Saturday, October 13, 2012

Where are we from?

I sometimes get a little nostalgic about my homeland. i.e. South Africa... And I feel like a complete traitor to my identity for having left my home of 23 years to runaway from my problems to England. I mean. Obviously I know that I had to come here and had very good reason for doing so. But I feel like there is an inescapable part of myself that is missing because I am not on African soil. Things that the British will never understand, because well... I mean, I guess it is the same as me not understanding the fundamental Britishness that is here either. But I dunno. I mean, it is interesting to look at the stats on my blogger dashboard to see exactly where the people reading this blog come from. I mean, so much of the cultural idiosyncrasies that form our identity come from the places we live. Do you know what I mean? Part of what I learnt in law school had to with the use of culture as a means of identifying with one another, a culture which the Apartheid government tried to destroy in an attempt to stop uprisings. If black peeps couldn't identify with one another then maybe they would understand the 'greater good' that the Apartheid gov was trying to force on them. I.e. whiteness. Obviously and thank god this did not work. But, if you remove someone from their culture, from their home, do you take away part of their identity. I mean, have I lost part of myself because I don't like on African soil anymore... I would be very interested to know where my readers come from, so feel free to drop a comment. For example, one of my top ten readerships are from Bosnia and Herzegovina... Us kids of crimes against humanity need to stick together after all. But if you had asked me last year when I started this blog whether I'd have a readership from b&h, I would have laughed.

In other news, I have started my research proposal for my masters. Which so far looks like a completely feminist rant about the achievement of substantive equality through the use of collectivist human rights. Specifically focused on gender equality through reproductive rights. So basically, what I am saying. Is that because of the use of gender and reproduction as a measure of oppression of men over women historically, in order to achieve (what i call) contemporary equality, women have to have the right to decide reproduction on their own terms. In other words abortion. The funny thing is that I am not a feminist. But I fucking cannot stand that people think they have the right to tell other people how to live their lives. And this goes for a number of things. Abortion, gay marriage, polygomy, veganism, animal rights, etc etc. I've spoken about this before. And even though I don't want to be labelled as a man hating feminist. I have every intention of winning a Nobel Prize one day... One day :) And in order to do that, I need to make a substantial contribution to the world. I intend to do so. My charity project, although stagnant is a starting point for this. As soon as I can get funding, I will be going to Kabul. I will get it going.

Er... I also signed the lease on my new flat today. I am so freakin excited about moving, but for now I need to do a lot of work to remain financially solvent until then, since paying a deposit etc is an expensive business.  I have had 330 cals intake today, but it seems that my weigh is completely stagnant. My intake has consisted of two Ambrosia custard pots and two cups of coffee (sans honey - go me) and a whole lot of coke light. Those custard pots are fucking epic, since I love love LOVE custard. I don't think I am going to go out this weekend. I have a fuckton of work to do and Sunday is out since I have a 'family' dinner with my London family. I love you all. Thanks for the support.

Florence & the Machine
Xo Xo

9 comments:

PrettyLies said...

I'm from America, but specifically southern US. I'm not sure if you know any stereotypes of different areas of the US, but like..the South is supposedly more country and "redneck", but I'm from the city, so I'm not like that. But there are definitely different cultures around America, like there are in any country I'm guessing. But oh my gosh, I want to travel sooooo bad. I'm waiting on an application to travel abroad to see if I can go to either Australia or Costa Rica next year. South Africa sounds really interesting but I can't honestly say I know much about it. I watched this movie one time, but it was set in WWII, so yeah. I definitely love how international Blogger is. I mean, I have a ton of friends/readers in the UK, Europe, New Zealand, it's awesome.

Jenn said...

How am I not already following you?? I LOVE this post!

I'm from the US also, Pacific Northwest--Oregon. It is beautiful here. I identify as an Oregonian though I grew up in California. And I would move overseas without a second thought. New Zealand, India, South Africa, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Argentina.... YOU NAME IT

Judith Marie said...

Interesting post. I must say that I've never really felt the same. I have no real hankering for China and even though i mightbsay otherwise in public, i don't really consider it to be of any importance to my identity. I suppose i just have adopted NZ wholeheartedly. That being said, people in NZ have always considered me to be English and now that I'm here, i can see why. I think i'm just a confused bunny!

Honor Regzig said...

You go with your Nobel Prizewinning self! I'll be cheering from the front row! I agree that women can't be equal until we have choice over our own bodies. I think it goes deeper than that but alas I have forgotten the finer points. Hurrah for people like you still keeping track.
I'm in USA in one of the middle states. One of the "defense of marriage" states so I have no rights here.
I'd like to live in England. All my fave novels are set there and Samantha Ronson is from there and the weather seems decent and I read somewhere I do have some rights there. But really I'll be happy anywhere that's not super cold and I have some civil rights & recognition.

xXTokyoVanityXx said...

I was born and lived in Texas for the first 6 years of my life and then moved to the UK and the only reason I was able to integrate into a British lifestyle was because I was 6 years old and highly impressionable. Though I do still go over there and spend time with family. I feel semi embarrassed about it though because if I say to someone "I'm from Texas" they laugh, talk about inbreds, farms, horses, country music, hicks and cowboys. >.>

Rose said...

I'm from the US. I live on an island in the Pacific Northwest. Even though I hate how cold it is I think that this place will always be my home. I really don't think that I could live anywhere that wasn't along the coast for too long.

Tatyana said...

Original Finland but at the moment I dwell in China and I just so know what you're talking about. It's good here and even though the smog I can breathe more freely and I feel much better... but then again I miss back there at some level.
Mostly I miss clear calorie content that I can read; here it's all in Kj which I find really weird :D And well yea, many other things too, it's just that you enjoy but sometime you really need to force yourself to like it.

<3

Anonymous said...

Hi love. Hope you can win your nobel prise and go to Kabul :) and congratulations about your new flat as well! I thing whenever something gets dogmatic, it gets ugly (whether the person is promoting 'traditional values' or 'feminism.') I think the feminism is just universal democracy with a bad connotation at this point.

Your blog looks really really popular and I was wondering if you would be interested in either joining or promoting this new fantasy-based weight loss site that I've created called airyfairy.freeforums.tv. Yeah :3 i feel like such a spammer right now.

The Lovely Bones said...

I just tried to comment and my computer crashed and my comment disappeared, I think I might have somehow commented on another post I'm not sure. But if you get any weird comments that will be the reason, haha. Sorry.