That’s What Your Mum Said

After a wonderful day in Sydney catching up with friends, family, and watching Christopher Hitchens be generally stupendous, the partner and I caught a very late train home to Newcastle. This train ride takes between 2 1/2 and 3 hours and after a long day in the city can be uncomfortable and sometimes a little concerning – a lot of people enjoy drinking on the train or using it as a place to sleep off their day/night of drinking.

When we were about 20 minutes from home, a man with a large bottle of alcohol covered in a brown paper bag in one hand, and an iPhone in the other, came over to us. He asked in a drunken and slow voice if he could borrow a phone as the battery had died on his. He was very polite however there was something quite unnerving about him. A few weeks ago, I allowed a drunken lady at the train station (at 8 in the morning, mind you) to borrow my mobile, even though I am a poor student and credit is like gold. She chatted with her friend for around five minutes with burps in between and a complete disregard for the credit she was wasting. Needless to say, I was burned. As a result I was immediately wary of this man and my partner looked quite uncomfortable too. This led to me lying and saying that I didn’t have my phone on me, and that my partner and I are students and don’t have much credit on his phone. I apologised profusely and felt really quite bad but at the same time, not bad enough to lend a phone. I must admit I was expecting him to be quite angry however he stayed calm. His eyes betrayed him and I could sense that he was angry and was judging us quite harshly.

He started asking what we are studying and where we lived. We told the truth about the degrees but not where we lived. He told us that his wife studied law like I am currently. He asked about our day and why we were in Sydney, and in order to be polite we asked him what he had been doing. It was a darned scary conversation as he appeared to be working up to something; yet, he wished us well in our studies and said he was sorry for making us feel uncomfortable.

As he left the train he gave us a flyer for the art show he had been to during the day where one of his friends had shown and sold some paintings. He told us that he will be showing his work in a gallery one day. He then hopped off a few stations before ours.

The more I think over this the worse I feel. After all of the fear we felt he appeared to be a genuine man who was just drunk. I immediately judged him as train-folk and assumed would get upset and angry and swear at us. However there is a good chance the discomfort we experienced was useless and led to us being unfriendly and uncharitable.

I am having trouble discerning whether we were unreasonable, or whether this is something a lot of people would have done.

Would you have lent him your phone?

I am lucky in that I have a boyfriend who is currently ‘keeping’ me. It allows me to study without the stress of putting the food on the table or paying the water bill. He claims that he will become a kept man and do his PHD when I graduate, but the joke is on him. I will get a lowly paid social justice job that fulfills me but only pays for half of the rent. HA! Sucker.

Anyway, my point is that my last pay from my once a month shift at an optometrist wasn’t required to make ends meet, so it instead went toward tickets to see Christopher Hitchens speak in Sydney this weekend. I like him. A lot. In a wrong way. Kind of. Sometimes I look at him and I think ‘middle aged paunch’. Other times I glance and I think ‘well hello sailor’. Usually when I don’t look at all and just read what he has written I think that latter. Even when he wrote that women aren’t funny, I liked his style. I love someone that can be a real dick with their tongue in cheek and cop the flack from humourless politically correct wankers. Dude, he visits war zones and rags on Mother Teresa! He has some steel balls right there.

I am hoping that he comes onto the stage with a bottle of scotch in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and it all just spirals into him singing show tunes in a mumbly Patsy-esque voice. That would be rad.

How can you not love him?

Well, straight up, I am a jerk/gerk (I am in two-minds about the spelling of this baby). I haven’t posted in forever and let us all be honest: not good enough. Can I list some excuses?

1. I have been thrown into the world of the law. It is fascinating and terrifying and all consuming. I go to bed thinking about Contracts. I wake up thinking about the Criminal law. Sometimes in the middle I sneak a little ‘Gilmore Girls’. I am getting decent marks and now have exams to look forward to in about three weeks time. Woot?
2. I have been lame-ass sick. The doc’s tell me it is a hyper-active thyroid, however they don’t actually know what it causing it. I have had at least 3 diagnoses so far but I guess I will wait until I see the endocrinologist in about a month. This thyroid thing (I call him Clive) is a crazy mofo. Makes me eat like a horse whilst still losing weight. Makes me have panic attacks even when I’m not stressed or anxious – just feels like pumping that adrenalin through whenever and wherever. Makes my mind a bit hazy. Makes me avoid coffee because it sets him off and makes me shake like a drug addict. If he continues, he will lead to bad things like malnutrition and osteoporosis. I want him fixed dammit!
3. I am lazy. When I have time to blog (which actually happens quite a lot) I tend to do Sudoku puzzles or make cakes or just sit and contemplate my navel.

I will try harder. I am reading all of your delightful blogs, I swear! They keep me happy and alive. What more could I want?

