Watch out, supporters of the Coalition.

Yesterday, I saw Jon. There, you are now immortalised in my blog.

Other people I saw:

• Cristina Branco, a wonderfully expressive singer of Portuguese fado.
  
• Daniel, who luxuriates in French cuffs.
  
• Andrew, who studies comm/sci and now needs to go in my glossary.
  
• Michael, who has seen me on Fridays and Saturdays.
  
• Jason, who isn’t my brother but studies computer science anyway.
  
• Andy, who I’ve met before but can’t remember where (did we dance?).
  
• Vera, who really is small, I just noticed yesterday because she had cool pants on.
  
• Joel, he’s a whiz, gives me whizzy-dizzies when we dance.
  
• James, qualified raver (“big fish, little fish, cardboard box”).
  
• Naomi, who can out-dance James with her hands tied behind her back
  
• Joanna, who can now read September 26, 2004 if she wants.
  
• Jamie, whose autograph is worth $200.
  
• Megan, who has a nice haircut.
  
• Lachlan, the barefoot quickstepper.
  
• Kate M, who should give up the Czech boy.
  
• Ben, hey Mr DJ.
  
• Mark C, whose hair is artwork in progress.
  
• Tim, from Caffeinholics Anonymous.
  
• Mary, who is never afraid to learn new moves.
  
• Meng, who is afraid to dance with another boy.
  
• Hazel, who is discovering the world of dancing.
  
• Carlo, what can I say. He’s mad.
  
• Jana, at least I think that motionless pile of blankets on the couch was her.
  
• Pete-and-his-girlfriend, I’m sorry I don’t remember her name.
  
• Damjan, whose orange pen pwns Vera’s diary

I think that’s it.

What if we figured out how to harness limitless pollution-free energy from nuclear fusion?

Most people would say, “Hooray!” but the issue has occasionally bothered me. You see, for the past four years of my life, I’ve been living with the mantra, “Efficiency is the key. Reduce energy use. Waste is evil!” Turning off lights, avoiding air-conditioning, it’s all become a moral issue for me. So, what would happen if energy production did not have any environmental impacts?

Well, I thought, I guess that means we can use as much energy as we liked. We could leave the light on, drive energy-hogging cars and have laser light shows every night. The world’s energy problems would be (well on the way to being) solved! But while the champagne corks popped and confetti rained down around me, I would be standing in the middle of it all — worried. “Oh, no! This means that everyone will be wasting energy! … But that’s okay, right? It’s not really waste because it will never run out. There’s no pollution. Why am I being irrational?”

I told this to Kate and she said, “Joan, don’t worry. High energy use is usually coupled with high resource extraction. If we did have unlimited energy, you can imagine the rate of mining, land clearing, manufacturing all escalating. If we left the lights on all the time, they would all burn out quicker and we’d have to replace them! So even without considering the energy production impacts, it’s still good to be energy efficient. There. I’ve solved all your problems.”

YAY FOR KATE!

As I lifted my spoon, I noticed a face in my muesli. The rods of bran floated in position to act as two eyebrows and a curved smile. Two flakes of toasted oats hovered for eyes and a sultana bobbed up and down in the middle for a nose.

I grinned and carefully spooned it into my mouth.

Thank you for visiting my new blog. I’m slowly going to migrate my old entries to this blog but it will take time. Comments have mostly been rescued but some will be missing — and the times won’t match up properly. I’m doing it for historical value because I know you won’t be interested in re-reading old posts the way I do

At the moment, I severely pissed off with myself. I’ve been at panic stations because I have lots of homework — yet I wasted three hours last night resuscitating by blog…

(pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, PUFF, PUFF, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, PUFF, PUFF)

I have never been so annoyed with myself in my whole life. It’s not so much that I would have used the time for homework. I don’t usually do anything on Tuesday nights because I have uni until 9 PM. But I need my sleep. Can’t function on six hours. Can’t afford to lose sleep at this time of year.

