An Interview with the Past

I thought I'd make up some questions that I could answer every now and then and see what sort of changes in my life are happening.

Q. How are you?

A. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Lately I haven't been socializing but instead trapped in my own routine, like some dystopian version of my usual life. The uni work has been piling up and-

Q. What's the most exciting thing that's happened to you since we last talked?

A. Sometimes I catfish old men on the Internet to raise my self-esteem.

Q. You make it sound like it's not your fault. Be honest- how was it your fault?

A. Well, it's more society's fault for putting undue pressure on people to be happy outside of their own gestalt, while also penalizing people on awkward social matters to the point where only the anonymity of the Internet can armour people to express themselves.

Q. Drink of the day?

A. Irish coffee, with instant coffee and gin (it's all I have, other than red wine and vermouth). It was going to be martinis but I've had quite enough of those lately.

Q. Favourite outfit you've worn recently?

A. Three-piece tuxedo (black), with cuff links, pocket square, with a black bowtie with a floral blue pattern to match a blue TARDIS pin on my left lapel.

Q. Most recent thing you've learned?

A. There's a new musical called Hamilton about the life of one of America's founding fathers Alexander Hamilton. I did not know that France allied themselves with America when America seceded from England.

Q. So, what are you working on now?

A. Class presentation for Chinese Film Genres, outlining the synopsis of a play I'm collaborating on, and working on my own play which I want to talk about at a later date.

Q. Any other thoughts?

A. “The past is another country. They do things differently there”.

Lacan and Sherlock Holmes: Understanding the Savage

'I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?' – Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four.

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s canon of Sherlock Holmes, it is clear that the creation and continual substantiation of the consulting detective is not solely derived from his own character, but through the mirroring of other, specifically male, characters. When applying Jacques Lacan’s mirror stage to a reading of Sherlock Holmes, it is evident that there is an indexical relation to Lacan’s theory and the interactions between Sherlock Holmes, and the three most prominent characters, Doctor John Watson, Mycroft Holmes, and Professor Moriarty. This mirroring is appropriate in conveying a Gothic sensibility to the stories as Sherlock Holmes himself embodies a Gothic spectacle.

In her article, ‘The Savage Genius of Sherlock Holmes’, Anna Neill discusses several points in which the Sherlock Holmes diegesis invokes several Gothic elements¹. The narrative mode is said to contain “realism of detective fiction…encounters and overcomes that fiction’s own attraction to the Gothic: to the horrific, the concealed, and the (often) apparently supernatural”. Neill then cites Nils Clausson who surmises that by its very nature, a Gothic tale must destabilize the scientific analysis of criminal science. Therefore, the character of Sherlock Holmes seems to represent a level of cognitive dissonance- he possesses a ‘divinatory gift’ which makes him a ‘logical genius’.

It is this juxtaposition, or as Neill refers to it, “mongrelizing” which provides an insight into the Gothic characterization of Sherlock Holmes. The detective contains many traits that could validly classify him as a common archetype of Gothic fiction, a Byronic hero (being arrogant, distasteful of society, intelligent and disrespectful of authority) but his ability for observation and deduction, as C. Auguste Dupin called it ‘ratiocination’, is so great that it is verging on supernatural, making Holmes a Gothic spectacle as well. In one display of Holmes deducing facts from Doctor Watson’s married life in A Case of Identity, Watson even says “you would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago”.

Holmes’ overlap between Byronic hero and Gothic spectacle is important as during the course of the canon, he meets characters who he finds can act as a mirror to himself. In the 1996 essay “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience”, Jacques Lacan investigates the psychological phenomenon that takes place between infants and their reflections². Lacan interprets a human infant recognizing its image (imago) to be the moment of apperception, when the infant can recognize itself as a physical object (gestalt). This self-identification however is flawed as the infant believes that their reflection is greater than their own physical body as their own physical body does not have a great degree of self-control and is physically vulnerable. The imago therefore becomes something for the infant to strive for, the Ideal-I.

One instance in which Lacan’s mirror theory could be applied is in the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. In A Study in Scarlet, Watson finds himself drawn to London as he has ‘neither kith nor kin’ and is discovered by Stamford, who appears to be his only friend. Stamford introduces Watson to Holmes who, for the duration of the novel, also seems to remain without kith or kin.

As Holmes and Watson were brought together as they both had the same problem (they needed a flatmate to continue living in the city), it is obvious that Holmes, to some degree, acts as a reflection for Watson’s own personal affairs. The scene in which Holmes and Watson meet show that they mirror each other in their tastes; both enjoying the smell of strong tobacco, the sound of a good violinist and being awake at “ungodly hours”. In this sense, Holmes is the imago to Watson. Watson realizes his measure as a gestalt by being Holmes’ ‘Boswell’, as evidenced in The Hounds of the Baskervilles where Watson is even able to competently investigate in Holmes’ steed.

However, Watson is also shown to see Holmes as his Ideal-I in the detective profession which Watson so often admires. In the short text ‘How Watson Learned the Trick’, Watson attempts to demonstrate how he mastered Holmes’ and claims that Holmes has an important client named Barlow that he will visit, is speculating in finance and was greatly preoccupied in the morning. Holmes disproves all of Watson’s deductions, showing that Holmes is still an idealized version that Watson must strive for (indeed, Holmes even encourages Watson to pursue the ‘trick’). However, by the time of the last chronological story in the canon, ‘His Last Bow’ Watson still does not seem to have matched Holmes in this particular field. This may underline the relationship between the human infant and the Ideal-I; the infant can never attain the state of being as his reflection.

In the story ‘The Greek Interpreter’, there is a sequence in which Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson head to the Diogenes Club to visit Sherlock’s older brother Mycroft Holmes. In what is Watson’s original encounter with both of the brothers together, Sherlock and Mycroft take turns standing at a window and deducing that a man is an old soldier, who served in India, was widowed recently. Mycroft wins the game by deducing that the soldier had children, and not a single child as Sherlock thought.

In the scene, Mycroft acts as a Lacanian mirror for Sherlock in a number of ways. Watson’s opening narration of the tale denotes that he believed Sherlock to be an ‘isolated phenomenon’, a term that could be applied to mean the singular, as an infant would believe itself to be. As Sherlock positions himself beside his brother, he looks into his imago as Mycroft, quite uniquely, has Sherlock’s seemingly-supernatural powers of deduction. Mycroft has “eyes, which were of a peculiarly light, watery grey, seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers” which helps to serve as a physical echo of Sherlock’s image. Mycroft then engages with Sherlock as a gestalt, as a reflection of his skills as a detective.

Mycroft functions as the Ideal-I in two ways to Sherlock. The first is that he is an idealized version of Sherlock in his more astute reasoning skills. The second is that Mycroft very rarely strays from the path from his home, to the government bureau in which he works and the Diogenes Club³, and so remains more or less invincible from physical danger. Sherlock, on the other hand, remains versed in singlestick, boxing and fencing⁴ and yet still in The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, Sherlock is incapacitated after being injured by thugs.

Finally, there is a distinct corruption in the Lacanian mirror relation between Sherlock Holmes, and his nemesis Professor Moriarty⁵. In the deceptively titled story “The Final Problem”, there is a scene which Holmes describes to Watson in which Moriarty visits 221B Baker Street. When Moriarty sees Holmes, it is clear that Moriarty finds Holmes to be an imago intellectually when the two exchange the following dialogue:

Moriarty: Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind.

Holmes: then possibly my answer has crossed yours.

Here, the duplicity is obvious. However, Moriarty’s intentions were to try and peacefully negotiate with Holmes to cease his investigations. Moriarty grows his gestalt when he declares war on Holmes, “You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me.” Moriarty defines himself in opposition of Holmes, thus he grows into a tangible character.

