A Tale of Two Parties

Once upon a time, in a big metropolis very far from home, a twenty-something girl had a dilemma. In the time she'd been in the far far away place, she'd managed to find herself two groups of friends, each very different from the other.

There was the group who she met in the place she went to everyday in order to get things like food, rent, and clothes. They were, generally speaking, nice enough people who were fun to spend lunchtimes and the occasional weeknight with. They shared interests like shopping, and going to bars, and all came from places a lot closer to where the girl herself came from. She liked them, but could admit to herself that it was possibly because she was glad of the company and, if she were at home, she wouldn't spend nearly as much time and effort with them.

The other group was made up of people the girl saw on the weekend when she went to chase a small ball and hit it with a long stick. They were a diverse, friendly, rowdy bunch, who appear on Facebook with loads of pictures of them in the pub after a match, and very little record of the fact that they turn up for games at all. They are more like the friends the girl left behind her at home, and accept people as they are, without judging clothes (the more for the fact that they stay in the uniform of the club), or any actions or stories not related to the activities and time they share together.

The girl was quite plesed with herself for finding two such nice groups of friends, and for doing it in such a way that there should never be any clashes in the demands they made on her time. Until, on a day like today, there were two parties for her to choose from.

On the one hand, there was the fancy, glitzy party, themed on James Bond, which would require the girl to go shopping for a new outfit with money that she would rather spend on other things, in a place that was, at best hideously expensive, and probably not her scene. The people were sure to be nice, and the surroundings lush. On the other hand, however, was the gathering around the corner from home, which was certain to be a far less lavish affair in far more relaxed circumstances, with little enough class to go round between the many who were going to be there. In it's favour, however, she could almost guarantee that, based on past experience, she would have a good fun night and be able to find her way home. What to do, what to do? Especially given that she somehow made it seem to both parties that she was going to the other one first, but would be turning up to theirs a little late, but better than never?

It came down to the people involved in the end, she had to admit. She saw the people from one party every day. She knew she should go to that party - especially since it was in honour of two people entering the third decade of their existence. But she knew that she wouldnt be going to Covent Garden tonight. She knew, deep in her heart of hearts, that come tonight, she'd be finding her way around the corner and into the basement. And in all honesty, she was quite happy with the idea. It was, afterall, a far better party she was going to than she had been to in London before...

The Magnificent Sevens

Somewhere, deep within the heart of London, there is a hockey team that is made up of the players rejected by the other teams in the club. This team, the sevens - as opposed to the other six ladies teams - sits somewhere in the bottom half of the league table, and are destined to remain there. This team is not what you'd call skillful. There are plenty of players who hadn't played until the start of this season. Others hadn't played for years. A few are juniors, considered too young by the other teams. Then there are the ones who are neither fit enough or skilled enough to make the grade for the higher teams. There's one who enters the beauty pagents around her home area, and missed a match one week to compete in the Miss Mid Cheshire contest. Others are students with free time to spare - and energy to burn. Then there are the professionals, women in their mid- to late twenties who join the club for the social side of it. One is a teacher, another working towards becoming one. They come from all over, not just England, but the world. Apart from my little branch of the antipodes, there's a Kiwi, an American and a German-born Belgian. There isn't one who is actually born and bred in London. But for all the differences and the fact that, until a couple of months ago most of us didn't know each other, probably wouldn't have wanted to, somehow, out of the trainwreck of our playing ability, a team spirit has been created.

On the field, we are generally a disaster zone. We've won 3 matches this season, much to the surprise of many people who witnessed the early attempts of the team, in the days when they were struggling to pull together enough players for a team and managed to set a new club record for the greatest losing margin. Given the long history of the club, it would surprise a few to know that never before had there been a 20-0 loss. There has been a marked improvement in the playing ability of the team, but the tendancy to collapse in the face of a slight challenge from the opponent means we tend to lose matches by fair margins. Like last Saturday, where the final score was 5-1.

For all that now, we've become a tight unit, defensive and agreeably turn up at the clubhouse week after week to commiserate over our latest loss or, on the rare occasion, to celebrate with the other victorious teams the club is more famous for. And at last we've discovered what it is that the team is good at. We can't dribble the ball, most of us can't hit further than we could run in about 2 seconds, a couple have glory written all over them, but haven't discovered how to pass to a team mate. We can't tackle, we barely manage to score. We scrap, we struggle, we follow the ball like 10 year olds, crowding each other and on the odd occasion even tackling each other. But we become a tight fighting machine in the pub that doubles as a clubhouse. We can outlast, out party, and out talk any other team. We can get to the bar with more ease than any other, and we're generally among the last ones there. We're very proud of the fact that, when we lost 15-0 to the team above us at the club - the sixes - who are also in our league, we managed not to deck any of the nasty pieces of work who celebrated each goal with such harshness during the match. Instead, we merely stole the dice that provide the entertainment at the after-match gatherings, and proceeded to sit around with 2 of the guys teams who were also there. We kept it nice, being more honourable in defeat than some of them had been in victory. And here's why.

Sure, we all have a bit of a competitive streak in us. We like to win as much as the next person. But we're about more than that as a team. We're there for the fun. A game is no longer fun when it turns nasty. When our opponents on the weekend turned nasty and tried to take down our 15 year old juniors, we rose above it. We might have been outclassed in the stick work, but we were determined to enjoy ourselves in spite of them. It might have been nasty to laugh when one of their players got a bloodied nose in a collision - OK, it was - but the accusations being flung at our captain that she's done it deliberately, and had elbowed the girl (who'd already pushed over the two smallest and youngest players in our team) were laughable. Captain courageous was nursing a bruised bum from her part in the collision, and still has no idea how the other girl's nose ended up hitting her with that much force. After all, she was clearly not looking to see who was running up behind her when she had the ball and was headed up the wing. So laugh we did, and then promptly named the bum in question as man-of-the-match afterwards. We could see the funny side, even if our overly aggressive opposition couldn't. We giggled all night about it, to tell the truth, and we weren't the only ones. And, with six of us still in the clubhouse and gearing up for Karaoke after 11 that night, in the long run, we were the winners. Arms around each other, collapsing in giggling heaps, we all looked after each other, we planned excursions outside of the hockey world, and we supported and encouraged each other. So, regardless of the result on the pitch, the sevens are, unarguably, magnificent.

Snow falling on wellingtons

The snowfall last week, followed by sunshine on the weekend, meant that the full gamut of English winter weather was experienced this week. The famous English weather, with rain, and snow and fog and brief sunshine. The snow was even more impressive than the last fall, lasting through into the day, long enough for snowball fights in lunch breaks. There were still lumps of snow three days later around where the kiddies had made snow men. Some of the folorn little heaps still had carrots sticking out of the top, the remains of Frosty's nose.

Sunday saw a brief interval of sunshine that had me heading for the park while my flatmate was off testing the waters with her new boy. Heading towards Regent's Park and Primrose Hill, I discovered a breed of Englishman that I had thought was extinct. The wellington-boot wearing wannabe country squire who walks through the city parks as though walking through the grounds of his country estate. It almost comes as a surprise not to see a rifle broken across their elbow. A large hound-type dog usually accompanies them, dirtying up their tweeds and macs with its boundless enthusiasm for chasing things. These are hunting dogs that never get to run in the large expanses of the country, doing the tasks for which they were bred. Instead they live in apartments in the leafy belts of London.

