Those of you in Melbourne would know that today poured with rain. It was the fattest rain I’ve ever seen or been pelted with.

Well, our rumpus room flooded. We don’t know how it happened. It was such a shock to see the wooden floor of the (big) room shiny with water. Dad, mum, Jason and I worked together to mop it all up.

I’ve spent most of the week at an intensive workshop in mediation. Mediation is often an alternative to going to court but the process is also used to handle non-legal disputes. My interest is in environmental disputes. In the past, I’ve sat in community consultations and felt helpless because I couldn’t understand why people were so angry, didn’t agree, weren’t listening.

I could go on about this but I’m tired and will now write whatever. So I’ve spent the week learning some general skills like active listening, asking the right questions, reframing. I’ve begun learning the theory of negotiation. My next subject is called ‘negotiation’ so I will study this aspect more in depth later.

Anyway, a lot of the week was spent in role plays. We played mediators, as well as disputing parties. Even though it’s all fake, it’s still very draining and emotional. I’ve had to mediate and act in disputes about inheritance, intellectual property, someone stealing an old lady’s car and crashing it, the dissolution of a medical partnership, a custody battle… The most interesting dispute for me was where the local church had set up a soup kitchen in an affluent neighbourhood and the community members wanted to close it down because it was attracting ‘criminals and bums’ to the neighbourhood. I found that this dispute was a lot like many environmental ones. It was about differences in values and the ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome. I played the NIMBY proponent. I think I did it well too. I channeled the anger I had seen at community meetings about new incinerators and toxic waste dumps.

I had no idea how good I would be at mediation until I actually did it on day two of the workshop. I was crap. We’ve learned a particular model of mediation (the facilitative model) and the framework has been really helpful to work in. But the pressure of thinking and listening at the same time! You have to be so careful to ask the right questions. You have to be impartial and to never show your biases or ideas or solutions. A mediator’s hands should not be seen to be all over the decision.

Why have I been so bad at it? Firstly, my lack of experience and skill. That’s to be expected. Today, though, in our final coaching session, I did really well. I was finally able to overcome my tentativeness. Yesterday, while writing my reflective journal (which is assessed by the lecturer), I decided to stop worrying if I was asking the right or wrong questions. I stopped worrying about being calm and still. I decided to ask the questions I wanted to ask and just to be myself. And it worked!

Yesterday, I had told everyone in my workshop about how discouraged I was at my progress. The lecturer told me that the stages of learning were often said to be unconscious incompetence, followed by conscious incompetence, unconscious competence then finally conscious competence.

I think I’ve made it through all the stages. I actually believe that in terms of mediation, I exist in all four states at once and at this moment.

A farmer has 90 sheep. He wants to take them to the market across the river and sell them. There is no way to cross except via a ferry. The price the farmer pays the ferryman for his service is half the number of sheep that the farmer take across.

What is the minimum number of sheep that the farmer can get away with paying the ferryman?

Edited 21 February 2006 at 10:11 PM for consistency of wording. Changed references to ‘you’ to ‘the farmer’.

Most girls just roll their eyes when the men get all googly-eyed at Autobarn or Bunnings. “Boys and their toys,” we say, poking fun at them.

Well, it’s time for me to reveal a secret. Men — many girls get excited about Officeworks. I’m one of them. Something about stationery and folders and storage solutions…it’s like a magnet. Everything’s so neat! So coordinated! So functional!

I thought it was just me, you know, Joan the Freak. But talking to other girls, it seems like a common affliction. My sample size of about twenty females reveals the vast majority of them can blissfully wander around Officeworks for an hour or two. Even those for whom Officeworks is not a bee in their bonnet admit to an unhealthy preoccupation with Morning Glory stationery or similar.

However, starting work has ruined it all for me. At work, I have free and unlimited access to all the stationery I need. I don’t even bother stealing stationery any more. Work has well and truly killed the excitement.

Some people have trouble controlling how much they spend on credit cards. Perhaps they have three or four cards and juggle debts between them. How can they stop themselves spending?

“Plastic surgery! Cut up your cards!” they’re told.

But what happens if one day you really do need your card and you’ve cut it up? What then?

Someone provided me a neat solution. You can put your credit card into water and freeze it. That way, you don’t have immediate access to it. When you want to use the credit card, you have to take it out of the freezer and let it melt. While it melts, you can think about it — do you really need to spend the money? There’s no way to cheat yourself; you can’t put the block of ice into the microwave because you’d destroy the magnetic strip.

Before you ask, no, I don’t have a problem…although I did spend more money on a camera bag and filters on eBay yesterday.

On Bad Habit Brota‘s blog, I found a link to the strangest website I’ve ever seen. For less than $25 a month, you could have an Imaginary Girlfriend! From the website:

What is an Imaginary Girlfriend?

