A liberal-arts education is supposed to provide you with a value system, a standard, a set of ideas, not a job. ~Caroline Bird

After returning from Iceland the road led towards university.  We arrived in October so I had to find work and make some money until school started in the following february.  The mighty Coles took me back and so I worked in the toy department - twas mighty fine fun.  If I remember rightly my nieces and nephews got mega presents that Christmas... 


So off to University I went - and did an arts degree... Why arts - why politics, sociology and anthropology - well, because I knew that I would get an early offer straight out of high school and that it would be easy to defer the acceptance for a year - I have always been very pragmatic in my choices... never taken too many great risks... 


My uni days were both good and bad, lots of fun, quite a bit of work, and as I did not have my drivers license during the first two years - a lot of travelling by bus and walking in sweltering heat.... Yep it was really good for me.  I loved studying politics, it made me realise what a bunch of assholes actually decide to make a career out of it.  Ideology goes out the window as soon as some power comes to play - no one - no matter how ideological they are, or how great a thinker, idealist, humanist a person is - power does always ultimately corrupt in one way or another...  History was fine - but again, I learnt that history is just an interpretation of what happened in the past - we all know that when we write letters or try and document things that we all self edit.  History is and always has been edited and usually by men.  When women have attempted to make their mark on historical contributions then they are usually labelled as feminists and unfortunately their views discounted by this label.  Men are never labelled in the same way - but boy should they be - we are all human - we all have preconceived ideas and hence try and mold our view of the past into something that fits our current values.  Anthropology was interesting, always good to know about Homo Habilis and australophithicus africanus and homo sapien as opposed to homo sapien sapien... still there were a lot of gaps, then Australian anthropology, again I learnt a lot about the indigenous people of Australia, however, again interpretations by the various scholars in the field were a reflection of their political mores and values... Sociolinguistics was by far the most interesting of all - the study of language and of whether language is a reflection of the environment or helps shape the ideas of the environment - I think that this subject is probably very closely related to philosophy, what came first the hen or the egg, why do eskimos have so many names for snow, how do children learn language, how do we as adults learn a language, what is language???? So complex, so much fun - twas a pity that I only ever took one unit - it was only available during my final year.... Had I a chance to do it all again I would have majored in linguistics... a fascinating subject.  Oh, that reminds me - my major - Sociology.... so diverse, so much to take in - so confusing.... I joined a marxist reading group... oh yeh, I think das Capital has been as well researched and written about as the bible....... at the time it was the definitive theory on capitalism (from the lefts point of view anyway) the other theories were by economists hence were taught in economics... not in sociology.... (that might be a very liberal take on matters.... sorry - but that is how it seemed at the time).  I think though that the BA taught me to think if nothing else, it taught me never to take things at face value and never believe an expert just because he is labelled as one.   Life is just far to varied and has so many variables.


So after three years of deliberating whether this degree would ever be worth anything or whether I should just quit and join the job market I finished and graduated.... To my graduation I wore the shoes that my brother had bought for my mother on his first ship journey to Holland, they were the best and still are - stilletoes with a slim pointy toe, black suede and leather.... The shoes were 20 years old... great that they got to go on the big stage at the concert hall... they still exist and are awaiting the great granddaughters graduation.. am sure one of them will love to wear them!


Ofcourse during uni I collected more friends - that remain my friends today - well one in particular and with her her best friend - to Iris and Alison - thanks for making uni such a great time and thanks for still being here for me.... To mum and dad thanks for putting up with me during this time, the loans of money, car and other stuff.... too good!