I was telling Megan about playing badminton yesterday.

‘It was in a sports hall. You know, whenever I get into a big enclosed space like that, I feel like dancing. I can’t help it, I just start jigging and spinning.’

Megan laughed. ‘You’re like Pavlov’s dog, Joan.’

It was about 11:30 PM and I was about to turn off the computer when three emails from eBay popped up in my inbox.

‘You’ve received a question about your eBay item, Nokia N95…’, the subject line said.

Curious. I wasn’t bidding on a Nokia N95. I clicked on the email and found that it was spam. Strangely, it looked like I was the one sending spam to the seller of the Nokia N95. If you send a message through eBay, you get a copy of it in your email. This piece of spam was signed in my name.

I’ve gotten spam emails through eBay before and have ’spoof@ebay…’ in my address book so that I can forward it to them. I was going to do just that when suddenly, another dozen of these emails arrived in my inbox, all with different subject lines. A second later, there were another dozen, and another.

Puzzled, I visited eBay’s website to get a help contact. I was very pleased to find that eBay has a ‘live help’ feature. So I clicked on ‘live help’ and in a few seconds, was talking to Melvin.

I told Melvin that there were now 50 spam emails in my inbox and they looked as if I had sent them to others. Melvin agreed that it was strange and asked me to forward the emails to him. I logged off the chat and went to forward two of the emails.

Then it suddenly went crazy.

New emails arrived, saying, ‘You Won eBay Item: NOKIA E90 COMUNICATOR’ and ‘You Won eBay Item: Apple iPhone 8Gb’. Now I was buying items? Were these fake emails too?

In a panic, I logged into my eBay account and was confronted with a bill for tens of thousands of dollars. It looked as if someone had hacked into my account and was wreaking havoc by sending spam, bidding in auctions and buying what was immediately available.

Thankfully, Melvin was still on the live chat. He switched me to Stan, an account security person. Stan read through my chat history with Melvin and hopped into my account to see what was going on. I waited at my computer, fingers poised on the keys. In the mean time, more emails arrived, congratulating me for additional purchases.

After five minutes, Stan typed, ‘There does seem to be an unusual pattern of activity in the purchases.’ He also discovered the spam emails in my ’sent messages’. He and Denise (who showed up in the chat session later) helped me remove all my bids and purchases, and sent emails to the sellers to tell them that I wasn’t responsible for the bids. They also emailed the spam recipients.

‘This will help reduce the number of enquiries you might get.’ Yes, indeed, there are some people who do reply to spam (despite Stan and Denise’s precautions, one person did end up asking me about the iPhone I was supposedly peddling).

Stan reset my eBay account and I had to change both my email and eBay passwords. It was all over in an hour.

I wonder how this had happened? Stan suggested that I had clicked a link on a spoof email, then logged into a fake eBay website. I don’t think this is what happened. I haven’t logged into my eBay account for more than a month. I’m also very careful about fake emails.

I think it’s more likely that they had guessed my password. It was a fairly simple one. Maybe they had plugged a computer dictionary in and tried out the more obvious combinations.

I have come out of this incident with two things: one, a new passion for passwords with upper and lower case letters, numbers and punctuation characters; and secondly, satisfaction and pleasure at eBay’s efforts to help people out as soon as they have a problem.

Last night, I read part of my diary from 2003. I’ve been keeping a daily diary since then, plus I have one from 1998 1996 when I was in Year 8.

For about two years, keeping a diary was a bit of a chore. I did it because I thought it might be a good idea. Now I know it’s a good idea and I often look forward to writing it. When I read about a party I went to, how I felt about family and friends, my projects, I can remember it and get the same feelings back. I recall much of the everyday — a pool night with uni friends here, a certain stressful exam there, a humiliating phone call, current obsessions, favourite pop songs. But some major things I’d forgotten. I had forgotten that after we had handed in a project, Kate, Deva and I took the initiative to present it to our client, a university department. At the time it was scary, taking schoolwork into the real world. It’s something I take for granted now. There was a phone interview with people in China for a six-month position in Inner Mongolia. I had forgotten it had even happened. I read about meeting people who are now some of my closest friends. It’s interesting, the little things I noted about them at the time.

