12 posts tagged “random musings”

I slept really badly last night. Well actually I slept really well, and woke up feeling that really heavy feeling as a result, but I didn't get to sleep until about 1.30am. Last night I was just really wired for some reason - maybe because yesterday was an exercise free day (although I did work to and from work). I had planned this week to start trying to re-set my body clock, because currently I seem to think that midnight is bed time. I thought I could try re-setting by half an hour every week, but so far things aren't going well. Maybe it is daylight savings, but these days I don't even start getting tired until about 1am. Sigh.

I did get more done on the Obama cross stitch, which was good. The counting for long rows is difficult though - it is so easy to get lost with large but uneven blocks of colour.

I also watched this film called Grace is Gone, which is about a man who loses his soldier wife in Iraq. John Cusack was the lead, and does a pretty good job of playing the role without histrionics. I enjoyed the film, and I thought it was generally quite apolotical, but something about it left me a little uneasy. I think it was the extras - two of which were some sort of episodes of "This Week at the Pentagon". Anyway, if you've seen it, let me know what you think.

The plan is to make it to the pool tonight. I've definitely packed my goggles this time, thank God! I'm debating whether or not to put on sunscreen... it seems to put it on for 30 minutes in a pool at 6.30 at night (although with daylight savings it is really 5.30pm), but I've been getting a bit paranoid about skin cancer lately thanks to a nice combination of (a) getting burned twice this summer already; and (b) the scary skin cancer ads on the telly. I'm pretty moley / freckly so I'm starting to wonder if I should sign up to some sort of annual mole patrol. Dad has had quite a few small 'areas of concern' burnt off his face in the last few years, so I know I need to be careful.

Anyhoos, lots of work to do today. I'm feeling the lack of supervision at the moment (what with pretty much everyone on leave) but things are nice and quiet, so that's good.

So much of food is about texture. What I call 'plastic cheese' (both because it is wrapped in plastic and is essentially plastic) is pretty much disgusting. I would never use it on anything or in anything, but... there is something delightful about folding it in on itself to make a pile of squares, and then eating it square by plasticky square. Love it.

I do seem to be a bit of a 'food dissector'. I have never understood people who put steak, mashed potato and peas all on the one fork and eat it. I have certainly relaxed a lot, but for most of my life I have insisted on eating one food at once, and generally in a certain order, mostly determined by eating what I like best last.

To demonstrate, up until a few years ago I would have insisted upon following this order for these fairly standard family dinners:  

• Steak, baked potato and peas: peas go first, then steak, and then potato.
• Lasagna: mince, then pasta layers, then top layer of pasta and cheese.
• Cannelloni: filing (pushed out of tubes), then scraped tomato sauce off top of tube, then pasta tube.
• Stir fry: capsicum, carrot, any green vegies, meat (if any), mushroom, finally noodles.

It seems completely ridiculous now that I write it down; I guess because it kinda is. One of the hazards of my system was that by leaving the best until last, you often end up eating more than you should. I was one of those children who for some unknown reason approached every meal like it was my last, and God forbid the last thing I should eat was peas instead of baked potato!

Last night while eating dinner, I realised that there is now much less order to my eating. I mixed it up, one might say. I mean, not to the extent of putting several different articles on the one fork (eww), but I no longer feel the need to dissect lasagna for chrissakes.

That said, I did still make sure that the last mouthful was baked potato. As the lolcats would say, nom nom nom nom...

Hey ho it is another Monday morning. Heaps of work to do, a cranky and non-responsive air-conditioner, and a lack of admin support. As usual. Yawn.

I did pretty much nothing of interest on the weekend. I went to bodybalance, where I seem to have injured my ankle, because by yesterday afternoon I was having trouble walking. Now it hurts quite a lot, and I am limping around like an idiot. I also went to the pool, but I don't think that could have made it worse. After all, swimming is meant to be low impact and good for things like ankles and knees. So tonight instead of BodyPump (which I will admit I have been avoiding for weeks now) I am going to go to the pool again. Swimming is calming, and I really shouldn't do BodyPump on a sore ankle. I might see if there is an aquarobics class on, or I might just do laps.

When I went to the pool on Sunday, I wore my chlorine resistant tankini. I love my non-resistant tankini so much, and really don't want it to be shredded by lap swimming. However, it turns out that my resistant tankini has somehow become completely indecent upon contact with water. I seriously spent the whole 20 laps paranoid that I was going to terrify small children or take my own eye out. We are talking everything but nip people, and on me that is a lot! Getting out of the pool in front of the 17 year old lifeguards was also a challenge. Why is it that almost everything I do is deeply, deeply shameful???

