Sam van Zweden

Hey, E.M Forster, never realised what a funny man you were. Let’s be friends? Me, You, Borges, (as you’re both now my new “any two people, living or dead”), dinner date soon, yah?

I’ve been quite busy lately, now that we’re into the full swing of things at uni. It’s all quite good and interesting, but it means my Google Reader feed has suffered.

Only today did I realise that Ashley Capes was kind enough to post about me on his blog, pimping both myself and Verity La. Thanks, Ashley!

–> Have a look at Ashley’s poetry, it’s vivid and exciting.

I want to be Sarah Wilson. She writes about crazy, awesome stuff, and no matter what it is, I always want to read it. Partly a great writing voice, partly a great subject.

This semester for a course called “Literary Non-Fiction”, one of my assessment tasks is to write a piece of “immersion journalism” – this is where you get into something and fully immerse yourself. Most often, this involves fly-on-the-wall hanging around a certain thing or person for a long time, then writing about it. But one branch of this practice is “participatory,” and this is what Sarah Wilson does, and what I plan to do.

Last week, a friend’s status update appeared on my Facebook news feed expressing his disgust at the concept of a “No Gas Day”, encouraging people to get rid of their cars permanently, and live our their protest every day by riding or taking public transport.

This coincided with the week of the worst public transport rides I’ve ever been on – I don’t drive, I only PT everywhere. I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s rarely on time, and prone to changes, but what I can’t deal with is being as small as I am and being squashed by lots of people. Squashed between too many inconsiderate people at peak hour, I was very close to having a panic attack. When I got off that tram I was incredibly angry and upset, and thought “F*ck This. Clearly public transport isn’t a good idea either. What about riding?”

So, would riding be feasible? I’m going to Sarah Wilson it on up, and see if I can test this idea at its extreme, by ONLY riding for a week, and then writing about it.

It seems like a simple enough idea, which many people see as too hard. I want to know if it would be a whole lifestyle change (for me, who hasn’t ridden in about 8 years and is slightly overweight, pretty unfit), whether the attitude on the roads from drivers and/or other cyclists (is it cliquey?) is an obstacle, or if it really is as easy as everyone just jumping on their pushie. It’s an article I know I’d like to read.

Wish me luck!