Reading my 2003 diary, I realise that I’ve grown up a lot in four years. Mostly, I understand myself better. I learned how to be a better friend. At the time, I was terrible at delegation and teamwork. I often felt bad about myself. I knew how to make money but not how to spend it. I was a gawky dancer, nervous about swing dancing, just starting ballroom, only just starting to feel comfortable with hiphop.

Looking back, I would say 2003 was a painful year of learning and growth. At the time, I wouldn’t have said so. No, I probably thought I was on top of it all.

In four or five years, when I read about 2007, I wonder what I’ll think of it?

For much of yesterday, I was tense. It all started with FedEx delivering my long-awaited UK work permit. When I opened up the package, I discovered that I still couldn’t go back to the UK, even with this permit. I had to apply for an additional ‘entry clearance certificate’ from the British High Commission in Canberra. It would take another two+ weeks and A$500.

I spent the rest of the day rebooking air tickets, deferring accommodation, renegotiating my work start date, photocopying letters, passports and degree certificates, getting passport photos printed, filling in and printing out online forms…

Little things that I would normally shrug off made me snap and glare. I was angry at no one and everyone. My poor family!

It was a strange feeling, being that angry and, at the same time, knowing how useless and irrational my anger was. I couldn’t blame anyone for anything. I was just generally frustrated with the world.

This made me think about a man I saw on the Dr Phil show last week. He had spent the last sixteen years of his life, angry at the world. The littlest things would trigger him off, like cars driving too close to him, or waiters taking too long, or people disagreeing with him.

Now, I have a faint idea of what it must be to live like him. It’s not nice, being constantly and pointlessly frustrated. It’s also difficult to let the frustration go. I can imagine that if you are like that for a very long time, you wouldn’t know how to be any different even when you want to be. I wonder if Dr Phil understood that?

Tomorrow is October 15. It is the day I was meant to start my new job in London, having enjoyed three weeks in Melbourne with family and friends. But — I’m still here! In Melbourne!

I could not get my UK work permit in time so the company that hired me has asked me to stay put. I’ve heard many stories of friends of friends being thrown out by UK immigration for the flimsiest of reasons. It’s not something I want to risk.

So, it seems that I will be house-daughter for at least another two weeks. My housing woes have turned to my advantage. It’s a good thing that the house we did put a deposit on fell through, and that we couldn’t find another house. It means that I’m not paying London rent during this unexpectedly long stay at home.

At this time, I recall my favourite Chinese proverb: ‘Old Sai loses a horse’.

Chinese: 塞翁失馬 (Sāi Wēng shī mǎ)

Here is a link to the story. It’s a good one.

While I was away from Melbourne, I got a cheque for $1.64 in the mail. It was waiting for me on my desk when I got back.

Not one for loose ends, I walked to the local branch of my bank so that I could deposit it. Usually, I make deposits through the ATM. The machine gave me an envelope as normal. I stuffed the cheque in and licked it shut. I was in a hurry because the machine was beeping at me: ‘Quickly! Put the envelope in! I’m going to cancel your transaction, you’re taking too long…’

I pushed the envelope into the deposit slot and only managed to squish it against an unseen surface. I tried again. Push. Squish. The ATM seemed jammed.

I hit ‘cancel’ — then, patiently joined the queue inside the bank for a teller. When I was called to the counter, I explained the situation.

‘Could you help me deposit this cheque? I tried to put it into the ATM but the machine is jammed.’

‘Of course. No problem.’ The teller ripped open the end of the ATM envelope, only to find she had ripped off the end of my cheque as well. After further struggles with sticky tape, my $1.64 was finally on its way to my account.

‘Thanks for that,’ I said. ‘Umm… Could you make sure I’m not charged for this transaction? The teller assist fee, I mean?’

I have an internet-based bank account. For $2 a month, I get electronic and ATM transactions for free but am charged $2.50 if I need help from a teller.

‘Oh no, I can’t do that’ she said. ‘You’re charged as soon as you show up at the teller. When you get your statement with the charges listed, bring it into the branch. They might be able to do something about it then.’