Moriarty also views Holmes as an Ideal-I, but unlike how Watson views Holmes, Moriarty seems to be undone by this vision. Indeed, when in confrontation with his Ideal-I, Moriarty dies in the process while Holmes survives⁶.

However, it could be argued that Sherlock Holmes cannot act as a Lacanian mirror for more than male spectacle. Irene Adler, or ‘The Woman’, from the story ‘A Scandel in Bohemia’ is known to be the most famous of Holmes’ adversaries besides Moriarty, but her meetings with Holmes are always through written correspondence or while Holmes is in disguise. As she has the honour of being the first chronological person, and only female, to outsmart Holmes, it is clear that she is just as mentally adept as Holmes. In the only sequence in which Watson is present for both Holmes and Adler, Adler simply says ‘good night, Mr. Holmes’ while in disguise. As she ‘eclipses the whole of her species’ it remains apparent that no female can be Holmes’ mirror.

Holmes embodies a Gothic spectacle which permeates in his Lacanian doubles, Watson, Mycroft, and Moriarty. This can result in the insight of each character, which has created an approach to the canon which, while improbable, is not impossible.

1 Neill, Anna. ‘The Savage Genius of Sherlock Holmes’. Victorian Literature and Culture. Cambridge University Press. 2009. pp 611-622. Print.

2 Lacan, Jacques. “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience”. Ecrits: A Selection. W. W. Norton & Company. 1966. pp. 29-34. Print.

3 More or less a direct quote from Guy Ritchie’s 2012 film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

4 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. “A Study in Scarlet”. London. Ward Lock & Co. 1887. pp. 24. Print.

5 I have here refrained from giving the Professor the given name James as there is substantial dispute over whether James is his name, or his brother’s name. There is a humourous sketch in which all three Moriarty brothers are called James.

6 Poignantly punctuated in the 2012 Sherlock episode ‘The Reichenbach Fall’, an adaptation of The Final Problem. Moriarty, when in confrontation with Sherlock says ‘you’re me!’ and shoots himself directly after.

Can You Believe...?

So, I wrote a poem in 2013 that got me praise from some women who found the satire biting and swarthy, and condemnation from some men who said I was being sexist and misogynistic. While polarizing, I don't feel like I necessarily should explain myself. You may like this, you may not like this, but I've given so much thought as to whether this is subtle parody of mansplaining or gentle justification of the unfair sex that I genuinely have forgotten which side of the ring I'd come from.

Can You Believe I Don't Have a Girlfriend?

I [object] to objectifying women

Not because I don't do it myself- as any man (who is that way sexually orientated) guilty as sin of that

Sin

Men stare at breasts like a man staring at a waterfall when he's dying of thirst

Hand on my, admittedly quite weak, heart: I would rather ogle personality first

Ma'am, if you ever catch me admiring your behind...

I'm sorry

I don't want to get into your pants; I want to get into your mind

When you pass, it's like a motion sensor in my eyeballs, you're in range so I...

Lock-On

Because we're guys, and we're just hard-wired to think about how best to get our

Fuck-On

We don't want to do it! It's not something we choose!

A man will look at an ass like a woman will look at shoes!

If women ruled the world, and executed every man who checked out a a midriff, or a rear...

[OH LORD]

It would be like watching The Hunger Games at

[16x FAST-FORWARD]

“All men are animals!” the FemiNazis cry with glee!

Yes we are...all women are animals too...

~It's a matter of taxonomy~

However, if you're here tonight with your boyfriend and the really hot girl walks by, if he checks her out don't be annoyed much

He will know the #1 rule of the art of visual appreciation of the female specimen, and that is 'look, but don't touch'

I just want to make it clear and understood

If I could wank over your interest in wildlife preservation, I would

And I am aroused by your knowledge of all the Gryffindor quidditch chants

But I can't ascertain something like that from first glance

All you little chicks, with your endless torrents of selfies, might think you're a catch

But when it comes to love, there is no physical beauty if there is nothing in your brain to match

And if you are offended by guys checking you out and you think they're only interested in your body, stop self-pitying yourself.

And if you are offended that guys “don't want to know you”- actually, fair enough- but you can't make that claim if you don't let them talk to you- the central lesson in any hetero-normative romantic story in the history of humankind should be that MEN ARE NOT TELEPATHS AND WOMEN SHOULD NOT EXPECT THEM TO BE!

And if you are disgusted by the fact that you have attracted the attention of creepy old men- actually, fair enough: I can see your point- I've been checked out by creepy old men myself.

They offer me drugs.

I say 'thank you' because drugs are expensive, and one must always remain charming.

Ironically, it was Oscar Wilde who said it best- “would you be in any way offended if I said that you seemed to me to be the visible personification of absolute perfection?”

And it took me some time to understand what he meant by that, because it's very easy to misinterpret that line. You do not look perfect- you look like perfection itself.

Let me break it down for you, so you can take something away~

All the single ladies (all the single ladies)

If you do notice a guy stare at you tonight, take a minute out of your precious time to talk to him, see what he's about

Because I guarantee you that every taken male in this room started his relationship by checking a girl out

I beg of you, if your man has eyes that wander, then let him because later, in privacy, he will use his “I”s to look at your “you”s

I [object] to objectifying women, but I have behavioral flaws I hope you can excuse

Thank you.

Dear Twenty-Four-Year-Old Me

To cap off this triptych of letters to myself, when I was Twenty-One I wrote a letter to Twenty-Four. He hasn't written back yet...

Dear Twenty-Four-Year-Old Me

So, here we are at last. It's me, the one with the floral bowtie. As per the rules, you'll get my letter before I get yours, so let's have a chat.

Obviously, you know more than I do, but let me tell you what I know- and that is that it's very difficult to know anything about yourself with any real certainty. I'm not going to go so far as to say that all knowledge is merely opinion, but identities are things that are constantly in flux. If you don't believe me, read some of the other letters that Eighteen wrote. They're beyond incomprehensible. I know we do our best to bury Nineteen in our memory, and that seems a little unfair- he had a lot of issues he was dealing with. I mean- look at Sixteen- that guy is an idiot, but so am I, and so are you. Just because you're an idiot, that doesn't mean you can't also try to change that.

I have so many questions for you- did we finish Honour's? Did we finish Master's? Did we ever get around to watching The Wire? I will make some predictions, and you can laugh at me if they're wrong and condescendingly nod if I'm right. By now, you must have left university- you couldn't possibly have stayed in tertiary education for seven years in a row. Remember the word of advice Toby said to us, that we couldn't go directly from university back into secondary school teaching without a break- it would start a countdown to which there would be a meltdown when it hit zero. Let us therefore make the assumption that you are not still at university.

The question is, where are you now? You might have taken a gap year after finishing Honour's (I have higher hopes for you than Eighteen had for me). Perhaps you did the Postgraduate Diploma in Education when you were Twenty-Two and are now teaching. Maybe you're in another country, doing your Ph.D. I've long held the belief that doctoral study is a passport to any decent university. Alas, I don't think you have the patience for such study. It's an interesting time for me, because a lot of this year has come to revolve around the question: how far is too far? Certainly, when I look around and see that most of my classmates have parachuted out of City Campus in order to engage with “the real world”, I sometimes wonder if my time spent in Honour's is worth it. What opportunities am I closing the door on in order for further study? On the reverse side, what opportunities have I not even thought about which further study will grant me? The only appropriate method to answering these questions, is by systematically finding out where my life is going by allocating equal parts of my attention to higher education, and to my friends.

There's an interesting quote I read which summarizes what this, the rise of the roaring twenties, seems increasingly to be about: “half of my friends are moving out and having children, and the other half are too drunk to find their phones”. It accurately describes how my college community is dividing itself, and I am happy enough to see people move from the latter category of person to the former. Where I will fit in, I do not know, though I hope that you don't know either. We are not men who draw lines in the sand. We are not street fighters who refuse to cross picket lines. We never have been. People get killed when they stay in the middle of the road because the middle of the road is dangerous- but I dislike metaphors where life is portrayed as a journey on the road. I laugh in the face of danger, because I laugh when I'm afraid.

