Girl To World

On being Au Fait with it all.

2011-08-11T22:52:00.003+10:00

As my leaving date draws near, more and more people (mostly at work) keep asking whether I'm excited/ready/scared/nervous/packed/etc. The answer to all of those questions has been to shrug my shoulders and say not really.. I've barely thought about it. Which is true - While I've never traveled for five months before, I've certainly done my fair share of various types of trips and so I've just been fairly unconcerned by it all. Experience has taught me that when it comes to travel, no matter what, I'll be able to find a place to sleep, and no matter what, shit will (mostly) be okay.

So I've been fairly unconcerned about the upcoming trip, to the point where towards the end of this week when the questioning has slowly reached a peak, I became mildly concerned about my lack of concern.

I had my last cello lesson and theory class this evening and at the end of the lesson, had to return to my teacher the cello I had borrowed, because I won't see her 'til the end of January. As the class drew to a close, I found myself gripping its neck like a child, growing more and more uneasy at the prospect of having to hand the instrument back. As the others gathered their things, I slowly put the cello in its case and took it back into the practice room to place it in a corner. I walked out and my cello teacher hugged me, making me promise to keep in touch, and promise to send her photos when I visit her native Vermont.

And I lost it. Bawling in front of my teacher and five semi-strangers. There's the pre-travel neurosis I know and love.

I'm the worst.

2011-07-24T23:50:00.002+10:00

A couple of years ago before an overseas trip, I was whining about my crappy iPod earphones and Dan offered to lend me his brand-new expensive earbud things. Walking down the street in Paris a few weeks later and one of them just stopped working. Absolutely and completely, and refused ever to work again. I think it was because he'd been winding them tightly around his iPod for weeks prior, breaking the little wire inside, but I still felt terrible that it had happened on my watch.

Early last year, he got a Kindle (his sister got it for free, but that's beside the point). He lent it to me on a sort of extended loan earlier this year, and I was planning on taking it to Canada in four weeks.

That is, until I sat on it ten minutes ago and now that fancy pancy screen has a bleed. I am the absolute worst person ever. I have already bought him a new Kindle online (I didn't replace the earphones, but this..), but I feel completely dreadful. He made me a roast chicken and some leek soup for lunch today, and what did I do? I sat my fat ass down on his Kindle.

Adventures in DIY

2011-07-22T22:45:00.005+10:00

So, more or less because I couldn't find something that I liked at the negligible price I wanted to pay, I have made myself a camera bag. Being a girl, I carry a handbag constantly. It's usually a massive one too, so the last thing I wanted was one of those twerpy black, faux leather camera bags. Apart from the fact that they look dreadful, the last thing I want is yet another bag (in a perfect leave-it-in-the-restrooms size) to carry while traveling.

So I made myself something in a minimal size with no bells, whistles, zips or extra pouches that I can slip into whatever bag I'm already carrying. I don't know that I necessarily would have known how to make something with bells, whistles, etc. either, but let's pretend it was an option.

So, here are the results of my attempt!

Velcro close, with down padding inside. I did not make the down padding. That is a level of skill I dare not approach. It actually comes from a couple of old dolls' pillows and a doll blanket that my Mother made for me when I was about seven. It had all been gathering dust so I decided to put it to good use. The covering fabric was stuff I had at home, meant for a (increasingly ill-fated) DIY chair re-upholstering that I keep planning to do.

Best of all, I didn't even spend a cent.

The plunge. I have taken it.

2011-07-22T00:30:00.002+10:00

After numerous rounds of negotiations involving most camera retailers this side of Hong Kong, I have bought myself a brand-new camera.

I had been looking for a reason to justify the purchase of a new toy for a little while, because my gutsy little point-and-shoot just ain't cutting it anymore. The justification came perfectly packaged in the form of a suggestion from my Cello teacher that I visit her home state of Vermont during the Fall, while I'm in Montreal. A couple of quiet days at work gave me the opportunity to do some research (See, eg.) and I quickly decided that this was a side-trip I needed to make. Not only that, but the leaves! They needed to be PHOTOGRAPHED! Lest, I dunno, the seventy billion photographs that already exist on Flickr vanish somehow.

And so I spent the following set of quiet days at work telephoning camera retailers, trying to make them all undercut each other in the hopes that eventually I would end up with a free camera.

Needless to say that didn't happen. But I did get the Canon 1100D with 18-55 IS lens from Paxtons in Chatswood for $639.

Mostly I just want to take the Tax Invoice to Bing Lee, who were sizzling the obsolete 1000D for $800 and I want to wave it in their faces.

Reddit user arbores, on ads for The Olive Garden:

2011-07-19T19:14:00.001+10:00

I particularly hate the ones that feature the group of young, upwardly mobile, improbably-racially-diverse friends playfully thrusting their forks at one another's plates and happily sharing food. They bear very little resemblance to the mouth-breathing hominids you'd actually find within the stuccoed confines of such a craptastic eatery.

|Link|

Things I have been doing.

