Talking about what you love

I sit here with a cup of decaf tea by my side, about to play some Broken Sword V (it is astonishing to me that they are still making new entries for my very first point and click game), and thinking about how, in June of this year, I'll be getting up in front of a room full of people at CRSF 2014 and telling them what I think about narrative in computer games. This will be the tenth time I speak at a conference, my fifth time internationally. My first conference was terrifying; it was at 'The Politics, Poetics and Philosophy of Battlestar Galactica', at Buckinghamshire Chilterns New University back in 2007. I was terrified; I had finished my undergraduate degree so recently, I hadn't even had my graduation ceremony yet. At the time I was working a job with only ten hours between shifts, proofing Masters' students dissertations, and trying to get two buses to my college library on my days off to read up on Judith Butler's identity theory. On top of that, despite owning season three of Battlestar Galactica, I hadn't finished watching it by the time I flew over. I did not have high hopes for how the paper would go. When I received the line up, I was even more distressed; I was speaking between two doctors! Seventeen years of speech and drama training almost went out the window when I got up there and tried to adlib some jokes, leading to one academic commenting on how I didn't like Baltar much. (For the record, I do like Baltar. He was just an easy target for me that day.)

But it went well. The question and answer session (which managed to turn all my internal organs to stone at the mention) was not as heinous as I had feared. I was among people who were genuinely interested in my ideas and in helping to improve them. I loved it. I was also fortunate enough to meet Roz Kaveney that day, though, to my shame, I did not discover the full awesomeness of the woman until much later and so did not appreciate her presence as I should have. A wonderful upshot of the conference was my eventual inclusion in Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: MissionAccomplished or Mission Frakked Up?, first with the brilliantly named 'I Frak, Therefore I am' (the editors' idea and I still adore it), and secondly with the anonymous 'Dreamers in the Night' (we were making a final five joke. I still like that too).

Since that fateful 2007, I have spoken in Ireland, England, and Scotland on European science fiction, slasher films and 70s feminist science fiction, science fiction within science fiction, Fringe, Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman, Lord of the Rings and Metropolis (which landed me in JRR Tolkien: the Forest and the City), science fiction in the Irish literary canon, and zombies. I have been very lucky; these conferences were all organised by brilliant, enthusiastic people, and I have fond memories of all of them -- though few things will top my delight at being called "Bold, in both senses of the word" by the conference organiser at the University of Aberdeen for saying Samuel Beckett's Endgame could be read as a post-apocalyptic text.

Thinking about this, and about how meeting people as interested in genre fiction as I am has helped my own critical thinking, I start to consider how I got into all this in the first place. It comes down to wanting to talk about the things I've read and seen, wanting to dissect them, find out what they're doing. One of the infinity of things I love about the Young Man is that he likes to discuss texts just as much as I do (and he's good at it too. I am very lucky). We could talk for the rest of our lives about the books, movies, and television shows we've seen, and never get tired of it.

My love of literary criticism also comes back, as so many things do for me, to Douglas Adams. I think I was about eleven or twelve when I found a tape in my house called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Having nothing better to do, I put it in and watched it. Despite only having the first couple of episodes, I relished it, but it stuck in my head not just because it was science fiction and it was funny. It stuck in my head because Adams spent the first few minutes making me laugh and then, just when I was comfortable, he gave us that terrible silence when the Earth was destroyed. And I couldn't understand how I felt about it. To some extent I still don't, which is why I research Adams's worldbuilding, and why I research other genre fiction. In the end, I want to know why I react the way I do to these texts.

There is, to me, something inherently beautiful about genre fiction, no matter the medium. It is an expression of something someone has created from themselves, and from the knowledge and experience they have to hand. It is crafting, weaving words and imagery into art. It is taking a journey and hoping the reader is willing to join them, walk the paths of this new world with them, to fill in the gaps they have left in the building with what the reader knows would be there. It is something potentially so fragile a single word could break it, and so strong that a million people will invest their time and energy into loving it. Speculative fiction is about the places which have never been, could never be, might never be; it is the child of imagination and intelligence and joy in different words, different images, different places. It is a celebration of hope, despair, joy, hatred, fear, faith, and wonder. While I accept not everyone will like it, it is genuinely hard for me to understand why anyone wouldn't. These are adventures the like of which we can never find for ourselves, paths we cannot take, roads which do not exist in our world. Who wouldn't want to walk down those roads?

