Long 3-hour drive with Amanda actively bitching about every single other car on the road, and my appraisal of her musical habits has to be adjusted somewhat-- she doesn't just listen to bad classic rock and Chumbawumba, but also the theme songs from various anime shows. Woo! The parents were nice though, and took me to the pub for the best chicken schnitzel of my life.
My second favorite thing about studying writing: the obviousness of people who don't understand or value the pursuit of literature. And Burra, population 1,000, is full of these people. So people are nice and friendly and we're having a good chat and they ask what I'm doing and I say MA and they give this 'well, la dee da!' look and ask what in. So I say 'Creative Writing' and I can just see their brains clocking overtime behind a screwed-up face and their response is always (always) either 1) "I didn't know you could even do such a thing (awkwardly laughs and turns, eyebrows raised in a 'well, I reckon it takes all types' look), or 2) "What are you going to do with that? (no attempt to cover surprise or disgust, just a very affronting look which says "those there books ain't never gonna learn you nothin' worth learnin'-- now watch you's good while I try to eat corn-on-the-cob with my four remainin' teeth, AND TURN OFF THAT N***** MUSIC!" (no joke, I actually heard that delightful phrase.)
So while I loved the place, it wasn't possible for me to really gel without admitting that what I am doing is a waste of time to appease them. And fuck them, I think I'll happily stay on the fringe of the small-town crowd for now.
However, the bad news of the day is that the judges for that contest never called, meaning that I did not place in the top 10. Sadness! I had a celebration flask with me which rapidly became a consolation flask, and I fell asleep in the coldest farmhouse on Earth with a frozen little nose.
Drink Count: 4
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