I’ll get over it and will love myself again soon

I was tired of doing homework when dad calls out from the garage, “Joan! Tyre drill!” (Actually, he said, “Joan, come here and look at this.” But it would have been funny if he had called out, “Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! This is a Tyre Drill. All car drivers must assemble in front of their cars!”)

So I spent half an hour practicing changing wheels on my car. I’m not a super strong person but I could still unscrew the nuts and lift the car using a jack. Torque, it’s the most wonderful thing.

I am so tired. We ran a joint rehearsal with about thirty-five people at the dance studio. During it, Don was calling from the sidelines for me to speak louder and louder and LOUDER. Then he came up to the group and started lecturing us about discipline. A small boy student near the back moved to another spot and Don yelled at him, “Don’t you move while I’m talking!”

A man in the class said, “Look. I don’t want to be rude but you can’t talk to him like that. You can’t keep putting down the teachers.” Don immediately launched into him.

“If you don’t like it, get out.”

“Hey. Don’t touch me.”

“You! Out!”

It was a stand-off and both were fuming. The man and the boy grabbed their gear and stormed out. Kathleen glared at Don and chased her students. Don stood there, still ranting. I was so angry at him but I had to keep the rehearsal running. All the other students were shocked. A few of them realised what a difficult situation I was in and tried to help, smiled encouragingly and were very cooperative.

Ten minutes later, Kathleen came back in and told Don that she quit.

Sandles on my feet,

Oooh what a treat!

The feeling can’t be beat.

There are sandles on my feet.

I was at our dance studio supervising people for concert photos. We ran more than an hour behind schedule, it was loud, chaotic, people were annoyed, parents were fed up. It was exactly what I expected. I had blocked out half my day for the photos because I knew that the two hours would balloon. I wasn’t stressed at all.

It was terrible to see people so upset, though. My dance guru, Liz, went through the same chaos during yesterday’s photos so by today, she was seething. It didn’t help that Don kept verbally bashing us teachers.

“None of you have any idea! You’re all useless. Don’t just stand there. Don’t you think? Where are you? Get yourself organised! I let you organise things and it becomes a disaster!”

We’re used to the abuse. Liz has put up with it for the longest, many years. Today, though, she finally snapped. Liz and Don stood in the middle of the studio, yelling at each other. I’ve never seen Liz so angry and frustrated and offended.

They were surrounded by dance students. The students looked uncomfortable. I thought, “This is bad. This is unprofessional,” and I smiled at the kids and herded them back away from the storm.

Half an hour later, I was next to my students in line for their photos. Don came along and started haranguing poor Louise, who had been organising poses and costumes all day. One of my students, Sarah, tried to defend her.

“I think the teachers are doing a good job.”

Don shoots back at her, right in her face. “I don’t care what you think! It’s a disaster! You can’t tell me otherwise. It’s all because the teachers aren’t organised.”

She was shocked and took a step back. I exchanged looks with all my students. It was so rude. I can’t get over how rude and hypocritical Don was. Just an hour ago, he was lecturing the teachers about being presentable, professional and organised but his behaviour today did the most damage to the studio’s image.

He then turned around and started giving me instructions. I said, “Yes, Don. You’re quite right. SURE, Don.” All the kids could hear from my tone that I was being just a little sarcastic but Don seemed oblivious.

Later, I asked one of the senior teachers why he did this. Suzy said, “It’s a power thing. He thinks that if he yells loudly enough people will believe him that none of it is his fault. Everyone else is wrong. He’s the hero.”

It doesn’t work, though. Everyone just looks at him and sees a rude, demanding, inadequate man.

“Hi mum.”

“Hi Joan. We’ve just voted. When are you going?”

“I’ll wake Jason up in an hour and we’ll walk down there.”

“Your dad and I, we both voted Labor.”

“What?! I thought you were voting Liberal! You’ve said so for days!”

Mum grins. “Nah, I just wanted to argue with you.”