So I go to conferences and I meet people who love these things, these imagined worlds and people, just as much as I do; who seek to find the meaning in the texts just as I want to, and to enjoy them as they do. It is, I have found, a nourishment for my soul, as doing what you love always is. If I could have a lifetime of talking about these things, I will find my life well-spent.

But in the meantime, I'm going to have my tea, and indulge my love of computer games. Because you can love a lot of things at once in this world. That's why it's the best one.

Proof it all happened!

Now that I am almost three weeks on from getting the head shaved, I decided it was finally time to put up the pictures! Proof I shaved all the hair off! Those of you who know me on Facebook will have seen these already, but now they have commentary!

The night before the big shave I took a picture for posterity:

I'll admit my hair wasn't that long to begin with, but looking back, it seems much longer!

The day dawned very cold, so I went to the World Record attempt properly prepared:

You can't see from this angle, but it's a Munster Rugby hat. And it is insanely warm. 

I liked the set up at the Mansion House as soon as I saw it:

Today FM is pretty cool, and so well-organised! I was through registration in just a few minutes.

Light blue shirts were our barbers, dark blue shirts were the people getting their heads shaved. We all got a number on the way in and had to find our seats and barbers.

About an hour in, this is what the place looked like:

Up on the stage you can see Ray D'Arcy of Today FM. He's a great presenter, a lot of fun and a consummate professional. He's one of those great interviewers who can both make you laugh and handles the most heartrending stories with empathy and tact.

Everything kicked off on air and online about 9 am, and at one point, I got to wave at the camera! Which is always fun to do, but it was number 61's idea (I was number 62). Then I got to meet the other 62, my barber! Here he is!

I think he was probably more nervous than I was (though as I had a cold, I'm not sure I quite believed it was already happening). He was a lot of fun, and did an amazing job, especially on my thick mop of hair!

This lady was the first person to get her head shaved. It was very brave of her, and we all got to cheer her on. The support and encouragement among everyone involved was probably the most inspiring part of the day. Everyone had a story to tell, a reason to be there doing it. It was beautiful and humbling. And at about 11.30, we got into our positions:

I told you he was more nervous than I was...

Or maybe not. And while it may not appear so, I assure you, I am squinting without my glasses.

There is an eleven minute video of the shave and a couple of minutes before it, which I will try to upload at some point, but I think I might break blogspot as it's so long. Not to mention it keeps showing on its side, so if someone can tell me how to fix that, it'd be great. Anyway, we were told beforehand that the lady from Guinness World Records would be walking around and seeing if anyone would be disqualified from the attempt. The previous record for most heads shaved simultaneously was 77 in Australia in 2013. There were 179 of us in the room waiting to be shaved, with as many barbers at the ready. At the end of 10 minutes (during which the clippers died and a kind person who'd finished passed over his), this is what I looked like:

Today FM even skipped the 12 o'clock news to keep the coverage going! And after a commercial break, we found out nobody had been disqualified! All 179 of us made it into the record books!

And then we were brought outside and had a big group photo taken of the barbers and shavees. And let me tell you, it was cold out. I was glad when I got to put on my hat again.

This is what the hall looked like after we were all done:

Never have I felt so glad not to be on clean up duty...

My hair's been growing in amazingly quickly. Here's what I looked like last Saturday, just over two weeks after it all:

It's even thicker now. Between online and offline donations, I've raised about €950. The generosity has been overwhelming, as has the support. Everyone has had something positive to say (some people have told me I look better now!), and I'm truly proud and honoured to have taken part in something so amazing. The donations page is still open, so if any of you have something to spare and would like to donate, go here: http://www.mycharity.ie/event/jennifer_harwood-smiths_event/. 

To everyone who has wished me well, and liked these pictures as they went up on Facebook (which made it so much easier to do), and all those who have donated, I can't thank you enough. It has been incredibly worthwhile. Cancer is a terrible thing, and all of you have helped towards fighting it. Quite a few people have told me I was very brave, and I suppose I was. But there are so many people so much braver, fighting such hard battles against so many different things going wrong in their lives, that a shaved head seems like the least I could do.

For those who want to learn more about the Irish Cancer Society and Shave or Dye, go here: http://www.cancer.ie/get-involved/fundraise/major-fundraising-drives/shave-or-dye. It is a fun and worthwhile cause, and even if I hadn't been part of the world record, I'd still have been proud to be a part of it. Making a bit of history was the icing on the cake though!