Making Friends With The Neighbours

Sitting in bed after a wonderful weekend at 'Splendor in the Grass'. Karen O for PM... I recently spent a (happy) week in Sydney, taking adavntage of the State and Mitchell libraries. It was a wonderful change of scene. And I got to to gulp down a few Max Brennar hot chocolates! Lately, I've become a little obsessed with the whole concept of 'subculture', so at Baden's encouragement, I've been doing a bit of exploration about the way the term is defined in broader academic literature. My problem with the use of 'subculture', is that I've seen it as a way to put down cultures that aren't conservative or constructive in any traditional way (I know, I know... define traditional). By denoting something as sub , I felt that it was a way of dimishing the meaning of the culture and the identity in a broader social context. How are 'subcultures' secondary to another culture, and which culture are we talking about? A national identity? If i...

Saturday night in; a bath, paint my toes and read a little. Quite nice really... I have been battling with this whole thing a bit lately. I've been finding it hard to read and to think and to proceed in any kind of meaningful way with this thesis. But I may have finally figured out why. And it's a little pathetic. I am living and studying between two worlds, and it's not something I had considered before. I hadn't realised what a barrier my university connections would prove in trying to talk to friends and family about this surfing culture thesis. I don't force discussions of this project on anyone (I understand that my interests aren't everyone else's), but on the occasions I've tried to speak about it with friends, who I believed would be able to give me some kind of feedback or opinion, I've drawn a blank. The general responses have been "that's great, but it's over my head" or "it's beyond me" or even noth...