The sunshine brings them out, along with their families. Women drive - not push, it's definitely driving - three wheel prams (or rather, since I'm in England, pushchairs) alongside, clearing a swathe with their inability to steer the large machines holding their pastic-wrapped off spring. With the weather so uncertain, the plastic covers remain on the prams just in case. Laarger childran trot alongside with balls and boots on, jumping in the mud puddles that line the footpaths, much to the disgust of their designer-clad grand mothers, walking serenely in thier wake. On the path, but gazing wistfully at the mud and longing to join his grandchild, the patriarch of the family strolls along, occasionally throwing something for his faithful hound to chase in the grassy expanses of the park. The way they walk, it seems as if they own the place, lords of all they survey. They certainly never give way to the mere pedestrian coming the other way on the narrow path who was foolish enough to think that normal confortable walking shoes would do the job. I had thought they were a dying breed, but a walk in the park on Sunday reassured me that English society hasn't changed in its essentials for centuries.

Another thing I'd thought was lost forever is spring. And there are hints that it is on its way. Yes, there was snow a week ago. Yes, it's been cold. Yes it's been miserable. But the bulbs are coming up, the magnolia trees are covered with buds, camelias are in flower and there are hints of green starting to show on the trees. It's still light-ish when I leave work, or not quite dark at any rate. There is hope for a time of spring and light and, most importantly, sunshine. And I long for it. Two winters in a row is more than anyone should have to bear. The fact that I'm in the process of planning two summers in a row in 2008 is irrelevent at the moment. I crave summer, in spite of the dire warnings of stifling heat and humidity. I want warmth! And now, with the increasing hints of greenery, I see a chance that I might make it through. But not before I do the dinner dishes...Sadly, not even Spring can save me from housework.

Rites of passage

It's the middle of cold and flu season over here, and if the amount of coughing that goes on is any indication, there's a lot of it around. I have my own share - and possibly someone else's as well, I'm thinking. So I spent yesterday sitting (lying) on the couch watching DVDs that were sent over to me from home. Talk about good timing. Last time I had a cold, I kept it a secret from Mum an Dad so they wouldn't worry, only to find that they had a bigger secret in Mum's slipped disc in her back that landed her in hospital and still has her on pain killers. I got away with that one, but did think to ask them for some of my comforting honey and eucalyptus lollies that I suck like there's no tomorrow when I get a cold. It's a ritual. And they arrived here at 9am yesterday morning, just in time to get me through the vileness of this cold. Which made me think. there are so many rituals people have to get them through whatever it that's going wrong - or right - in their lives.

How many people out there clock watch when they just need to make it through another day at work? How many have a little tick, a twitch, an itch? And how much of that goes on around me in any one day? I know I'm not the only person in my office who isn't exactly committed to a career in architecture. Having seen the face of a visiting friend fall when I couldn't manage to name a single building in London since 2000, apart from the infamous gerkin, that was worth visiting, I know there are some out there who are devoted to their career. My flatmate, an accountant, is not passionate about her work in the same way, but she clearly enjoys it. Her perfectionism drives her to do the job well. There are plenty of people out there who don't feel like that. I happen to be one of them. I've tried to get her to strive for mediocrity (it's far easier to achieve, and, when you reach your goal, can be just as satisfying, I promise) but she continues to aim for the impossible. That's what gets her through. Striving to make no mistakes. I just try not to make too many that will cause problems for the occupants of the building, whoever they may be. Mind you, doesn't mean I think I catch every mistake I make. In fact I know I don't. Somehow it doesn't worry me too much, because the thing that gets me through my days at work is knowing that the pay off is being able to go away.

One of my friends at home in Australia is falling back on her saving routines right now, I'm guessing. She's just found out that her boyfriend of more than six years, who she'd figured she was going to marry and had started looking for houses with, was cheating on her. Several times, actually. It's hard when you find out this information and you're on the other side of the world. You want to be there for your friend. I'm fairly certain she's needing her friends right now. I know they went through the ritual sorrow-drowning last Saturday. In a twist of fate I was out drinking at the same time for at least part of it. She's going through several other time honoured routines for getting over a scumbag scoundrel of an ex. She's circling the wagons of family and friends, and purging her life of everything relating to him. She's also planning the soul refreshing break of a girly holiday, and adopting a new motto for her life, and in particular her relationships with men - play with them, then through them away. I'm not sure I agree with the last bit, but the spring cleaning part could help.

At the other end of a relationship, my flatmate is relying on rituals to help her know what to do with the world's slowest moving romance. It's kind of cute and old fashioned that it was a huge step for this brand new shiny almost couple to hold hands. Not something that happens very often in this day and age (and listen to my grandmothers' voices coming out of my keyboard right there). But it suits the two of them. It's like a sweet old school courtship ritual, or rather a dance, where each has to be aware of which steps the other is taking. The only difference to the centuries old routine is that it's not lead solely by the man, but rather they take it in turns to advance by millimeters. And it's the rituals that let each of them - each as shy and sweet and uncertain as the other - know that the other is not running away, or just a friend. They've finally gotten to a point where I think they feel a little more comfortable together, and it's a relief to my ears not hearing about it all the time to be honest. But that was just another ritual that was repeated with the agonising attention to detail of the perfectionist. Every move, every word, every interpretation had to be gone over in infinite detail to make sure that nothing was missed. And here we are, with the two of them planning a night out for Valentine's Day. And another ritual to see them through the next phase of their relationship.

Who's the slacker now, then?

OK, so I've been at best lax in my responsibilities as a blogger. Or maybe even worse than that, maybe I've been lackadaisical. I'm fairly certain I'll be forgiven for this, based on an explanation of what's been going on. In short: I've been working. Working on actual work-related things, that I get paid to do, and am expected to do on a regular basis. Shocking, I know, but somehow releiving to know that I can make it through days (alright, weeks) at a time without coming onto a blog site. Or rather without writing on a blog site. Because I have been checking them out. Other peoples. In my lunchbreak, of course. I'd never, ever be so irresponsible as to do it during work hours. Never.

Friends back home will tell of how I've been curtailing my emailing activities as well. I still haven't gotten around to sending the promised photos of snow in London from the freezing cold day last week when the white stuff stuck around long enough to coat everything in a beautiful white cloak, covering all the dirty smuttiness for which London is known in a veil that concealed all the harsh ugliness of even the nearby council flats. I have some pretty ones, and I will get around to it, I promise. Honest. Sometime soon. Really.

