Today

AFTERNOON

Guess what: Winter Clerkship! Yay!

There are only two firms in Adelaide that offer to second and third year students, and I will be working at one of them for three weeks in July. I'm pretty happy.

The one that I'll be with (let's call it Firm T) actually seems like the better firm, in my possibly biased opinion (I didn't even get to the first stage of assessment in the other one *cough*). Well, Firm T had a much more rigourous selection process - before we even saw the face of anyone in the company we had to answer all these questions about our communication style, personal interests, motivation, experience in non-law related fields, etc etc. One of their many application questions was something like, 'what, in your view, sets firm X apart from the others' and I wrote about how their thorough pre-selection questionaire showed what an awesome and detailed job they must do with everything, hahah.

There was then an 'assessment centre' thing which I was nervous about at first, because we were told it would be based around 'business scenario'. Aargh. Turns out the business scenario was not financial (which I feared) but administrative tasks. We had to work out as a group which hypothetical tasks to complete in which order if we were Person Y at a new company, and the action we would take for each one. It was stuff like: call Monica to reassure her of this, email Henry to plan for a presentation, prepare documents for Sally by the end of the day, etc. Plus do an individual writing task picking apart a bad contract.

I got through to the next stage which was a proper interview last Tuesday (with HR and a senior associate) and today I found out that I was one of the four people chosen for the job! I had a smile on my face that I couldn't shake for a while after that.

MORNING

I got to feel like a minda (or, let's say, tourist) this morning when I caught a train to the other side of town. I'm a bus girl, and had actually never been on a train in my own city until this morning. Had I lived in train-serviced suburb I may have been familiar before now with the station's walk-through ticket machines. You know, where you stick your ticket in, then the bars unlock, so you move through and grab your ticket where it pops out the other side? Yep, except apparently here the ticket doesn't do that travel-through-the-machine thing, it just pops in and out the same side. And then falls onto the ground. While you are already through and the gate has re-locked. So then you have to detour back around through the "family" bar-free booth to get your ticket off the ground, because hey, that's a multitrip.

Also: less-than-impressed by the train driver who sporadically mumbled the station we were stopping at. I situated myself near the station map so as to count the stops in between his announcements.

I was visiting a primary school with a deaf education unit, to research their perspective and compare them with another primary school. All went okay at first. I admit that when I asked his role and he mentioned he was an assistant principal, my initial feeling was woah! Big shot! Since when am I the kind of person to interview assistant principals and call them by their first name?

Unlike my interview with the first primary school, this man gave much more of a "linguistics lecturer" than "primary school teacher" vibe, going on about systemic functional grammar and metalanguage and so forth. We were almost done when something went astray. He asked me about the other primary school and I responded with probably more information than I should have (to do with an implied criticism of his centre) and I knew right after I said it that I shouldn't have. He seemed uncomfortable and annoyed, though whether at me or them I'm not sure, and wrapped it up curtly after that. Gah. From a confidentiality perspective it was a bad move, and probably tactless too.

Anyway, I sent him an email of apology that I began compose straight away on my (bus) ride back to town, and he responded kindly. All is all well, I hope. Eek.

LUNCH

I just want to mention the turning point between the bad-vibe morning and the good-news afternoon. I popped into the hostel to heat up some lunch, and had a nice chat with W and B. My visit also coincided with H's. H is a Chinese nurse who was a former cleaner/long term guest. W and I had put aside some mail for her recently, and she was excited to dicover that. H has, and I say this with affection, the most stereotypically squinty Chinese manner. She's around 40 years old and often wears a broad-brimmed hat with a drawstring underneath. When W pulled out a bundle of letters, she just about wet herself with excitement. "Ohhh, sank you W-! Sank you, sank you, sank you so mach!" She bobbled her head with each exclamation. "Ohh! Ohh!"

W started telling her about his grandson, who is only a toddler but big and tall for his age. H was loving it. "Ohh! I sink he is strong boy! He grow up vey big! Ohh!"

