Soldier Days

The days have gotten so much colder and wetter now that winter's coming. Already we're seeing winter temperatures and it looks as though my earlier predictions of a warm winter were premature. I have been going around saying that I hope that Canberra receives a 20cm snowfall this winter, just to see how they'd cope. While it does snow in Canberra on rare occasions, I think the most at any one time has been 10cm.

Speaking of wet days, I had to umpire a local AFL game in the rain. It wasn't driving or even very hard, but it was persistent. It didn't make the game very comfortable but I was compensated by the game being rather close. While the winning team ended up winning by 13 points, well into the final quarter the score was very close and that always makes for an interesting game whether your a player, spectator or official.

The most important event this week has been ANZAC Day which was on the 25th. As I had to work, I didn't go to the Dawn Service this year but perhaps next year. I won't belabour the meaning and significance of ANZAC Day as I have written about it in a past post. I did celebrate in my own way by watching the movie Gallipoli, a 1981 Australian movie starring Mel Gibson. It's the story of 2 young men who join up in 1915 and are eventually sent to Gallipoli to participate in the disastrous campaign there. It wasn't a bad movie but the interesting thing I found about it was that Gallipoli isn't even represented until 2/3rds of the way through the movie and the only battle scenes occur at the end. Still, it's one of those movies that Australians regard as a classic that should be seen.

Speaking of soldiers, I found out something about the French. Despite having a terrible reputation as soldiers, Groundskeeper Willie famously called them, "cheese eating surrender monkeys", they actually have a fairly impressive record. Since 389 BCE, the French have won 109 battles, lost 49 and drawn 10. Really, it's only their recent record that has been rather spotty. According to my dad, it's not the French soldiers so much as the general staff who seem to be inept at inopportune moments.

For Australians, ANZAC Day is a very important national day of remembrance with many considering it to be of greater importance than Australia Day. Australians take very seriously that history of the ANZAC and take pride in their service. It can be said that Australians strive every day to live up to the spirit of the ANZAC diggers (soldiers) with the concept of mateship, essentially always helping a friend.

Bad Dreams

I had a bad dream the other night. It wasn't so much bad in the terrifying sense, but bad in a kind of pathetic way. I think I've been at law school too long because I had a dream yesterday involving legal principles. This wasn't a dream where I was a lawyer or a judge, this was actually me back in high school during a student election. While my high school did have elections, the one in my dream was purely fictional; the result of my active subconscious. In this dream, some students were taking down posters of a candidate because the posters did not conform to some stipulation. In my dream, I then question if this was the result of a jurisdictional or procedural error. These are terms from my administrative law class, the first causing an act to be necessarily invalid and the latter not necessarily so. At the beginning of the year, our lecturer had stated that at one point he had dreamed about administrative law and even quoted a provision in his sleep. I'm not at that point yet, but I've moved one very big step closer. I think I need to unwind; I've got too much administrative law on the brain.

I've had a few other interesting dreams, such as one where I travelled back in time to the Canberra bushfires of 2003 and another involving a nuclear bomb of some kind. If only we could record our dreams visually, what fun we'd have. Perhaps as a result of this bizarre cranial activity, I've been waking up each morning earlier than usual. Not in the middle of the night, but early in the morning. Luckily, I don't mind this because it means I can go back to sleep for a little while.

I've been working, slowly, on my two assignments for most of the week and other than being called in to fill in at an ACTTAB outlet, there hasn't been much going on. I've managed to get some good hours in and I'm looking forward to my next paycheque. My record at guessing AFL winners now stands at 18-7 with 5 more games to go this weekend. If only I was a betting man, but I know the moment I start putting money on, my picks will end up losing. Well, nose back to the grindstone. Those assignments won't write themselves, unfortunately.

Working Holiday

The long mid-semester break began on Friday with the Good Friday public holiday. This year, the break is a little longer than usual as the Monday we would normally return to studies is another public holiday, ANZAC Day Monday. ANZAC Day itself is the preceding Sunday but keeping in line with government policy, Monday is a public holiday. As much as I would like to take this time to relax, unfortunately I won't be able to. I'll be working at ACTTAB and I have 2 assignments due the week we get back, one of them the very day classes start again. Not only does this mean a working holiday, but also no opportunity to go to Melbourne or Sydney as I had originally hoped; I simply can't afford the time.


Like North Americans, Australians have the Easter Bunny concept though this has been subject to a quiet campaign of change in the last few years. Rabbits are a destructive introduced species and some years back it was decided to try and replace the Easter Bunny with something more native; they came up with the Easter Bilby (BYHL-bee). A bilby is a type of rodent, similar in size to a rabbit, but looking more like a cross between a kangaroo and a rat. The duties of the Easter Bilby are the same as those of the Easter Bunny. The idea hasn't really caught on, though.