Mind you, there have been ventures internet-wards. There was the foray that netted me a trip to Dublin for St Patrick's Day in March. There was the research I've done to figure out if I can afford a trip on the Trans Siberia railway. There was submitting my invoice for my work each week. Then there were the emails with an immigration expert who told me that I don't qualify for the better visa that I wanted to get - just as well, because this way I feel much better about not even considering paying out the £1600 necessary for it, once I'd picked myself up off the floor, that is. Even better though was the email from another friend that informed me of other important information. Turns out the little restriction in my visa about only working for 12 months of the 2 years I'm allowed to be here actually means I have 365 working days at my disposal. Not 12 months. Not 52 weeks. 365 days of actual work. The world is my oyster with that kind of information! The things I could do with both the money earned and the time I'll be over here - the mind bogles in a most pleasing way at the thought of it. It's almost reached the point where I have so many options I don't even know which ones to daydream about anymore. When day to day routine saps my energy and gets me down, do I look at flights home via the Americas? Or do I see about a week in Scandinavia? And I have to wonder...

You see, routine is an isidious thing that can drain your energy and your will to fight. I know. My routine here has become so solid that I'm almost enjoying the daily round of work, losing hockey matches at weekends, and commiserating with the team in the pub afterwards, then recovering from the wake on Sunday. I see the same people every morning on my way to the Tube. There's the father and son who sing songs and play as they walk the other way. There's Zombie man, who both looks and moves like an undead creature from a horror movie, right down to the greying complxion and the stiff arms held at an unnatural angle as he walks. The girl who has the same coat as me, but never as many good hats. I see my money leak from my bank account each week with no idea of where the hole is so I can plug it and have some quality shopping time with the little bit that gets saved. And the upshot of this? I'm in London on a working holidy maker visa. I talk to my grandmother on the phone and get told to enjoy my holiday. But the way my life is going, as much as I'm not hating my existence at the moment...

I really need a holiday...

Slim was wrong

Slim Dusty once sang that there was "nothing so lonesome, so morbid or drear, than to stand in the bar of the pub with no beer". Well, it seems I've found a more morbid and drear place. In fact, I've found several. I'm in one of them right now. It's called an office on Friday afternoon, when you would rather be curled up at home in bed dealing with the cold you know is coming.

Another one is London in winter. Don't get me wrong. London is a great city to live in for the lifestyle. There's always something going on, a place to be, people to meet. It's always interesting, even if it's just in observing the nightly fights on the late night tubes, or the way cricket disappeared almost completely from the newspapers once it became clear that the Australians were going to wipe the floor with the English (5-0; it doesn't get any sweeter than that). But London is, for the most part, not a healthy city to live in. It's filthy for a start. Being the victim of a cold, my flatmate has taken to inspecting the products of blowing her nose lately and informing me of the exact shade of green. From my own certain knowledge, there is no way any of what she tells me can be entirely true, because nothing comes out of anybody's nose over here without it being tinged with black thanks to the disgusting air quality. It's a brave soul indeed who drinks water straight from a London tap, as well. Personally, I won't even cook with it, because of the scummy residue I've found in saucepans that were filled with boiling tap water. And what it does to wash your hair in it is not to be thought of. So London is still the dirty, filthy metropolis it was in Dickens' time - well, OK, maybe not quite so pungent, but certainly not what I'm used to coming from the lovely environs of Melbourne.

And then there's the London weather. Anyone with half an eye on global events in the run up to Christmas would be aware of the London fog that had British Airways cancelling over 800 flights. It was labelled as a freezing fog. I never understood what that expression meant until about December 20th. Everything does freeze over, and you simply can't see. Anything. Ferries were cancelled, flights cancelled, trains delayed, traffic jammed, and footpaths icy. Actually, I have a theory on this last point. I firmly believe that the current trend for ballet slipper style shoes originated in London, after women rebelled against the damage inflicted by walking down the at best uneven, at worst downright hazardous London pavements in high heels. They simply grew sick of the sprains (not to mention the heel replacements) and decided that, in the face of the impossibility of resurfacing every London footpath with a level, even paving, they would have to take matters into their own hands and begin wearing sensible shoes. Mind you, I believe it was my sensible shoes I was wearing a couple of weeks back when I rolled my ankle on an uneven lip between pavers. And that was without factoring ice. Perhaps the unevenness does have its advantages though. It certainly stops the slip of your foot as ice threatens to take it from under you. And it helps your ice skating technique no end. I'm not so certain on the upside of the dog poo scattered across the pavements of Europe in abundance, however.

So there you have it, the sad truth about London. It's a dirty decrepit town, kind of like the family member you keep secret because, well, their personal hygiene doesn't quite meet the usual standards. But at the same time, you grin and bear it when you visit them, especially when you're young. Why? Why does that old, disgusting uncle hold such allure? Because it's jsut so bloody fascinating to hear what they have to say, to see what the life that you dare not lead yourself is like. And, in most respects, London holds a similar interest. The dignified skirts of old Melbourne have nothing on the brash, baudy tales hidden in London. The vile weather - actually, this is probably the same in Melbourne - has lead to the development of an interior life, richer culture. Alright, that might not be true. But there is a pub culture to die for over here, and surprisingly friendly and tolerant locals. And it's so close to so many other places, that most Australians will put up with the conditions for a while, just for that chance to see Europe without flying for 24 hours. And there you have the allure of London to the Aussie traveller. Combine that with a chance to reinvent yourself as something, someone completely new (because, after all, who really know you over here?), and its irresistible for most. Although i do wonder what it would look like without the rain to wash it clean so often. England with an Australian climate? Unthinkable...

What a difference a day makes

The difference between Monday and Tuesday, and it's not what it usually is. Yesterday morning, I woke up in Lyon, France. It was, admittedly, a filthy disgusting hole of a place (I have the mozzie bites up my arms to prove it), but it was holiday, it was away, and it was New Years Day - public holiday! I'd been travelling since the 23rd, seeing exotic locations I'd never been to before. I had cramps in my calf muscles from all the climbing. For anyone unfamilliar with Lyon - hich will probably be most people, I admit - most of the city is beautifully flat, stretching between the Rhone and the Saone rivers. This was not the part that our hostel was in. Behind the heart of the old town, a steep slope climbs its way up towards an eleborate church. Halfway up this slope, there are roman ruins. There are great views over the whole of the city from the top, assuming pedestrians survive the climb to the top which leaves fit healthy teenagers (who had the nerve to laugh at their red faced elders) panting for breath half way up when said red faced elders went past them at a steady pace. And shortly after that half way point was the entrance to the mankiest hostel in France. The home of the cold shower in a cupboard, of rooms with no sound proofing whatsoever, of breakfast served without any reference to such luxuries as plates. There's no other reason for me to complain about Lyon though. And even the hostel had its good points. Their names were Rick and Martin, and they were from New Zealand. Nice boys, and their friend Josie, who told us about a park that kept us busy for a few hours. Who would have thought 2 adults could have so much fun on a little kids train? One of them also provided the inspiration for our hours of trekking around Lyon, waiting for a crowd to gather near the ferris wheel for the countdown to midnight. It doesn't matter that there was no official countdown. We had fun. And so did the french men who kept trying to talk to us until our preoccupation with (and squeals of delight over) fireworks proved too much for our limited french to overcome.

And then there was today. After a Christmas in Paris, climbing a fog-shrouded Eiffel Tower, a couple of days seeing the beautiful sights of Geneva, and a luxurious couple of days by the Mediterranean in Toulon, it was an understandable shock to the system to find myself back at work this morning. I wasn't the only one though. Apparently, it was the biggest sick day on record in London. I'm sure they were all at home clinging blindly to the memory of the sun they saw on thier break. I know I was having vivid flashbacks to Toulon, and the luxury of going without not only thermals, but scarf, gloves and hat as well.

