May the Force be with you

It’s been my great honour to watch a dear friend, and former student, finish her honours thesis this week. Those of you who have been there, done that, will know that an achievement this monumental deserves a Star Wars analogy: this week, a Padawan has become a Jedi.

(If the above references went over your head, your homework for this weekend is to watch Star Wars in its entirety. Use the Force to get you through the tedious prequels, and enjoy Harrison Ford circa the 70s).

Obi-Wan-Kenobi style, I’ve taken it upon myself to give my friend unsolicited advice through her honours year – for which I hope to be forgiven eventually. The most important piece of advice I have given her, though, is this: she needs to buy a significant piece of jewellery, for herself, to celebrate her achievements.

Bizzare, I know, that this advice takes precedence over all the other pieces of end-of-thesis advice I could give to a newly minted Jedi. Surely, I should advise her to sleep. To catch up with mates she hasn’t seen in an age. To symbolically burn a copy of her manuscript. To run. To go to the beach. To laugh until she can’t breathe anymore (although I have complete faith that she’s done this last one).

The reason behind my advice, though, is that something as big as finishing an honours thesis (or a Masters, or a PhD) is that it’s a long, hard journey, ultimately completed alone. While there are people beside you, people advising you, people without whom you couldn’t do it, it ultimately comes down to you, and your words (in Star Wars terms? You and the Force).

Which is why, in my view, you need to mark an achievement like finishing a thesis, and mark it well. Most importantly, you need to mark it for yourself.

It’s not enough to accept the congratulations of colleagues, friends and family. It’s not enough to know that you’ve done an amazing thing. You need to distil that amazing thing you’ve done into a symbol, something that will always and forevermore remind you that, yes, you did it.

And why jewellery, specifically? Well, let’s take a moment to think about what ‘big’ (expensive, thought-through, valuable) jewellery means in the course of a woman’s life. Typically, the ‘big’ pieces she has are given to her by others: by her parents on her 21st; by her partner to signify their engagement, and, again, on an important anniversary or birth of a child; by her children on a milestone birthday; or inherited from a family member.

What you notice, here, is that all of the ‘big’ pieces come from without – they are gifts. Whenever she wears them, she thinks of the people who gave them to her, which is what makes those ‘big’ pieces special and meaningful.

And, while it’s great to have pieces that make you think of your nearest and dearest, there’s a time and a place for jewellery that makes you think of you, and all you’ve achieved.

The first Sex and the City film explored this concept (mixing pop culture references: bear with). Samantha attends a charity auction to buy, for herself, a very expensive, very large, and, let's be honest, very ugly, ring. An anonymous bidder goes up against Samantha in the auction, driving the price higher than Samantha can afford. Miserably, she admits defeat. Later, Smith Jarrod, Samantha’s partner, presents her with the ring: Smith was the anonymous bidder, and bought the ring as a gift for Samantha.

Whenever Samantha looks at the ring, though, she sees only Smith, whereas she wanted to see herself – her achievements – whenever she looked down at it.

Now, I can appreciate why people may think that it’s selfish, or frivolous, to celebrate an achievement by spending money on something like jewellery rather than, for instance, an experience like travel, or something that benefits others. Perhaps it’s not for everyone, this whole bling thing.

All I know, though, is that whenever I put on my garnet ring, the ring I bought myself in the weeks after handing in my honours thesis, I am reminded that, yes, I did it. It’s made all the sweeter by the fact that it’s something I wear: there are patches where the soft gold has yielded to the movements of my hand; that it’s something I will, one day, be able to give to another young woman, in an ironic twist on the whole buying-jewellery-for-oneself exercise.

So, it’s with this in mind that I suggest a jewellery purchase to my dear friend, and to others who have, like her, become Jedis this week. Because not only did you have the potential (midochlorian readings off the charts), you used it and achieved something amazing, something that you should mark personally, enduringly, symbolically.

And that’s it, I’m through with my advice, and I’m hanging up my light sabre. Except for one final thing I can’t help but throw in:

May the force be with you.

Always.

Labels

As a classically trained sociologist, it’s my duty to rebel against Labeling and Labels as a postmodern, patriarchal, capitalist social construction.

Lately, however, I’ve been pondering the value of other sorts of Labels. No, it wasn’t as a result of a stuff up where two important Labels (Hons, Phd expected completion 2013) were left out of my list of qualifications.

Needless to say - Not a Happy Camper.

Rather, my recent pondering of Labels has come about as a result of wearing my first ever big Label garment, borrowed from Clementine Kemp. I’m going to be a tease and refuse to tell you what Label I’m referring to here. Suffice to say, though, it’s a good'un.

The true appeal of the Label doesn’t lie in any inherent property of the dress itself, although I appreciate the technical genius of the cut (it really is a marvel). The appeal of the Label lies in its very Labelness – that this garment signifies something over and above its garmentness, that it's special, significant.

To a Marxist, this is a classic illustration of commodity fetishism. But sometimes (and I can feel the ghost of Marx haunting me here) a little of a fetishised commodity is exactly what you need.

As Bill Cunningham writes: ‘Fashion is the armour to survive the reality of everyday life’. Whilst no-one but myself and a few eagle eyed fashionistats would know, once it’s on, that Clementine’s dress is a Label, knowing makes all the difference to me. The Label makes me stand taller, pull my shoulders back, and look the world square in the eyes, because there is this deliciously potent secret sewn into the cloth that grazes my shoulder bone. Like Katniss Everdeen’s dress of flames in ‘The Hunger Games’, a Label can make you a Girl On Fire.

The effects of the Label last long after the dress itself has been taken off. Typing this in my thirty dollar maxi dress, my worn out cardigan, and my woolly socks, I still feel that Label magic – taller, stronger. And this is why, I suspect, people will always be willing to part with more money than is decent for the privilege of owning and wearing a Label – this feeling of being lit up.

The Most Amazing Goldfish Names In The World

Mimi Goss and I spent the best part of a walk around the lake on the weekend working out the ultimate thematic name groupings for pet fish.

Be prepared to have your mind blown.

Theme: Prince Song Titles
TheMostBeautifulGirlInTheWorld
RaspberryBeret
LittleRedCourvette
NothingCompares2U
DiamondsAndPearls

Theme: Ridiculous Politicians
TonyAbbott
AmandaVanstone
BobKatter
BobHawke
PaulKeating
JuliaGillard
BarnabyJoyce
StevenFielding
FredNile

Theme: 70s and 80s Recording Artists
PhillCollins
GunsAndRoses
ThinLizzie
BonJovie
StingAndThePolice
Bananarama
JohnFarnham
DuranDuran


Theme: Various titles of Prince
Prince
TheArtistFormallyKnownAsPrince
TheLoveSymbol


Theme: Feminist Theorists
JudithButler
GermaneGreer
SimonDeBoviour
Bellhooks
NaomiWolf
BettyFreidan


Theme: Ungrouped but Too Awesome To Not Consider
SnakesOnAPlane
!!!
&*%#
NapoleonPerdis

Clearly, it’d been a long week for both Mimi and I.

When I move into my new apartment at the end of next month and acquire said fish, I’ll let you know which theme was selected. Although I strongly suspect that I can’t not have a fish called TheMostBeautifulGirlInTheWorld…