From the novel The Go-Between, “the past is another country. They do things differently there”. Indeed, I am interested in seeing what is lost in translation and what is not. I often wonder what kind of costumes I will be wearing at Twenty-Four. Will you keep wearing rings, the jewelery which has come to define my era? I hope you'll at least keep wearing the black-glass one. We have enjoyed a long and fascinating tenure as sartorialists, have we not? I'm sure, at least, that you will continue our honoured tradition of playing dress-up with the world. Give me that, Twenty-Four, allow me that.

I have other letters to write so I will conclude this one. I just want to remind you that no matter what trials and tribulations you're going through right now, you will get through this. We will get through this. I am not you, but you were once me and you know this- we lived through Nineteen, and he went through the worst of it. I hope this letter finds you well. I believe in you, I trust you, and I'm counting on you.

Love, Twenty-One-Year-Old Me.

Dear Twenty-One Year Old Me/Dear Eighteen-Year-Old Me

Unedited, here is the letter my Eighteen-year-old self (poised to be Nineteen in a month) wrote to Twenty-One Year Old me (near the end of his life too). Interestingly enough, since I have both letters, they seem to respond to one another.

Dear Twenty-One Year Old Me

Hallo hullo there, future me. I thought I’d write to you but it’s hard to know what to say because we think very much alike, we share the same memories but you have the advantage, or maybe the disadvantage, of more memories than me. I’m guessing times will have changed and that you will have changed with them. I’d make you a few promises but if my predecessors are anything to go by, they might be more like wishful sentiments.

First of all, congratulations of outliving me and making it to twenty-one! How utterly spectacular for you. I’m happy for me that you made it to the big one. Sorry for the ridiculous use of tenses here. Time travel- you can’t keep it straight in your head and anything that’s written down is effectively a means of time travel isn’t it? It’s a way of sending a message down to the future. If you’re still interested in this, Twenty-One, then I’m glad that we got the psychiatric help that I obviously need.

So, let’s just recap about who I am to you. I’d send you a souvenir but I’m guessing that if I hang onto anything until 2014 then it’s already a souvenir. Instead, I’ll just lay down a little description of the me here-and-now. I like Doctor Who, I like chocolate buttons and eating Nutella with a spoon, and I abhor dentists, pesky librarians and everything that Bryan Tamaki stand for. I’m on the cusp of the second year of university and it’s feeling like you’re about to be mauled by a bear. Everything’s new but now that I’ve poked it with a stick I’m coming to some pretty sharp realizations. I think it’s been a bit of a success so far so that’s something to remember. I can’t wait to have another barmy year, full of wondrous whatevers.

At this precise moment, it’s raining. It’s raining and I love the rain. Rain is cool. Unfortunate and uncomfortable, but if you’re inside and you see that the thing above you that stops gravity from tearing your world apart, and you call that a sky, and that sky suddenly starts making water tumble down and it’s the same water that’s been doing this for billions of years, makes me feel that we are living in a pretty fantastic place. I’m not even sure if you have weather. You’re living in a far superior place in terms of technology. The way I scoff at VCRs must be the way you scoff at computers. You lucky devil, me. Every day that moves from now is a day more that you are approaching and I am departing. Be kind to my body, because I haven’t.

The last time I wrote a letter to myself it was to my past and I was boasting about all the things I knew that he didn’t. writing to my future, I suppose I should talk about the things I don’t know. I don’t know when my education will cease. I don’t know if my perpetual unhealthy lifestyle will evaporate. You hold the answers to these, and yet somehow, so do I. I just don’t know it yet. I hope you remember that just as I have limits to my knowledge, so will you.

If I could give you a bit of friendly advice from the ultimate friend, I would like to remind you how much fun you have just being whatever it is that makes you smile. Long walks in urban Auckland, discussing the follies and ferocities of television with your fraternal friends and sleeping long after your alarm has alarmed on rainy morning.

Now that we’ve finished the trivialities, I’d like to get to the meat of my matter with you. Here’s what I want to say- I know I’ve been pleasant but in actuality, I hate you. You, you selfish bastard, have will have robbed me of many things. Not just my life in the sentimental sense, but of the traits that I would like to be remembered by. You’ll have finished habitual smoking and when you consider an after-dinner drink it will probably be a snifter of warmed brandy. You will wear that hat that Nineteen got and look ridiculous. You will have seen the rise and fall of a new president’s popularity, all the while derisively laughing and making jokes even though your grasp of American, or any, politics is weak. As much as I am forced to respect you as my successor, I know that you’re going to bungle things up. How do I know? Because we’re not just two peas, but rather the same pea, in the pod.

I bet you think that by now you’ll be grown-up. I bet now you think yourself as so much more mature than you could ever have thought. Or, perhaps you’re a drunkard who now does street performance for money. Maybe you’re an infamous criminal. When I grow up, I’ll have to grow up to be whatever you choose. What you do doesn’t just affect me, but also you or maybe it’s the other way around.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I’m just trying to remind you that you have to take care of yourself/myself. I don’t have to love what you do, but I will always love you. Reply soon, my dear. I look forward to hearing from you. Be good. Play nice.

Yours truly,

Eighteen-Year-Old Me.

P.S. Emily’s cute, isn’t she?

..

Look, I could not have kicked more tobacco juice out of that kid had I wanted to, but he was already beating himself up. He just didn't know it yet. Anyway, when I eventually got to be Twenty-One I did write a response:

Dear Eighteen-Year-Old Me

Listen carefully, you young prat. You wrote me a pretty nasty letter, and it's about time I got you back. This letter has been three long years in the making.

Okay, so let's discuss some things you put in your letter to me- no, I did not bankrupt us, I did graduate so we now have a Bachelor of Arts with a double-major in English and Film Studies, and Doctor Who series 7 was awesome (it was split over 2012 and 2013 so I haven't seen series 8 yet). In your letter, you discussed how I know things that you don't know, but you spoke of it as if it were a downside. I disagree with that- oh boy, this is going to be fun. It would be a crime, it would be an act of vandalism, to disassemble the illusion you're living in, but that won't stop me.

I'm trying not to spoil the surprise of your future, but without sugar-coating- you're about to be betrayed. Not just by the people you love, but by your own actions and reactions. They will be unbecoming of you, they will not be in the name of the Nerd, you won't really understand why events transpire when you're Nineteen, but in hindsight, you won't start to grow up until this catalyst, of which you will not know of when it occurs, happens. You will find employment, you will form new friends, and you will learn to mature- maturation is not an event that happens in a finite space of time, but a process that over time presses upon you an evolution so that you are better able to engage with the world around you. It is a process that seems like it will take your entire life, and I suspect that even me, Twenty-One, have only just scratched the surface of it. Enjoy yourself while you can, but be aware, It will happen soon. Just to reiterate though, the coming semester will be traumatic, and it will be helpful to you if you remember this Robert Frost quote:

He says the best way out is always through

And I can agree to that, or in so far

As that I can see no way out but through

It's not all bad, and I will reveal that it's actually much better for us at this age wherein we are Twenty-One. The plan's changed- we're not at Epsom Campus, we're doing Honour's at City Campus. You have the degree in English and Film because you're not in the business of high culture, you're in the business of telling stories, and the story at City Campus isn't over yet. I'm not sure what we'll do in this life, because I'm wise enough to say that I don't know much about life, and I don't know what we're capable of doing, but I have to try and find out. A lot has changed in the three years between us, and we've leveled up our game. The biggest difference between you and me is not about the friends we have, the clothes we wear, or the things we will write, but solely in the fact that I haven't many plans for the future and I'm very okay with that.

