215

215 - That's the number of days I've been away from Canada; the longest such stretch ever. On Tuesday, with the advent of my 211th day, I officially broke my previous record. There's no way to tell how long this current record will hold. Depending on various factors, it may only last until November or it may be many years before I see Canada again. The only certainty is that this record will continue to grow.

This week has gotten rather hectic with work and school commitments both requiring my attention. On Wednesday evening, I had my first training session with ACTTAB, having been confirmed an employee for the coming months. I have 2 more weeks of training, though only 3 hours per day 3 days a week, and it fits my schedule. It seems like it'll be an interesting place to work, though I do have to brush up on the slang used by punters/tippers (gamblers). One difference from Canada is that in horse racing, there is no "show". When you bet in North America, you can bet that a horse to win (1st), place (1st or 2nd) or show (1st, 2nd or 3rd). Here, however, the show placing is encompassed by "place". I'm anxious to see how I'll do in the coming weeks.

The story of how I got the ACTTAB job is quite amusing. I applied online but didn't hear anything from them for 2 weeks. I then wrote them and they wrote back telling me that the paper I got in the interview explained that it would take 2 weeks to finalize appointments, which at the time, was only just coming up. I, quite surprised, responded that I had never received an interview. It turned out that my application had been lumped in with another person's, named Raman and, at first, ACTTAB hadn't realized that we were 2 separate people. I was granted an interview and as it concluded, I was told that I got the job. I hope I will do well.

To my astonishment, my goal umpiring season was not over last week. This week, today in fact, I umpired a Women's Representative Game at Manuka Oval. This is akin to an all-star game and it pitted members of the city's northern and southern clubs against each other. The South won quite convincingly. I don't think I'll be granted any more games to officiate as there are only a few left and I think they'll go to more experienced umpires.

In other footy news, the International Cup has just concluded in Melbourne where 16 national teams competed for top prize. Canada was among them and did very well this year, finishing 5th overall. This is 2 spots better than 2005 when they finished 7th. I have a feeling Canada will find itself on the podium before over-long. The championship was won by Papua New Guinea over New Zealand in a rematch of the 2005 International Cup Final. This time, the Mosquitoes (Papua New Guinea) avenged their loss and took home the championship.

I don't think I mentioned my previous contributions to Canberra footy by selling The Record at the 2 Sydney Swans games held at Manuka Oval this year. The Record is a the AFL's magazine and it is sold at games. They needed people to volunteer and help sell them at the games in Canberra, both of which I did. This granted me free admission and I was eager to do my part. I had a great time at the games and I look forward to doing this again next year. I even received congratulatory certificates thanking me for each of the games.

Working at Cafe Pronto has taken some interesting turns. Today, I had a small audience of 3 kids who watched me as I rolled pizza dough and I had an interesting discussion yesterday with a woman regarding grammar. One of our specials involved potatoes and the woman, after she had finished her meal said that I had misspelled potatoes because the "oes" ending was the American way of pluralizing. She insisted that in Australia, the correct spelling is "potato's". I was a little confused and told her that the "'s" ending is purely possessive and never a plural. She remained adamant and even I became unsure of my position. I went home and checked my Macquarie Dictionary (the Australian national dictionary) and it said that the correct spelling is: potatoes. Even on such a useless and trivial point, I feel glad to be vindicated.

Australia has had 2 important appointments recently: a new Governor-General (GG) and a new Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia (CJ). The new GG is Australia's first woman GG but with the unlikely first name of Quentin. She has been pretty prominent in Australian public life. The new CJ is Robert French and the first Western Australian nominated to the post. He was sworn in on September 1st at the High Court and the entire legal community is anxious to see how he takes to the job and how his verdicts will go.

On Friday, I went down to the Legislative Assembly building to be a student leader for a group of high school students who were taking part in a mock constitutional convention. This is held every year and schools around Canberra select students to attend. Here, they were divided into groups representing the states and territories and were tasked with discussing should Australia become a republic. There was a second question of what particular model should be followed: a directly elected President, or one who is elected by MPs and Senators. I was put in charge of the group representing Western Australia. I expected that support for a republic would be widespread among the groups but it turned out to be much more divided, almost along east-west lines. Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Victoria supported a republic, while Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania opposed such a move. If presented at referendum, in order to pass, this constitutional amendment would need to get a majority nationally and a majority in a majority of states (4). If this were to be indicative of how Australia would vote, then Australia would remain as she is. I couldn't stay around for the thoughts on the particular model nor the referendum that the students would hold, but I am anxious to know the results. I know someone who was there so I'll ask them on Tuesday.

While at this "convention", I met a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) who had grown up in Canberra. He told me that he remembered a time, just after World War 2, when Canberra's population was only 35 000; now it is 10 times that. He reminisced how his father thought that certain suburbs, which would now be thought of as central, were considered quite distant at the time. Even Lake Burley Griffin didn't exist as it wasn't filled until 1963. Until that time, it was just a river with a flood plain. Canberra continues to grow but in my discussions with the MLA, this growth is slowing though new suburbs are being developped in the near future.

I should perhaps mention how Canberra is laid out. The basic unit of any city is the suburb, though this term has a slightly different context in Australia. In Canada, suburb is a somewhat informal, but nonetheless official, designation of a neighbourhood. In Australia, though, the suburb is also the unit by which the post office assigns postal codes, so it is a very important division. In Australia, it is important to ask someone which suburb they live in since there may be many streets with the same name in many different suburbs; this is especially true in the larger cities. Canberra has a further division called a "division" or "town". Several suburbs are grouped together in a division, and they themselves are divided by unused land; they're pretty conspicuous. The main divisions of Canberra are: Central/Civic/City Centre, Gungahlin (guhn-GAH-lin), Belconnen (bel-KAWH-nen), Woden (WOHW-den)/Woden Valley, Weston/Weston Creek and Tuggeranong (TUH-gur-ah-NONG). All of these, except Weston Creek, have a Town Centre, sort of large shopping areas and the express buses between them are called "Intertown" buses.

One final note, it appear that next weekend I will be going to Sydney with the Solomko family, so my update will likely be later than usual.

Pleasant dreams.