In a cloud of smoke

One of the officebearers at work smokes in her office. Right next to my office. It is gross. Not that it matters that her office is right next to mine, really, because the smell of the cigarette smoke goes through the air conditioning system to permeat the entire third floor of our building. So EVERYBODY knows that someone is smoking inside. And everybody also knows exactly who it is, but that doesn't change anything.

Not only does it smell bad and give the organisation the appearance of being incredibly unprofessional to visitors, but smoking in any workplace where we live is illegal. So we could whop a great big fine. In the era of VSU, we really can't afford a fine for someone's selfishness and stupidity.

It's incredibly frustrating; if it was a staff member that was smoking (and if they persisted in smoking indoors after being informed that it is illegal and against organisational workplace health and safety practices), I would institute misconduct proceedings. When staff behave inappropriately, you can really do something about it. However, when OB's behave inappropriately, there's really not much you can do other than tell them that what they're doing is wrong and trying to guilt-trip/peer pressure them into changing. I think you can tell how successful that approach has been....

What upsets me more than any of the material consequences, like the office smelling bad or the potential fine, is the utter lack of respect for anyone else that this behaviour demonstrates. As I said, everyone knows that this person is smoking indoors, and it upsets people. People in the organisation have told her to her face that she should stop. And she just brushes everyone off and keeps on doing it. It's not as if there is nowhere for this person to smoke; there is a verandah on the top floor where all the smokers go that is a good, oh, say, twenty steps from her office door. But she can't be bothered, or thinks she is too important, to have to walk those twenty steps whenever she feels like a nicotine dose.

I'm anti-smoking regardless. But this issue isn't really about the smoking. It's about listening to the concerns of and respecting those around you. The ability to do this is something sorely lacking in this person.

Free Stuff!

I love free stuff! It is a cool perk of being involved in the Union, that you just so happen to be able to get hooked up with some cool free stuff every once in a while. Gig tickets (admittedly often for people you've never heard of), random cd's, movie passes, T-shirts - and yesterday, a free dress! Yep, at Market Day yesterday we were giving away free dresses! How cool is that? I love free!

We were giving away free jeans, as well, but I kind of didn't want to upset the karma fairy by taking too much free stuff, so I figure I'd just pick up a dress and leave the jeans for someone else. Anyway, chances are there wouldn't be any in my size - there were no dresses in my size, I was just lucky enough to find one that ties at the waist so it doesn't matter too much that it's too big for me.

* * *

Elections are fast-approaching, and work is becoming stress-central. Everyone is paranoid about everyone else pulling a politically dodgy trick at pre-selection (because that's what happened last year). It's quite depressing that we have to have all of this fighting and suspicion and intrigue within our own team, without even bringing the opposing teams into it. We need to pull it together, and fast. Because speaking of opposing teams, they are going to be putting out a big showing this year.

Our usual nemesis, the Liberal team, has been holding a number large BBQ's this week to recruit, and looks set to kick off their campaign in a couple of months with a big bang. Their numbers have been growing, which bothers me a lot. How did I end up going to uni at the university with the biggest Young Lib presence of any university in the country? They work hard to disguise themselves, too, to convince the voters that they aren't actually Liberals at all, that they aren't actually sexist, super-religious, crazy pro-lifers that want to dump all refugees on an island somewhere until they rot, but that they are actually cool, very average, trendy students just like everyone else, total mainstream people, while painting our team as power-hungry political crazies. Hey, I'm not gonna lie to you and say that there aren't power-hungry political crazies around, but as a team, we definitely have what I consider to be the better politics. For example, we aren't sexist, religion is not a tenet of our team in any way, we're pro-choice, and believe refugees have a right to be here. Anyway, the Libs will have a huge presence this year; how huge exacty remains to be seen.