Mind you, I was also incredibly glad when I woke this morning to find that I had my own room to myself again. After the succession of increasingly batty room mates between Paris and Geneva, the solitude was almost divine, in a way that none of the tourist infested churches I visited in my travels could manage. From the Australian whose voice had an uncanny similarity to tha of Kath Day-Knight, of Kath and Kim fame, to the Turkish woman who had found her way to Switzerland, ostensibly for medical treatment, and carried her worldy goods to the toilet with her every fifteen minutes or so, or even the lovely American girls who checked into our hostel room at the sensible time of 4am on New Years Day, we've had it all. Lucky for us, the sights were so beautiful, and the people we met away from our rooms so lovely to us, that the trip was a dream.

But for all that, it felt like it never happened within about 2 minutes of stepping out the front door this morning. My empty bag might reproach me from it's resting place in front of my wardrobe, my photos might scream at me from the camera to be uploaded onto my computer, but the holiday already seems so long ago that I can barely muster the energy. And so the countdown to the next trip begins. A day ago? A lifetime more like.

Notes from a distant past

I finally begin to have adventures worthy of the name, and suddenly lose the impulse to post details of what's been happening to me! Ralphie, I know you're disppointed that there hasn't been an update on here for an eternity, so if nothing else, the email prompted me into action. That and the fact that I just finished reading a book, and have hours of boredom stretching out in front of me tonight without any other reading material, and nothing to do but write. There might even be an addition to someone else imaginary's adventures...but only if I can wrest my notebook back from my flatmate who currently has it by her bed. But enough digressing. Adventures.

I got back from Bath today, having spent a very busy week running around all over the place. There's been a few things happen in between that and the last post that I'll gloss over, but it's all too far in the past now, and feels like a lifetime ago. There's been the inevitable bouts of homesickness, helped out by supportive emails from Nad to remind me that things could be far worse - I could be stuck back there in the middle of all our now married or otherwise hooked up friends, a solitary single doomed to fit her social life around that of her friends partners...From some fates I have been temporarily spared.

There have equally been many trips to various pubs. I did drink a lot the night that Joel died. Far more than was good for me. It was as much the shock as anything, and to quiet the little voice in my head that was reminding me of all the things we'd planned, but now wouldn't get to do, all the little things that went to make up him being Joel. It's been a rough time for the people who knew him, but since that night I've kind of been insulated from that to a certain extent. I wasn't in Melbourne to go to his funeral, although I did hold my own moment of silence for him at the time. Being over here, it's not going to hit for a while, really. And as one person pointed out, with him living in America for the past while, it's more like he's gone on a holiday for a while than anything. But at the same time, there are things that make me think of him. Seeing a nose-to-tail accident on the side of the highway, even though it's just a minor fender bender; seeing what was supposed to be Miami airport in the latest installation of the James Bond movies; hearing Jesse's Girl. I didn't mean to write about all of this again, but I guess it's part of what's been going on in the past month and a half or so, so it's hard to leave it out all together.

Lots has happened since then though. I kind of needed to get out and about a lot for the weeks after that. I was going to pub with the friendly people from work - there will be more on that later, I'm sure. I went out to see Footloose at the theatre one night. I've been shopping as much as I could afford to. I've been to the movies a bit, been out to dinner, been to a work Christmas party, started playing hockey for what was - but somehow no longer is - the worst team in London, who like to party after games, I've been away for a weekend, and I've planned a holiday at Christmas. I've been ice skating without falling over once, much to everyone's shock, but none more surprised than me!. I've mailed presents to the other side of the world, and recieved them in return. It's been a hectic time, accompanied by far more chocolate than is good for me. I've mad new friends at work and at hockey. I've seen pretty boys, I've flirted shamelessly with some not so pretty boys. I've only bought 3 rounds of drinks since I got here, and discovered that chivalry is alive and well in certain parts of London. in short, I've been living life as much as I can, trying to make the most of the experience over here while my life is basically on hold, justifying selling pretty much everything I own to get here, without blowing the budget completely and ending up hopelessly in debt. I'm trying to cram everything in!

I've taken photos, I've created videos, I've written cards, I've tried to keep a journal but gave up after 2 entries, and only one of them finished. I'm so busy that I barely have time to sit still, but have somehow made my way through a surprising number of books.

I've experienced the crush of the London Underground at peak hour, the wilting, breath-stelaing humidity of being crammed into unventilated tunnels in a train packed to bursting with people dressed for weather at least 10 degrees colder than it is in there. I've been on London's busiest shopping street in the bustling Christmas rush, and had the thrill of knowing that I have finished by shopping, only to remember that there's that one extra person who still needs something. There's been the obigatory jokes about Australia losing the last Ashes series from the English, only to have that turn to silence when it became clear that they were outclassed in the first test, and let themselves lose the second. I've written emails home asking for things I couldn't bring in the 20kg luggage limit (that I managed to exceed by 13kg). I now have my Blundstone boots firmly attached to my feet, with my footy socks underneath. I'm almost used to an archaic flat without either a TV or a microwave (although i do tend to forget to get meat out ahead of time to defrost; a low heat ove does wonderful things if you give it a chance, just don't forget that freezer bags and ovens don't mix!), and am thinking of taking up crafts that I attempted before but got quickly bored with to distract me from the fact that it gets dark here at 4pm right now. I carry a brolly everywhere I go. I mimic those around me enough that my flatmate insists I'm developing an english accent, only to hear me drop back into the broadest imaginable Australian strine.

I've been drunk. I've been sober. I've laughed. I've cried. In short, I've been so busy with the big adventure of living - includling the continuing gut-wrenching boredom of a new daily routine - that I barely have time to think about maintaining a blog most of the time. Things would probably be different if I could get into this from work though, so we'll see what happens. In the mean time, I'll jsut have to settle for getting through my day with emails from anyone and everyone, whether they be across the office or across the world. Contact is the anchor that keeps me from drifitng into homesickness!!! Contact and constant distraction. If I keep moving, I might forget that there's half a world between me and my home. the speed with which time is moving right now also makes me think that my time over here, which stretched out forever before I left home, will be all too short in the living of it. So I'm trying, desperately, to make the most of it, and to imprint it all on my memory. Sadly, it seems to float in one side and drift out the other, so this is about all I can offer by way of an update right now, a photo of Regent St by Christmas by night!

Joel...

The world stopped today, or it should have, because Joel isn't in it anymore. The guy with the filthiest sense of humour, the biggest heart, the loudest quickest laugh, the cheekiest smile, the most alive person I know, is no longer, and it kills me to write that, because it still doesn't seem real. No car crash could wipe out that life, surely? And now the wine bottle isn't deep enough because I'm here, and he's not.