I'm being vague, and that's unfair, so let me give you some hard facts about what you need to be on the lookout for- Welcome to Night Vale, Game of Thrones, Elementary, How I Met Your Mother, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, 30 Rock, Rick and Morty, and Hannibal. You will start a band that never plays music, go to Whangamata for a vacation, climb to the top of Kororareka because somebody wanted a photograph. You will go to a Masquerade Ball as a pirate, you will join the collective known as Nerdfighteria. You will read your poetry and have your plays performed. You've got at least two novels left in you. You're about to begin the big adventure.

I saw the musical Wicked a few months ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it- possibly the best thing I've ever seen staged. I then went and rewatched The Wizard of Oz and remembered the moral of that movie- you have the brains, heart, and courage with you all along. Remarkably, for a postgraduate, brains has never been something that served up much happiness. Intelligence has endowed you with a fuller understanding of the universe, and sometimes I wonder whether that's a burden that should be lifted. As for heart, as long as you keep watching Doctor Who I don't think we'll ever need to worry about that. So, to conclude, have courage. You're going to need it.

So, if you take anything away from this letter, how about the message that the future is not a bad thing? You live a very cushy lifestyle of hanging out with the nerds and Her, and writing the occasional 1,000 word essay (heads up- I have a 7,000 word research essay due in a month on The Muppets and gender and ethnicity) and you think change will therefore necessarily be terrible because you can't imagine how life could get much better. You're wrong. I don't know why this happens, it even happens to me, but we'll always be surprised when we're wrong (I mean, we're wrong about things all the time!). Do not fear me, Eighteen, as you will soon be me, and find out that the world didn't end because you wanted it to end. The world, as it turns out, really isn't about you. It's about us. I'll leave you with possibly my favourite line of poetry by Taylor Mali: Changing your mind is one of the best ways of figuring out whether or not you still have one.

Your semester will be terrible, but your story didn't start, nor will it end, here.

Love, Twenty-One-Year-Old Me.

Dear Sixteen-Year-Old Me.

So, I always think it's useful to think of your past selves as different people to you, because you are fundamentally a different person than you were a year ago. You look different, you know more things, you know new people, and perhaps you have forgotten some people and changed your mind about topics. As a way of trying to better myself, I often think of my future self as my friend who I'm trying to do nice things for. Eat an apple and run more, because Future You could be healthier, and why aren't we going to help him out?

Maybe to crystallize who I am in the present moment, I often write letters to my past and future incarnations to try and figure out "who is Present Ruby?" I'd like to share a letter Eighteen (me when I was nearing the end of my Eighteenth year) wrote to Sixteen. Tomorrow I'll post the letter Eighteen wrote to Twenty and the letter Twenty replied with.

Dear Sixteen-Year-Old Me.

Hallo there Cosmo (for that is what you prefer to be addressed as). Through the miracle of time-travel, you should be opening this up on your sixteenth birthday. I am you, from the distant future of 2011. I find you both to be a stranger and an old friend and I expect that you feel the same way. Nonetheless, this letter will accomplish nothing if I don’t press on. I write to you now, as you still muse on, that going to university to be a lifetime away and that high school is pittance compared to it. Sorry to tell you this Cos’, but you’re absolutely right. In the first semester of the grand University of Auckland, where I’m studying English Literature and Film (you were right after all. Careers in medicine, ecology, and international espionage were all fruitless) I took in more data than you will take in for the next two years. By the way, the final Harry Potter movie is something you will never forget.

Today is possibly the quietest day you’ve had in a long time. I know you took a wander around the Hundred-Acre Woods on your own to be alone in your thoughts (spooky that I know, isn’t it? Hopefully, you’ll find the humour there in me saying that. Or rather, writing it) and other than to grumpily accept birthday cards and presents you won’t speak to anyone today. I understand that. You are having your sweet sixteenth and like any miserable little ant, you are choosing to spend it wallowing in pity. I know exactly what you are thinking because, as the Beatles so elegantly put it “I am he and he is me. Goo goo kachoo”. You are thinking it is going to be a lousy year. There is only going to be four episodes of Doctor Who this year. The love of your life has found you to be an insignificant speck on the carpet of dissonance. You still don’t know why you have to be Asian.

In fact, my good pal, this year is going to be the greatest turnabout of your life. It seems unbelievable but it’s perfectly true. The suicide attempts have stopped for good, theatre-sports is now under your teachings, and you don’t have to take health, hospitality or wear the green Lynfield College polo shirt with the variety of coloured undershirts. By the way, you may be interested to know that they’re changing the Lynfield College uniform in 2012. You may have a bit of a tantrum about that but there you are. You will finally be allowed into civilized society and wear the collar-and-tie the school offers. Of course, you won’t wear it as per normal. That’s too status quo for such a complete and utter moron (and I say that as kindly as I can) to you. You will wear a variety of belts, all of which won’t match with the tapered trousers you wear, and the collar of the shirt will either be flipped up vertically or the tips will point upwards slightly. Your tie will either be in a cravat, scarf or bow-tie (good call on the bow-tie by the way. You will find it’ll pay off later, not that anyone will ever f*cking believe you so don’t even try). You will wear long scarves which touch the ground on either end. I’m not sure what you’re trying to do Cos’! Look like some sort of poet and still abide by the uniform regulations? Or just show off how much you don’t fit in? You’re lucky you live in the past or I swear to God (oh, speaking of him, you’ll read The God Delusion later and swear off God completely, not that you ever had much in the way of religion, faith or imaginary friends) I would find you and slap some sense into you (but I wouldn’t because you are not a violent person and neither am I. You however, are completely unreasonable right now. If you cool off, things get better).

I’d talk about how the world changes and all that but you, being you, are so egocentric that you don’t care who becomes the United States of America President or what the economy will look like in a few months. Let me start off by saying that last year things ended on a pretty somber note. This year things improve dramatically. You will gain a new circle of friends inside of school, another out, and a stroll through B Block to L Block will always be peppered with people who know you (you may not know them. Your stupid antics mean you’ve become a bit of a court jester/black sheep. Your mileage will vary from person to person but they know who you are and that’s handy at times). You’re taking almost every subject you want except maths and you will end up skipping more maths than ever and going to see Toby. Drama and Media are definitely a hoot-and-a-half. Also, of course, English rocks after the first term.

By the end of this year, you will have robbed me of half my life savings. By the end of the year after, you will have robbed me of everything. The next year is the highlight of your high school calendar. You will have Mrs. Diaz teach you again for English, and occasionally berate you for folding paper claws in class out of handouts, and you will use your study periods to leave the grounds to smoke tobacco, order hot chips, and tidy Toby’s classroom for him. Not being eighteen is so long ago sometimes I forget the agony those couple of months will be from seventeen-and-a-half and eighteen.

Oh, one thing I should mention is that if there’s ever a time to cut down on the alcohol, it’s at the start of the year. Trust me, you don’t want to know why and I can’t quite remember.

Then you will be eighteen, and that’s the best one yet. I envy your journey a little, though you probably crave my experience, wishing it to just happen already but life is not something you want condensed but to be enjoyed at your leisure. English 107, Shadows, Doctor Who, Nokia, UniQ, and the Big Blue-Grey.

Be honest. Be truthful. Do not play silly mind games with those around you. I can’t stress these enough. The world you currently occupy is one that is relatively stable, so don’t rock the boat but rather apricate inside of it. You’re in for a blast, old son, and I know you’ll agree because I agree. I have left out many chunks of the time in between us because if you knew everything, it wouldn’t be any fun now would it?

Yours, with as much affection as a character can give to themselves,

Eighteen-Year-Old Me.

P.S. you may find this frustrating to read and that I’m just a doddering old fool and what could I possibly know about life? Well tell that to the twenty-year-old guy who’s in my position now, writing another self-indulgent letter to his past.

