What? Me? An idiot?

Anyone who knows me in any capacity will readily attest to the fact that I never admit to having done something stupid. Today, here on this blog, I am going to make history.

I am sitting at Sydney international airport right now, all alone in the departure terminal, looking suspiciously at the janitor who is looking suspiciously back at me. It's almost like we're in the O.K. Corral, staring each other down, about to quickdraw our guns, or mobile phones, or whatever... I'm waiting for a tumbleweed to casually bounce past. I suddenly see a flash of movement! ...Phew, it's only the barista popping his head up from behind the coffee cart. Deep breathes.

I'm waiting here at 4am, amongst broom-weilding, detergent-slinging cowboy-janitors, a mere 6 hours before my scheduled departure for Japan. One might be forgiven for thinking that I'm an overly eager, excessively anal traveler. Not so.

As I was packing yesterday, my mum asked me what time the flight for Japan would be leaving. I glanced at my e-ticket and thought my flight was leaving at 7:05am. As such, I made arrangements for my parents to wake themselves up at 4am for no other reason than to call my mobile phone (I was staying at a hotel in Sydney) and make sure that I was awake.

As it turned out, I didn't need them to because between checking into the hotel at 11pm, and checking out at 4am, I was fortunate enough to have been an audience to an (almost) half-hourly performance by La Orchestra de McDonald's Carpark Hooligans with their rousing rendition of "Honk-Honk-Fully sic, bro-Honk-Honk-Get out of his car, ya f$#king slut-Honk-Honk" in G-Minor. Needless to say, I was in no danger of falling asleep and missing my scheduled check-in and departure time.

So I finally get to the airport, and discover that my flight does not leave at 7:05am, but 10:25am. In fact, the 705 number was the flight number...

And so it is, without further ado, that I hereby announce that I am an idiot.

That is all, thank you.

IT'S ALIVE!!!

It's ok, I'm ok - recall the emergency rescue services and cancel the search party. I'm alive, and I survived the bar exam. Thanks to those people who contacted me out of concern - no, my pile of trust accounting notes did not collapse on top of me, thus drowning me in a sea of accounts receivable and office receipts. And no, sadly, the criminal law practical component wasn't nearly as interesting as being asked to commit a crime, get caught, and then circumnavigate the tortuous criminal justice system - the first checkpoint, ideally, would have been seeing how long you could last detained in custody with a disturbingly affectionate cell mate named Bubba. This, of course, does not mean that I can't take a crack at it, but simply that I won't be getting credit for it.

No, the bar exam program comprised of an utterly unoriginal combination of written exams and mock trials, dragged out for a yawn-inducing two weeks. The best part would have been on the second Friday - the last day of exams - when all us budding lawyers stumbled out of the exam hall, jaywalked across the road and waltzed straight into the pub conveniently located just opposite the law college to suck up any unassuming law students who happen to be passing by, and into a mire of alcoholism.

So there we were - now budding alcoholics regaling each other with faux modesty about how 'difficult' we found the inane exams, and interrogating each other with our newly acquired cross-examination techniques to find out who amongst us was single and on the prowl... or maybe it just me doing the interrogating... and maybe it was just me who was single and on the prowl... three hours of solid drinking with no food has made my memory of the event somewhat fuzzy...

It smells like snow...

It's past midnight, and I'm balancing precariously on my window sill, laptop in its rightful place on top of my lap, feet resting on a slippery balcony railing, with a rum and coke in one hand and trying to type an instant message to Aunty M with the other. I am doing this because I was told that it was going to snow tonight/Sunday, and so I sit here, defying gravity, common sense and risking the possible onset of deep vein thrombosis, in the freezing cold, waiting to see some snow flakes.

It's not like I wouldn't be able to see them. Should they ever happen to float down, there is enough ambient neon light from the nearby shopping district to illuminate the heavens to give it a light bluish/purplish tinge.

While I wait, I thought I'd post some photos from my time in Australia, my spontaneous trip to Osaka and just some random pictures from the infuriatingly incessant light show that is my local shopping district. I have too much to write about and not nearly enough time to do it all at the moment, but I will get there eventually.

---There is something quintessentially Australian
about a country vista with a portable dunny---


---Australia's answer to Hogwarts... but prettier---


---Osaka Castle---


----3 steps to being "so happy" - (1) relax, (2) feel yourself,
and finally (3) enjoy yourself----


---The local red light district---




---Problem gamblers watching problem gamblers---