Winning... Something. Anything.

Maybe it's all this election business that's been on of late, but for some reason I've got the hankering to win something.

It doesn't have to be a 77-seat majority in the Queensland parliament; I think that might be over-egging the pudding (for everyone, really).

But it's been... I don't know... years since I actually *won* anything. Like a prize, or a trophy, or a certificate.

I know it's trivial, and not necessarily reflective of your general success in life, etc etc, blah blah blah - but who doesn't like to be picked out for something ahead of a bunch of other people? I'm sure scientists work hard on weighty matters concerning the nature of the universe because they're passionate about learning and understanding, but come on. You think they've never once thought about a Nobel Prize? Even just a little?


Over the weekend, I scored a last-minute invite to The Molkies, a glamorous celebration of all things television, hosted by the enigmatic and eponymous Molk. 

It was a lovely opportunity to catch up with a lot of people I know vaguely well, and to connect names to Twitter avatars. It was also a great chance to wheel out this Maiocchi dress I picked up on sale on the first week of the campaign in Cairns. A Courier-Mail journo insisted I try it on; I would never have picked that style for myself. Then the Courier-Mail took their journos off the buses, which left me without solid fashion advice for the rest of the trail. Such a shame.

Anyway, check out this photograph by the very talented Heath Carney. You can barely even see the lack of sleep and four extra kilos I piled on during the campaign.

Of course, a split second after Heath's shutter snapped, my foot started cramping up, so it wasn't entirely a classy evening for Girl Clumsy.

Oh yeah, and I did my best Gwyneth Paltrow impression while mucking around with the Molkie statuettes.

But all this business of holding a statuette made me think about the last time I won something - anything - based on personal merit or achievement.

Possibly my greatest year for awards came in 1994.  First, I took out first place in second division breast-stroke at the intra-school swimming carnival; then I wound up being named Dux of Year Nine.

Sadly, a rapid deterioration in my relationship with maths meant I never took out Dux again, but I still managed to scrape academic prizes every year. In Year 12 I took out four different prizes, which meant I got to choose four different books from the big pile they'd spread on a table in the library, and bring the recipients in year-by-year to survey.

Because Year 12s got first dibs, I was able to take home a few beauties, including a great big book on the Third Reich, and the Hamlyn Book of Punishment and Torture (fully illustrated).

And yet, that same year, I was bopping around to Barbie Girl by Aqua.

I was nominated for a Clarion Award last year (that's a Queensland Media Award), but lost out to the gang from the ABC. The nice people at the MEAA then suggested I should enter the Walkley's, and after I'd stopped gut-laughing, I thought, oh well in for a penny, and sent the stuff in.

...anybody?

So buggerising around with a Molkie was really the closest I've been to any kind of gong since I saw Memoirs of a Geisha.

I've entered my website into the Sydney Writers' Centre Best Australian Blogs competition again this year, but once again there was no category that really captured the kind of nonsense I put on the internet, so I had to go with "Personal/Lifestyle" - even though I would highly recommend against following anything I do on a personal or lifestyle basis. It's simply too risky. You'll end up alienating people and suffering foot cramps.

So I'm stuck for ideas. Where to from here? What can I enter? How do I get my hands on a sexy certificate, short of printing it out myself at home?

And how about you? What awards have you received over the years?