When a Piece of Cake is Not a Piece of Cake

REGULAR CHARACTERS CONTAINED IN THIS POST

Recently I was sitting my Economic Crises class and my lecturer was talking about the issue of tri-lemma. A tri-lemma is like a dilemma but you have three things that you are torn between instead of two.

The choice is between exchange rates, discretion over monetary policy and free financial capital flows. You only get two out of the three, sorry that’s life.

The lecturer said so you can’t have control over all these three things, in an ideal world you would but you can’t have everything. 

It’s like people want to have their cake and to eat it too.

You know what I want? That expression, the cake one, removed from my language.

It’s dumb.

Until I was about 8 I thought the expression “He wants to have his cake and eat it too” meant “it’s all the same no matter what you choose.” So when people said “he wants to have his cake and eat it too”, it sounded like to me, “he wants to eat his cake and eat it too”.

I thought this because to me, to have cake means to eat cake. When someone screams wildly “Let’s all have some cake!!” in my crazy mind, I think this to mean “let’s all EAT some cake”, not “let’s all be the owners of some cake and decide when we shall consume it at our own discretion”.

Until the age of 8 or so I thought that “He wants to have his cake and eat it too” was actually the idea behind the expression “six of one and half a dozen of the other”.  It was at about this age that I realised that it actually meant “He wants to have it both ways” and I had no idea why. 

After I accepted that the widely held understanding of the expression was not my interpretation, I went on for ages having no idea why “He wants to have his cake and to eat it too” meant that a person wants both outcomes from an action.

So when I was about 18, no joke, I finally realised what it means. It means he wants to KEEP his cake and eat it too.

OK so my brother and I both had the same issue with this expression and we aren’t dumb people so I am sure that it’s not just me that got lost with this. It’s an ambiguous expression at the very least and you know what, I think it’s stupid too.

Who the hell wants cake for the sake of having (i.e. owning) it?

In French the expression is: “He wants butter and the money from the butter”. That makes so much more sense!!!

You see this guy has a dilemma: “Should I spend my money on butter or should I save the money for something else I’d like.”

The fucking English idiot is like “Ooohhh I want to eat some cake but I also want to have cake for later.”

I regularly have to decide if something is worth the money or not. “Should I buy winter boots? I might not need them for very long and it will cost me money. I’ll have to decide what I value more.”

I have never once in my life been holding a piece of cake and thought “oooohhh I really want to eat this cake right now but my desire to have it outweighs that hunger. As such I will keep my cake for later.”

Option 1:

Option 2:

 Outcome:

                              “I just can’t decide!! God help me!”

That is not a real dilemma. I mean, cake is not even a durable good. Whether you eat cake that day or the next day, it doesn’t matter because you have to eat the cake pretty soon. Money well invested could last forever. Butter could be used to make a cake. So the Frenchman is picking between money well invested and butter (or potentially a cake). The Englishman is picking between cake or cake. For fuck’s sake, cut the slice in half! Have some cake now and some cake later.

If someone says to you “here, have some pie.” I assume that you would think that he is offering you the slice of pie, to eat. If he came back ten minutes later and said “Dude, you ate the pie???!! That was my pie to have, my eating pie is in the kitchen”. You’d be like “Why the hell am I friends with you?”

What if the ‘having’ pie was full of poison? I mean it’s not for eating afterall, maybe they put chemicals in it to make it last longer. Would you say “Fair enough, he did say ‘have this pie’ I mean, he might have wanted me to keep it forever and never eat it. I accept my fate as I have erred must pay the ultimate price”

No, you’d be like:

“What the fuck dude, you gave me a piece of poisoned pie and told me to ‘have it’. You should feel responsible for my imminent death.”

I am not saying that the expression “He wants to have his cake and eat it too” makes no sense at all. I am just saying that it is confusing and it would be a lot less ambiguous if it was “He wants to keep his cake and eat it too”. It would be further improved if it was the expression that they use in French because as I noted earlier, the money-versus-something-else dilemma is a little more full on then cake-versus-cake-at-a-period-of time-in-the-near-future decision. If the English don’t want to copy the French because they still have beef about who’s cultural top dog of Europe then we can think of our own expression.

I would probably understand if cake got better with age... OK so if you said “He wants to keep his wine and drink it too”. Again this reflects the consumption versus investment issue that the money/butter expression contains. He wants to have his wine now but he also wants to have it get better with age.

He’s another suggestion: He’s a squirrel who wants to keep his nuts and eat them too. This works because we know that squirrels eat some nuts and squirrel some away for later. People do not squirrel away cake. So yes, that expression bothers me and now you know why. I am bothered but there is no need to panic, Shelley’s OK.

xx

Elle

P.S. I drew the picture on my computer so that’s why they’re a bit weird. Not too long and I’ll be home with my craft stuff and it’ll go back to normal.