An Imaginary Girlfriend is exactly that. This is a service provided by a real life girl where she will pretend to be your long distance girlfriend by sending you personalized love letters, emails, pictures, leave phone messages (if you want), and provide other girlfriend-like services.

I like writing in my blog. Perhaps I can get money for writing on the internet…

GIRLFRIENDS WANTED!

5PM Interactive and ImaginaryGirlfriends.com are seeking creative, fun-loving women to join us! If you’re over 18, love to write and welcome the opportunity to earn extra cash, consider joining our site as an Imaginary Girlfriend.

Well, with Damo away, I do have a bit more time on my hands…

The romantic relationship is not real,of course, but can appear very authentic. Anyone who has difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy should NOT use this service.

Oh. I guess that rules me out, then.

I went along with Miriam to the nearest Telstra Shop. We waited for someone to help us. It was very busy this lunch time.

Finally, Graeme beckoned us to the counter. Miriam brought out her new phone car charger. She had bought it at another Telstra shop in Wodonga, around 4.5 hours north-east of Melbourne. It turned out that the charger didn’t fit her phone, even though she had shown the store assistants the phone she needed the charger for.

Miriam politely asked for a refund; the other store had assured her she could get a refund from any other Telstra shop. Graeme looked surprised.

“I’m sorry, we don’t sell this phone charger. It’s not even in our inventory… so I can’t give you a refund for it.”

“What do you mean? I bought it at a Telstra Shop.”

“Well, yes, it was probably a licenced Telstra Shop, you know, a franchise shop. Most of the Telstra Shops in the city are owned by Telstra but Telstra also franchises the shop, especially in rural areas. The franchises can sell whatever they like. The Telstra-owned shops have a strict inventory. Now, if this charger was part of our inventory, I could refund the money for you but…” He shrugged helplessly.

Miriam gave him a hard look. “Well. What should I do, then? Do I need to courier this to Wodonga?”

Graeme looked uncomfortable. “Well, you could…” All three of us were thinking about the high cost of couriers. “Try calling the Wodonga shop first,” he suggested.

Awkward silence. Miriam looked polite but she must have been frustrated.

Suddenly, a large brown bird flew in and dived over Graeme’s head.

“It’s an Optus bird!” I cried. “He’s come to get you!”

Graeme and the other store owners paused in confusion, then laughed. I could tell it was nervous laughter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just say the word, just say the word…

I am really tired. I spent yesterday digging dirt in Werribee and today investigating an algal bloom on the Mornington Peninsula. Then I stayed at work until late. I’m chasing deadlines, you see. I don’t mind, really. I’m storing the extra time up my sleeve.

It’s Valentine’s Day today. I see lots of women carrying flowers and balloons. There’s something sad about Valentine’s Day. When I see a woman carrying this kind of gift, I think, “Maybe she’s proud to have a partner who has passed the Valentine’s Day test,” or “Did he buy it because she’d get mad at him if he didn’t do what all the other men are supposedly doing?”

More than any other occasion, I think Valentine’s Day is about peer pressure. Maybe because the presents are so useless and therefore, signs of the triumph of commercialisation.

I guess… I’d like Valentine’s Day a whole lot more if the emphasis was on hugs rather than flowers, a shared dinner rather than balloons.

We were finishing up our sampling when a farmer pulled up in front of the gate.

“G’day! Will I be in your way if I let the cows graze here?” he called.

We looked over to the next paddock where sixty or seventy black Angus cows were standing (not doing much at all) in a yellow, dry, tussocky field. We looked at our feet, which were sunk into long green grass.

“Sure, we’re pretty much done here.”

The farmer gave us the thumbs up. He hopped on his buggy and drove to the next gate. The cows looked up immediately. Before he had finished unlocking the padlock, the herd had already begun to move towards him. They picked up speed when the gate open.

The cows ran — and I mean, ran — through the gate and massed down the road towards our paddock.

“That’s amazing!” Trav exclaimed. “They don’t need a sheep dog or anything.”

“They know what’s coming,” Matt said. I was suprised how fast the cows moved.

The herd skidded a little bit past the gate and had to backtrack. The animals came jogging past us in a line. Occasionally, one glanced at us.

“I need to take a photo,” I said to myself and slipped off my latex gloves to grab my camera.

When the cows past us, they dispersed from their file and quickly began munching. They were like kids in a candy store.

I haven’t publicly self-psychoanalysed in a while. Joanna has a Johari window.

I would be interested in your response to my own Johari window. If you have five minutes, could you visit and click on some adjectives? The website asks you for a name only. No emails are required. You can pick a random name if you don’t want me to know what you think of me.