In other weekend happenings, I managed to get through a couple of sets of minutes in front of the television which was good. I really can't do that sort of work when I'm actually at work - it requires not being interrupted every 10 minutes by the phone / emails / co-workers.

I should really be paying better attention to the garden, which I've let go a bit lately. I'm blaming the summer heat - both for the garden being a bit shit, and for my being unwilling to do anything about it. I'm hoping that it will cool off a bit this weekend, otherwise I will have to do it in the evening (the chances of me being up early enough in the morning for it not to be hot are slim to none).

My computer is crazy slow this morning, so I keep having everything freeze but my internet explorer. Which is good for my personal internet usage, but not for progress on essential tasks. Sometimes I wonder how people got work done without computers, and then sometimes I think I'd get so much more done if I wasn't so reliant on the damn machine. There are rumours of us getting a new server sometime in the next year, but I'm not holding my breath.

I had one of those weekends where I was absurdly busy, and yet seemed to achieve nothing at all...

Saturday I woke up 1.5 hours after I was meant to, as usual, and did a last minute dash to get to BodyBalance, which was quite good despite my being very sore from Thursday (my body is so useless some times). After that I hit up Bunnings for some lavender, chilli and geranium plants, three bags of potting mix (helllloooo bicep work out) and a gorgeous orchid for my office to make me feel happy. I also picked up a poinsetta to act as a paltry Christmas tree, and a nice white terracotta pot for it which looks all festive n shit. Go me.

After that it was off to Spotlight for Christmas supplies (have started making my felt ornaments etc already) and some star-shaped cookie cutters. I also checked out a nearby second-hand store to try and get a table and chairs, but yet again couldn't see anything that was worth the money they wanted for it. I think I may just have to suck it up and get a brand new one at Ikea, which will suck if I end up moving in a few months and have to get rid of it. Blerghhhh.

Then I did 4 loads of washing (!) and a bit of tidying, and it was already time to head off to a music festival at a local farm. The festival was great - it started at about 5pm and they had overnight camping available (although Housemate and I drove). The whole thing was so well organised and the setting was just beautiful... it was amazing to be able to lie back on the picnic blanket, with a cold beer, listening to some good blues music, while staring at the lit up gum trees and the night stars. It was exactly the hit of culture and leaving-the-house-ness that I needed!

Sunday I got up late (bliss) and then pottered around in the garden and cleaning up bits of the house. I also made cupcakes because OfficeMate got admitted as a lawyer (but also just because I felt like making them). They were in theory caramel, but mostly they just tasted like coffee with a chewy caramel in the middle... passable but not up to my usual standard. Perhaps the Cupcake Gods know how I feel about him???

And then last night, while going to bed, I was accosted by not one, but two cockroaches... which is either a sign that my room seriously needs a vacuum, or that summer is well and truly underway in G-town. I am choosing to believe that it is the latter (it is late November after all).

Satan, thy name is chocolate balls with raspberry lollies in the centre. People, the devil is among us... and in my tummy.

Deadly killin machine

About a year ago, while with a bunch of friends who don't shlepp all over the country getting yelled at by their clients, I announced that cows were more dangerous than sharks. Admittedly, I announced this while drunk, and by waving my fist (which was still holding a wine glass) in the air with great vigour. Ever since, I have been subjected to great mockery by said friends, who refuse to believe that cows are more deadly than sharks.

Yesterday in the 4wd, after almost hitting a bloody cow who decided that the road was a good place to meander, I informed my co-workers of my theory that cows were more dangerous than sharks. High on popcorn, roadhouse hamburgers and 5 hours of driving on unsealed roads, we decided that what was needed was a Department of Cow Deaths, to which relatives of those killed by cows would be required to report their cow death incident.

Less deadly killin machine

There would be categories of cow deaths, so that we could compare indirect cow death and direct cow death, such as Marauding Cow, Stupid Cow, Mad Cow, Wandering Cow and so on.

Obviously there would also need to be a Department of Shark Death, so at the end of each year we could compare statistics and decide which animal was more deadly.

This inspired me to finally go out and seek some proof, dammit. And here tis. In 2007, cows were indeed more deadly to humans than sharks. Vindication baby! Of course it turns out that horses were more dangerous than both of them, but whatevs. Cows ARE the devil.

Loathing: I have all these weird bites (mozzies I guess), but only around my ankles. Are my ankles particularly tasty?

Loving: new bras! I no longer look like something out of national geographic, and I don't have underwire poking into my armpit / cleavage / ribcage. Deliciousness.

Meanwhile... performance review today. Blergh. Wish me luck!

Warning: this post will be of pretty much no interest to anyone.

I have stuck on my computer monitor the following exchange from a transcript of a High Court native title case, although I am ashamed to admit I can no longer remember which one it is (my instinct is Yorta Yorta or maybe Wik).