Six Degrees of Separation

Lately I've been feeling down, upset, manic, morose, hyperactive, restless, as if there's a party going on and I'm not there. This is quite a common feeling for me, that if I'm not socializing at every moment I could possibly be doing so, that I am missing out. We only have so many days on this planet, and I would rather spend as many of them as possible with people in whose company I enjoy. Lately I've been having some trouble doing this. It's like there's always a party going on in a room of my house, one that I would be quite happy visiting. Recently, it's been feeling like the door handle to the room broke off in my hand, and I'm not quite sure what to do next.

Anyway, moving on...

I have an obsession with higher education. I love university culture, university lore (and folklore), even the crazy bureaucratic nonsense (for example, any student ID that is older than two years need the photograph retaken). I don't know why, but I love it. Recently I decided to finish my tenure at university, partly because there is little more university can do for me professionally unless I decide to switch careers, but more importantly, I feel like if I don't leave now I probably never, ever will. Could I imagine staying on for a PhD, giving tutorials and lectures, writing for academic journals and textbooks, wearing tweed and-? I'm actually exciting myself too much right now. The point is, I've been here long enough to know that it's now or never.

I think I will always have this obsession though, and an offshoot of this weird obsession is another weird obsession: I go crazy when I find out about the degrees of fictional characters. This probably means nothing to no one, but man, it interests the hell out of me- and now, here are some of my favourites (I've roughly ranked them):

Andrew “Andy” Dwyer from Parks and Recreation: P (Pass Grade) in Intro to Women Studies from the University of Indiana, funded by the “Ron Swanson Scholarship” (note that this same institution would later honour his former boss Leslie Knope by renaming their campus library after her)

Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls: Associate of Arts (AA) in business.

Jeff Winger from Community: Bachelor of Law (LL.B) (presumably, never actually stated) from Colombia (the country, not the university), Bachelor's degree from Greendale Community College

Amy Santiago from Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Bachelor of Arts in Art History

Elizabeth “Liz” Lemon from 30 Rock: Bachelor of Arts (BA), in Theatre Technology. This degree is both unaccredited, and still has an outstanding student loan.

Jaye Tyler from Wonderfalls: Bachelor of Arts (BA) (presumably) Philosophy degree from Brown University.

Victor Frankenstein from Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus: Bachelor of Science (presumably), majoring in chemistry from the University of Ingolstadt.

Sherlock Holmes from Sherlock: Bachelor of Science in chemistry (Molly Hooper describes him in The Sign of Three as a “graduate chemist”). The more research I do on this (looking at the original stories) suggests that it was almost certainly either Oxford or Cambridge, and that Holmes has a cursory knowledge of Latin probably because all university students in England had to study Latin at that time.

Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother: Architecture, degree status unknown from Wesleyan University (however, as he later lectured Architecture at NYU, this suggests an MA at the very least).

Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother: Unknown, degree status unknown, from MIT (Magicians' Institute of Teaneck)

Marshall Erikson from How I Met Your Mother: pre-law from Wesleyan University, law school (institution unknown)

Scott Lang from Ant-Man: Master's Degree (presumably Master of Science) in Electrical Engineering (institution unknown)

Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul: Juris Doctor (JD) from the University of American Samoa, Master of Arts (MA) in Political Science from the University of American Samoa)

Phillip “Phil” Humphrey Dunphy from Modern Family: unknown degree, unknown major (possibly real estate or theater- Haley at one point claims that when he was 20, he wanted to be a professional magician) from Fresno State University (go bulldogs!)

Claire Dunphy from Modern Family: unknown degree, majored in Marketing (unknown if she completed her degree), likely from a different institution than her husband's (Claire does not know if the FSU mascot are bulldogs or bullfrogs).

The Doctor from Doctor Who: MD from the University of Glasgow (in the year 1888). Attended the Prydonian Academy on Gallifrey, passing with 51% on the second attempt (unknown if this was a degree).

Flynn Carsen from The Librarian film series/The Librarians TV series: (12 Bachelors, 6 Masters, and 4 PhDs), including four in Egyptology, a PhD (or two) in Comparative Religions, and a PhD in Cryptology, 1 degree of unknown status (presumably all from the same institution which is unnamed by located in New York, possibly NYU). In one episode of The Librarians he claims to hold the record in the most PhDs.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter from Hannibal: Medical Degree (MD) from John Hopkins University. Hannibal Rising suggests that he did not need a bachelor's degree to attend John Hopkins which is unusual for an MD. He would have had to later retrain to be a psychiatrist but this degree is unknown.

Frederick Chilton, PhD from Hannibal: Abel Gideon describes Chilton as “Frederick Chilton, PhD” to imply that Chilton has no medical degree. However, Chilton is stated to have been a surgeon at one stage, making it almost impossible for him not to have an MD.

Will Graham from Hannibal: The novel Red Dragon states that Graham attended grad school at George Washington University, majoring in forensic science. Enrolling in graduate programmes suggests that Graham has an undergraduate degree.

Indiana Jones Jr from Indiana Jones: Presumably a PhD (he is called Dr. Jones, and only MD and PhD graduates are allowed to acceptably stylize themselves as “Dr.”), likely in Archeology (institution unknown).

I might do a more comprehensive list at another stage. This was nothing but fun!

An Open Letter to First-Year University Students

I was going through my archived files to find something to post (I found the theme song I wrote for myself- if you filled my ego with helium, you would solve many people's petty grievance). Here's something I did think was kind of cool:

An Open Letter to First-Year University Students

As I am writing letters to everyone who is going to my 21^st, I thought I would also write a letter to you- the people I am most excited to meet because you are going to be starting university for the first time and I know nothing about you. Having finished my B.A. and having been accepted into an Honour's programme, I feel like I know a little about the university experience, but let's bear in mind that I'm only speaking on behalf of myself, and I hope that this helps you in some way.

Let us begin- you are about to embark on an awesome and hectic adventure, and no matter what you're studying, you are likely about to realize that you've come from the small streams into a rather large ocean. You probably have come from high school or a gap year¹, and we welcome you with open arms to the final phase of your formal education. You will now be fully-responsible for your education- you will choose any and all papers of which to be enrolled in, and should you not want to go to class, that is your perogative. However, it's a huge mistake not to go to class because that is one of the reasons you are here. You will have most likely been told early and often that what you get out of school is what you put into it- now, more than ever, heed this advice. Going to class, completing assignments, and sitting tests and exams, will be profitable not just fiscally (because university, unlike high school, is not free and the majority paid for by public funding), but be more rewarding if you are learning in your chosen field.

However, academia is not the only reason you are here. You are now at a point in your life where you can meet people from all avenues of life, experiment and experience new facets of the world including new cultures and new walks of life. Make friends- that is my biggest piece of advice. Even if you're a shy person, learn to be able to introduce yourself to a total stranger in a classroom or campus, and connect with them on a level in which they will want to be your friend. You may have some friends follow you from high school, but they do not have to be your only friends, and I would argue that it extremely helpful to know people in classes because you can bond over the subject matter, study together, share exam preparation; some of the greatest friends I've ever made have been through cold call introductions before or after lectures. Joining clubs will help you socialize, and you can learn many interesting points of view other than your own (in my first year, I joined Pro-Life and Pro-Choice, Vegan Club and Meat Club, Young Nats and Child Labour, to know all the different sides to issues). Having familiar faces and a broad view of what's going on will be enormously helpful to your time as a university scholar.

At the same time, don't lose your head. Don't drink so much free alcohol at a debate society meeting and have an ambulance called on you. Don't go to dodgy nightclubs at three in the morning at the invite of someone you don't know very well. Do not hook up with other students who have committed relationships because you're both fleetingly attracted to each other. You need to be accepting of other people to some degree, but take care of yourself. You have to make sure you're making safe decisions because, like your academics, your own personal safety is going to be more in your hands than anyone else's. This period of your life is yours to shape however you choose, but you need to make the conscious decision to make it good.