Tonight I am doing a placement at the Legal Centre that my university runs. I get to watch a fourth year law student talk to a real client and interview them regarding their legal issue. I am excited about this because legal-aid style law is where I want to head. None of this corporate swill for me (unless they offer me cake and iced coffee all the time….). Hopefully I don’t get a crazy who has just stabbed someone and wants to know their rights. I guess it is about a fair trial and all that….

ipso facto. Grievous Bodily Harm. Vicarious liability. prima facie. Estoppel. Parol Evidence rule. Wounding. mens rea. Defamation. obiter dictum. Affray.

Is it sick that I love this?

And so should you!

Read all about it where it originated:

http://www.blaghag.com/2010/04/in-name-of-science-i-offer-my-boobs.html

This article by Russell Blackford also sums it up nicely:

http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2010/04/this-blog-supports-boobquake.html

You don’t necessarily have to wear a revealing outfit; I probably won’t be, it is getting cold here (YAY, finally)! However I will be thinking about the fact that if I wanted to, I could walk around my city in a bikini and not be stoned to death as a result.

Celebrate living in a nation where being a woman is generally not disgusting. Be proud of being a woman and being ridiculously beautiful as a result! We deserve freedom, respect and equality. Until all women in the world have these rights we should not rest.

I have just finished the book ‘the ethics of what we eat’ by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. This is my second Peter Singer book on the topic of animals as food (after his classic ‘Animal Liberation’)  and it has been the paddle that has finally whacked me over the edge.

My partner and I have made the leap to vegetarianism.

He has always been very close to being a vegetarian but he would eat meat if I cooked it. Honestly, we only eat meat about once a week now anyway so it won’t make a huge difference. What will be noticeable is that we are also cutting out fish and skipping the pescatarianism. There is some heavy evidence that fish farming is one of the worst with relation to pollution but even just catching wild fish is not something I want to be involved in any more.

We won’t be going vegan just yet. I have been having some fairly serious health issues that mean no matter what I eat my body isn’t dealing with the nutrients properly, so we are keeping the cheese and the eggs. I will start looking into ethical cheese though, and will probably attempt to use soy milk form now on (I drink all of my coffee with soy, but the partner will be harder to convince).

I have been getting some amazing recipes from the gluttonous vegan (seriously, she is a genius) an it is amazingly easy tor replace any meat with tofu or my absolute favourites, kidney and cannellini beans. We use a LOT of beans.

I am happy about this decision. It feels good to be making a little bit of a difference just in our household. Don’t get me wrong – I will miss the odd steak or chicken in my favourite Balinese dishes. However I just don’t think it is worth the cruelty they went through to get to my plate.

…season 3 of Gilmore Girls to end. The prospect of an episode at the end of a chapter read or an essay drafted is the only thing that has been getting me through the study. After this, there are only 5 more seasons to go.

I always thought I was tougher than this. I have realised I am not. I love Gilmore Girls and I want to move to Stars Hollow and I want to be either Rory or Paris or Sookie or maybe even the town troubadour. I wish I had a town troubadour.

I have no life.

Grooming in his safe spot after taking a bath.

My lovely friend Jane, my little sister Katie and moi.

My delightful friend Mitch turns 30 this week and he celebrated on the weekend with a ‘Rockers v Mods’ themed party. It was hella fun and was just the release I needed after 4 weeks of hardcore study with barely a break (excepting he Atheist gathering of course)! Here are some pics for your viewing delight. There are a lot of me. I turned into a bit of a camera whore, but hell, I had a great time, and I finally had eyelashes (in reality, I have stumpy lashes that are shorter than my boyfriends. This kills me). I love fake lashes.

The partner and I

Sisters

My friend Peta, sister Katie and I

My friend told us to look like we love each other. This is what love looks like.

Friends foreeevvvvver

Very cheap cocktails = very big hangover

The birthday boy and I looking mighty stunned

Dancing like mods

Sister annoying partner. Usual state of affairs.

Before I started the degree that shall hereby be known as “Bachelor of buttloads of reading” I made a few things for presents. I have also bought a few things recently. Here they are.

I knitted this hot water bottle cover for my dear friend Peta’s birthday gift. She comes from the same small village as I did and we have both moved into big cities (albeit quite a distance from each other). We have had to grow up and be responsible, however people from our little village have slightly different values to those of the people we went to high school with and then subsequently met in the big wide world. We like track pants and climbing trees and making cakes out of the ingredients we have in the pantry (hello marshmallow, milo cake). She is a public servant in a job that requires her to be dressed up and coiffed during the day, but I know she loves being a sloth at night. This will help her through the long winter ahead (she lives in one of the few parts of Australia that actually get painfully cold).

If any of you are interested in this pattern is is a super-quick project and very rewarding. I have given them to many people as gifts now!

These were delicious. The partner loved them, and my parents actually stole the rest of them from my house when they visited. Yes, STOLE. Sneaky bastards. Joy the Baker is the genius behind these Honey Roasted Peanut Thumbprint cookies and I applaud her.

Another dear friend Mitch turns 30 this week and he had a killer party on the weekend themed ‘Rockers v Mods’. I will have another post with the delightful pictures but this is the notebook case we bought him. It is from byrd & belle and I would highly recommend their craftsmanship. He loved it by the way.