think I am

–intentions don’t write essays

–the heady thrill of making friends with fun people is still like a drug to me

–balloons are magic

–tram inspectors are people too

–naps get better with age

–my memory is shit

–Paul Mercurio checked me out

–that last one was a lie

–flight booking ladies (I can’t remember their name) are very personable

–married men are good company (and I don’t mean that how it sounds), though

–being bid on and purchased by a married German is not not awkward

Things I’m average at no. 763: Being Academic

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(I wrote this after assignment time around two months ago and was unable to finish due to shame induced blog amnesia so it’s a little out of date now. Here it is.)

 

I’m having essay regret. Not the regret that comes around every assessment time shaking its head saying “what the frick are you studying for anyway, you should have stayed stupid”, although I get that too, this regret is the regret that comes from handing in a piece of work you know is shoddy, you know is under researched, you know is basically a ramble of thoughts and words so loosely related to a topic they may as well have just brushed past it in the shops. I’ve handed in a pile of Arial fonted shite.

Oh God Oh God Oh God. Why.

Every time I think about this essay my mouth does this thing. It goes into a line, a thin tight line that pulls a little to the left. Like a wee little stroke of shame. My mouth is trying say “oh god oh god I can’t believe I handed that up oh god” but all that  is appropriate for most social occasions is the slight twitch.

Also, I liked my tutor. I don’t want him to think I’m a git. We had drinks together, he listened when I spoke, and now, inevetably he’ll read my essay and think “why in the hell is that seemingly intelligent girl handing in what is essentially a tenth grade book report?” Oh man.

You need skills to be good at this study thing, I guess. Time management and all that shit, but also, the ability to do it. To put down the remote, or the novel, or the table tennis bat (I don’t know) and turn to What You Need To Do and friggin DO IT. I have a very limited grasp of this skill. Even now, I’m on holidays and I’m not doing that right. I have books I want to read and stuff I want to write and I’m watching a shit load of Greys Anatomy because I am so crap at telling myself to fucking DO IT.

I honestly believe I have some undiscovered form of learning disability that manifests in a squirrels attention span, a large lump of brain play-dough that sits in front of a concept I need to grasp making it nigh on impossible and a near complete inability to express thoughts that I do understand.

And the thing is, is I did understand this. I listened to my tutor and read the books and got it but when it came time to get down.. holy shit. Everything broke and I submitted the academic equivalent of Twilight.

Oh God oh God.

Anyway, sorry to whinge. It’s not so bad. Luckily for me this grossly malformed learning gene hasn’t stopped me from memorising copious pop-song lyrics, hundreds of movie references and the way to the toilet. I’ll be fine.

Sigh.

 

Things I’m average at no. 24: Talking to strangers.

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I’m on the nine pm tiger flight to Adelaide. My tray table is upright, my knees unbearably close to the seat in front, my lower back humming with the beginnings of the almighty ache I will have when I disembark in an hour and a half. I have the aisle seat, we’ve just begun to taxi.

Seated to my left is young man, probably 24 or so wearing thick framed glasses, a white tee and dark skinny legs. He is fiddling with his phone. I have buried myself in my Stephen Fry bio immediately after boarding but as I read a part of me remembers something.

No. 35: Talk to Strangers.

Dang it.

I’ve noticed he has begun to use his phone as a mini skateboard and is doing little flips and stuff off his lap. I should talk to him. I will talk to him. I will put down my book under the pretence of having a drink from my water bottle, and then I will say “So what brings you to Adelaide?”. Aw yeah.

The plane has come to a bit of a stand still when I finish my chapter and serenely close the book, wondering if there’s any way the hipster next door could anticipate the verbal fireworks that are about to explode right in his face. I reach down, clasp my water bottle, unscrew the lid and take a drink. I put it back in my bag. I gently nudge the bag a little bit more under the seat. Now nothing stands in the way. I look at the pouch in the seat in front of me. Now it’s just me and you, little man.

We idle lazily on the runway.

I stare at the back of the seat.

I look slightly to my left, then to my right. I look down at the book closed on my lap.

talk talk talk talk talk you can do it what brings you to Adelaide what brings you to Adelaide whatbringzzyuutoadelaaaide

I study my fingernails for a bit.

The guy’s phone does another trick, a spectacular mini spin in the air over his right thigh.

I clear my throat slightly, then move my head to my right.

We move forward slightly, then come to another halt.

I pretend to be interested in the cement I can see out of the window, as though I need to visually verify that no, we haven’t taken off yet.