P.P.S. I am perfectly well aware of the fact that some smart-arse is going to tell me “the origin of that expression comes from when Troy and his soldiers were given precious cakes by their wives and if they ate them too soon, legend has it that on the 8th day of the month..... blah blah blah.” 

I don’t care where the expression came from. It is not clear. At the very minimum it should be “he wants to keep, that’s right... KEEP, his cake and eat it too”.

Cat versus Crane

CAST OF REGULAR CHARACTERS CONTAINED IN THIS POST:

I’m a procrastinator. Only with school work though and cleaning though. When I’m at work, I know that people are counting on me so I do everything in a timely matter. If my friends are having a party and need me to bring a plate of food, I’m always organised. If I’m planning a party, my facebook event is always up a month in advance. The problem is, when I’m the only person who is counting on me I can be terrible at doing things that need to be done.

For a long time I spent my days loathing myself for being this way. The problem with that was that it made me feel so low that I couldn’t to ANYTHING and hence the procrastination got worse. At one point, I was pretty much in a state of total stress about study and yet completely paralyzed from actually doing any study to make me less stressed. It really affected my quality of life.

After a long time of living this way I realised that this wasn’t working. So now I’ve accepted that am I this way. To solve this problem I pretty much carve out a huge amount of time to do anything. If I have an essay due, I’ll shut myself away for four days knowing that the first three days I’ll do less than a 10th each day and then get my shit together on the 4th day.

During these periods of shutdown, I don’t shower much, eat at funny times of the day and use whatever I can to distract myself from doing actual work. I forbid myself from participating in the real life social world so I have little stimulation. Over time I have become extremely inventive at finding ways to deal with procrastination stress with very few resources.

Allow me to demonstrate. This is a photograph picture book story that I texted to my boyfriend during a particularly intense study period. An important part of procrastinating for me to spending time annoying my cat. She knows when exams are coming because every 45 minutes I come and pat and prod her.

The Cat and Crane Crisis of 2011

by Elle Newby

 A small army of Cranes prepares to take on a giant feline. 

The attack is a success, the feline’s intelligence agency failed to foresee the entry of enemy forces into kitty territory.

To the surprise of the Cranes, the giant feline retaliates swiftly. She hits a sensitive location to the Cranes, the nest where their young are created. An all out war is likely to ensue if nothing is done.

 An emergency strategy meeting is held at Crane HQ.

A delegate is sent to Scratching Post, a location in enemy territory, to engage in much needed talks with the feline. 

After several hours of intense negotiation a peaceful resolution between the parties has successfully been reached.

The delegate returns home and to announce the good news to the residents of Cranium. A ceasefire has been established and the crisis averted.

Both parties have indicated their dedication to maintaining a amicable relationship into the future.

Anyway, during these few days I completed an essay, two lengthy job applications and an accounting assignment so everything turned out OK, for me and for Shelley.

xx

Elle

Where in the world is Shelley?

In answer to the above question... I don’t know, she didn’t make it to Canada. As most of you know, I have made it to Canada and I’m on exchange. I was hoping to post while here but I’ve had some problems.

I think that maybe I’m a little ambitious. On exchange, normal people think “I’ll just do the bare minimum and spend the rest of my time partying. :)”

I, being something other than normal, think “Oooohhhh Advanced Ancient Hieroglyphics looks good... but damn that clashes with Algebra for Wizards and I really wanted to do that. I could overload and then listen to the lectures online! Yes that’s a good idea.”

Problem with this is, that once I arrived, people regularly ask me this question “Beers?” and clearly my enthusiasm for taking on activities shows itself and I repeat. “Yes that’s a good idea!”

OK clearly I exaggerate but in truth I have picked three reasonably difficult subjects and one slightly less difficult subject and then one mother of a monstrously impossible subject. This baby is taught in a foreign language, requires you to read 8 texts all of which were written before 1800 and a decent knowledge of European history from 1100 to 1800 is not required but is preferable. It’s a history/literature subject for native French speakers.

In pondering why I find it so difficult, I’ve come up with three potential reasons. 

1. I haven’t studied history since year 10 and even then I use the term ‘study’ fairly loosely, ‘winged’ might be a little more accurate.
2. I haven’t studied literature since year 12... Again the word study could be substituted here for another word, I’m going to go with ‘endured’.
3. I’m not a native French speaker (fancy letting that one slip your mind).

Mostly though I blame Melbourne University for this mess. I blame them because they wouldn’t let me take anything easier, in fact, I was enrolled in the study of Plato in French. Day one of that class we translated things from ancient Greek to French :). Day two, it was dropped from my timetable.

So in my negotiations with the University we agreed on this subject. It was less impossible that Plato (I didn’t know that impossibility could really be measured in magnitudes but this is something that I’ve learnt since arriving here) so I was happy. It was still far too difficult for me to complete without losing my sanity which made Melbourne University happy.