There will be a new force around this year as well, in the form of the crazy socialists. Now, while there are some crazy people who are socialists on our team, the two kinds of crazy really do not belong in the same category. I mean, the former, dude, they are CRAAAAAZZZZZZYYYYYYY. They yell. All the time. With bullhorns. In a scary, intimidatory and harrassing manner. I have seen them reduce staff members to tears. We have had major complaints from them harrassing both staff and students. They are anti-Semitic, to the point that during the Israel-Lebanon conflict last year, they were yelling to Jewish students on campus that they were "baby-killers" and "had blood on their hands". Dude, whatever your political beliefs are, intimidating people and calling them babykiller is totally inappropriate in my book. So the fact that these people will be around scaring everyone during elections is going to make things, well.... interesting, to say the least.

It'll be a tough campaign. I just hope we have a strong enough team this year to pull it off.

Power-Hungry

People who will do anything for power really make me angry. When I first started thinking about this, I thought this makes me a hypocrite, as I've climbed to the top (or at least close to it) of pretty much everything I've done since primary school. But when I started thinking about it more, I realised that it's not power that makes me do it. Hell, I've learned that I don't even LIKE having power. Once I have it, I really lose sight of what I should do with it. Rather, what I do like, is to be important, to be valued, to feel like I matter. Some people would say that they are the same thing, but I disagree, whilst I will concede that they are very closely linked. I mean, if you are the most important person in the world, odds are you're holding most of the power as well. I like to be involved in things in a meaningful way. This does not mean that I like having the ability to overturn the decisions of others simply because I am more powerful than them.

Anyway, that's rather beside the point. The point is, I hate watching people trample all over everyone around them to get ahead. I also hate seeing people who I've worked with and come to know and admire turn into paranoid raving lunatics who just can't stop obsessing over how to beat their (at times imaginary) opposition. This quest for prime position has to be the most unproductive and divisive force I've ever witnessed. The deception, the game-playing, the animosity is all such a painful thing to witness. And it really hurts people. I hope I never become a power-hungry maniac. I'd like to think I like people to much for that to happen to me.

* * *

In other news, I walked home from work today instead of catching the bus in an attempt to pose as a healthy person - which is a total lie, by the way. Since the party Saturday, everything I have eaten has consisted of only meat and starch. Yes, that's right, I have become a true carnivore. Anyway, it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would - only half an hour. This is great, as it means it's not so far as to discourage me from doing it every day! Who knows, I might even start walking TO work in the morning as well! Wow, maybe one day, I won't even be PRETENDING to be healthy anymore, I'll actually BE healthy!

Nah, who am I kidding? I'll probably give up in a week.

I guess sometimes the passive-agressive approach works..

There was a zucchini (or cucumber, it was difficult to tell from the stage of decay) rotting in our fridge. That's right, rotting. Half-liquid. In a process of prolonged imploson. Ewwww! The boy showed the zucchini to E, whose zucchini it was, rather expecting that once it had been drawn to her attention it would be removed. "Wow, that is gross!" E said, before proceeding to shut the fridge door and go to work.

A few days later, the zucchini was still there. So the boy decided to leave E a note:

Dear E,

It is obvious you don't want me anymore, but I have already forgiven you. Just please don't leave me here to rot slowly, I desire a quick death. Throw me out so that when I go into landfill my death can create new members of my own race. Don't let my death by in vain.

Yours sincerely,

Zuccichni (yeah, he kind of misspelt it, but hey...)

The note as placed strategically in the fridge. The next day, the zucchini was gone....

* * *

Tonight is the boy's 21st birthday party! It's also a joint 21st party with A, who we live with. I was expecting the atmosphere around the Spruce Moose (our house) to be one of frenzied organisation as we prepared for the night - this was what happened a few month's ago when we hosted H's 21st. However, it has been a really cruisy day - slept in, surfed the net, watched the boy play chess with some friends, chatted to the boy's dad. Hmm, feel like I should be really doing more, but doing nothing just feels too good.

I'm looking forward to tonight, though. It'll be fun to dance and drink and hang out with friends. A bunch of the boy's friends that I haven't met before will be there, and I'm excited to meet them, but quite nervous as well. Oh well, there'll be plenty of people, so if there's someone I don't hit it off with, it'll be easy to get away!