Overcome with excitement at seeing us again and retrieving her letters, H clutched my arm. "Wait here!" She ordered, and came back a few minutes later with a giftbag of chocolates for each of us. "You not here when I left! Only A- here! I no see you when I left!" Brightened my morning, H did.

A bamboo stick of thoughts

I think I've had this realisation before.
I cannot multi-task.
"Modern life" or whatever you want to call it, tempts us to multi-task, or maybe the better word would be multi-procrastinate. Normally I am the devil's advocate for anyone who claims the evils of today's society. But with this, I am on board with the naysayers.
Facebook. iPhones. Oh god, my iPhone. Everything 'more interesting' than the current task at hand is only a click away.
It was never impossible to procrastinate. There were always windows to look out of. Doodles to sketch. Daydreams. But now, with electronics and the internet, distractions are so close to the surface, so near. Got a spare second before starting law readings? How about you have a quick look at that new blog you found. Or, you know, read ALL THE ARCHIVES over an obsessive three days. Or that.
My habits haven't let me down in any major way. From an outsider's perspective I think I'd look like I was doing pretty fine. I have a good GPA. I seem to balance the different parts of my life well.
It's silly, to compare the 'success' of me-now to a me-as-kid. Small pond, big pond. But at the moment I miss feeling effortlessly capable.
This is from a passage about deaf children that I recently read for linguistics, that I wanted to skip back and read again and again:

"The normal hearing child has a constantly expanding linguistic experience and is constantly experimenting in his own use of it. He is bathed in language and we can safely trust that some of it will flow into channls of utterance." *

I don't anyone can produce their best at something until they're 'bathed' in it. At the end of listening to my con law lecture I tuned out and clicked onto facebook, because the lecturer had finished with the content and moved on to some kind of quiz about high court judges and historical moments. But, you know, (and I know this sounds stupid) when I was in primary school I dug that kind of stuff. I didn't separate the big picture from the facts I needed to know for the test. It was all knowledge, it was all interesting, and from being bathed in the big picture I ended up nailing the little picture stuff with no difficulty. Maybe I need to take some tips from my 11-year-old self.

It's not that I lack curiosity in general - it's the directing of my interest towards the topic at hand that I need to work on. I need to stop seeing my current uni work as stifling my interest for [insert obsession of the moment] and realise that its something I can engage with in itself.

And I do, sometimes. What begins as superficial 'work' often works its way into me, albeit slowly.

This is not the entry that I sat down to write. I was going to talk about pub crawls, lying in bed with DW, the awesomeness of limewire and new music, the affection I feel for the hostel and its 'characters' after hearing H describe situational mishaps.

Instead, I'll leave you with another passage.

"She could see it all so clearly, so commandingly, when she looked: it was when she took her brush in hand that the whole thing changed. It was in that moment's flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of teas and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often felt herself - struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to say: 'But this what I see; this is what I see,' and so to clasp some miserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did their best to pluck from her. And it was then too, in that chill and windy way, as she began to paint, that there forced themselves upon her other things, her own inadequacy, her insignificance, keeping house for her father of the Brompton Road, and had much ado to control her impulse to fling herself (thank Heaven she had always resisted so far) at Mrs. Ramsay's knee and say to her - but what could one say to her? 'I'm in love with you?' No, that was not true. 'I'm in love with this all', waving her hand at the hedge, at the house, at the children? It was absurd, it was impossible. One could not say what one meant." **

*M. M. Lewis, Language and Personality in Deaf Children
**Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Sorry for the weird entry.

- khere was already the past.

Garmin do you read me

I'm actually looking forward to going back to uni, although god knows I'll miss these empty days once I can't have them.

Because, guess what: I'm gonna rock with the organisation and shit this semester!

Yup! This is not those usual study resolutions that everyone makes at the beginning of the semester. You know, when delude themselves into thinking it will be easy to get up at 6:30 am and get a head start on the day's work, or plan for way too many hours that could be feasibly spent in the law library.

