Stomping Grounds

Hi everyone,

Here I am, back at my old web-access stomping grounds: a certain internet cafe on La Trobe Street.  I've come into the CBD on Sunday afternoon to get a haircut before starting the new job tomorrow.  So, I'm here to attend to a few things on the web and after that I think I'll enjoy my last little bit of Sunday afternoon by finding somewhere to get a coffee or a hot chocolate and have a look at the paper maybe.

It's been a big couple of days.  Sorry I've been AWOL so much - I'll be a better blogger this week!

Friday was my last day at the current job.  I had two court appearances in the morning, and then handed over about 15 files to one of my colleagues.  Four of us went out for Chinese dumplings at this place near work for lunch, which was just great - and delicious!  I packed up my office, prepared a few bits of other paperwork that were outstanding, handed in my training documents and dictaphone and turned in my security pass, and generally went through the "winding it up" processes.  The section put out some cakes and chips for a sendoff for me at about 4:30pm.  That was really nice - P, one of the partners, had gone around and asked for some of the funnier stories about me and recounted them, and I was able to say thanks to everyone for the great time I've had with the firm.

This continued into the after work drinks.  P, as he was leaving them, made a point of saying I shouldn't spend my life in the law.  While it's good for now, his thinking is that it's not the best use I could be making of my life.  Everyone was really nice - a lot of people who usually don't go to Friday drinks said they'd made a point of beng there for me, which I was blown away by.  Two of them - mothers with young children, had actually decided to blow one of their rare evening's off for me!  If that's not friendship, I dunno what is!  After drinks at work, we continued on to a bar near work, and then on to karaoke at a private venue where there was a booking for, in essence, a separate room with a karaoke setup for our party, which was about 12-14 people.  This included two members of the bar who I deal with quite a bit.  I have to say, you really see a different side of people when they relax.  One of the barristers, who always struck me as quite reserved and cooly intellectual, is not someone who I'd have predicted would - halfway through the evening - be belting out Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the name of..."!  It was a great evening and I think everyone had a barrel of fun.  When I got back to the casa I spent some time sending little thank you emails to everyone who attended.  Honestly, I just never would have thought of myself as the sort of person who anyone would go to that much trouble over - so it feels pretty good!

Saturday I kept fairly quiet.  It was an absolutely frigid day outside - I'm not sure it got about 11 degrees all day.  So I kept inside, drank a lot of tea, and went though a bunch of primary source materials for one of my pieces of research.  At about 4pm I went and got groceries and when I came back I went out for a run to St Marys and back.  Because of being sick last week and my knees aching I hadn;t been for a few days, and i was stoked to find I was able to get back into a rhythm pretty quick.  Although I do need to freshen up my running playlist.  Any suggestions?

In the evening I made dinner.  When I went to the supermarket, I'd decided to experiment with some new vegetables, and so instead of my usual celery and capsicums, I bought some turnips and swedes as well as carrots.  Now, I knew nothing about turnips apart from that growing them was popularlised by William Townsend in the early modern period as a means of re-nitrogenising soil instead of relying solely on crop rotation for that purpose.  I knew even less about swedes.  So, I had no idea if these things were akin to a potato, or an artichoke, or an onion or what!  On discovering that they were kind of like a squash, I decided to smother them with some hamburgers.  It worked out brilliantly - they soaked up a huge amount of flavour from the sauce, and I'm so looking forward to left-overs tonight!

Joni and I tried to skype this evening, but something was wrong with the connection and we couldn;t get through.  Sadly we couldn't tee up another time for today as the girls were to have a day-long playdate and sleepover with their aunty and uncle, so the next skype window is Friday night.  Still, the girls will be spoiled rotten on the playdate today, so that's OK.

Today has been business-like.  I did a load of laundry and ironed two weeks worth of shirts and watched some of a DVD of The West, and then came down to the CBD.  Which brings me to now.

I'm still looking forward to starting the new job, altough with a few nerves.  I gues that's natural.  Like I said in a recent post, my instincts are just telling me that this is my time to shine.  I don't want to do it forever, but I surely do want to do it well, and I think this is the time.

I expect I'll post a bit more later tonight.

See you then.

P.S. - I got an email last night from the Midwest Literary Magazine advising that they'd accepted a couple of my poems for publication.  If that's not a ood omen I don't know what is!