A situation report

It's the end of the year and my flatmate and I are getting ready to move house together, again.

For the first time in longer than I can remember I am not studying and not working a day job.

Last week, I mentioned playing all-ages shows with my band in Palmerston North, Wellington, and Auckland and how I thought it was great that there was such a culture of inclusion in these cities.

Next year, Dunedin is going to lose the inimitable Chick's Hotel; our only long-standing, ambient and appealing music venue.

If there is something that really gets me going, it is the idea technology somehow makes people worse than they already are.

Even though I wrote my dissertation on the complicated relationship autobiography has to fiction, I haven't spent a lot of time reading autobiographies or memoirs.

Last week in this column I wrote about talent and how I think it is an unhealthy societal construct that stops people from trying or pursuing things they do not feel they have some ''natural'' aptitude for.

One of the most radical things anyone who criticises or participates in any art form can think is that talent is not inherent.

I am not an optimist.

Last week, my band played at the Dunedin Pride festival at Sammy's.

Yesterday, I submitted my honours dissertation.

In high school I had a biology teacher who believed life would be better and easier if we could photosynthesise.

Until this year I had always thought of myself as someone who could think and write very quickly when it came to academic work.

Recently, a radio station in the United Kingdom decided to change its name to Radio X, a radio station with a ''male focus''.

Last week it was announced that One Direction will be going on hiatus in March next year.

For the past week I have been almost exclusively sequestered away at my friend's new cafe.

On Saturday I graduated with my undergraduate degrees.

For some reason when you say men's rights activism to people who aren't familiar with the term, they think it is something good and not something crazy and terrifying.

Sometimes the internet is a dark and dangerous place.