Like, see right here on my timetable where I have a whole three hours between lectures? Obviously that will be prime study time. Sure, I may take a stroll or eat a packed lunch but it's not like anything else will be taking up my time, right? It's not like previous semesters, when it's been frighteningly easy to sit chatting about non-law related things with friends, or log onto facebook on the library computers, or get up for multiple money-wasting excursions to buy coffee or lunch or look at the shops. How did I ever waste so many hours with that sort of rubbish? Not this semester!

And look at these days, where I don't have to be in town until 10 or 11 am. Imagine, I could do both exercise and law readings before I've even left home for the day! I hear there's a 6:30 Circuit class at the gym. Ah, not that I've ever been, but that's just because I'm yet to experience the supreme state of productivity that warrants a 6:30 gym class. It won't be long though. Come March, that'll be me.

--khere is a gold member

Present, Soon, Not Soon Enough

NEAR FUTURE

Summer's almost here! I've decided I'll have to become nocturnal to best appreciate these next few months. Warm nights are the bomb. Last night, I really felt like doing something, considering I hadn't been out for a while, and next weekend will probably be devoted to studying. Fortunately I realised that I didn't so much feel like going to town as drinking in the comfort of my own backyard. This turned out to be a popular suggestion. DW and his two friends eschewed the pub in favour of drinking beer in the pool and having shirtless 'grappling' competitions. H was happy to make the 5 minute walk to mine instead of a trip into town since she had work in the morning, and the loving (or not?) couple hung out for a while before continuing their evening elsewhere.


DISTANT FUTURE

My new daydream topic... Europe.

I... wanna go there. Very vague plan hatching. Funds notwithstanding, something like this I reckon would be awesome:

Turkey - maybe Geckos tour.

Bulgaria, Hungary - hostels/couch surfing*

Germany - visit Milli and family. Berlin, East Germany.

Denmark - hostels/couch surfing.

Sweden - could maybe visit Isa? Otherwise, hostels/couch surfing.

Iceland - hostels/couch surfing.

I wonder how much money that would all cost? Estimate = a lot. But, you're only able to get a youth discount Eurail pass once, right?

*Intrigued by this concept. Don't know how much of a risk it would be - I assume the best way to go would be to book a night at an accommodation facility, then meet the 'couch-owner' for coffee or something, and if they're decent then cancel the bed elsewhere.

PRESENT

Yeah, my mind's pretty much ignoring this category. Maybe because the topics in the 'present' folder are something like:
- Exceptions to indefeasibility
- What are the implications of this judgment for future decisions?
- Do I need to listen to the week 9 lecture again?
- I like green highlighters the best
- I suppose I should study some german too
- Die Arbeit wird gemacht. Die Arbeit wurde gemacht. Die Arbeit ist gemacht worden.
- Breskvar v Wall established the principle of immediate indefeasibility in Australia.
- GTC...Underbelly... Ah. Fill in the blanks.
- Iceland omg I've loved the idea of the place since year four, hey look there's a friendly looking gay couple with a kid who live in a little village near the coast and 'definitely have couch', yes it would be good to get out of the main city and it looks like their place is accessible by bus. Even though they're men, the fact that they're gay and have a kid is reassuring I guess.
- I think the 8 day Geckos tour would be a bit rushed, then again would the 20 day one be too long? Depends so much on the people, could be awesome cos you have time to get to know each other better. But would suck if the group was bad. The trip notes look really good I have to say. I think Turkey would be a bit intimidating to navigate by myself, especially if its the first place I go to.
- So if I saved money this summer break and all this year, plus the summer break next year, could I save enough? I could take the first semester off uni and leave in like, April. Then by the time I got up to northern Europe it'd be like, June? Summer nights in Scandinavia! Omg how awesome would that be! I could even be back for winter school in Adelaide if I really wanted to catch up some uni.
- Uni... Crap! Exams! Present!

A nineties haircut and a beaut spa

So ready for the summer break. I'm kinda pumped actually, because DW and I are going away together =) Don't know yet where, or for how long - this is DW we're talking about, so I'm thinking smaller rather than larger, but we are definitely in the affirmative about holiday plans, so yeah. Woot.