While Manuka Oval is being resurfaced, we AFL umpires have had to find alternate arrangements. Last Tuesday, we trained at the Canberra Institute of Technology's (C.I.T.) sports center. We didn't do any training outdoors, using an indoor gym instead. It was very interesting though as there were speed tests, jump tests, flexibility tests and even the dreaded beep test. The last of these is a point-to-point test where the participant travels back and forth between 2 points separated by 20 meters. The participant must reach the next point before the next beep and as the levels progress the beeps get closer together. It was very tiring but I managed to get to level 10 which I'm told is very good, and it is the minimum for AFL goal umpires. I had a lot of fun with the other tests, especially the sprint. One of the C.I.T. instructors is actually from Canada as well. We're back there on Tuesday and I can't wait to see what is in store.


There is one thing from last week I forgot to mention and that was that I biked interstate so to speak. My first regular season game was in Queanbeyan at 09:00 last Sunday but no buses run from Canberra that early and a cab was too expensive, so I decided I had no choice but to bike. Queanbeyan is just 10 kilometers from Canberra but it sits just across the border in New South Wales. I took me a little over an hour to get to the sports ground as the ride is quite hilly. Luckily, there was a long descent into Queanbeyan from Canberra along Canberra Avenue. The game itself wasn't overly exciting but I realized that I was probably too tired to negotiate the long hill back up to Canberra so I managed to get a ride back into the city from one of the other umpires. Although a little fun, biking to Queanbeyan is not something I'd like to make a habit of. Anyway, enjoy the holidays.

Quite Interesting

There's an absolutely splendid program I've ta'en to watching recently, QI. This is a British quiz show featuring celebrities which talks about facts that are QI --- quite interesting. Following in the genre of Myth Busters, this show is all about debunking popular myths. For example, the man we call Thomas a Beckett, the archbishop murdered by Henry II, was never "a Beckett" or "a anything"; he was plain Thomas Beckett. The "a" is an error that has somehow persisted through the centuries. Also, Noah did NOT take 2 of EVERY animal on his Ark. According to the Bible, God commanded him to take 2 of every non-clean animal (ex.: pig) but 7 of every clean animal (ex.: sheep). Even so, the program is not without error. In 1 episode they said that the Earth has 5 moons, these being very small objects that seems to orbit the Earth. Actually, these objects orbit the Sun but their paths cross the Earth's orbital plane and from our perspective, they do seem to orbit us although in unusual shapes. The "most famous" of these is Cruithne (CROOY-nee). I've found a few others and I'm going to write them, but on the whole, the show is quite interesting.

Keeping with the theme, I found a news story about a pay dispute between a Rabbi and the congregation in Sydney. It involves the amalgamation of one synagogue with another and how much the good Rabbi should be paid if he is made redundant. Depending on how it's done, the payout can be up to $1 000 000! The Rabbi himself is paid $80 000 per year. As I was reading this story I thought to myself, "Christ, I'm in the wrong line of work."

Inward Bound took off last night with several teams heading into the wild only to return to civilization again. This is an orienteering exercise where teams from several residences are shuttled blindfolded to various points and then told to make their way back to an appointed place. Some the teams are placed up to 50 km away and yesternight there was a magnificent storm. I only hope the teams brought rain gear. We'll see who finishes first.

I've also ta'en to picking the winners of AFL matches. Before any of you get in a tizzy, I'm not gambling. I was supposed to play the "Dark Prince" in the ACT AFL umpires' office pool and essentially people would bet against, or with, my picks for the winners. That fell through but I tried it for Round 1 anyway and out of 8 matches, I picked 6 winners. I'll do this for fun all year just to see how good I am. With 5 games played so far in Round 2, I've picked 3 winners, but that is also the exact same situation I was in last round at this point.

One of my favourite traditions has been the eating of ribs on the 1st Friday of every month. After the monthly Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (Ottawa Centre) meetings at the Canada Museum of Science and Technology, the group went to Kelsey's for some after-meeting discussions. At these, I would always have a rack of ribs. A short while ago I discovered Belucci's, a restaurant in Dickson, that serves great ribs, so I go there now the first Friday of every month, to honour my personal tradition.

Finally, I leave you with a frightening experience some classmates of mine had at their home. 4 of the JDs share a house in the, shall we say, less refined suburb of Charnwood in Canberra's northwest. This house adjoins a garage on the other side of which is the smaller home of their landlord. A few days ago, the landlord's house was firebombed; a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the window. Luckily it was put out before any major damage or injury resulted. My classmates have been released from their lease (understandably) and are now looking for alternate accommodation, though they are still living there in the interim. I'm already thinking of who I should get to play them when I write the 4th Underbelly series.

That's all for this week. Did you get my Rabbi joke?