I would also like to address the issue of what you will be studying and whether it will be worth it. Here is my honest answer- whatever you're studying, as long as you find that it is worth it, then it is worth it. I copped a lot of flak from fellow students, mainly the ones who did science or commerce degrees, because I did a double-major in English and Film Studies; however, it was the best degree for me because after everything is said and done, I found that those subjects appealed to the intellectual side of me. Don't judge other people about what they're studying (even if it's Fine Arts) or what university or polytechnic they go to because it might be better for them than for you². If you're in your first semester and you don't end up liking what you're studying, you can always change your major, though if you're halfway through semester and can't drop the paper without financial penalties, I would suggest you at least make a wholesome effort to go to class and scrape a passing grade.

Finally, I would like to point out the suitability of prospective university candidates. Not everyone should go to university. If you did not like writing essays and deadlines and exams when you were in primary and high school, maybe going to university isn't for you. People wonder whether spending three years getting an arts degree is worth it when they could be working, traveling, or doing something else that is also valuable. If going to university ends up marginalizing who you are as a person, then don't go. If you want to become a professional snooker player and you are passionate about that, then university is not going to help that much and will probably take you further away from that ambition. Here's the thing that no one tells you- your university experience will be personalized to your character, and everyone's experience is slightly different. I can also truthfully say that going to university was the best thing that ever happened to me, and that if I could, I would do the entire thing all over again and not change a thing. If you want to be a rocket scientist, a degree in engineering would probably help you out but a lot of the time, career paths aren't that simple³. It is perfectly okay to not know what you want to do with your life right now, and you are only committing yourself to university one semester at a time.

So have an open mind when you begin this adventure, because you're going to need an open mind in order to navigate through these turbulent, but often fun, waters. My final piece of advice is to make friends with at least two kinds of people- other first-years who will be learning with you and who you can make this journey with together, and second or third years who have already completed the first-year experience and can ease the transition you will be facing. I wish you the best of luck in all of your classes, and welcome you to university.

You have a lot to learn.

Yours, truly

Ruby

1 Unless you are a mature student, a kind euphemism for someone over thirty who is beginning their tertiary education for the first time. If you are a mature student, I beg of you, do no ask questions during lectures because that is what tutorials are for. Do not bring your children to class- ever (find a nearby daycare if you have to). Do not show up late to class- just because you are a little older, you do not command an iota more respect in a classroom than any of your fellow undergraduates.

2 I mean, after you're good friends with someone, you should be able to tease them about anything, including what they study but make sure you're good friends with them first. My litmus test for friendship is seeing whether they will let me embarrass them in a bar, but in case you don't go to bars, a library would work just as well.

3 You might also belong to a category of people who don't know what they want to do with their lives. In your case, I would suggest picking a major at university that sounds interesting to you and going for a semester. You might use the time hashing out how your life is going, meet people who can counsel and support you, and then you might figure out what you want to do in life.

Say Cheese

For my 21st, I wrote a letter to all of my guests, and I wrote about fifty letters in total (never doing that again- that was a nightmare to get them all written, printed, and enveloped). Though they were all written in what might be described as Elon Musk's fever dream, there was one I did particularly like, and still do to this day. Here it is:

Dear [REDACTED]

I'm really happy to write this letter because it's the last letter that I actually have to write, and I'm coming in on schedule.

I hope you have fun at my 21^st. Unlike Steph, I couldn't get away with clubbing as it is my 21^st and remains a little more personal, though I'm sure the many photos of what goes on tonight will betray our dignity (I'm wondering whether or not it was a mistake to invest so heavily in alcohol). Photos are weird to me. They remind us of what we looked like, as if that will remind us about who we were. The past is another country, and to look upon photos is looking into the past and trying to find meaning that is the cultural divide of the past and the present.

At the same time, I really like photographs in what might be considered the stupidest case of cognitive dissonance ever recorded. We change throughout our lives, whether we want to or not. Every time you take a photo, in the instant of the camera lens shuttering, there is a moment being captured where you are looking at the oldest someone has ever been and the youngest they will ever be again. We're all different people throughout our lives, and when scrolling through albums and looking at who we once were; maybe it's best to remember how these predecessors of ourselves happened to be, in any form they might have taken whether it's a new outfit that has since grown old or a fresh haircut which has been long since grown out. We should be immensely grateful to our younger selves who happily sacrificed themselves so that we might live.

Say Cheese.

From Ruby

Dear Mr. Internet

I mentioned a few entries back that I tried out being a poet, specifically a spoken word (or slam) poet.

I did not enjoy myself.

It's not that I missed my calling as a poet (I am, by all objectionable accounts, a poet of passable quality, like All-Bran is to cereal or soft punk music is to party songs). However, the thing that really turned me off spoken word poetry were the kinds of poems that this genre attracts. I am aware that spoken word poetry is perceived as the stomping ground of hipsters, too-cool to only have one facial piercing, too-erudite to favour the mp3 over vinyl, too-experienced to not wear the Doc Martens they bought at a thrift store that cost them more than if they had just bought them brand new and I am here to tell you that this is only 80% true!

The poems that tend to be performed are ones of angst, anger, frustration desperation, betrayal, et cetera. I am a believer in Marshall Mcluhan, and I do believe that different mediums are equipped to tell different stories. Wuthering Heights will never be made into a better film than the book. No novelization of Withnail & I will surpass Bruce Robinson's cult classic film. However, I think that comic poets are a largely untapped goldmine of literary goodness. I've thought that for a while- why do these slam poets never try to make anyone laugh and nothing else? I'm not going to name names, but some poets will make a joke only to make their audience later feel bad for laughing, so as to punctuate their point about how we think of female fictional characters and we're misogynistic at heart, or whatever. So here is a poem I wrote with the sole intention to just be silly, maybe make someone smile, even get a nod of the head.

Dear Mr. Internet~

I'm a huge fan

And I want to take some time to thank you. You are a great inspiration to me, and I am not the kind of person who likes to gush or faun

I don't usually write fan-mail but...thanks for all the free porn

And thank you for inventing Youtube.com. I like epic rap battles of history, and I feel better knowing that we share this in common

Thank you for the world's largest repository of kittens

Another thing- it's great that you've made me feel like I'm part of a community. It's a feeling that's eerily close to perfection- I've said it

Now we can communally hate Justin Bieber on Reddit

Thank you for giving me Google. That Google idea was a ten-out-of-ten

Thank you for allowing me to go clothes-shopping in the comfort of my own home. Thank you for the porn: again

But there's a few questions I'd like to put to you. I'll try to make it brief:

Are there really sexy singles in my area dying to meet me? Bullshit. No one in my area has a full set of teeth.

Furthermore, stop offering me penis enlargement pills. My penis isn't small- it's just further away.

Anyway, Internet, I have to gee-tee-gee, as it were. All I really wanted to say was that on this one planet, I can vouch for one person you have affected...

And please, please, Internet, I never want you to be disconnected

Thank you.

Distance worksheet Yr 10 Revision

See my other post on Maths for my little ramble about how math should be taught in an engaging way for students. My tactic is to tell them a little story, like this one-

1. Alicia the Cheetah can run at 115 kilometres per hour (kph). How far does she run in four hours?

2. Alicia runs for twenty-nine minutes. How far has she run?

3. On Monday, Alicia has news to tell Ryan the Lion about game hunters on the plains. Ryan can run at 81 kph. If they are 196 kilometres from each other and run towards each other (starting at the same time), how long will it take them to meet?

4. On Tuesday, Ryan has news for Alicia. This time they are 588 kilometres from each other. How long will it take them to meet each other if they both run towards the other?

5. On Wednesday, Alicia has news for Ryan, and they are 98 kilometres from each other. How long will it take them to meet if they both run towards each other?