Between now and then = uni uni. Actually I'm chilled at the moment, in the eye of the metaphorical uni work storm (think swirls of paper and case names muahahaha). 3 weeks tomorrow, I'll be all done, and my exam (singular!) and legal writing assignment and german bits and pieces will be behind me. 3 weeks aagh! Or 3 weeks yay?

I'm thinking of joining a gym. It's a cheap one, "co-ed" but with a ladies weights room. It looks like a good range of classes and a good atmosphere, from the admittedly paltry amount of time I spent there. I've always resisted the idea of joining a gym because 1) Expense, and I didn't want to risk paying for something I wasn't going to use; 2) I like being outside, and didn't want to substitute walking/jogging outdoors for being on a treadmill; and 3) Time, and I didn't want to risk paying for something I wasn't going to use. But, with el-cheapo gymmo here, I figure the money-wasting is less of a concern. Also, I'm getting a bit bored *ahem lazy* with running, and probably won't have a whole lot more enthusiasm once the weather gets hot. While I like walking, it's better for relaxing than for fitness, and I don't want to spend my peaceful meanders thinking that I should be running.

In fact, I wanted to go for a walk before it got dark but it looks like the time has passed for such activities. It's gorgeous weather at the moment - that little sweet spot of the year where its sunny and breezy and all the colours look so clear. Warm during the day but not yet stinking hot. Fresh in the mornings, all that really pale sun and sparkly dampness at 7 am.

What else is new? My friend thought she had leukemia. Turned out she had tonsillitis! My other friend has uncovered quite a cheery attitude towards life, and enrolled in lessons to learn French. My other friend (that's three friends so far!) recently 'came out' to his mum, who apparently didn't believe him at first. His dad doesn't know yet, and apparently keeps saying to his mum about son's new love interest, "Maybe it's a boy!"

Speaking of gays, I had my hair done by an extremely flamboyant chap the other day. He admitted that he often forgot or didn't hear what people said, because he'd get distracted by hairdryer noise or background music. Indeed, he had to ask me a three time whether I want to get my fringe cut today. Nothing disastrous was done to my hair, but I wasn't hugely impressed. Also, they've refit my usual hair-place and now it's all fancy and uglified! There are too many bright lights and mirrors, and too much space. I hate shopping centre places that redo themselves just to more truly embody shopping-centre-ugly. I may have to seek a new hair venue for the future.

Well, I didn't really have a reason to write, and I believe that fact has become glaringly apparent. But hey, you got three entries in October. Lucky you.

--khere is a bit "av".

friday-saturday-doorcodes-and-vodka

Today feels like such a waste. I hate the vague hungovery tiredness that saps all concentration. Or maybe I just hate the fact of my unfinished uni work *sigh*.

Last night was good though. Actually, the actual town part (German pub crawl) was a bit average, but things livened up once everyone was back in room 29. *winks*. While I could have ignored even the most 'suss' bed noises, the whispered commentary coming from my friend down on the double bed was a little harder to block out. Amusingly, it was the other friend on the bottom bunk who eventually mumbled, "Guys, do you mind?" - and she hadn't even tuned into what was being said. Hee hee. I left H and her battered boy (he had to get stitches in his head last night!) in town this morning, and last I heard they were at the movies today. For H's sake I really hope everything keeps going well! Big grins and fingers crossed!

Other noteworthy parts of the evening included:

H arriving at my house dressed for town, with not a single item for the overnight/morning at the hostel. I suggested she might be a little uncomfortable with no toothbrush, change of clothes or shoes other than heels to wear in the morning, and she agreed and we went back to hers to pack a bag. Lovely. Then? Discovered that she'd brought the wrong bag on the bus with her, so instead of sensible toiletries she had her sister's ugg boots and a scarf. Woohoo!

Friend J being there - she and H had a falling-out, I guess you'd call it, in year 12, and last night was really the first time that they hung out properly since then. Happy feelings when H and I were stripping linen off a bed this morning and H was like "I missed her and I didn't even realise."

