I’m not sure what my supervisor thinks, but on the last day of last year I finally fulfilled one of my New Year Resolutions for 2008, which was entering Raw Comedy. Now I’m really scared because I’ve been placed in a heat in February.

For those unaware, Raw Comedy is like Idol for stand-up comedians. Like Last Comic Standing, but without the locked in a house with weird competitions and bitchy backbiting that is meant to make a reality television show oooh so popular. Just a series of gigs without fanfare and only the final heat is televised (and they only show contestants performing – they don’t make montages of their families and childhoods and all that crap).

I did it for a few reasons…
1. My friends think I’m funny.
2. People at conference presentations I’ve done have told me I’m funny.
3. People at conference presentations I’ve done have told me I’m so funny I should do stand-up, and get out of this research game.
4. Given I have been presenting my hard work as a researcher at these conferences, and all people want to tell me how funny I am, maybe I should give up the research game.
5. Last year I sang in public for the first time in ten years, which really scared me, so I want to make 2009 the Year of Living Dangerously.
6. I heard there would be beer at the gig.

If you’d like to come along it’s at the Evelyn Hotel in Fitzroy on 14 February at 1pm. You can email me for more information if you want, but I don’t have any.