Walking home from the bank, I felt more and more vexed. If I got charged $2.50, I would make a loss of 86 cents on this deposit. I would have been better off ripping up the cheque in the first place!

At home, I turned on the computer and composed an email to the bank’s complaints department. I clicked ’send’ and felt better. There. I had done my best.

The next day, I got a call from the bank.

‘Hello, is this Joan?’

‘Yes?’

‘This is Madeleine from the bank. We got a feedback email from you yesterday and I’m calling to let you know that you won’t be charged for the cheque deposit.’

‘Oh, good!’ I said.

‘And for the trouble that you took to write that email, we’re also waiving your $2 account keeping fee for this month.’

I started laughing. ‘Wow, uh, fantastic! Every little bit counts, I guess!’

Madeleine giggled too. I knew it cost her nothing to offer the $2. To the bank, $2 was a tiny price for keeping a customer happy.

There are at least two interesting things in Melbourne.

A giant ball of Calvin Klein denim jeans at Chadstone, the fashion capital.

Liquid kiwifruit. Need I say more?

When mum and dad flew to Europe to visit me this year, they flew with Vietnam Airlines.

‘I was worried,’ mum said, ‘because people told us that Vietnam Airlines always overbooks its flights. I kept thinking, “What if we get to the airport and there is no space for us?”‘

Dad said, ‘You didn’t need to worry!’

‘I know…’ mum agreed.

‘Because if there aren’t any spaces, they have to put us in business class or first class! We kept hoping that it would happen. Upgrade! Upgrade! Upgrade!’

‘But you didn’t get one,’ I said.

‘No, we did!’ mum and dad chimed.

‘What? You didn’t tell me!’

‘We didn’t know we were going to business class. They gave us the boarding pass and we went in the airplane and when we found our seats, it was before we went through the curtain, you know, the one between business class and economy. “Eh? We’re in business class?”‘

Mum waved her arms about. ‘Oh, there was so much space. You could lie all the way down.’

‘You know who gave us the upgrade?’ Dad said to me. ‘You were there!’

After four days in Paris, my parents and I split up at Charles de Gaulle airport. I flew back to London Stansted, and mum and dad went back to Melbourne via Hanoi.

‘Oh! The short man. The dwarf!’ I remembered the check-in person. Dad nodded. I cocked my head to the left, thinking. ‘Maybe he was sneaky and happy that he could give you this surprise present… This reminds me of a few weeks ago. I went to a shop and asked the lady for five little cookies. When I opened the bag, there were six cookies!’

‘Lucky! Maybe it was an accident,’ mum suggested.

‘No. I think it was a present,’ dad decided.

‘You must think I’m crazy,’ mum said. I was in the kitchen watching her prepare a roast chicken. ‘The fridge is full of food and we’re going out to eat tonight, but I am still cooking.’

‘That’s okay, mum. It’s your hobby,’ I reassured her. I love my mum’s cooking. Since coming back to Melbourne, I have had all my favourite meals.

My mum is famous for the ‘little’ meals she prepares for my friends.

‘Oh, no trouble!’ she would say when people unexpectedly dropped by. ‘I’ll just throw something together, nothing special,’ and out of the kitchen would come a banquet.

Here is the menu from my 21st birthday dinner a few years ago.

By the end of Set 1, my guests had already conceded defeat — the tastebuds were willing but the stomach was full.

Yesterday, mum and I were in a homewares shop. I couldn’t find the muffin trays I wanted so we headed to the exit.

‘Hello!’ called the shop attendant.

‘Good morning,’ mum said.

‘Have you seen this before?’ The shop person held up a bright blue rubber tube. It was about three inches long and an inch diameter. Politely, we shuffled back into the shop to look at the tube.

‘Watch this,’ the shop person said. She inserted a clove of garlic into the tube, rolled it back and forth on the counter top, then shook the clove out into her hand. The garlic peel had been loosened.

‘In-teres-ting,’ mum said noncommittally.

‘Only two dollars!’ The shop person offered the tube to mum but mum stepped back.

‘Sorry,’ mum said, shaking her head regretfully. ‘I don’t cook.’

I gaped after mum as she waved to the shop person and walked out of the store.