He's not in America, which he has been for the past year or so; he's not back in Melbourne, watching the football, or flying a plane; he's nowhere. It's too soon for me to know details - apparently even his family don't know for sure what happened yet - but I know enough. Joel has died and an enormous gaping hole has opened in the world where he used to be. There will be no more emails filled with innuendo and jokes. He will never make the flight he had booked to go home in a couple of weeks. I will never get to be hown the sights in America by him - no more night of debauchery like we had planned for a weekend in New York come February. There is, in short, no more Joel, and I am desolate, and alone with nobody here who knows him who can tell me about the way his mouth would quiver and twitch when he was telling some story that he knew would make us giggle like school girls. There will be no more great parties thrown by Joel, no more hilarious speeches that have been havily edited by various friends wot make sure that he doesn't embarass anyone - most of all himself - too much. The world must surely stop now that Joel has gone from it.

I've only just heard, it's true. Most of this is an effort to convince myself that it's true, that he won't be popping over the Atlantic and lobbing on my doorstep like he was threatening to do in his last email. His mother, who had planned a party for his trip home in a couple of weeks, is left to contact the friends on the guest list and tell them what has happened while we, his firends, the people who grew up - at least in height - with him, the biggest kid of them all, try to come to grips with the idea that what she tells us is most certainly true. And somewhere out there, his American wife, married in a whirlwind romance so typical of Joel who always fell hard and fast for any girl, has to fill in the details for his far too distant famly and friends while dealing with her own grief. My heart goes out to anyone who knew him, whose life will always be that little sadder now he's gone, but that lot brighter for having knon him in the first place.

I've run out of my own words. I'm sure Joel, the king of the paraphrasers, won't mind if I resort to a quote to fill the emotions that threaten once more to swamp me with tears. Because whilst he wasn't my north my south, my east or my west, he was a whole chunk of my life that is now gone. And given that he was a pilot, it's only right that the planes should circle in the sky and proclaim the news, he is dead, however long he will live in memory. In the mean time I'll just keep hoping that, somewhere, someone has made a terrible mistake and I'll be getting a phonecall any minute from him, laughing at the commotion he's caused, for all that he would never play such a cruel joke on any of us.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

. . . . . . . . .

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-W. H. Auden

RIP Joel Parkinson, 1980-2006

London calling

Yes, that's right. I, Killi, am now a fully fledged Londoner, complete with employment and umbrella. I have the regulation postage stamp flat that costs the entire gross domestic product of my country to rent for a month and needs copious references to get the priveledge of handing over your first born to live there. I now have a job that, miraculously, takes just under an hour tog et to - I'm considered lucky for my 45 minute journey; envious others I know travel upwards of an hour on an average day with good connections. I walk around with a suitcase on my shoulder in place of a handbag because of the combination of diary (like I can remember where or when anything is, given the whole week of gruelling interviews I've just subjected myself to) A-Z map of the city (because nobody, but nobody, not even the famous cabbies with "the knowledge" can get around without one of these little babies to tell them where they live and where they're going and everywhere in between), umbrella (an English essential which is also carried in a bizarre number of shops; my guess is that it's more in case your current brolly breaks from overuse, rather than catering to those who don't have one. Even tourists bring them along in the middle of summer), and an assortment of other bits of paper that seem to breed and multiply during the course of the day. I glare at anyone who has the nerve to walk at a leisurely pace up the middle of the footpath when I'm trying to hurry around them in heavy traffic - because there is ALWAYS heavy traffic. I sweat it out with my jacket on in the sweltering temperatures on the tube trains. I talk on my phone as I walk along the street, ignoring the looks I get from others with my obvious strine accent.

So, at the end of my first "business week" (notice, not work week. For all the exhaustion associated with it, three job interviews a day isn't classed as work; you don't get paid for interviews. But that's an argument for a whole other post), what are my thoughts about being in London? How am I filling my time? Am I over the horrendous jetlag associated with the 25 hours it took me to get here in the flight from hell? Well you might ask.

I spent today in and around Oxford St, the shopping hub of London and tourist mecca. It was crowded, it was noisy, it was a battle just to stop from being swept in the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go. Which would be the main reason why, in spite of the fantastic shops available there, I didn't accept the job offer from the company who seemed to be gobsmacked that I aced the phenomenally easy CAD test they set me (I know people who could have aced it in 2nd year uni...really, people, what are they like here that being able to do fairly mundane things blows their mind??? Maybe I should have taken that one afterall...). Flattering as it is to hear how brilliantly you've done in something you've done everyday for ages, I couldn't handle the thought of fighting my way in and out of the office everyday, only to sit and stare at a computer screen for hours with what seemed to me to be minimal social interaction. So what did I do? I took the one at the Oval, pefect for summer lunches at the cricket!

So, am i glad I've come halfway around the world leaving all my family and all but one of my friends behind, as scary and lonely as that promises to be? You bet your life I am!

Of Brides and Suitcases

My friend got married yesterday. The flow of emotion through the day was something I'd kind of expected, but not the to the degree that it ended up happening - and it wasn't just me. There were tears and laughter through the whole day. And then it was all over, and I was left to deal with assignments (yes, I'm procrastinating again) and packing my suitcase, something the blushing bride accomplished for her honeymoon the night before the wedding. She's already gone on a plane, on her way to Tahiti and a cruise ship at 5 this morning. I have planned to go to the airport and visit her, but realistically I was never going to make it.

It's strange to think that the wedding, which has dominated so much conversation between a little group of people, is over. What the hell are we going to talk about now? A whirl of a day that didn't seem real in it's fluff and fantasy of sunshine, satin and flowers - and by her own account didn't seem to have happened to the brie eithe, as she sat beside me at the bridal table last night. Perhaps that is why, for the most part, it was more a night of laughter than the obligatory tears of parting. In fact, the laughter was a constant, even through the tears. But at the end of it, in a whirl of satin and lace and tulle, she went out the door of the reception place and into another part of life - the life of a married woman who lives half an hour from my own childhood home, instead of the 10 minutes it has always been before.

I know I'm going to be going off on my own adventure next weekend - and the thought is starting to scare the crap out of me, to be honest - but this is really the first hint of just how much things are going to change with that step. I won't see the bride again before I go. Unless she comes to visit me, that's it for the next 2 years, all going well. It hit me some time during the reception, and I had to dash out into the bridal changeroom to indulge in some tears with another bridesmaid trying to help me pull myself together. It was further helped by the arrival of the best man and one of the groomsmen wanting a photo taken, then commenting that during the whole process one of them had been staring at my chest (not the first time he's passed comments like that and, if he runs true to form and staysa close friend of the groom, probably not the last) - I've discovered that fighting the urge to slap someone is quite the remedy for high strung emotions!

I think the hardest part right now is knowing that we didn't really get a proper goodbye. Much and all as there were hugs on the day, and two big teary hugs before she disappeared out the door and into her new life (or rather Mum and Dad's car, waiting to take them to their hotel for the night), it wasn't a proper farewell. There was too much else going through our minds, too many others to hug, and a bunch of the groom's mates trying to convince him to throw her into the fountain as they nearly knocked him out by attempting to carry him through the doors on their shoulders, disgruntled bride in tow). So now i'm stranded with only phone calls and the very occasional email to keep me in touch with her - and none of that for the next two weeks either. Oh, and a very large suitcase that is in need of filling. Well, at least there's something to distract me...