So I’ve abandoned the blog until February. I apologise. Next year I’ll have a real job and a routine and I’m hoping to post more regularly. I’ve also learned a few tricks to speed things up and I’m hoping to get the process further refined. I thank you for your patience. I was a tad ambitious which strikes me down from time to time (did I tell you about my subject choices for McGill?). Also I paid $31 for a drawing app that was totally and utterly shit and useless so I’ve decided to work the words and return to the pictures next year. So I’m drafting some posts while I’m here and you’ll see them in 2012. Next year my birthday is going to be 12/12/12. OK I digress. 

So yes Shelley is suffering from neglect, she’s OK though and she’s probably off in Africa showing of her OKedness to the starving poor.

In the meantime, please follow me on twitter, I do tweet more regularly than I post. @shelleysokay (someone took the spelling of shelleysok... massive pain in the arse, twas probably Shelley herself).

Kisses.

xx

Elle

Honestly I could probably sleep through a hurricane.

CAST OF REGULAR CHARACTERS CONTAINED IN THIS POST

Deciding that I should probably attempt to grow up and to join the real world I went and got myself a real life boyfriend (Rowbi). I’ve been single on and off for a couple of years and while most people would wake up gazing into the eyes of their lovers I would wake up to this:

First thing in the morning the cat wants breakfast and I to continue to sleep. So every night we have this same discussion.

Me: zzzzzz

Cat: MEOW MEOW MEOW

Me: shhhh

Cat: MEOW MEOW MEOW

Me: Die!!!!

Cat: MEOW MEOW MEOW

Then she jumps on my bed and sleeps near me. Sleeping with the cat is like being strapped to a torture apparatus of some description and every time you move ever so slightly you get an electric shock. Every time I move ever so slightly, the cat thinks that I’m about to get up and starting meowing at me. My friend called her the "trip-wire kitty".

She’s also gone deaf and bit senile so she sometimes forgets that my Mum has given her breakfast and comes into my room to wake me up just for shits and giggles. Also telling her to shut-up literally falls on deaf ears. Her strategy for keeping me from sleeping reached new heights this year when she realised that if she monopolised access to my pillow I would be more likely to get up. Additionally she is super comfortable and within inches of my ears so the meows are particularly intrusive.

I’m actually pretty good at sleeping despite the meowing though and honestly once I’m fully asleep I could probably sleep through a hurricane. I also can hardly concentrate until I had a decent dose of caffeine. Someone could break into the house and murder Rowbi and I will be of no use to him until I wake up and get a cup of coffee. Then and only then will it occur to me that his lifeless body should probably be causing me concern.

You see I have learnt to sleep with noisy things.

In year 9, at my high school, you spend a year at a rural campus living in houses of between 9 and 12 squealing 14 year-olds. We all slept within about 20 metres of each other so there was a lot of night time chatting and sing-a-longs and such. If for some reason you did need to get an early night, you learnt to sleep while people were giggling, dancing to the Fresh Hits of ’02 and discussing the best process for hanging up posters of Josh Harnett. If you were sick, you slept with noise or died.... or went to the sick bay which meant spending time with the dimmest nurse in the history of mankind which was equivalently painful as dying. In the morning, we had to be ready by 8:30am so my best friend and I always got up at about 8:27. (At this point feel free to be impressed that I can make the bed of a top bunk and get dressed in 3 minutes). Because we got up as late as possible, this meant that we had to be able to sleep through the chirping of early rising housemates getting their worms.

Also I’ve had boyfriends from about the age of 16 and have had to share beds with people most Friday and Saturday nights for the past 5 years on account of my hobby of getting drunk so the presence of a second or third person in my bed does not faze me, even if that person is a stranger.

Earlish in the morning, my mother also like to make phone calls and discuss unimportant things with my father like baby-sitting my brother’s children the following Tuesday. Her inside voice is still pretty loud and she thinks that I’m a bit lazy so her sympathy for waking me up is miniscule.

Also I live on a busy street and in a flimsy house made mostly of glass so I hear cars roaring and drunken bogans quarrelling all night. I also live across the road from a public swimming pool. This means that during the non-opening hours of the pool (ie the middle of the night) trucks are constantly pulling up and conducting some sort of activity that involves a great deal of pumping. During this process, the truck has to be kept running for some reason so it continues to huff and puff until you’re ready to blow your head in. This is usually finished off with a Greek plate smashing ceremony of some description. I’m not sure why plates have to be smashed as part of running a public swimming pool but that is most certainly what it sounds like. This whole thing is finished at the crack of dawn and just in time for the swim squad to start and the sound of the coach saying “Set and go” and then blowing a whistle. Then splashing. Set and go” and then blowing a whistle. Then splashing. And repeat 100 times.