By way of background, Vance Hughston SC is a big fancy lawyer who does lots of native title litigation. He primarily worked for the State Government and other respondent parties (read: the baddies) before "getting religion"* and going to work for the Noongar People and kicking arse in a lower court (before being buggered up on appeal, but we'll conveniently ignore that fact).

Justice Kirby, meanwhile, is the bestest judge in the whole wide world (although I haven't got a source for that) and to my mind a God (again, no evidence to support that statement). While sometimes he bends the law a little too far to get to the decision he wants, I love his politics and I love that, unlike many other judges, he openly admits that he is a judicial activist and sees nothing wrong with that. In law school, as part of a lefty law student group, I even made badges which said "WWKD: What Would Kirby Do?". Justice Kirby is unfortunately constitutionally required to resign in a wee while, at which point I will weep and bang my head against things.

Anyhooser... the exchange is as follows:

Kirby J: What about going over the second point?

Mr Hughston: If your Honour pleases.

Kirby J: This is where you look a bit wobbly to me.

Why keep this on my computer? Because it reminds me that you don't have to always use fancy, high-faloooting language to get your point across, or in fact to be a kick arse High Court judge.

* This does not, in fact, refer to finding God, but rather is an internal phrase we use to refer to lawyers who switch from working for the baddies (Government, pastoralists, mining companies) to working for the goodies (blackfellas). We haven't yet developed a phrase for people who go the other way (ie from goodies to baddies)... possibly because it happens distressingly often and we're all in denial. About oh so many things.  

In follow up to this post... here are some further things that totally suck about being a bloody lawyer:

1. You have to hang out with wanky people. Truth be told, many lawyers are wanky. Many of them think that they are better than non-lawyers, while many others of them think that they are better than everybody, whether they be a lawyer or not. So, invariably, being a lawyer means who end up working with people who think they are better than you, despite no evidence of that being the case.
2. You are continually being told that women drop out of the profession within five years because it isn't very friendly - friendly to families, friendly to having a life, friendly to mental health... the list goes on. This is true, and a sign that the legal profession needs to do some changing. However, many (male) lawyers will cite this fact not as a sign that the legal profession needs to change, but rather as a sign that female lawyers need to get a cup of toughen the fuck up. In response to which I mentally aim a hasty kick to the balls their way.
3. You get very frustrated watching legal shows, or in fact just shows which mention the law. This includes current affairs, the news, soaps, dramas... pretty much 80% of what is on TV. Why? Because pretty much everyone gets it wrong. Eg: on Home and Away, a character gets found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to community service. YEAH. That's realistic. And, deep down, you know that TV, especially shows like Home and Away, are not meant to be realistic, but because you are a lawyer and therefore almost certainly a pedant, it will drive you crazy.
4. One day you realise that you have a favourite judge... and so do most of your friends, because you've lost the ability to be able to relate to people who don't have a favourite judge. I once seriously ruled out dating a guy because he didn't know what the ultimate court in Australia was (aptly named the High Court). Yes, this makes me a snob. But it's not my fault, because being a lawyer means you lose the ability to recognise that not everybody needs to know what the High Court is, or who sits on it, or what their most recent controversial judgment was.
5. There are millions of jokes about lawyers, but most people know only 1, so you should be prepared to hear it over, and over, and over, and over. Particularly from family members. It goes like this:

Q: What do you call 100 lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?

A: A good start.

Sydney was pretty great... the course was quite hard but very interesting, and I met some quite high profile legal types (for my field, anyway). It was nice to be in a city which has good food and things to do! One night we went and had dinner at Circular Quay, with the lights of the harbour bridge twinkling down on us. That was pretty special.

While in Sydney I met the partners of a legal firm who work in my field. The conversations I had with them were simultaneously depressing and inspiring, and have brought a focus back to my work, or at least a new way of thinking. I've pretty much given up on the prospect of my organisation changing it's dysfunctional ways, but I'm looking for ways that I can represent my clients in a professional, ethical and competent manner within the system. I don't see that I have much other option; I can't stay as frustrated and angry as I have been.

I've had a good weekend in The City, hanging out with my family and friends and generally bumming around. I went to visit my Grandpa in hospital a few times, and bought him this very basic mp3 player so that he has something to listen to while lying in the bed for a whole week. Overall he seems pretty chipper and not too worried about the treatment which is good. I forget that he's 80 years old - he looks and acts so much younger.

I'm in the office in The City tomorrow, and then back off travelling for the rest of the week. The next two months are shaping up to be a horror, travel-wise, so I'm definitely going to have to do some serious self-protection in terms of making sure I take care of my physical and mental health. Oh well, it could be worse... I could work in corporate law!