He looks downward, at his flipping mobile, adjusts his position slightly.

talk talk talk what brings you to adelaide what brings you to adelaide say it say it what are you waiting for? what is he going to do? rip your face off? plunge his phone into your eye socket?

I summon my courage and open my mouth. I close it again and look out the window opposite.

We are still on the ground.

The guy is reading the inflight menu. For the second time.

I feel physically ill.

I have now thought the words “what brings you to Adelaide” so many times they have lost all meaning.

Stephen Fry is smirking consolingly at me from his book jacket. Yes you can smirk consolingly. You have to know him.

The guy is looking out the window as well. Probably confirming we’re still on the ground.

I look back at Stephen. My heart pounds in my ears.

talk talk talk taaaalk TALK FOR CRAPS SAKE YOU UNHOLY AND RIDICULOUS COWARD just OPENYOURFUCKINGMOUTH!!

Dude pulls out the in-flight emergency instructions.

He begins to read them.

He needs me.

The plane is still not moving but is now making a loud buzzing noise from the rear.

A sweat breaks out on my forhead and I turn jerkily to my left. In a voice that is aimed at casual but probably hitting strangled and teary I say

“doyouthinkthatnoiseisnormal?”

He looks at me and shoots back in a low and slightly awkward voice “Yeah, pretty sure it is”. He is attempting to be reassuring.

“right right,” I say “it’s pretty weird though..”

He again assures me in his short, deep voice that all is well, clearly thinking that I’m on the verge of hysteria.

Loud buzz continues, sounding like an elephantine mosquito has landed on rear of plane.

Anxious, now that we’re off to this magical start, to make sure he knows my intent was relaxed convo not mindless panic I spout brightly that I’ve never heard that particular noise before at which point he looks at me sharply and asks if I fly a lot.

“Oh yeah, loads!”

Dude now looks as concerned as he thought I was.

Smiling manically, as though alarming young men on stalled flights is something I’m quite cheerful about I happily trill “Oh but, like, I’m sure it’s not a problem. hahaha!”

We are still on the ground.

I shouldn’t talk to strangers.

Things that are not my friend

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  • My brain
  • Any man, woman, child or animal who has any part whatsoever in the production of Two and a Half Men in any way
  • Johnny Depp, despite indications to the contrary within narrative of recent dream
  • Kate Moss, see above
  • Self’s lack of appropriate time management skills
  • My necks, arms, legs and torsos refusal to act like they are in fact attached to a rock god and not reduce me to limping feebly about my house after a night out
  • Child performers whose uncanny skill and warbly vibrato leaves me twitchy and uncomfortable
  • Self’s debilitating obsession with Wonka’s chewy gobstoppers
  • Scatting
  • Apparently carbohydrates
  • Reggae
  • Bloody pollen (bloody being in this case an expression of my distaste for said pollen, not a description of state of pollen)
  • The apparent learning disability that rears its head around assessment time and causes my brain to behave like a startled pony trying to read journal articles
  • This conversation: “Geez, it’s cold today!” “This? This isn’t cold. You don’t even know cold.”
  • Tammin Sursok.
  • My ovaries, odd non pimple that never goes away and ridiculously unfounded crushes on people I will never meet
  • Snot

Some stuff

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I have too much in my head. A small taste platter of what lurks within:

The world is so lovely, so lovely. And I spend a lot of time on facebook.

I jest about my mediocrity, but am concerned that it means I will fail at the things I find most important.

I read some of the work of this girl in my short fiction class and nearly disliked her based on envy alone and the envy threatened to close my throat.

The smell of rain today was wonderful and heavy.

My tooth may be in serious peril.

Opinions are important. Maybe. I don’t even know. But I don’t have mine all laid out like some people do and I wonder if that’s a big deal.

I love Melbourne.

Sometimes the wish that I could lose some weight nearly overtakes the wish that everyone would realise how cool they are and stop hating things.

My friend made some caramel slice and it’s basically just condensed milk with chocolate on top and it’s awesome.

I want to go away somewhere and think and breathe for like a week. Without facebook there to observe stoically.

Do you ever wish you could just tell people when you want to be mates with them, and ditch all the “oh, hey maaann..” bull? Me too.

I want to research anarchy and the bible and to start sticking shit up in public places.

I don’t feel well.

thanks for you time, interweb! You’re a doll.

My mediocrity

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In The Beginning… the word was with Dave

“So think of the things that you’re good at, what you do all the time..” my tutor said, the t’s falling from his words like ash from a cigarette. We were being instructed on how to create our blog for assessment, and encouraged to pick a niche. It seemed like it should be easy, after all, everyone in the world has a blog now, how hard could it be to find something worth writing about?