6. On Thursday, Ryan and Alicia meet after having run for ¾ of an hour. How far apart were they when they first started running?

7. On Friday, Ryan gets shot in his front paw and now can only run at 62 kph. However, he and Alicia still meet to discuss news. It takes them 5 ½ hours for them to meet. How far apart were they when they first started running?

8. On Saturday, game hunters kill 21,500 lions. There were 30,000 lions alive on Friday. What percentage of lions were killed?

9. On Sunday, Alicia and Ryan get the remaining big cats together and maul the hunting camp. No maths here. Just remember that animals deserve our respect too, or they might rise up and seek their revenge.

The Evening Wore On

So I once took a creative writing paper at uni to pass the time between happy hours (ah English 344, you were the best thing in my day right before the bars would open). As a result, I sometimes do write a bit of fiction now and then. I was working on a novel off and on these last two months with the working title "The Evening Wore On" but for reasons I'm not going to go into here, things happened which made the planned storyline of this book just a little too painful for me to keep writing about. However, I'm happy with the first draft of the first three chapters, and though the project will probably never be finished now, it'd be a shame if they never saw the light of day.

Chapter I

“I understand you're hurting right now”.

“I am in unimaginable pain right now- but if you really must try and understand, walk over to that empty power socket on the wall and insert a genital into it. That should be a good indicator as to where I'm at right now”.

“Peleg”.

Here are the major players of this scene. First, there was me, the recently dumped nineteen-year-old from Grey Lynn, Auckland. The second was my sidekick, Adam Eugene Mikkelson, who had chaperoned me the thirty-nine step pilgrimage from the student lounge to the student bar. The third was some unknown bystander who was staring at his jug of beer with an existentialist intensity. The third guy is irrelevant to this story, other than that he was in our corner booth and even though all other booths were empty, there was no power on this earth that would allow Adam and me to take another.

Adam held his Scotch to his mouth. “What did she actually say?”

“She said that she felt lonely, and I wasn't there for her. She said that she felt trapped in a commitment, and she didn't trust me. She said that something had felt off for ages, and she didn't know how to fix us. She said that we should break up now so we can both have the summer to heal. She said it wasn't meant to be”.

“She said all that?”

“She said it with a look”.

Adam downed his Scotch and raised his beer chaser. “To the end of Miley Portus”.

We drank. Not as much as our newfound mate who was nearer the end of his life than the beginning of it, but we drank. Adam took his e-cigarette from his pocket, as if to advertise to any potential firefighters that he was lowest priority in an emergency evacuation. I took a pull from my bourbon. I dislike bourbon, but Adam had bought the drinks. This particular brand of bourbon was one of my least favourite brands, and its secret ingredient is probably motor oil and poison, but it would be rude of me to say the name.

It was Kentucky Deluxe.

“How many exes does that make in your rogues gallery?” Adam asked. “Do you have enough to form a volleyball team?”

“Five”.

“Five is a very awkward number” Adam said. “You should try and bring it to six before the end of the year”.

“I'll do my best”.

Adam's vapor wafted from his mouth like you imagine obscene statements waft around politicians.

“You're crying”.

“I don't usually drink whisky before lunch, that's all”. I tossed the bourbon down and then washed my throat with a pint of Montieth's. “We should get lunch”.

“There's one-hundred and twenty-five calories in a pint, and the hops required to ferment the alcohol counts as one of your 'five a day' you know” said our erudite stranger, rising from his seat. “Really, if you just order another jug you'll be filling out your daily nutritional intake splendidly. Now if you'll excuse me gentlemen, I need to go outside to throw up”.

And with a burp and a stumble, he was gone!

“Do you still want to come with me to Auckland tomorrow?”

“No” Adam said, “but I will anyway. Ten o'clock?”

“Sounds good” I smiled at the waitress who had come to collect our empty glassware. She did not smile back. “I should go back to the residence and pack my stuff up”.

Adam nodded and we finished our drinks.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I'm fine” I lied.

I returned to the Lilac Residence to find that the big whiteboard in the entrance was having the room allocations being erased, as per end-of-semester policy. I watched as the RA rubbed off my name without so much as a second thought. Herman Mott was no longer the occupant of Room 884. I wandered past the whiteboard with a depressing thought nestling in my drunken mind.

Herman Mott was technically homeless at this point.

My room for the year had been a 7x9 metre rectangle, with just enough room for a single bed and desk. I had lived in the room for my first year of university, and only gotten it again when I couldn't find anybody who wanted to live with somebody perpetually unemployable (I was double-majoring in Art History and Film Studies). As I put my key in the door, I sighed at the idea that this might be the last time I ever stepped foot into this residence. Who among us knows with any certainty of all the places we have already visited for the last time?

Everything rested undisturbed from Miley's visit twelve hours earlier. Her scent still lay in the air, and I breathed through my mouth as I boxed up my things. It took me a little under three hours to have everything packed for tomorrow's trip. The majority of this time was spent taking down my array of photos from the pinboard. Every year on my birthday, I start a new collage of photos and at the end of the year make an album. 95% of the photos were Miley. Miley Portus has light brown hair which she often wears untied, and dark blue eyes which often sit behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. She only wears T-shirts with patterns and jeans. Psychologists say that smell is the best sense to evoke old memories. On this account, I'm going to disagree with them. Nociception, the sense of pain, takes that title. I packed up the photos. In forty-two days, I would turn twenty years old.

I began to cry.

..

Chapter II

“Just for argument's sake, if I were to suddenly put my foot down as hard as I could on the gas, and I decided to just let go of the steering, what do you think is the likelihood that at least one of us would die instantaneously upon impact?”

“Okay, I get it. No more backseat driving”.

At eleven o'clock, Adam honked his horn in the residence parking lot and I came down with all my worldly possessions- neatly fitted into two suitcases, a backpack, and a duffel bag. Squeezing the backpack into the boot of the car last, I felt a surge of deja vu, as if I was stuffing the body of a close friend into the boot. Being a jerk first and an acquaintance second, as soon as I closed the lid of the boot Adam drove to the other end of the parking lot. When I walked to the car, he'd drive to the other end of the lot.

This went on for twenty minutes.

We drove north in the November sunshine. On my journey down to Wellington, I had traveled by bus and watched streets which I had never seen but which I knew someone else would know as their block of the neighbourhood. I asked if we could take some detours down interesting-looking road. Adam declined. After that, we didn't speak until Adam decided that we should stop for lunch in Matamata. After ordering Big Macs and Cokes, we took our bounty to the benches outside to watch the grass grow.

“Interesting fact about this particular McDonald's” Adam took a huge bite from his burger. “It's the only one in Matamata, and they only agreed to have one in Matamata at all if they could built it on this exact spot. It's all about the foot traffic, they couldn't justify its construction otherwise”.

“That makes me sad that this fact took up actual space in your brain” I said cheerfully. “I miss Georgie Pie; I wish they'd bring it back. That place was awesome”.

“Oh, you can still buy some of the old toys from TradeMe. One of them went for two hundred dollars or something crazy like that”.

Adam smiled. “If I was going to relive the past with two hundred dollars, I'd get drunk and go to the zoo. That would do it”.

“I don't know if that constitutes reliving the past, or just doing something Irish”.

“ 'The past is another country. They do things differently there' ” Adam replied. “You still thinking about Miley?”

“You know when you give yourself a papercut and you don't realize what you've done for a second, and then the pain comes down?” I stretched my arms upward. “The pain is starting to come down now”.

“Okay, let's go. There's still two-ish hours to Auckland, and I'm not a very safe driver in the late afternoon”.

