Thursday, January 15
Catching Up
Football? We got whipped, something around 23-6. Not bad, considering our opponents are top of the league, and we'd never played together. Oh, and we're all hideously unfit, which isn't a good thing. Which brings me to my first point.
There have been three things said to me by my housemates over the past couple of days which have made me feel really, really good about myself. The first was shortly after we played football, when Pete asked me if I'd been exercising over Christmas. He asked because he said he saw me running around for the whole game like I had loads of energy. This made me feel wicked because:
a) I haven't exercised over Christmas. Or at all since last Christmas, come to think of it.
b) I thought I was quite unfit, but it seems that I am one of the fitter in my household. Hurrah!
The second thing was also said to me that night, on our way back to our flat. Quite a few of my housemates use racist remarks all the time, although they claim that they are only said in jest and are not vitriolic or sincere. There's always the words "Pak-Pak" and "Yids" and "Sand Niggers" flying around our living room, but I tend not to join in. It's not that I'm completely offended by those words, more that I don't feel the need to use them at all.
Anyway, what was said to me by Phil was that he's never heard me say any of those things, and that he doesn't think that I'm at all racist. I'm so glad that that has been recognised. I try very very hard not to be racist. Actually, fuck that. I don't try at all. I'm just not at all racist.
I'm not going to come up with the argument that runs along the lines of "I've got loads of ethnic minority friends, so how can I be racist?", because that doesn't mean anything. I'm quite comfortable admitting that my group of friends is almost exclusively white. I also have a (perhaps shaky) reason why this is so. It always seems to me when I'm at uni that there is a definite divide between the various groups by ethnic origin.
King's is definitely the most diverse place that I've ever known or come across, but it always seems that the Asian sub-continent group all stay together, as do the Oriental students, and most of the black people that I've seen. It thus becomes quite difficult for a white person to penetrate these groups and become friends with them. We are now the outcasted and frowned upon.
And people wonder why there are sometimes those white people who are racist and bigoted? I'm not condoning or advocating that that is the correct response, certainly not, but I can to some extent understand why there is this backlash. It seems that the equal rights accorded to everyone have gone too far in that non-whites are now in a much stronger position than whites. Of course, it may be argued that this is payback for the decades of oppression by the white man, but I would say that the call from the mid-20th century onwards was for equality, not for payback. This applies not only to issues of race, but also of gender and sexuality.
Getting back to the main point of this post, the three things that really cheered me up towards the end of last week, the third occurred on Friday evening. To give yet another piece of background, between us in our house, we are terrible at getting washing-up done. We all seem to hate it, and it just builds up over the course of a few days into an enormous pile on the kitchen table. Then, someone (or a pair of people) just give in and do the whole lot. I am generally one of those people, because I am somewhat conscientious and a bit house-proud (I get it from my Mum).
This particular Friday, I just got annoyed with the entire mess and started doing the whole lot. I put a stereo in the kitchen, turned up the tunes and shut the door. The rest of my housemates were in the living room, doing whatever it is they get up to in there, and I was in the kitchen, alone, doing this fucking huge pile of washing-up. It took me the best part of 4 hours to get it all done, but get it all done I did. I even cleaned the grill tray of all the congealed fat that had taken residence there.
Did you know that fat can get mould on it? I didn't until that night. It can. That's how long this grill tray had gone without being cleaned. Disgusting stuff. I'd never even used the grill tray, and yet hear I was cleaning it.
Like I said, it took fucking ages to get it all finished, but I eventually got it all done. Alex came into the kitchen just as I was finishing off (convenient, I know), and he stopped to say "I don't think the others are going to say this, Rob, but thankyou for doing all of this."
That was it. That was all I wanted. A little bit of acknowledgement and appreciation for the hard work I'd put in. I didn't expect to be revered and loved for doing it, just slightly appreciated. It really made it all worthwhile when he said that.
I'm still waiting on thankyous from the others, by the way.
Oh, and how long before the kitchen got into a similar state? I'd say around two and a half days. We rule.