2011-07-11T22:47:00.002+10:00

One of the lawyers has a hearing at the Supreme Court this week, so last week was lost to feverish preparations. In what I believe is my personal best, I photocopied approximately 10,000 pages over the course of the week.

Ah, such is the glamorous life of a paralegal.

Friday evening I bailed as quickly as my hot little legs could carry me and took myself, along with a group of friends, to Stitch, Since I Left You and The Foxhole. These are all bars, apparently. I am full of nothing but praise, though, because after dealing with horrendous Sydney nightlife, the change in licensing laws and the increased availability of cheap liquor licenses means that small places like those I just listed have been able to open.

The following morning Dan and I caught a train back into the city and walked down westwards from Wynyard to near the KPMG and Macquarie buildings, meandering past the maligned Barangaroo site over to Walsh Bay. We had lunch at Cafe Sopra before pawing through the didgeridoos and boomerangs at the Rocks market back towards Wynyard. I had never walked around to Walsh Bay from the western side before and I was taken aback at how beautiful it was, with big sandstone cliff-faces drilled right down into the side of the city.

Saturday evening we watched the rugby at the Coopers in Newtown, and Sunday I spent with my Grandmother, Dad and Sister, walking from North Curl Curl Beach to Dee Why over the headland.

A lovely weekend.

A list of people and entities with which I have battled in the last 24 hours.

2011-07-07T23:10:00.002+10:00

Canon IR2520I multifunction printer
LEAP Documents 2003
Mental arithmetic
Nadi from Virgin Mobile
Two-ring binder
Olympus DSS Transcription Module
My ankles

I declared victory over a few (Virgin Mobile, the printer) and conceded defeat to others (my ankles).

It's over, O-V-A-H.

2011-07-02T21:55:00.000+10:00

On Tuesday 14 June 2011 I finished law school.*

And then I promptly joined the rest of my classmates over the road at the pub where we all got absolutely, fabulously, horrifyingly drunk. I feel we deserved it for the most part.

I had a couple of days of sweet freedom, and now I'm back at work at the lawjob, full-time until I go overseas. I quit the lawjob last week (in anticipation of travels and the new Big4 job), but the boss didn't actually tell anyone else, so it was left to me to have awkward conversations behind awkward closed doors with individual co-workers. The number of them who didn't seem at all surprised alarmed me a little, because while the suburban law firm was never hugely part of my long-term life plan, I honestly do love it there.

Six weeks to go! Also I bought this today:

It is a scarf with zebras all over it and I'm kind of in love with it. I've been sporting it as a turban all afternoon, for better or worse.

*Unless I failed something, like Intellectual Property, which is entirely likely since we have received exactly zero feedback on the assessment units for the subject and thus I have no idea how I went over the entire semester. Dear Jesus and Tom Cruise please don't let me have failed.

Woooooo.

2011-05-23T14:53:00.002+10:00

Oh egads. I booked my flights today!

Departing Sydney for Vancouver on 21 August, over to Montreal a week later, three months in Montreal, then Vienna, Eastern Europe and finally home on Christmas Eve. All in all, its almost exactly four months.

First World Problems

2011-05-10T21:19:00.003+10:00

Having forgotten my phone at Dan's on Monday morning, I faced three days of phonelessness with optimism and good humour.

It'll be liberating! No pesky telephone calls! If people want to meet up, we'll actually have to make PLANS! What a hark back to the halcyon days! Maybe this evening I'll gather my family 'round the wireless for an evening's entertainment!

It was not like that. Not like that at all. The amount of time I have wasted over the last two days is astronomical. Waiting at bus stops (Where before I could call for a lift home), attending an already cancelled cello lesson (She tried to reach me), missing out on lunch dates (because nobody could get hold of me).

Not having a phone is a curse. Not having a smartphone is an even worse curse. I felt absolutely ridiculous this evening, stranded at the bus stop for 45 minutes with a laptop, a Kindle and an iPod, but absolutely unable to help myself.

I got a cab home. I am so ashamed.

Me and my pets.

2011-05-03T20:59:00.009+10:00

I open my diary and the two Jabba the Hutts living therein belch loudly, leaving trails of mucous and sticking the pages together. Comfortably housed within the diary covers, the Jabbas leer at me from May 13 knowing full well that no matter how much I ignore them, we will eventually come face-to-face.

Oh yes, Intellectual Property, I will vanquish those assignments. Your sweaty twin Jabba the Hutts.

Seven is the number of assessable items I have left at law school - six, if you don't count the participation mark for Advocacy. After three years, that's almost countable on one hand. This time three years ago I had almost finished an Economics degree and couldn't possibly have imagined what would come next.

