Oops, they did it again

I'm procrastinating, yet again. Assignments, this time. In spite of being a temp employee of various companies over the past few weeks, and actually getting home at a reasonable hour thanks to only needing to catch a train, rather than adding a half hour on a tram to the end of that and walking for 10 minutes. The upshot is that I'm WAAAAY behind on where I should be for the research on my next assignment. And the 3 that I've got to get done before I go away in oh, say, UNDER A MONTH?!?!? I was working it out. I've got 5,500 words to write (and research) between now and then, and somewhere in there I have to be a bridesmaid (not nearly as challenging as being a bride) and pack up everything I own and get myself together to LEAVE THE COUNTRY. Stress? What stress?

And yet, here I am. Sitting on the internet, having caught up on my emails (who knew that so many could accumulate in 3 days?) and feeling energetic enough to read the paper - online, at any rate. I have no right to be anywhere near a computer right now. It should be all books and notes and post-its, but yet...here I am.

Somehow it's a good thing to, because I'm feeling all righteous anger right now. Some nutter in the government has decided to dig into the realms of the history book once again, to the part under the heading of "Things we should forget we ever did, or only remember with shame and downcast eyes". The subheading? It's called the White Australia policy, our very own version of aparthied, but more like a particularly selective bouncer at an exclusive night club. Yes, we'll make you sit a dictation test. What's that? You're a university educated englishman? well, you can take your test in French. Sorry? You come from the slums in the Philipines? How would you like a dictation test in, oh, say, Swahili? No jokes here, it did happen. And oh, what do you know, it looks like it's about to kick off again. http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/integration-the-key-howard/2006/09/15/1157827132026.html (and sorry, once again, still haven't re-learnt how to link. I should have known better than to do it once and then forget all about it for a while. Including forgeting where I found the directions last time) This time the test will be in English, granted, but fact about Australia? Have these people never watched one of the 6:30 current affairs shows? They're always showing high school kids who can't answer simple questions about Australia, like what's the capital city. (It is Sydney, right?!?) How on earth do they expect people who come from countries that probably have little enough idea about where Australia is, let alone what the hell fair dinkum means, to know the answers to their tests? Oh, I forgot. They give them 4 years to wait here and study for it. Reckon it'd take about that long too.

Does nobody realise that a pretty large percentage of the people already here come from backgrounds where they wouldn't be speaking english. And their cultures have all gone into the melting pot to make the culture that the terrified little weenies are trying to hold up as an example. Surely there should be room to include more ideas, not less, in the mix? Becuase if this type of draconian measure is needed to protect whatever it means to be Australian, perhaps the notion of Australian-ness is not as strong and as clearly defined as they'd have us believe, if it can't withstand a little challenge (which is arguable in its existence anyway) from other countries. Is it really worth propping up something that would be so ill-defined, something that clearly demands much more of its citizens than most already here would have a conception of? And who, exactly, has the right to try and define what the hell it is anyway? Ask anyone who lives here what it means to be Australian and you can almost guarantee that no two answers will be the same. It's not like we have a slogan (do we? do we have a slogan?) to rally us under the flag. There is no God Save the Queen (or the land of hope and glory - or it was once, anyway), Land of the free and Home of the brave, Liberte Egalite Fraternite, or any of that. Why? Because it hasn't evolved yet. And these things can't be forced. They have their own rhythm.

I'm as Australian as the next person. As far as I can tell, my newest non-Aussie ancestor was about 4 generations back - my grandfather's grandfather. (Given that the distinguished gentleman in question changed his name and appears to be untraceable, but by all accounts regularly recieved large amounts of money from Ireland, I doubt he would have been coming in through the legitimate channels that the government is so keen on these days. Although you never know. Who had large amounts of money in Ireland back in the 1850s when the famine was in full swing? hmm, English aristocracy, wasn't it?) As far as I can gather, that makes me pretty much true blue, fair dinks, dyed in the wool Aussie. I may be about to jet off overseas for a couple of years, but I'd like to be able to claim my nationality with some pride. I love being Australian, and I love the reputation we once had in the world at large. It might be a bit inaccurate (a few too many people think we have kangaroos as pets. Sorry to disappoint, but we don't, generally. Drop bears are for real though.) but it's generally likeable - a good thing when you're miles from home and all alone in the world. But right now? No. I don't want to endorse the actions of my government. Finally, I'm understanding what it must be like to have been an American who voted against George Bush. And I'm feeling sorry for them.