I thought, and then I thought some more, looked around me in a sort of bland panic, thought some more and within me was birthed the uncomfortable realisation that I am not actually good at anything, nor do I have any hobbies that I commit to enough to write about them in any sort of authorative voice.

I am fairly average, in most ways one can think of.

Just by way of example.. Ahem:

I own a guitar, but am always about to change the strings and start learning

I have a book collection that I am quite enamoured of, but am yet to read half of it, along with any Tolstoy or Woolfe, I’ve never even cracked the cover on Catcher in the Rye

I don’t cook

I enjoy art, but have next to no artistic talent aside from free-postcard-sticking-up-with-blutak, and I don’t even have enough technical knowledge to fill one of them

I love music, but only what I happen across. I read music reviews that are like “clearly this, his fifth album was influenced heavily by the Pixies early work..” and my brain explodes. I think I know who the Pixies are

I write, but not often and not very well

I like movies and I watch them, but have yet to enjoy David Lynch, or attend a film festival of any kind

I maintain a respectful distance from real immersion in anything that interests me that is helped by significantly poor time management and a gold fish’s attention span.

Woe. Woe is me and my too many but too few niches. Woe.

And then it hit me. The reason blogging is such a big deal, and the reason so many people do it, is because you can write whatever you want. And statistically, the majority of blogs are going to be fairly mundane,  pedestrian affairs. And so, perhaps the niche that I can appeal to COMPLETE MEDIOCRITY. I can handcraft the most extraordinarily average blog the world has ever seen!

But of course noone would read that, as would be a piece of shit.

I then decided I could record my routine journeys into fair-to-middling town, for all to read and feel better about themselves by comparison.

The Competition.

Obviously a “mediocre blog” can mean a couple of things, one being a blog that mainly focusses on an inept and terrifyingly boring author chronicling his/her/its daily sojourns to the fridge and or toilet, the other being a blog dedicated to the understanding that mediocrity is something we all face and most fear.

Mylifeisaverage.com is the latter type and exists to show up how much meaningless tripe is fed into the internet daily. As opposed to other humorous blogs, its content is generated by users of the site, who submit stories of their funny/ inane lives in the hopes  of having them read by all the other nobodies. It’s really funny a lot of the time, and some of the stories are actually anything but average. If you hit the MLIA official blog, you’ll find an homage to the wonder of the average. Attention is paid to things like toast, and socks, and how good those things are despite their inate anverageness.

I like this site, particularly the official blog, as it is a celebration of sorts of all that is normal, as opposed to the wonder of freakish parkur men, or Lady Gaga and her bandaidie outfits. What drew me to the subject matter is its necessity, and its often unsung beauty. That and my inability to do anything well. Cough. MLIA.

In terms of appearance it would certainly go against the very idea of the blog if it was anything but average, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. Mylifeisaverage itself is smeared over a fairly inoffensive and wah grey background, it is easy to find your way around, the font is readable, if a little uggo, and the couple of ads are not too in you face and seem to appeal to a twenties to early thirties sort of crowd who for the most part would be the appropriate audience.

I found another site that seems to be about the everyday, normal stuff (shocking I know, on the www, right?!). It’s called Exceptional Mediocrity, which of course is right up my alley. This one is more of the first type of mediocre blog, in that it the charting of one man’s life and thoughts about the things that occur in it day to day. It is actually well written and interesting though. This blog obviously doesn’t have the same “everyone get on board” appeal as MLIA, so advertising isn’t an issue, and it is a Blogger blog, so it is a fairly run of the mill layout. He uses snappy headings like “Why are drug reps hot?” and “the Gay Dog” which totally gets you reading, the entries could probably stand to be shorter, but they are for the most part amusing and written with intelligence, so one wants to stick with them.

I’ll leave with a look at my fave sort of average blog. It is not average in name, really, or in its aim, but more so in its covering of such a wide variety of things that it cannot actually be a blog about anything except maybe Everything in the Sky. Ryan writes about his job(s) his dad, his walks down the street, his favorite new gadget and music he digs. He basically puts anything he thinks is rad on his site, which of course is the whole point. Ry-ry, as I have started affectionately calling him, does have technical leanings, but there is too much of a peppering of music bits and excellent photo bits to really be a techie blog. What I enjoy the most is that he is funny, really really, I’m fairly jealous of his sharp as a rapier wit, funny– but he can also turn a poised and thoughtful phrase like nobodies business.

And that my friends, is my niche. A bit of overshare, but that’s how we do.

8 Habits of fairly average Bloggers

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Hi! You look great today!