I'm so lame

We have more than two weeks left of holidays before it's time to go back to uni for second semester, and I'm already studying. Yes, studying. Sure, I'd like to just say I'm spending the night reading at home, but that would be misleading.... it implies that I'm doing the reading purely for fun, because I'm really interested in pharmacology and the mechanisms of drugs. Sorry if pharmacology is a hot topic for you, but so far it doesn't really float my boat. But I'm mildly anxious about taking a third-year subject involving pharm this semester, when I have done NO pharm EVER, so I feel like I really need to give myself some kind of basic grounding in it before starting the subject.

I really shouldn't stress too much - the other recommended prerequisite for this course is physiology, and I've done loads of that. So my mantra for the next few weeks will be, "Don't know any pharm but you know lots of physiol. Don't know any pharm, but you know lots of physiol. Don't know any pharm, but you know lots of physiol..." How long do I have to keep this up for before I start to feel better?

Sucker for Punishment

So I've been reading a lot of blogs by med students or young doctors lately, and I also just finished reading The House of God. What do the vast majority of them have in common? (Ok, maybe 'vast majority' is a slight exaggeration, I should probably say 'fair proportion'.) They tell their readers to RUN, RUN LIKE CRAZY AWAY FROM THIS PROFESSION AND NEVER LOOK BACK!!! And yes, they really are that emphatic. Which makes me wonder, after hearing about the terrible hours everyone works, the huge amount of debt I'll be in by the time I finish uni, the demeaning hierarchical system of the industry and the oh so wonderful times I'll have disimpacting people, why would I still want to do it? I don't mean the same reasons as those that have made me decide to give a medical career a shot in the first place, such as wanting to work with people every day, and the opportunity for continuing education the whole way through, but rather the reason why everyone's advice to do anything OTHER than medicine doesn't succeed in turning me off the whole idea. I think it must be the whole challenge of it - which sounds horrible, I know. I'd hate for anyone reading this to think that I want to be a doctor just because it's difficult and to prove to myself that I could do it, because that's not it at all! Hmm, this is all very convoluted, but what I mean to say is that, while the real reasons for me wanting to be a doctor are less superficial, the idea of it being a challenge doesn't turn me off at all, but just makes me more inclined to give it my all, as opposed to getting away with putting in a half-baked effort, the way I've managed for most of uni so far... And surely that's not a bad thing?

A New Perspective

I met the mother of a friend of mine on Saturday night, L, who lives in a very remote part of the Northern Territory with her husband. The husband is a doctor there, and L is a high school teacher. She was fascinating to talk to, and really gave a different perspective on the government's new measures to address the problems Indigenous people are facing. The federal government here has recently introduced measures, such as banning all pornography and alcohol, and increasing the police presence in the area, designed to improve conditions for Indigenous people, and supposedly to address the issue of alleged violence and abuse perpetrated against Indigenous children and infants by elders. L and her husband have been working out there for a long time, and are in the rather privileged position of being trusted members of the community. Apparently, women in these communities are often forbidden to speak against the actions of elders, either publicly or within the kinship groups. However, they do speak to L and her husband, as they are well-regarded and will keep everything confidential. The government's new policies have been hotly debated in the media, as being too heavy-handed, and certainly as coming too late. According to L, though, women in the area where she lives are secretly very happy with the new measures, although the media will never hear of this. It's such a complex issue, and we very rarely hear in the media how Indigenous people feel or what they think. Unfortunately most of the commentary comes from politicians or newspaper editors, who obviously will have a very different perspective.

L seemed to get quite excited when I told her I was hoping to be studying medicine next year. Her husband specialised in emergency medicine before going into rural practice. They take students from the U Syd program who are at the end of their 2nd year on an elective placement, and they spend four weeks there. Apparently they get quite a shock, which is hardly surprising! By the second half, though, she says they're right in there, side-by-side with her husband, making decisions and doing minor procedures. It all sounds very exciting! Maybe if I don't get in next year, I can just go and live with them for a while to volunteer or something? Hmmm, good contact to have, anyway.