For Now

Dear Loyal Blog Followers,

I must wish you farewell. I now live in Oz and have nothing significant to write about most of the time.

Perhaps if there is somthing particularly pertinent I shall post again but for now it is the end of littlemissbogan.

But never fear.

I have begun work on a new blog.

We'll see how long can last with this one...

If you'd like to check it out click here.

Grown-ups

Since returning to Melbourne I've been a little bit bummed. I've discussed a lot of this already on this blog. About how much I really enjoy living in Israel and how I simply prefer my life there.

But it's not just the Israel thing that has got me.

I live with my parents.

That's right. I'm 22 years old - almost 23 - and I'm still at home. Now I know that's pretty standard for Australian Uni students, be they Jew or Gentile. Indeed among Jews you can probably last a good few years of post-uni employment before you need to leave the womb and find your own place.

But not me.

Which is surprising since I didn't consider myself a particularly independent person. I didn't get my first job till the end of year 12 and I was never really into public transport as a kid. I was always happy to grab lifts from my folks.

But then I lived for a year overseas when I was 18 and now again for the past year. For the past year I came and went as I pleased. I was messy. I ate only food that I wanted and only when I was hungry. I paid my own electricity bills, water bills, internet bills, phone bills. I paid rent (mostly late) each month. I worked. I went to university. I looked after myself. I replaced light-bulbs and killed spiders.

I had/have a sense of pride in this. When you look after yourself you are a more competent, capable person. Indeed you are more of a person because you are living up the the standard of what a person should be: self-reliant.

It's not that at home I'm really that looked after. I still do the grocery shopping, the cooking, I do laundry and I mainly keep my own hours. Furthermore my folks keep their distance. They've never had house rules or told me what to do or prevented me from having guests. But ultimately I'm still living with my parents. I live in the house of my childhood and when I return here I feel like I slip back into being a child. But unlike your average movie character I do not want to return to childhood. I enjoy being responsible for myself and I feel like it's a real blow to my independence to be living in my parents house again.

So what do I do? Well, I have less than 1.5 years left of my degree (all going well) - and the moment I start earning moolah I will move out.

No, but seriously. Get. Me. Out.

London Bridge Is Falling Down

Good-evening ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to begin this post by sending out my condolences to those affected by the riots in London and the UK in general at present. I hope the situation improves speedily.

As for the riots themselves I actually am not surprised that they are occurring. In fact these riots confirm my suspicions about the human condition.

For a number of years now I have been convinced that human beings have no inherent morality. I do not think we know right from wrong. Indeed what we do know is how to look out for ourselves. I also know that we love power. I think that without ethical direction people will descend to mild anarchy.

In the past ideologues and politicians have taken advantage of this weakness in people for their own exploits. They have argued that people should engage in war for their nation or in local acts of violence for race and ethnic reasons. But ultimately for the people participating in these acts the ideology was just an excuse for something that they simply wanted to do. Or at the very least, didn't mind doing. I think that when we view people from this perspective human history makes more sense. All the abhorrent ideologies and genocides and massacres or even daily crime and discrimination that exists in all societies and cultures for all time comes into focus when you accept that human beings are at best inherently amoral and at worst naturally immoral.

You could have thought that my generation in the West would be immune from this. We don't have any real political ideologies pushing us to defend out country against the fascists or the communists anymore. Even the dubious threat of Islamic terrorism is met with skepticism and apathy by my generation. We simply don't buy into ideology anymore. Unless you consider nihilism an ideology.

But our apathy didn't inoculate us against stealing or vandalism or violence. In London we have managed to have totally ideology-free riots. We have managed to break out into anarchy for no definable reason. You can blame it on class divides and the education system and while I do recognize these factors I think they are only relevant in the following context:

1) People don't know what's right and what's wrong.

2) Even if you teach them they will probably ignore it if it's in their interests.

3) Making something illegal isn't the same as teaching somebody that it's wrong.

Therefore the way to prevent violence and discrimination and hatred and rioting is through ethical education. People need to be taught morality. By this I don't mean the 10 commandments or even the legal code. Rather people need to be taught to think about ethics. How do we decide what's right and what's wrong? What makes these things so? How do we define them? If we get people to engage in these questions and perhaps ingrain an appreciation for the good, right, just and moral then perhaps that education will be enough to protect against wanton acts of wrong.

Maybe London is the wake-up call the West needed but doesn't really want.

Jew-Spotting

Look, I'm aware that this is going to be a particularly racist post. But you are all just going to have to deal. Or dob me in to the ADC. I dare you.

Since returning to the diaspora I have also returned to Monash Jewniversity. In my three years at the Clayton campus I am yet to have even one tutorial without a fellow member of the covenant in there with me. The thing is, that after a year of playing spot-the-goy, my Jew-spotting skills need some work. So in an effort to help myself and help you fellow bird(nosed) watchers I've compiled a list of clues to figure out if the kid at the end of the row is also a member of the tribe.

1) Appearance - I know it's a stereotype but yids are not known for their height. Or good looks. Or reasonable sized noses. So if the suspect is below average height with below average looks with a perfect nose. You know they are a member of the tribe with a great plastic surgeon.

2) Jew-fro - on boys expect a full blown fuzz of brown frizz around their head - sometimes it even makes it onto their faces in the form of a mono-brow. On girls, curly brown hair is a give-away. But do not be fooled by straight hair. Ironing out your hair-inheritance is another classic trick of the Jewess. Look for 'too-straight' hair or tell-tale kinks at the roots. While we are on the topic of hair - let us not forget premature male-pattern balding. I'm not saying that all Jewish boys have it - I'm just saying that I haven't seen it on the goyim.

3) If you're in first year - expect to see Bialik and Scopus sports fleece jumpers. These are worn in amongst the Scotch, MLC and Xavier jumpers too. We loves the spoilt rich kids. But by second year Lacross/Rugby/Rowing school team jumpers are out, replaced with anything that is not a school uniform being worn voluntarily in a non-school environment.

4) Glasses. I'm sure that these kids haven't been spending too much time in front of a talmud with tiny Aramaic script in a dark yeshiva in Poland. But nevertheless the house of Jacob have a fraught history with myopia. Therefore lenses in frames or of the contact variety are big give-aways. However, be warned. Big thick nerd glasses have recently been adopted by the hipster gentiles as a fashion statement. So be careful, just because Sarah the leggy blonde in Eco 101 has glasses, this doesn't mean that she's safe to bring home to your mother.

5) Breaking into a sweat when Students for Palestine makes announcements. Nobody else is paying any attention. They are on their iPhones and Macbooks making witty comments on facebook. The Jews, however, are hanging on every word. They are looking out for the hints of antisemitism. They are waiting for these announcements to rile up the entire class of administration law into an Israel-bashing frenzy from which they will have to flee and live in the forests by the hockey pitch. People reading the BDS posters are also likely to be circumcised. Though that may be because they are Muslim.

6) Packed lunch. This relates in particular to those with Y-chromosomes. Jewish mothers (like many ethnic minority mothers) like to mother. This includes worrying and inflicting guilt as well as feeding. So if you are sitting next to a 3rd year Law/Commerce student with a packed lunch of a cream cheese bagel and a juice box, drop him a shalom aleichem. Then invite him over for friday night dinner.

And so there begins my decent into full blown racial profiling. Good times.

If you have any other tips feel free to leave a comment.