Meeting new people, friends-of-friends - 2 stand out in my memory. One was this guy who got more annoying by the second. He went to the USA to work as a camp counsellor for 3 months and he brings it up in every conversation, which is fine, whatever, but he had a very grating attitude about travel. You didn't meet anybody in America who was at all decent? That sucks I guess... but... you can't even entertain the thought that some Americans might not fit your stereotype? You've concluded more than one discussion with: "JUST BECAUSE WE SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE, DOESN'T MEAN WE'RE THE SAME COUNTRY." Profound, especially with that long-suffering 'seen it all' air that you give it, but it might have had more effect if it related to what we were talking about at all. For someone who loves travelling and experiencing different cultures soooo much, you seem strangely keen to dismiss them. And that orgasmic 'ughhhhhhhhh' you do when talking about Europe is kind of unattractive.

The second was guy who was fun to chat to and cute in a goofy gangly way, who started tagging along with our group. Someone said to me, "I think the only reason he's hanging out with us is because of you," and seconds later, said guy was like "PHOTO TIME!" and posed with a wet kiss on my cheek. Uh, good timing! But, a little too much wetness there buddy! Nice to meet you!

Being another football-group weekend, we had all this extra security which made it kind of annoying to have friends stay at the hostel. Friday morning I'd stood on the couch for extra height and warned the footballers about how there'd be a security guard at the door, so they couldn't bring back any 'friends' they might meet on the town (Wayne piped up with jokes about friends in skirts. Oh Wayne.) Well, guess who almost got turned away for not having a key card: old battered head boy! Guess who had to be summonsed by the security guard to verify whether BHB could enter the hostel: Wayne! Apparently Wayne was all grumpy about my role in the matter, which is surely fair enough, but frankly there's a big neon fuck you hostel sign in my head at the moment and if confronted by Wayne, I may have to start mentioning a few of the matters that I find unsatisfactory, too. I'll spare you a rant about the irritating qualities of some people and incompetence of others at the moment, but, yeah. This weekend I've had a real love-hate relationship with the hostel, more emphasis than usual on the hate. I was glad when Brian didn't accept any money from my friends this morning, quietly pointing out that 'other people' let their friends stay over for free quite a lot. Brian's a keeper.

It's now an acceptable going-to-bed time and I can put the dreary waste of a day to a finish. Although I'm sure I was more sleepy at 2pm, when I could have actually been productive. Man, uni work... *buries head*. I'm so good at making schedules for myself. I can plot a timeline for study like nobody's business. It's just when it comes sticking to these schedules that I struggle. When you're 5 hours or 2 days 'behind' a self-imposed schedule though, what do you do? I know: make a new one, with less work involved! It's a great exam revision technique, worked for PPL last semester! Wait: no it didn't.

--khere is chocolate for breakfast and bare feet in the halls.

A fragrant machine

The cogs are creaking into action; life has shifted gears. I am all uni uni uni. Well, I had one day at uni, and it was during 'O-week'. But. During that day I was plenty sociable - joined the German club, which I should have done last year, plus the *cough* running club - what can I say, the sexy third year law guy manning the stand might motivate me. Although I think I'd have to, like, actually finish Couch to 5K before I attempted a run with the group, lest I be *that* person.

But seriously, I'm like, all inspired =P Podcast downloading as I type!

Plus, I have a locker in the awesome 'women's lounge', no doubt created in days of compulsory unionism and demand for such places. There are couches, a microwave (yay) and even a bed, lest I feel the need to lay down and recuperate away from all the men. Plus bookshelves filled with old feminist books. On Thursday it was like our private lounge, and my friend wants to get a locker in there too. I'll be interested to see how busy it gets during the semester, but either way(making girly friends in our refuge, or having a personal couch space) is appealing enough.

