Hired Cape

“I’m the nanny,” I say with a great deal of pride in my voice as I strike the Wonder Woman pose. For a brief moment I imagine a red cape billowing out behind me, my mud coated tennis shoes are tall stovepipe boots, there isn’t any macaroni in my hair, no snot on my shoulder, no finger paint smears down my front. I’m the super hero my charges see. I am Master of Electronics, Lady of Double Knots, Queen of High Up Things, Goddess Referee. I am all powerful, clearly the coolest adult since Batman. Not as cool as my bank account won’t allow me to buy out the zoo and stock the freezer with nothing but ice cream but hey nobody’s perfect.

“Oh,” is all the mother I’ve been talking to for the last half hour can say. Her eyes fall on my kids with a pitying look and shortly after she finds a reason to ignore my existence. I lose my cape. I’m back covered in mud and paint with food in my hair. I’ve lost twice the cool points I had to start with.

So what happened? We were just talking about our kids, their likes and dislikes, the headaches we get over making them eat their veggies, and how hard it is teaching them to tie their shoes and mind their manners. Now suddenly I’m being skirted around like the droppings that big labradoodle always leaves at the park. What happened actually isn’t hard to understand, even if its kind of ridiculous. I’m hired help.

Random Thoughts at Midnight...

Okay to start off this blog post I need to confess two things: firstly, this post was written post-midnight (after a very long shift at work that left me wired and full of writing beans) and secondly, I am a Social Work student (not a writing student.) This means that my posts on this blog may lean towards being short and quite practical, describing my experience as a University student and as a young adult living out of home. I may include essays as well on topics that I find interesting (like the one I was going to present today before two assignments, two shifts at work and a work-experience application prevented me from doing the research for it) but that totally depends on time, and I’m sure most of you would understand that there is just not enough of it!!

Guest Post: A Sad Place Indeed

The fate of your local independent bookseller

A closing down bookshop is a sad place indeed.

At the time of my writing this, New Edition in Fremantle has just closed its doors. (Sure, it will be opening again in eight weeks, in a new location and under a new owner, and a rose by any other name, right?) To the avid book-buyer, it’s another year, another closure. We all remember the scenes a few years back when Borders and Angus and Robertson both closed their doors almost simultaneously, and like vultures we descended on the carcasses to buy up the remaining stock at a fraction of the retail price. It was the same when Dymocks in High Street closed, and again when the Elizabeth’s Second Hand bookshop closed next door to it a few months after. For the people of Perth, statistics on bookstore closures are beginning to play out before our eyes.

 

Three Shows You Should Consider Watching

During my summer holidays from Uni, I managed to get a decent chunk of new tv watching in. While my taste in shows is generally towards the science-fiction/fantasy genre, there have been quite a few different shows that have piqued my interest. I also have a high tolerance for otherwise terrible shows, the good bad shows, if you will but I’ve put that aside to bring you the top three good shows. Ok, I partially lied, two good shows and one good bad. So, if you’re looking for some new shows to watch, then you’ve come to the right place. Potential (light) spoilers ahoy!

Joan of Arc and Queen Isabella of France: Impact on Women in Society

Joan of Arc and Queen Isabella had a significant impact on women in the Later Medieval English society. Whilst both Joan and Isabella came from French backgrounds and were indeed French, they both influenced and had a part in changing England. In this essay I will be looking at the events that they participated in and how it affected England and the later consequences for the women and any social changes that occurred for women of their period. The essay will also be looking at how they broke the gender stereotypes and limitations placed on them.

Repetition in Writing

In his 1933 essay, “One Hundred False Starts,” F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed that, as writers, we write about two or three experiences in our lives that we constantly disguise and rework. The quote is reproduced in full in Matthew J. Bruccoli’s Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald:

Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.

Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories - each time in a new disguise - maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen.

(1981)

Fitzgerald has made three assertions in this statement: first, that authors must repeat; second, that we only have two or three stories to tell; and third, that authors write those same stories over and over in different disguises. In order to fully address each of these, I will split my argument into three corresponding parts. First, I will discuss repetition present in the writing of both professional and ‘new and emerging’ writers. I will then agree using Freud’s repetition compulsion and the role of repetition in imagination, that authors are compelled to repeat ourselves. Last, I will argue that though authors may have many moments in their life worth writing, they have only a few experiences about which they need to write.

Welcome to NYAD!

Welcome to Not Your Average Damsels, NYAD for short. Considering that I fail at introductions more often than I succeed, I shall get straight down to business.

Not Your Average Damsels is a blog run by ladies aimed toward women and fellow feminists. NYAD is intended as a safe space where women can share their ideas and interests with likeminded individuals. The idea behind the name was that no woman should be considered an average damsel, regardless of what their personality is like. The acronym NYAD is a reference to the nymphs of the classical era. We’re aiming to blog about a wide variety of things, not limited to pop-culture, life topics, writing, history and sport. Our blog will update on a semi-regular basis, mostly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Some of our ideas for what we’d like to post in the future are:

• Historical BAMF Lady of the Month: As the title implies, once a month we’ll research and post a small biography of a historical lady and what she’s accomplished. We’ve already collected a few but we’re always open to any suggestions.
• Reviews of books, tv shows and movies. 
• As a majority of our bloggers are also creative writers, we’ll also be posting about the writing processes we go through, cover a bit of the research we conduct and discuss our forays into the world of publishing.

We’d also like to have guest posts from other ladies about topics they’re interested in, so expect a few of those once we pin some down.

If you'd like to know a bit more about us, then check out our About the Authors page.