I'd love to sound all glowing and rosy-cheeked about my last few weeks of law school, about clutching books to my breast and just soaking up all that learning, but that would be a lie. I have never been less dedicated, less willing to be there, than over the last ten weeks. A lot of it comes with having a job lined up, but I'm also just over it. It's time to be a real person now.

Not feeling it.

2011-05-02T18:06:00.004+10:00

I had a cello lesson this morning which went better than expected because I had forgotten that I had done some practice and I am my teacher's baby's second-favourite student so every week comes with bonus squeezing and a chewed-up library card.

But then the remainder of the day bordered on ruination. I went in to class, which was a waste of time. We worked on an assignment (drafting a Will for a made-up client), for which I had already printed a precedent at work. I made plans to meet a friend for lunch, who stopped returning calls and text messages between 11.00am and 7.00pm, leaving me to fume in ineffectual rage between 11.00am and 7.00pm while simultaneously being terrified she'd fallen off a cliff.

Anyway, I'm determined that this evening won't be a waste. I've practiced cello and now I'm off to tutor my Year 12 Economics kiddie. I will do my Intellectual Property assignment this evening. I will.

Do you know that song that goes doo do doo do do do do dooo.

2011-04-28T21:51:00.002+10:00

Having a blog didn't seem ridiculously self-indulgent when I started this. Then again, I was sixteen and things like a complete absence of discipline didn't seem self-indulgent back then. Today, my once-thriving readership of twelve has disappeared along with my updates, so I think I can come back to my soapbox and start shouting again, into the empty void. I can't promise not to get spooked by the words hanging in the emptiness and disappear back behind the screen, but I'm going to try. There are plans afoot for 2011 and 2012. I'd like to document them here.

This year, I am going to Canada. For approximately three to four months at the end of August. Starting in Vancouver for a week, then spending the remaining time at McGill in Montreal doing a French course and generally residing comme une bohème among the Canadian Frenchies.

I have done nothing to actually plan this trip, except for enrollment at McGill University. I still have to figure out precise dates, book my flights (which appear not, as I had hoped, to have become magically cheaper), as well as work out things like whether or not to obtain a US Visa just in case I'd like to head down there for a bit.

To sort out the abovementioned aspects of my trip was on my To-Do List for this Midsemester Break (my last ever!), however I have not done them. Indeed, the only things I have worked on over this break have been the following:

Finish reading 'The Remains of the Day' by Kazuo Ishiguro;
Begin reading 'Eating Animals' by Jonathan Safran Foer;
Begin reading 'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides;
Watch 'Archer;'
Drink for the entirety of the extended Easter long-weekend;
Run over 5-6 kilometres. Twice.

In addition to the abovementioned aspects of my trip, other not-done items on my To-Do List for this midsemester break include the following:

Intellectual Property Assigment;
Intellectual Property "Reflection;"
Approximately two weeks worth of exam study.

I really am my own worst enemy.

In any event, in 2012, real life will finally catch up with me when I start work at a Big 4 in Sydney. I am alternately excited and terrified by the prospect of this.

Let's run.

On how life is like, so unfair.

2011-01-14T19:33:00.002+11:00

Recorded here for posterity and because I want to use this in her 21st birthday speech.

My 14 year old sister just threw herself against her bed in a fit of hysteria because my father would not permit her to take the following items to the French Alps:

A pair of flip flops.
A tropically-printed ruffle mini-skirt.
Three off-the-shoulder midriff t-shirts.
Jean shorts.

Having one set of underpants for a week is worse than you think.

2011-01-13T23:32:00.005+11:00

The state of my bedroom :

I'm going to France for three weeks on Saturday and I haven't got a suitcase at present and this mess is something up with which I will not put. I'm terrified that I'm going to leave something incredibly important at home because my stuff isn't contained yet (Like my orange bangle, which has somehow become the embodiment of all my nervous distress and I keep moronically moving it from place to place because OH NOES CAN'T FORGET ORANGE BANGLE).

Anyway, it's all looking like that time in primary school where I tried to pack for school camp into what was essentially a handbag, before realising it was never going to work and re-packing into a larger bag, only to leave all my underpants for the week in the little side-pockets of the handbag.

Quietly into the night.

2011-01-12T23:00:00.003+11:00

There was too much here. It made me itch around the collar, not least because whenever I'd happen upon an old post from 2004 or 2005, I'd read it and think

My god, was I ever really that much of an idiot?

So now what was here is sitting archived on my hard-disk, backed up on one of those dual-mirror terabyte whatsits that didn't even exist when I started this baby. The internet holds only the ghosts.

Despite having left it to gather dust for the better part of two years, it terrifies me to think I just deleted all that. I think it was for the best. I am not that girl anymore.