The moral of the story here? Never let a politician take a look at a history book. God knows, they might just think that some of the horrendous things that people have done to each other in the past were good enough to repeat again. For everybody's sake, don't let them uncover the books about the 1930s and 40s.

RSVP or else

There are not nearly enough words in the english language for tired. Sure, there are plenty of them, but none of them go nearly far enough - the only one that really comes close to the kind of exhaustion I and a few of my friends are feeling right now is probably 'dead'. And no, I don't mean dead tired. I mean the full body-stopped-functioning-I-can't-believe-I-can-still-type type of dead. Why the fatigue? It's called a hen's night...and it wasn't even one on an epic scale.

I did start early, I'll grant that. We sat down in a restaurant that had only just opened, to find that it was 5:30, and nobody was really hungry yet, in spite of deliberately having the tiniest lunch we could find in Strudels, and resisting the tempting array of tarts and cakes that the waitress had stragically placed our group next to (we'd been to bridesmaid dress fittings...Like we were going to indulge in junk food right away, knowing that if we gained weight in the next four weeks we'd be popping a seam???). The great thing about chinese food, though, is that you can stagger it's arrival. Or you can try to, at any rate. Sadly, we timed our departure not so well, because the gorgeous boys in suits were still sitting down when we left and we were forced to decline their polite bellows to know where we were going by the fact that our hen had no idea, and we wanted to keep it that way. Why oh why we never let her go down the stairs to the street first, I'll never know because, as it turned out, we had plenty of room to bring the boys along with us.

And now we get to the part that has left me exhausted and flat. Don't get me wrong here. Cruising around Melbourne in a party bus going to night clubs is quite fun. The "male revue" was kind of crap and corny, but it was giggleworthy to watch the shirtless barmen strutting around like they ruled the world, and kind of interesting to note that most of our group found it more amusing than appealing. And for the hen who was at least 5 months pregnant and giving the once over with a lip curled in distaste to anyone who happened to cross her path - when you're that preggers on your hen's night, and still have the nerve to stick an L-plate onto your veil, you'd better not be so disparaging to the other women who weren't so fortunate as to get up the duff and shotgun their partner down the aisle. You'd better think before you suggest that you're better than anyone in your skanky little skirt that looks more like you should have bought it for the baby you're carrying than anything a grown woman should be wearing. If you look like you should be working in the strip club next door, you have no right to criticise anyone else on their appearance...and that's the first of the nastiness out of the way. As much fun as all of that was - and incidentally, I'm wearing a veil next time I go out with all my single girls...I've never seen so many guys approaching any girl, however stunning - it was also a huge disappointment in many ways.

We sent out 38 invitations to the night. Of those, about 10 were for dinner alone, and the rest were for the nightclub tour. On the RSVP date, we'd heard from 2 people who weren't in the bridal party or related to the hen directly (and that's not counting her future in-laws). 2 people. Out of 38. And both of those 2 were no's. So we waited. We sent the hen to harass the people we didn't know. She harassed effectively and, while the dinner got down to 11 people, the bus was running a healthy 20 or so when I confirmed the booking earlier this week. We hadn't been able to extract the cash out of the people in advance like we wanted to, but we were fairly certain at least that most of those would turn up. Until we sat down to dinner and discovered that the in-laws weren't coming out after dinner afterall. 2 down. There'd been a couple of others pull out overnight as well, but we were still at a solid 15, not a bad number, overall. Then there was a phone call to me. Someone had to go into hospital - not something she could help, so I hold her absolutely blameless, especially since she and her friend, who also pulled out, were 2 of the only ones who had actually paid in advance. About 20 minutes after that, there was a text message to the hen, and another one was down. 12. The minimum number that the tour company quoted was 14, so I spent the better part of dinner getting fairly stressed about all of that. That's the problem when you organise things. You're never sure how they're going to turn out.

It should have been no surprise to me when one person simply didn't show up at all, without having contacted any of us to let us know. But somehow, it was annoying, and I'm pretty sure that the hen was more than a bit put out as well. She'd gone to a lot of trouble for the guest list, and has been to many parties that the pikers have thrown, being far too sweet to pull out without considerable anxiety and at least a phone call to apologise. So we ended up with 11 on the bus, which gradually dwindled to the core 5 by about 2 o'clock when we headed back to our hotel after a night that was, for us at least, fun, if somewhat quieter than the average hens night probably is. What can I say - we're not the most out there people in the world, and we still forked out a goodly amount of cash between the bridesmaids to make sure the night was as fun as possible for the hen. And it was. There were 5 very happy, tired girls who sat down on the couch in our plush hotel room to scoff our bedtime maccas before scooting off to our beds for some sleep, eternally grateful to the receptionist for giving us a midday checkout.

