Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Love letters from Bernard: part 1 of 2 in a mini series

So, I've turned into the pathetic student that emails their middle aged business lecturer with ridiculous questions, and secretly admires his unique passion he possesses for quantitative research methods. This is a series of 8, part one.


Kate Fitzpatrick to b.mckenna
show details 10 May
Dear Bernard

I am prepared to name my first-born child after you if you change our much anticipated COMU2030 exam from a Saturday to any other day.

Yours in hope and research methods,
Kate

ps. I've attended all of the lectures and admire your charismatic approach to teaching.

--

Bernard McKenna to me
show details 10 May

Dear Kate

As deeply flattered as I am by your naming rights (there is currently a shortage of Bernards in Australia, but not in France, I might point out), I have to admit that even Associate Professors have no power in deciding exam dates. This should come as no surprise given that administrations always have more power than the practitioners (a point made evident when Joseph Stalin, the head of the Soviet bureaucracy after Lenin’s death in 1924 beat the head of the Red Army, Leon Trotsky to lead the USSR).

Golly, you must have something important on that Saturday!! Playing for Australia … a wedding … an elopement … an appearance on Master Chef ??

Your “humble[d]” lecturer (sadly unable to comply)

Bernard


--


Kate Fitzpatrick to Bernard
show details 10 May
Though the ideas of an elopement or an appearance on Masterchef are truly enticing, I was hoping to work at the Ipswich Races, and provide the respectable punters of Brisbane with beer and wine. I would have happily shouted you a pint and had a big old chin wag about the epistemological relevance of hats and gloves at the races, however now I simply cannot.

Ah I suppose it's like you said. Many of us humble BCommunications students will actually end up as administrators or policy writers one day, who will ironically have more power than all you wonderful ripened and cerebal associate professors. Such is life.

I suppose I'll have to resort to my original naming idea, "Patrick Fitzpatrick"

Your adoring fan,
Kate

---
I lose a pint and a chat, you lose a day’s wages, and your as-yet unborn child awaits a lifetime of ridicule because of a name.

Life truly is tough.
Best
Bernard

---


Aaah Bernard, you cheeky bastard you. The clever old fool you are even managed to slip in a Trotsky reference. One day I wish to be a witty sandstone academic with a nonchalant attitude to fashions of the day and ideals of beauty, like yourself.

Forever yours,

K

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Letters to Opera



Today is a sad day for students, stay-at-home mums, dole-bludgers, and generally anyone else who has grown to love tacky daytime television. Yes, it marked Oprah's last show. Maybe the rapture really is coming...

To mark this sad day, a Norweigan IT company Opera published a selection of emails they have received over the years from people complaining or opening up and telling them about their lives, mistaking them for "Oprah". I highly commend them on their efforts to assist the writers with their myriad and slightly concerning issues.









Goodbye, Oprah. And thanks for the memories.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Back to Bristits


So in quintessential “Kate Fitzpatrick” style, I ran out of money, got evicted, surprisingly didn’t loose my job, but still lost enough to have to come home to never-changing, recently-flooded Brisbane.

But I didn’t come back on ‘just any old day’. Nay, friends. I changed my entire travel plans to arrive on a certain special person’s 15th birthday and jump out of a suitcase to surprise them, not telling any of my dear close friends that I was returning in order to keep the surprise a secret. Brilliant idea right? Unfoilable. Ingenius. I should work in government. Until I jumped out of the suitcase, blasting my vuvuzela, shrieking my return to the far corners of Manly West, to a less than impressive audience. The birthday boy, as it turns out, had just fallen off the jetty and needed medical assistance, rather than 3000 decibels of racket boring into his skull and destroying what few brain cells remain.


But after medical assistance, things went back to normal and I’ve pretty much adopted the same routine as I had before, from poaching two eggs on toast 9:30am every morning to seeing the same regulars on the waterfront running each evening.

Still the same old leagsie

Harry, you could have your own gorgeous middle class brunette Kate...
More silly cakes....

After much deliberation about uni – was so confused I even went to two universities for a couple of weeks until I made a decision – I’ve decided to do the exact same thing as I was before. I’ve also got another job at another pub. Surprisingly, it’s lasted more than a month. PB!!

I’m also interning at an ad agency at West End which is such fun/good experience. So between all that, zumba, personal training, pretending to be a masterchef apprentice, and being a regular at a pub 40 minutes away from me, I’ve hardly had time to scratch myself.

One of my masterpieces for the internship.


So although it's nice to be back amongst fresh linen and 2ply toilet paper, I do miss Camden's crazy pubs and living in poverty, but living in London. Still, I've got the Royal Exchange, the Royal George, the Elephant & Wheelbarrow, a Citigroup, an Oxford Street, and even a Royal Mail of my own. It's not quite the same, but it will have to do.