My mother likes to say that although she usually doesn't play favourites, I'm the least favourite of her children. This is more hurtful than it initially appears because I'm an only child. However, when her least favourite child moved out to go to Victoria University, she moved from Grey Lynn to Takapuna, trading one suburb of hipsters for another. It took us three attempts to find Smit Street, and it was a cosy-looking place. Quite frankly, it looked too nice a street for my mother to be living there. I unloaded my luggage from the boot and gazed at the address I had been given the week before. This was my first time visiting the new house, and imagining this trip I thought I might be excited or anxious. I felt bored.

“Do you want to come out and get some tea, meet my mom?” I asked Adam over the hedge of the passenger door window. Adam took one second to contemplate the pros and cons.

“Herman, that is a very considerate offer” Adam nodded, “but I made plans to visit Maggie Lilac while I'm up here, and at the prospect of meeting the woman who birthed you I feel like I would rather give a blowjob to a loaded speargun-”

and then he drove away.

I knocked on the door of the house and felt the momentary fear that all people experience when knocking on a door for the first time. The nightmare plays in your mind that you have the wrong house, and that whoever answers the door will yell at you like you've just killed their cat. My mother did finally open the door with her resting expression which had made children cry. My mother has never been a warm or affectionate person, and I don't think she's ever once greeted someone with 'hello, nice to see you' or 'hi, how's it going?' but that day she really outdid herself.

“Mr. Melville's dead”.

..

Chapter III

My mother took me on the 30-second tour of the house before escorting me to my new digs- 7x8 metres of bare hardwood floors, and a single bed. If my mother had told me that the room was a rather large closet and not a bedroom, I could have believed her. The room was painted the sort of sky blue which can only be properly appreciated in the skies of Singapore. This room did not feel like home to me, and unpacking my belongings did nothing to change that. Sitting on the squeaky bed, I stared out of the sole window at the spectacular view of the brick wall of the house next door and pondered my next move. The sun went down, and I sank into a restless, haunted sleep.

I awoke in the middle of the night with a splitting headache and felt like I was melting in the summer heat. I groped the wall looking for the lightswitch, managing to kick every single item on the floor. The sudden neon light made my headache worse, and it was a Herculean effort to make it to the kitchen. Ransacking the cupboards and throwing drawers open searching for paracetamols, I found some white pills and took two with water (reckless by anyone's standards, but they were either going to kill me or make me better- and those are my two favourite options).

To escape the discomfort, I slipped out of the house after taking my time remembering where the door was. Losing Miley made me morose. This house was making me furious. I felt like an unwelcome guest at a lunatic asylum. To cope with the fury coursing through my veins I stood on the front lawn and shouted at the moon until I wore out my lungs (you're doing a bad job, Moon!) Did that make me feel any better?

Guess.

At the ripe age of nineteen, I stole my mother's car.

Did I have a driver's license? No.

Was I a very good driver? No.

Did I have a destination? Absolutely.

It was quiet on the roads but deafeningly loud in my mind. I once read a news story about the world's nicest man who became so frustrated with his lot in life that he armoured a bulldozer with 30 centimetres of concrete and went on a rampage through his town. Do I mention this because I believe more people need to know about the dangers of the Killdozer? Partially, but the man also said something in his farewell note that I have always known but never put into words. “I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable”, he wrote. “Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things”.

I had trouble finding a parking space, and this amplified the fact that I have trouble parking cars in general. Eventually I parked a few blocks down from the house I wanted and walked in the night air. It was an hour where the workers go to bed and the hipsters go to clubs. Though the house had no lights on, I knocked anyway. The door was one familiar thing to me. Eventually, a familiar face answered.

“This can't be good”.

“I didn't know Mr. Melville died, and I'm not sure now what I can do about that” I did not say.

“It's been a rough few days” I did not add.

Ashlee opened the door properly. “I think you'd better come in”.

As Ashlee flicked on the lights in the house, I noticed that some of Mr. Melville's things were untouched. Books in a never-used fireplace, ashtrays on top of the piano, hand-crafted folk masks on the wall. A box wall shielded the left side of the house. Ashlee made me a cup of tea and a plate of Tim-Tams and we sat in the backyard patio.

I looked towards Ashlee. “When?”

“About six months ago” Ashlee said, lighting a cigarette. “Inoperable brain tumour. It was a very nice service, few friends, scattered the ashes over the Pacific. He didn't want anyone to know”.

“Yeah” I said. “That does sound like him. My mother just told me today”.

“I figured you probably didn't know, but after he passed there's not much anyone can do” Ashlee smoked. “Didn't you get a letter from him?”

“Melville was a talented writer and a wise man, but even he can't post things from beyond the grave”. Ashlee gave me a light slap on the forearm for my silliness.

“He wrote letters to everyone he knew, to be mailed posthumously” Ashlee told me. “I'm sure he did write you a letter. Another cup of tea? Coffee? Or something stronger?”

“I'm good” I answered her. “I never told him that he was my favourite teacher”.

“Don't worry. He knows”.

“You mean he knew”.

“He knows”. A wobble of young drunks paraded passed the back fence and Ashlee and I waited for them to pass, quietly amused at their rubber, orange, conical headgear. “I'm going to miss this place. So many good memories of jam sessions, and the chiquita”.

I sipped tea. “You're not going to stay here?”

“This is Melville's house” Ashlee said. “It's not my house. Besides, I'm moving in with my brother in a couple of days. You can't live in the past”.

“You can always try” I murmured.

“How's uni treating you these days?”

“Quite well. If you come to my birthday, you can meet some of my uni friends. Well, 'friend' might be too strong a word but we definitely all don't go to class together”.

“And how's your girlfriend?”

“Let's not go there”.

Ashlee rummaged through some of Mr. Melville's old folders and found his List of Last Letters. My name was there, and beside it was the wrong address to which the letter had presumably been mailed. I thanked Ashlee and though she offered me the couch, I returned to my mother's car. Ashlee had been a year younger than me at school, and when Mr. Melville heard that her mother was moving their family to Huntly, he spared Ashlee such a punishment by offering his own home to her.

The world is a lesser place without him in it.

I crashed the car.

Every muscle in my body tensed. I could not breathe. The driver of the car in front of me got out and walked towards me and I quickly said a prayer. Dear Lord in heaven, please be merci-

“Are you okay?” the man asked, and my shock began to convert into confusion. I can't imagine many people's first instinct after getting hit by someone else is to ask if they are okay. The man was in his late twenties and was wearing a blue suit and a smile.

“Ah...”

“It's okay” the man put his hand on my shoulder, and I believed him. Able to breathe again, I tried to apologize with my eyes while I came up with something to say.

“I'm Joseph”.

“Herman” I finally managed. “I am really, really sorry about hitting you!”

Joseph chuckled. “Come out and check the damage”.

There were pins and needles in my joints as I undid my seat-belt and walked out of the car. It was dark so I used my cellphone screen as a flashlight. Joseph's car had a mug-sized dent in it, and my mother's car had a dinner plate-dent in the front bumper.

“Please don't take me to claims court, I have no money” I pleaded. “I can prove it! Let me show you my university ID-”

“It's really okay” Joseph said, as if this happened to him every day. “No one was hurt, and that's the main thing. Do you want to swap numbers and insurance details?”

“I stole my mom's car to find out when my History teacher died” I blurted out. “Also, my girlfriend cheated on me and then left me. I'm really sorry about your car!”

“You...said that already” Joseph winked at me as he took photos of the car damage on his phone. “I guess you don't have insurance”.

I fought the need to apologize a fourth time. “I'm not sure I even have a home anymore”.

“There's no one around. I'll tell them it was a hit and run” Joseph said. “Don't sweat it”.

“Has anyone ever told you that you're the coolest person to ever walk this earth?”

“All the time, but it never gets old” Joseph shook my hand. “Take care of yourself Herman”.

We were about to let go of each others' hands and never see each other again, and then all the evil in the world came out of Joseph's car. I repeated what Ashlee had said to me an hour ago.

“That can't be good”.