However, despite all the excitement, I was completely knackered when it came to spending the whole day 'on' and walking around town in 39 degree heat and whatnot. I had this meet and greet as a buddy for an international law student (there we go again, uni uni) but it wasn't until the evening so it was quite a long day in town. The meet was amusing enough, with far more 'buddies' than new people needing to be 'buddied' showing up, and I chatted with plenty of randoms, completely anonymous as a second year. My allocated buddy was one of the ones not to show up, so about half way through I took advantage of my anonymity and disappeared. By which I mean, I inconspicuously walked out of the door, although the puff-of-smoke thing would have been cool too.

And then, my boyfriend went all sweet and collected me from the plaza. I cut his rope-finding trip to Kmart short with my arrival but he didn't go back, understanding that I was 'sick of everything' by that stage. I actually wasn't - It's funny how I could be so over it walking around town with the others but suddenly so willing to wander the stores with him. Anyway. I appreciated the gesture, and he ferried his sweaty girlfriend and her new heavy textbooks back to her house.

Tonight I'm going to the Fringe opening ceremony. I was very indecisive about whether or not I wanted to go, being slighly head-achey and blah feeling earlier, but I have now bucked up and decided to join the crowds and crazy people. Fire! Gelati! I went to see Tim Freedman in the Garden on Wednesday, who was as old-sexy as ever.

I smell faintly like a hippy, so I'm sure I'll fit in with the Fringe crowd. I ordered a bunch of Lush stuff with a shopping gift card that DW gave me for Christmas and it arrived today. So now my feet are scrubbed, my skin cleansed with clay and my temples rubbed with the jasmine scent of 'Flying Fox'. Ommmmmm. Actually, I think Flying Fox is meant to be something of an aphrodisiac. Rhhwah.

Soul Kitchen

Desires... to write lyrically, to live communally, with friends and cheap food. To travel locally. I feel a swelling of affection for the people I'm close to, an appreciation for talking in cars and at late night dessert cafes and on walks through the dry hills.

I look forward to being focused, when uni starts, but fear that I won't be. My time and interests are too scattered. I dread the rearrangement and negotiation of my work schedule, toy with quitting one job, the other job. To quit the hostel would seem a step backwards, and I feel that the intense sociality of it is something thats good for me, despite it being wearying at times. To quit the nut shop would be in a sense easy, but in a sense much harder, because its so comfortable.

I look forward, too, to reinvigorating the friendships that were started last year at uni, that fade with distance and time apart. New shiny people, people whose flaws and stories aren't so intimately known yet. (But: see first paragraph. Simultaneously relishing in familiarity).

People are very capable of deluding themselves, of asserting and even believing that what they think now is what they've thought all along. I say that with a wry hope, though, that the criss-crossing opposing emotions of two of my particular broken-up friends will eventually settle in the right place. Whether that 'right place' is with both of them happy to be together, or both of them happy to be apart, I don't know.

Something about the combination of books that I'm reading: Sack's observations of mentally deficient patients in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and the argument between the pastor and the scientist in a Sue Miller novel - made me realise today that I believe in the human soul. I can't even remember if it were a question of belief before today or not.

Valentines Day was good, and a good opportunity for a quiet shout out about how happy I am at the moment with all that... stuff. A while ago, when we first started going out, I remember thinking that in future years, after we'd hypothetically broken up, I would always remember DW, the person, who had happened to be my boyfriend. But he would remember his girlfriend, who happened to be me.

It was only today, recollecting that thought, that it occurred to me that this assessment might not represent something negative. Part of the reason why I wouldn't see potential for a relationship with one of my close male friends is that I feel that his idea of me is too fixed, that I am a defined persona in his perception. Of course, its not that the persona is in any way faked - its me, my own essence poured within the lines of his picture. But those lines are there. They're shaped slightly differently with everyone, but they're always there, in slightly better or worse formations. People make you see yourself in different ways. Some time ago, floating in one friend's image of myself as an elegant, articulate, kind girl, I remember thinking that maybe it was bad that DW didn't make me see myself in that way. But really, it's that he doesn't make me see myself in any one way. He doesn't pour my substance into any particular self-shape. And maybe that's not a bad thing.