The times they are a-changin

Somehow I've managed to go ages without writing anything here - or anything full stop, to be honest, apart from a couple of abortive attempts to get a couple of assignments rolling before I've finished my research, never a smart move in all honesty. So what the hell have I been doing instead? Interesting question...

Well, there was my venture (thankfully over now) into the wierd and wonderful world of office temping; a land where nobody knows your name, or bothers tof ind out because you're just the temp and therefore not worth the effort; a place where it is quite acceptable to pay someone the rates of a skilled draftsperson (ie more than I was getting in my last job) to print out a website all day, or do filing, or collate pamphlets into folders, jobs that would be done by anyone with about a quarter of a brain. But my working life in Melbourne finished up last week, even if my desperate struggle to get that cash into my bank account didn't, thanks to one of my employers not yet verifying my hours - thanks heaps boys, it's not like I'm leaving the country or anything, and need to change my cash into pounds, but hey, you can enjoy using my drawings as much as you like, huh.

Since then? Well, there's been what should be lots of things, but now I come to think of it, doesn't seem like too much to have filled a week with. See, whatever there is behind me, it's what's looming up in front of me that somehow seems to keep distracting me. On Saturday my friend gets married. We went out for our last traditional shopping odyssey last week - junk food by the river and four hours wandering the shops aimlessly afterwards. Our real lives kept intruding, though, since we've both got big events on the horizon. We were later than normal because she had to stop off to pick up her honey moon travel documents and had the world's most thorough travel agent who went through every detail of her trip in annoying completeness. Then I actually had to break with tradition and buy useful things while we were shopping - a cardinal sin in our tradition where we normally go out shopping with good intentions and come home with bags of things that we don't need, but desperately want. From now on, it's going to be very different for the two of us (what with me living in London and all by the time she gets back from her honeymoon...).

In another stroke of pre-departure genius, I went out on Friday night and met a boy. A lovely, sweet, cute boy who goes to Canada a week after I go to London. We're in the process of trying to arrange another meet-up before I go away, in spite of the fact that it seems fairly aimless right now gien the situation. I literally just got a text message from him, so I'm kind of smiling right now. But it's typical of me. I go out week after week for months and only meet slime balls. Then, two weeks before I leave the country (and three before he does) I meet the best guy and, what's even more unusual, he seems interested in meeting up again. Now I've just got to think of a suitable reply, and find time to meet up with him! He wanted this weekend, but what with the wedding and all, I can't. Talk about bad timing...Maybe a trip to Canada is the only way to sort it out! Now there's a thought...

Meanwhile, I'm trying to get through my pre-departure list...Failing dismally but trying. Tonsilitis doesn't help my cause (hmm...possibly not the best idea to have gone out Saturday night as well? But surely the alcohol in the disturbingly large number of cocktails would have scarred away the germs? Maybe that's why I feel better now? Surely the anti-biotics couldn't have worked already?). So, it's backt o the books while I deliberate actually calling this guy to sort it out properly. Text messages are ggreat, but rather hard to deal with on this front! Meanwhile the clock ticks by. Can't decide if that's good or bad!

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...

Off the Leash

There's nothing like a Friday to bring out the school kid in all of us, and today is no exception. Apparently, though, it isn't just me. There are others out there being visited by their former childish selves today, as shown in this blog entry on a serious Melbourne paper - http://blogs.theage.com.au/allmenareliars/archives/2006/08/may_i_fart_now.html#trackback (Sorry, I seem to have lost the art of linking once more...what can I say? I'm still dealing with a fog of flu, or whatever I've had, and throw in the fact that I'm blond and it's Friday and I'm a lost cause)

It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only person out there who feels that one of the funniest things around is a good fart joke - the only thing funnier is, sometimes, a bad one. I know it's very bloke-ish of me to say so and that, if there are any girls out there reading this who don't know me personally, there are probably some shaking their heads in disgust right now at the idea that I could agree with all the guys who find farts hilairious. But at the same time, part of the attraction is knowing that it is completely inappropriate in so many situations.

There have been plenty of great comedians base thier early careers on a well-timed fart joke, and they live long in the memory...Benny Hill (OK, he was as much a sleaze joke as a fart joke, but it was there!) Ronnie Barker (and Ronnie Corbett as well, I guess). In fact, they seem to be mostly British, the ones who spring to mind quickest (unless you count the D-Generation, and their Bargearse creation. Giggles will threaten to overwhelm me if I linger on thoughts of the detective sergeant, however, so I'd better move on).

Social testing has confirmed that the fart is the most universally accepted joke. Almost every culture tested would laugh at a bit of trouser trumpet action - and the ones that didn't find it funny wouldn't laugh at anything. Even that great stuffed-shirt of all time, Queen Victoria, who gave her name toan era of prudishness and holding back, was known to giggle at gas from time to time. In fact, rumous has it that she was one of the first users of the "whoopee cushion" (OK, maybe not, but she did like a fart or two). Mind you, her grand daughter doesn't look any more likely to crack a smile (or let fluffy off the royal chain), and neither do any of the princes - although for some reason i suspect that Fergie would encourage it.

So why has this come up now (and how do I carry such arcane pieces of trivia in my head)? Well, it's Friday, isn't it. And if you can't have a giggle on Friday, well, there's no hope for any civilisation where youc an finish that statement in a way that doesn't include the words "when can you?" So, until then, God Save the Queen.

The Substance of Things Hoped For

There are many rules that have been observed here before. Here's another one: nothing ever works out exactly as you plan it. I'm sure the winners of darwin awards would agree. I'm fairly certain that none of them planned the dire accidents (or should that be acts of stupidity?) that landed them on the list of winners - or even honourable mentions. That said, I think there is a certain amount of inevitability in death following on from the idea to step inside a giant helium balloon with your girlfriend, but without the help of an oxygen tank. Foresight had nothing to do with last weekend, however - although it probably should have had a bit more of an impact on the four days of couch time I've just had trying to recover from, in part, my own stubborn stupidity.

Honestly? I'd been looking forward to the weekend for weeks - more than the normal "everybody's working for the weekend" type longings (incidentally, how great was that song?? Everybody wants a little romance? Everybody needs a second chance? Gold...). More like "Friday on my mind" - Wednesday just won't go, Thursday goes too slow, I've got Friday on my mind. Catch was the horrendous cough that sprang up somewhere between the never-ending Thursday night and Friday morning. Even the obliging people doing a presentation on a type of insulation used on pre-cast concrete buildings struggled to keep my attention (who would have thought? Bubble wrap as insulation! Wonder how much fun the builders could have with that? I've even met a profoundly deaf guy who loved popping bubble wrap) with the free lunch they provided. Little surprise that I was home and tucked up in bed long before the normal time for a night out.

I must be getting old though. Everybody in the bar we went to looked about 12, and neither I nor either of my friends could stop commenting on the indecent clothing the younger girls - or the apparently ill-fitting underwear, and how appropriate it was for the girls to be moshing like that. We sounded exactly like our parents did when we first started going out back in the day...given that my Mum dropped us off so none of us had to drive, we fitted right in, until the point where we walked in the door and realised we weren't flashing nearly enough cleavage.