We loved that hotel. Great spot, luxurious rooms, bathrooms with everything you could need, pay TV,comfy beds, a balcony - all round greatness, we thought. Until this morning, that is. Two of the girls were in a bedroom without a window - not an issue, we figured, given the amount of time we planned on spending there, and that they were going to be asleep. We failed to notice the skylight right above their beds - the skylight without any kind of blind. They woke up at 6am to blazing sunshine and, for obvious reasons found it difficult to go back to sleep. At least one of them is currently comatose on her couch at home by now.

The rest of us were split between 2 front rooms, overlooking a not too busy CBD street. There was a bit of noise last night from a club up the road but, given some of the noise we're used to, nothing too serious. Until they decided to start resurfacing the street at 8am that morning. We hadn't gone to sleep until well after 3 last night, and we got woken up by machinery at 8am? Surely there are laws against that kind of thing! If not, there should be. There should not be noisy work like that on the streets in areas where people may be sleeping any time before midday. It's hardly fair on the people who've been carousing until the wee sma's and are no longer the 18-19 year olds who can handle those sorts of thoings without really blinking an eye. We don't get hang overs yet, and can recover fairly well, if only we have enough sleep! Even the full cooked breakfast that we had wasn't enough to wake us properly from the sleep deprived stupor that we seemed to sink into within half an hour of gathering in the living area.

The only reassurance we had was that we had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the night, and that we were satisfied how it had all turned out. The hen may have some lingering hurt about all the rejections of her party, but the people she's clostest to were all there for her. And the others? Well, they jsut got themselves dis-invited to the wedding!!!

Procrastination and other skills that don't appear on a resume

I've been seriously lax abut posting anything up here recently. There are many reasons for this. I had one entry all set to go, and almost all typed out. It was funny, witty - all-round hilarious, in fact. But it wasn't to be. Momentous events overtook my study of the life of one of the "beautiful people", and the world of blogs was doomed never to hear about my friend and her ability to make everything seem minor compared with the importance of hr glamorous existence, if only because it turns out that there is one thing that can make even that excitement seem insignificant - pure, incandescent, incoherant, blithering rage will, in fact, rule out pretty much any other thought, feeling, emotion. It will take over the world, for however long it takes to find your way through the red fog of "He must die"-ness. The he in question is the unjust, unreasoning fool who decided to terminate my employment contract for the most ironic of reasons - chat room usage.

Now I've never made any secret of the fact that I use the internet. But chat rooms are the one thing I have never visited while at work, and haven't used out of work hours since i finished high school many many years ago. So it was understandably devastating to lose my contract, a mere 7 weeks before I go away, as well, for something that was clearly a made up excuse. The rage really started to kick at the point where I realised that not only was I not going to get a chance to defend myself (he referred all my protests to the recruitment agency I was working through, an agency that he hadn't informed of any reasons for my finishing, and who could do nothing about it either). The part that really pushed me over the edge, though, was the fact that this was all done over the phone on a Tuesday, at about 2:30. So not only did he not have the guts to do it to me face to face like every other firing I've ever had, but he made me work through Monday, without givng me the option of going out and drowning my many sorrows.

So now I've entered the strange world of the office temp, a place where you turn up in new and exciting workplaces, only to find that you're getting paid fairly good money to twiddle your thumbs and raise the art of procrastination to never before seen levels. This is the first day where I've been able to speak (well, type) about what's been going on without bursting into a towering pyre of anger (today it's only simmering) and actually have internet access that is usable. I don't count last weeks posting in a role where I spent the day printing out the company web site. About 700 pages and a couple of hundred dollars later, and I go back there next week to finish the job. The irony was that, in spite of "working" on the internet that day, I had no access to anything else. So here I am, waiting patiently for the phone to ring, and wondering how I'm going to fill in the next four days here, questioning why it is that I went to unveristy when I could have the cruisiest job of all time just waiting right here, with half decent pay to boot. Why did they always discourage procrastination when I was younger? It is, apparently, a marketable skill - the ability to appear busy without actually achieving anything. Thankfully I have much practise at this, and can bluff my way through the rest. I'm just wondering why I never thought to add it to my resume under skills...