Jock's Jocks

The plight of Nguyen Tuong Van has been saturating the news for the last few weeks or so, and it sunk in the other day how unbelievably difficult it must be for his family, knowing that his death is imminent and only a miracle could see his life spared. Nguyen is going to be hung by the Singaporean authorities tomorrow morning at 9am AEDT, and I cannot help but feel, like so many other Australians, that I have been emotionally drawn into his saga.

Singapore is a sovereign state, and although I do not believe in the death penalty, we need to show some respect for the laws of another country, however I feel that respect and support are two different things and Singapore is no exception. Van Nguyen knew the risks, but to take his life is wrong.

I know that when I wake up tomorrow morning, Nguyen's execution is the first thing I will think about, and I'm pretty confident that I will shed a tear.

“I’m in between jobs at the moment.”

We’ve heard that one a few times before. It’s the classic statement that reflects a certain pride so many of us try to maintain in our various social groups through life. Humans do it all the time; a maintaining of face. I’m not too sure if animals feel pride, and I've never actually thought about it but who knows. A tiger might greet a rather skinny tiger that has terrible hunting skills with something like, “how’s hunting?” and our skinny tiger might reply with, “oh you know, I’m in between meals at the moment, things will happen don’t you worry.”

I’ve had this same problem with haircuts, and I’m sure I’m not alone (I certainly hope so). Once that all-important appointment has been made with a hairdresser, a sense of nervousness creeps in, not unlike the build up to a game of sport or asking a girl out, god forbid. Once the hair ordeal is over, chances are that when the hairdresser does their final brush of any excess hair with that fluffy brush thing, whips off the poncho and does the 360 pan of your head with the mirror, you want to grab that hair off the ground and scream to the heavens in despair. I've been in this situation a few times before, but that’s not to say that all haircuts I’ve had are bad, but there is a certain level of control that one relinquishes when sitting in the hairdresser’s chair waiting for the impending doom.

To get the control over the future direction of my hairstyle back, I decided that because I knew what I wanted, I might as well do it myself. You could say that I have a hands-on approach to life, and untrained hacking at my own coiffure is no exception. I haven’t been to a hairdresser for about three years now, and whether or not I’m proud of that feat can only be measured by the overall quality of my haircuts over this time period. All you need is a pair of scissors, preferably ones that cut, and brush and shovel, a mirror, and a sense of mischief and adventure. Starting off is the easy bit, as most of the initial cuts are pretty uneventful, but after a while there really is no turning back, unless you've got some sticky tape and no shame. Cutting the hair on the back of the head is the hardest bit as you might have guessed, it's hard to see it. An experienced home haircutter will develop a 'feel' for cutting the back, as it's all feeling and guesswork. Anything that involves guesswork equates to risk, as well as a sense of adventure, which can be an exhilirating ride.

Sometimes I’m in the zone and I can’t put a snip wrong. That’s when I really feel alive and myconfidence is high. During this time I know that after about half an hour I'll be knocking back offers from haircut magazines. Most hairdressers have these on the tables in the waiting area, and I've found that they are always out of date. For some go-getters, that means that they're 'in-date,' and they've got a one way ticket to Hipsville.
However there are perils associated with home-cutting, and sometimes my hair looks so wonky and atrocious that it resembles a backyard lawn that's been left to grow for a couple of months, then mowed by a blind person.

Most of the time a slightly errant haircutting attempt needs a couple of days of ‘settling’ and some sort of hair product and things start to improve. Occasionally I treat my hair like a painting, doing a majority of the cut in one sitting, then improving bits here and there until I can finally throw off the curtain and reveal all.

When I do have a bad haircut that can only be reversed with the cruel passage of time and someone asks me how I’m going, I just say, “oh you know, I’m in between haircuts at the moment, but life will get better.” I guess if we see life as a haircut, sometimes a new look can work wonders, or it can be crap, but whatever the outcome it will always get better. However if you cut your own hair at home over the laundry sink with a pair of blunt kids scissors, just don’t expect much to happen with your life.

At the moment my life is unlike that of an island prison, but at least I know I'll be released soon, as the food is appalling.
Right now I have a huge amount of uni work to finish off for the next week, which has not been helped by the fact that I'm working full time in a warehouse. I can't really sit down for an extended period of time and do a cool blog entry so if you're still reading this piece of underwear, please sit tight as it'll happen soon.
For 45 hours a week I'm part of the working class of the suburbs, and it's great. Days are filled with guys abusing each other based on sexuality, race, sexuality, race again, stupidity and so on. Today a guy poured sugar in another guys' lap in the kitchen, and the other day someone thought it would be funny to put the same guys' newspaper in the bin so that he then spent ages looking for it and blaming other people. There's a shit cafe around the corner that relies on keeping its food hot in a bain marie all day, so who knows when it was actually cooked. A hamburger with the lot turned out to be hamburger with the not. It was soggy and they might as well have sold me a sponge.
It's a different world I'm in right now, and it's very surreal but really interesting. I doubt I'll have so many nice words for it by the end of my run there which will end in five weeks.

It's a bit of a laugh, but full respect to the guys who the job that I'm doing their whole lives, as after a week I'm working out whether or not to start drinking to get through the day.

Stay cool.