The only thing to make old bones feel better is a massage. Even if the masseur, who is charging you an insane amount of money for half an hour of absolute bliss keeps telling you that you need to come more often so she can work out the painful knots she's finding in your flu-affected shoulders. Bliss, I tell you, bliss. And lunch afterwards, with the nice eye-candy working behind the bar just proved that some things can, and do, live up to expectations.

Which makes it a shame that the night that followed was what seemed, at the time, to be a dismal flop.

In spite of being in full 40s glam hair and make-up, it turns out that I was somewhat less than perfect for the 1940s themed Swing dancing ball I went to. See, I tried to make a modern wrap dress do the job, and it simply wasn't made for dancing - or not for spinning, at any rate, becasue everytime I turned quickly, not only would the dress fly open to reveal a large expanse of leg, the ties holding the dress closed would wrap themselves around my poor unsuspecting partner. Combine that with one particularly uncoordinated guy(honestly, he was. He was worse than me - quite the achievement, generally speaking) and a fairly quick song, and you have yourself a nice little mix to keep the old guys on the sidelines fanning themselves everytime the move-challenged guy spun me around - which was a lot. I have never, ever been so glad of the little shorts (Ok, almost hot pants - on any other persont hey would be) that I normally reserve for wearing when I'm playing hockey but luckily thought to put on that night. It did, however, make a handy excuse to stop dancing for a moment and "adjust myself" to I was revealing a whole lot less!

As fun as that was, I was back in the car and on the way home by 10:30 - before the clubs on nearby Chapel St had even started to get interesting - although there were enough people out and about to raise their eyebrows at a couple of girls in 40s gear walking down the street.

The upshot of all this is the cough I'm still nursing. I'm not going to say that there's anything wrong with sounding like a 50 year smoker with emphysema - I mightthink it, however. It's more that the coughing does interfere with one's sleep so...and the redness subsequent to the coughing is awfully difficult to mask with even the best pressed powder. Not to mention what the other people in the train carriage with you of a morning think when they hear you bringing up a lung - or at the very least sounding like you're about to.

So things don't always work out how you plan them. I now have a quiet weekend planned for this one coming up. Only a couple of family functions and a whole lot of essay writing (any tips on last minute resources on either the representation of "otherness" Merchant of venice and Othello, or the works and influence of Edgar Allen Poe would be much appreciated). But who knows...maybe this weekend will exceed expectations? I'm certain it will all even out somewhere. And if nothing else, there's a miracle in the offing in the sporting world - my decidedly average hockey team looks like making it into the finals, and my football team has levered itself off the bottom of the ladder, and beat Collingwood into the bargain. What is the world coming to?

The Best Laid Plans

It's funny how things turn out. This blog, for example, was never meant to end up as a kind of diary, and yet look at it now, a regular catalogue of the things going on in my life, one way or another. Another is the birthday present of a friend. Actually, this friend has been mentioned on here quite a few times - it's theone who's getting married.

It was her birthday back in June, and she's a nightmare to shop for at the best of times. This time was even harder, since everybody was holding back a couple of good ideas to use as wedding presents later this year - also a hard ask. Another friend and I decided to band together and get her something girly and fun. Not easy. she wa so preoccupied by her wedding plans that she couldn't offer any suggestions herself, so we took that as our inspiration and created our own present - a wedding-free day. We'd take her out for a pamper session, a meal and drinks. It was all presented as a booklet that we made, giving her a choice of location (she chose local), type of night out (drinks and a boogie), variety of pampering (masssage - a good choice, since we also shout ourselves whatever she gets!) and the meal (lunch). She seemed to genuinely like the idea, once it was explained to her. Then she went off on holidays with her fiance and his family and promptly forgot all about it.

It's only this weekend that we finally get our chance to give her the present - most unlike her. Normally, she jumps at the chance to be the centre of attention, and the "no speaking about the wedding" injunction seems to be needed as well. Even though we've had to split the plans across 2 days (technically, it's still the same 24 hours, though) to work around her hectic schedule (we counted how many times we've beenable to get together without it involving family, wedding, or gym this year; we could count the times on one hand, and three of those were our own birthdays) we've all been looking forward to this since it was locked in stone 2 weeks back. I mean how often do you get to have a night out followed by pampering for a day, and no responsibilities? It's a dream, and we don't even have to go more than 10 minutes from home to do it, since the locations are all within a block of each other, and at a point that is roughly the same distance from each of our homes.

But, as the saying goes, the best laid plans can be laid to waste, and all through what seems to be an environmental issue. I'm asthmatic. No big surprises there, since almost everyone in Australia these days seems to have some kind of respiratory problem (but has anyone found out the reason why this is? Oh no, let's spend our tax dollars on a billion dollar advertising campaign to make the public forget that they hate the archaic new industrial relations laws, for example. I'm firly mild and haardly ever need to do anything about it, except take a preventer every morning. If I do that, I'm generally fine to do whatever I want, so much so that I don't really carry any medication with me anymore. So it came as a bit of a surprise today that I needed it - needed it enough to have to go out and buy some. Even bigger surprise that I wasn't the only one in this office to need it. Innocent enough in itself, and any other day, I wouldn't really mind. But tonight is not any other night. I was planning to go to a smokey pub and have a few drinks tonight, neither of which is easy when you're having breathing issues and have pumped yoruself with enough salbutamol to give you a fair dose of the shakes - it doesn't improve your chances of getting into the bar in the first place, given what the shakes can do to your coordination!

Longer term, other plans are suffering from other minor issues at the moment - clearly, issues of far less importance, as will become clear, than the fate of my night out with the girls. London - and by association, the US - is again under what the media keeps describing as a terrorist cloud, thanks to some people who thought it would be a good idea to plan to blow a few planes out of the sky over the Atlantic. There are many comments I could make about those people, but I think I'll refrain, since it does nobody any good to pass comment on the beliefs of others - you'll never convince them to think otherwise, generally speaking, and neither will they convince you. The upshot is that people are now unable to take carry-on luggage on flights out of Heathrow, unless it is their passport and ticket, in a clear plastic bag. Given the tiny amounts of whatever the substance was that the media say was required to make a bomb, You have to wonder if that's going to be quite as effective as they'd hoped. Whatever, it has messed with at least one of my plans in a big way. I have a large - alright, very large, enormous, could-fit-me-in-it size - case to take when I go on my big trip. I'm looking at having to pay an excessive amount of excess baggage just to be allowed on the plane. That amount has just increased fivefold, since I had planned to take things that are easily broken (and also quite heavy) on the plane as carry-on. Things you wouldn't want in your checked baggage like, oh, I don't know, a laptop, a book to read on the TWENTY THREE HOUR flight...and apart from that, any other items I might need in the course of the next 2 years that I won't be able to fit into the 20kg limit - which I'm tipping will be quite a lot. And now these terrorists have to go and spoil it all...I might just indulge in conspiracy theories here - or rather tales of dire coincidences. You see, my first solo overseas trip landed in London on October 5 2001 - within a month of September 11. My second trip to the UK was only a little more after the tube/bus bombings. I'd commented only Tuesday (Wednesday?) night that it was about the right time for something to happen in the terrorist way, since I was heading overseas again soon. And now, here we are...spooky, huh! It seems that there is a giant conspiracy to either keep me out of the UK (not going to happen, I'm afraid. I love it too much over there) or make sure that I never have to line up for any attraction (yes, that's right, I'm one of the few people to turn up at the Eiffel Tower at about 2pm and not have to queue AT ALL - I just walked straight up to a ticket window. Similar experiences all through Europe and the UK.) - or alternatively, it's jsut a way of making sure I can't smuggle in all the jars of vegemite and packets of tim tams and iced vo-vos destined to be traded for couch space once in London. I'm sure that's what it's all about. And once again, thebest laid plans...