Despite my ability to sleep through virtually anything I was unexpectedly woken up from my slumber the other day though. It was a Sunday there was some sort of carnival happening at the swimming pool and this man said over the loudspeaker at about 10 in the morning (I was still in bed with meowing cat) “We’d like to thank everyone for coming down... You’ve made it great”. He sounded like he was actually standing in my bedroom and I thought to myself “Oh did I have an orgy last night? Funny, that doesn’t sound like something that I would do but there is a strange man in my bedroom praising a large group of people for a huge team effort.” And then for a moment I thought that maybe it was someone was trying to auction my house even though we were in it and hadn’t really indicated that we wished to sell it.

I sat up and realised what was going on. I thought I would attempt to get a bit more sleep and as I turned to straighten out my pillow and doona and stuff before settling back in, I saw what Sneaky Snooze Faced McGee had achieved in the half a second I had been distracted:

So the sleep-in was off and I struggled to get out of bed and on with my day. It was OK though because Shelley’s OK.

Love,

Elle xx

Agree to Disagree

CAST OF REGULAR CHARACTERS CONTAINED IN THIS POST

I don’t know about you but I really hate getting into conversations on controversial topics with people I don’t know well.

With family and friends I love nothing more to discuss feminist issues, the economy, carbon taxes and such. Even if these people have wildly different opinions to me, I can always find a way of getting into a healthy debate.

The problem with people you don’t know well is that (a) you have no idea what their views are and (b) you have no idea how they will react if their views are challenged.

If someone is overtly racist or homophobic I’m not going to put up with that and I will also assert my feminism from time to time if I’m backed into a corner. Having said that I mostly attempt to steer clear of topics of conversation that are likely to result in conflict with co-workers, friends of friends and anyone else with whom I’d prefer to have a totally mundane and functional relationship.

“I mean George Bush wasn’t really a bad president.”

“Um, I just remembered that I have to go buy a... hat. In case my head gets a bit cold later. See ya!”

From time to time though, we all find ourselves in a situation where despite our best intentions; we disagree with someone we’d really prefer not disagree with.

This steams from accidentally thinking that you agree when you don’t.

“Suzie and Francine are going to be late. Typical.”

 

“Ergh, I know she’s always like that!"

“It’s because she thinks that she’s the centre of the universe.”

“OMG I know, I had no idea that you thought that!!! Wow, yeah she’s just so full of herself. I mean I know that she had cancer and all and that’s sad blah blah but that was, you know, years ago and she’s totally milking it for the pity. I mean, don’t be such a victim, just because you had cancer doesn’t mean that you can treat other people like dirt.”

“Oh wait, you’re talking about Suzie, I mean Francine is a bit full of herself. I like Suzie.”

At this point you cannot backtrack, you can’t smooth it over, the truth is out, you disagree about whether or no Suzie is a massive horrible person or not. U-G-L-Y.

“No I mean I like Suzie...”

“You just said that you didn’t. She had cancer you know. Oh wait here she comes now!”

The problem here was that you would never have said all those horrible things if you thought that your friend didn’t agree. You are lulled into a sense of security by what you think is common ground, common ground that turns out to be quicksand.

My best friend spends a good portion of her day avoiding getting into conversations with ignorant people about politics. Pretending to check your phone is a good strategy.

“I mean they’re queue-jumpers really.”

“Sorry, I missed all that... I was just sending a text to a friend about dinner, dinner tonight that I intend to eat. With a fork and possibly knife I guess... I mean it depends on the food, maybe it’ll be Asian... um... um... Ooohhh Masterchef! Interesting stuff hey!”

My best friend doesn’t even watch Masterchef, it’s just that it was a good way to get the conversation moving towards something safer.

Recently; however, she did get herself into a political conversation with a colleague. Her co-workers were discussing the carbon tax and pretty much talking about how they didn’t want to pay it. My best friend busied herself with work sensing that she had entered dangerous territory.

Considering that she’s an intelligent woman, it would be surprising to other people how engrossed in her files she was.

“Oooohhh, this file is for Bank West, so fascinating, wow, just wow. A Bank West file. I mean this file will need to be filed.”

“OK guys, I’m just going to copy some documents for this fascinating Bank West file, see ya.”

While working on the Bank West file with the kind of surgical precision that Michalengo was famous for, a colleague struck up a conversation.

“This whole carbon tax debate is just silly don’t you think!”

“I KNOW!!!!! Everyone in this office is so misinformed.”

“Well, you know, they often are. Oh, it’s terrible, you know I mean the Australian economy is doing so much better than the rest of the developed world, we’re in such a good position.”

My best friend was so relieve to have found someone who had some sense....

“EXACTLY, I mean what’s the point of having this amazing economy and such high standards of living if there’s no...”

“Ohhhhh..... We don’t actually agree.”

Shelley’s made it out OK though, so no need to panic.

Xx Smelle