There are two problems with Australian people: we shamelessly advertise our country even if we know we're a leaky luxury ship, and we insist on pretending everything's okay when most things are not.
I'm a cynical second-generation immigrant. I don't have cash to burn; my 'back up plan' is Centrelink, not an inheritance. I really don't have any room to fail, nor do I have any interest in experimenting with failure. It's become a taboo to love to succeed, to love to win, but I do and I'm not ashamed of it. I don't have a bleak outlook on life; I have a bleak outlook on some people in my life. I complain a lot. I don't really fit in.
I have spent pretty much all of my life in Perth. I have also spent pretty much all of my life trying to get out of Perth. Don't get me wrong, Perth is a lovely place to grow up, because it's nice and boring and pretty hard to run into trouble. But I'm fifteen, and I'm a rebel without a cause. I'm tired of lovely, nice and boring. I have been for a very long time.
I've wanted to go to Oxford since I was eight and my mother explained The Story Behind Her Oxford Jumper. Now I have a jumper of my own, and I'd still love to go to Oxford, but it's appallingly expensive and notoriously difficult for undergrad international students, so for me it's more a postgrad plan. Yes, I am one of those nerds who wants to do postgrad. Got a problem with that?
But Oxford is in England, and going to England involves getting on a plane and waving bye-bye to good ol' Perthy. And people don't like that, because it's acknowledging that Perth is a boring, lonely place to live.
I want to get a lit degree. I want to do big things. I don't see many other options aside from going abroad and trying to strike it big. Nobody is going to listen to a little Perth schoolkid, and uni degrees mean less than nothing now. I need to have more than that. I need to be the kind of person that people sit up and listen to.
I told my teacher that, and he said 'you've failed already'. Gee, thanks. Just what I want to hear from a teacher.
There were two hypocrites in that class in which this conversation took place. I'm sad to say that one of them was not a clueless student.
The clueless student, with permed hair, makeup and fake nails, said to me 'I think you're too obsessed with what people think about you. I mean, it's not our fault you're so insecure that you need to do all this stuff to make yourself feel better'.
The clueless non-student said 'Right, now lets go listen to JUSTICE MICHAEL KIRBY who was a FORMER JUDGE in the HIGH COURT who went to the UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY. We're REALLY PRIVILEDGED to HAVE HIM HERE'.
So, according to the above, Michael Kirby is obsessed with what people think about him and is insecure, and we would totally be skipping class to be listen to seventy-year-old dudes, even if they weren't HIGH COURT JUDGES or similar. If they were just random nobodies.
Just like me.
I'm not narrowminded for wanting to leave this unintellectual place of eternal boredom. It's not a flippant decision. I've lived here for FIFTEEN YEARS, and I think that's quite enough time to establish that this is not the be and all and end all of everything. There's nothing narrowminded about wanting to see the world, step out of my comfort zone, become the sort of person I want to be and to respond to a higher calling. I am not so idealistic as my dear Perth lovers. I am a nobody, and nobody listens to a nobody. My goals aren't the only way to establish yourself, but establishing yourself not only on a local level, but also on an international scale is the only way to make people shut up and listen. Because we all have good ideas; we all have the potential to be geniuses. But we don't live in a time and place where people throw money at nobodies with potential. You have to be somebody to do something.
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