In Search of Filthy Lucre

People might have noticed some themes in the posts here, if they've been reading them regularly (has anybody except the people prodded into it by me read this regularly? If you're out there, please let me know!). One of the recurring thoughts is my lack of money - while i have no shortage of either debt, or other ways to spend cash in a hurry.

Well, I've discovered the internet as a way of making money. It is with that in mind that I now have Google AdSense ads on this page. I'm not going to ask people to click on them for my sake - that would only get me in trouble with the every so lovely people at Google, not something I'm wanting to do. I'm simply going to explain how they got there in the first place. This is a no-names no-pack-drill type of exercise, so the only thing I can say with absolute honesty and clarity is that I am not talking about myself in the following story. This isn't one of those "my 'friend' " stype stories. And now that I've got all the disclaimers out of the way, on with the show (which may prove to be a bad way to lead into this particular story...).

Let's just say, I have a friend. I have several, actually, but we're talking about a specific one here, not just the generic 'friend'. She's come upon harder times than I have, to the extent that she needs to find $2000 in a hurry - within the next 2 weeks, in fact - or she won't have anywhere to live. She's getting desperate for ideas and is heartened by the idea that her cousin has just announced to the family that she works as a stripper while she finishes her medicine studies - there are many crude jokes here that could be made, but I'm trying to resist the temptation to mention anatomy lessons. Apparently, the cousin has been encouraging her to take up the craft as well, promising her that there's no touching, fantastic money, and that the places look after their girls. I don't doubt any of that, but I've spent the whole day sending her messages and alternative suggestions for how to make the money in the sort of time frame she's looking at, or alterntive arrangements that give her a bit more time to get it together. Don't get me wrong; I'm certain that there are perfectly respectable women who work in strip clubs for a living. I've heard that it's a not uncommon way to support yourself while at uni, although I've never known anyone who admitted to it. So I've encouraged her (I can't even give her a nickname here, since I promised her not to tell anyone. Does this count?) to look at every alternative before acting, and tried coming up with a few myself.

In the process, I kind of evaluated a few of my own financial decisions that have led me to my present get-cash-anyway-that's-legal-and-lets-me-keep-my-clothes-on state of mind. I've signed up to do surveys, I've auditioned to go on gameshows - unsuccessfully, incidentally. I answered enough questions right to get onto Temptation, but it appears I wasn't "quirky" enough for them at the moment. Not bitter at missed oportunity to get stuff for knowing useless crap simply because I wasn't willing to come up with a goofy style of buzzer pushing on a smart people quiz. Not bitter at all. Huh! I say to their casting people! Huh! And on top of that I'm selling various bits of old tat on ebay. Anything to make sure that I never, NEVER end up in a situation where I'm seriously willing to consider taking my clothes off for money as a serious option - if only because I'm fairly certain that there are far more people out there who'll pay me to keep them on.

So, in the name of selfish self-promotion, yes, I'm in search of ways and means to get my website out there...spread the word peoples!!! (And yes, that s was deliberate. I'm certain there's more than one of you out there, I have faith!) Help me to keep my clothes on - and those of my friends!

Navel gazing

There is a certain amount of self-absorption required to write a blog, it seems - and yes, this is going to be another post about a foray into the blogosphere. It's not just that you seem required to give more thought than most people wuld contemplate to tiny details of your life to create a post (well, not so much HAVE to as choose to, if regular posts are needed. OK, wanted), it's also the fact that, in all honesty, inputting your thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions, whatever out there, there's a kind of expectation that someone will care enough to read it. Yes, I started this particular blog out of sheer boredom and, admittedly, that's part of the reason why I keep posting so regularly, but part of the attraction of the idea is the thought that, somewhere, out there, someone (other than you Ralphie, sorry) will find this blog and decide that it's worth reading - not just once, but worth coming back to. Of course, if that person happens to be a publisher willing to take a punt on a person who can barely write a sentence without typos, let alone have an attention span long enough to write anything longer, even better - anything to get me out of my current task of designing a car park layout for a soccer field.

So, with that knowledge, be prepared for something of a bombshell.

Yes, my life is being put out there to a certain extent, even if it is a bit anonymous. And there has been a fairly large amount of navel gazing involved in putting those posts together, mulling over the advantages of writing about my love of all things red, as against my anger at some injustice in the world (the red won, of course. Far more interesting than the fact that the world is in a complete mess - everyone knows that! Ooh, and incidentally, Nad, you remember the night I predicted that red was going to be huge a few months back, and how much I wanted a pair of red shoes, and you laughed at me? Well, the pair of gleaming shiny red patent leather peep toe wedges I saw in Myer on the weekend says I was right...). None of that is terribly surprising though, and certainly not worthy of the title of bombshell. No, my confession is much darker than that.

Not everything on this blog is the entire truth.

There, it's out there. There are lashings of truth in here, yes. My Mum did get an 80 cent tax cut from the last federal budget. Yes, I do, really, REALLY like red at the moment. But while it is mostly true, I also use that old tool, exaggeration. For example, I like to make out like I lead an exciting, party-going lifestyle. Sorry, to disillusion anyone here, but unfortunately, my life is not that exciting. Why else do you think I wrote about the morning routine of train girl? Equally sadly, I don't hate my job as much as I sometimes claim - I think I would have fallen asleep long ago if I really did hate it that much. That's not to say that I like exchanging emails four times a day with a guy working for the council because I foolishly left a couple of trees showing in the car park layout I'm working on right now - or rather, supposed to be working - but there are moments when being in architecture - and I hate to say this, but there's nothing else for it - it rocks. To see something built that you had a hand in might seem boring and mundane, but trust me, it's a bit of a buzz. On the flip side though, to see something that you designed, that looked delicate and beautiful when you handed the design over the council hacked and turned into something that looks like a children's carousel is a soul destroying experience. So yes, I do engage with my work far more than it would seem from what I write about it. That said, if someone was to offer me a bt of casht o do something else, just try and stop me. Studying architecture has already done its bit for changing how I view the world. I think it's time I was able to go on holidays without coming back with hundreds of photos of buildings, or construction details - visiting the cathedral being built in Barcelona (La Sagrada Famiglia, sorry about the spelling issues, I can never get it right) was a revelation worthy of the entire 8 weeks living on a shoestring by itself. But enough already.

So no, not everything I say is the exact truth, if I decide to be perfectly honest for once. It's a stab in the vague direction of true but really, who would want to read the thoughts of the person who spent last weekend curled up on the couch at her parents couch (because yes, she is in her mid-twenties, but has yet to leave home for many reasons)? Not me, that's for sure...