I thought in honour of the subject matter (being mediocrity) and in honor of the media I’m using (being a blog) I would compose my own list in the vein of copybloggers very helpful list of habits to adopt if one wants to be a successful blogger.

Here are some helpful tips to assist you, the delightful reader in maintaining a nice level of average-ness in your blogging*.

1. Get Caught Up Doing Other Stuff

Right now, you could be watching scrubs, sitting in bed, picking things out of your fingernails, going to class, avoiding class, or talking about video’s of three year old drummers on YouTube. If you want to make sure your blog is pretty av’, maybe do one of more of these, instead of blogging. It’s really easy, and once you start you’ll find you don’t want to stop.

2. Be Vague, and Ramble a Lot

I find that nothing keeps people reading like things that are not round-a-bout and are instead of that more getting to the point quickly so you know what the writer is saying real soon like.

I know once, when I was at school, I read a book– boy that takes me back. I had a teacher who was a ukranian gypsy. Loved to play the panpipes, which was odd because he had no lips.. Where was I?

3. Write About Stuff You Dig, Regardless of Whether People Dig It Too

You know the Japanese poetry you write about the differing varieties of house bricks? Or the tally you keep of grammatical errors in Woolworths catalogues? That is dynamite stuff. Write that shit down. The interweb needs you to tell it all of your things you can’t tell anyone else, on account of them leaving you/hating you/setting you on fire to hear something else besides about your passion for smurf lit.

Point three is tricky though folks, if you’re not careful, you could inadvertantly stumble apon or even create a new niche market for those who can’t get enough of Morag from Home and Away. Before you know it you’re on the front page of WordPress, and then where are you? You’re popular, that’s where. Watch out for the long tail, ya’ll. It’ll getcha.

4. Be Distracted By Interests In a Multitude of Subjects

My favorite kind of blogs are those that cover heaps of different subjects.

“A blog about ballet, whiskey, Television, Zinc, and all that comes between”.

I think I like them because my brain works that way, jumping clumsily from one shiny thing to another like a drunken magpie. Some blogs like this are really succesful, too.

So my advice would be to not censor yourself. If someone tells you there’s no discernable link between football and knitting needles, they’re wrong. Well, they’re right, but we don’t care.

5. Post Erratically

This probably goes hand in hand with the first tip, and you will certainly find yourself with a lot of time between posts if you are as easily distracted as I hope you are. Probably the more erratic the better. Readers seem to dig regularity or at least a blogging pattern they can rely on, no matter how long between posts. Try this: when someone says the exact phrase “have you posted anything new on your blog about –insert rando subject here– lately, I will give it a read” , take it as a sign, wait exactly a month and post then.

6. Be Spontaneous!

And you know what else, Cornflakes!

That was an example of aforementioned spontaneity.

I subscribe to the writing school that says WRITE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO. I say, forget planning, forget spelling, grammar and themes and forget paragraphs or numbered points (Oh irony.. my old bunkmate). Structure and meaning are all constructs of a society afraid of what bloggers will do when there’s  NO PARAGRAPH BREAKS AND CATCHY TITLES! YEAH! How you like me now?!

It’s like Napoleon Dynamite and Lizzie McGuire  say. Follow your heart.

7. Don’t Be Afraid to Lose Interest

Look we all know this blogging thing is a fad. You thought it was cool when all your friends started doing it. You thought it’d be fun to blog about fights between Star Trek characters, and who wouldn’t. But you don’t need to hide anymore, we know it’s tough having to write all the time, having to do anything at all.  It’s ok. I’m here. Just let go. Ssshhh. You can rest now.

8. Forget Most of the Time to Do Anything

It’s definately best, and easiest if you don’t have to plan to be distracted, or to write down your erratic thought poo, or to make sure your links between subjects are hazy at best. It’s probably best, and definately best for your very, very mediocre blog if you just forget you even have one most of the time.

For some futher inspiration here are some examples of blogs that are interesting, succint and well planned, so you know what to avoid.

http://techcrunch.com/

Mmm. See how it’s organised? And looks good? Also, the writers seem to know what they’re talking about and have a very clear idea of their target audience. Yup. That suckah’s go’ be read.

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/

Yeah. Same problems as before, plus this blog clearly makes sure it is an up to date source of information for its readers, and therefore posts regularly. Tut tut.

http://jezebel.com/

Straight to the point, short posts that engage the reader and then entice them to post something of their own. Amateurs.

I hope this has helped you start your own journeys of mediocrity, I’ll see you again in a hopefully less smart arse post. Not sure when though, obviously. Cheers!

*hint, these can perhaps be carried over into other areas of your life as well! I know, right?!