Last Monday I had my usual full day of classes and enjoyed my lunch outdoors, enjoying the 31 degree afternoon heat. I've actually had lunch outside every day that I have been at uni, to be honest - it's a hard life. I spent the night after class chilling out and watched an Oasis documentary on YouTube which was interesting because I hadn't actually seen it before, although I thought I had seen all of them. I had a fairly night since I had an interview for Jeanswest, a clothing store with branches all over Sydney, on Tuesday. The next morning before the interview I headed off to the university library to print off the details of my employment references as well as a clean copy of my CV. Afterwards I also had to stop by the General Post Office in the Broadway Shopping Centre in order to have a passport-sized photograph to take along to the interview with me. The photos set me back something crazy like $18 which I thought was mental, but apparently passport photos are very expensive, since there isn't really any other option - there is definitely a competition issue there! See, that's an example of my legal education being practically applicable!
The interview itself went quite well and I tried my best to make an impression and participate. It was a group interview style process and involved a lot of group work and team activities; I hadn't really done a group interview before, so it was all a bit new to me really, but fingers crossed I did alright and might hear back from them soon. One minor issue though is that they told us the induction for successful candidates will be Friday the 1st of November, which is when I will be in Cairns, so I hope that won't be a problem. The other big news on Tuesday was the launch of Sir Alex Ferguson's new autobiography, which I cannot wait to get my hands on; it sounds like he has really torn into certain people and it should be a great read. If his first book was anything to go by, then it will certainly be worth reading, even if you aren't a United fan.
On Wednesday I had another day of class, the most interesting of which was definitely my Intellectual Property class, where I decided that I would quickly download and install the new OSX Mavericks on my MacBook. I assumed that the install wouldn't take too long so I started it during the 10 minute break in the middle of the class, however it obviously took quite a bit longer than that and I spent almost half an hour of the class taking notes frantically on my phone instead. Lesson definitely learned. The other big news on Wednesday was that the on-going battle between the Ineos management and the Unite Union had resulted in the Grangemouth plant being closed down - a massive blow to the town of Falkirk and an income-killer for many, many families. Some of my own friends who work there had their jobs under threat. Not a good state of affairs at the moment, by any means. On a happier note, I heard back from Jeanswest that the interview had been successful and that I had passed into the next stage and would hear more shortly. Great stuff. Oh, the other thing which happened on Wednesday was the announcement that Still Game would be coming to the Hydro in Glasgow next September for a run of live shows, which I was very keen to get tickets to go and see!
Wednesday night's dinner. I am a top chef.
Early on Thursday morning, around 5.30am, my alarm went off and I got up out of bed to watch Man Utd playing against Real Sociedad in the Champions League. We started really well as Rooney scored inside two minutes and we held on to win 1-0 - pretty happy with that result and another 3 points gained in Europe. The game also saw the first trial run of the 'singing section' at Old Trafford and by all accounts it was a roaring success. After the game, I went back to bed to get another couple of hours sleep. When I eventually got up, I had a shower and breakfast and sat down to start getting my preparation work done for my assessed Commercial Dispute Resolution class; it involved another mediation role-play scenario and this time I was the acting counsel for the vendor of a large retail shopping property. In a break from my work I also managed to catch up on Match of the Day from the weekend - I wasn't exactly delighted to see Jack Wilshere round off a stunning Arsenal move which will probably go down as the goal of the season. I cooked some grilled chicken and peppers with some salad for dinner and then relaxed and watched TV for a little while. Whilst browsing Facebook at one point, I noticed someone on my news feed who had managed to get pre-sale tickets for Still Game, so I went on to the website, signed up with my email address and managed to get myself, Mum and Dad tickets for next September. Superb!
On Friday, I got up and headed to my Commercial Dispute Resolution class, which went well and I think we got a pretty good deal from our mediation process. I would definitely say that CDR has been my most enjoyable class this semester and I have found that it is quite rare to genuinely enjoy every part of an entire course. After class I headed home, got changed and then returned to Victoria Park for the Friday football game. I played for around an hour or so there before moving on to St Paul's College to meet the other guys and played for over an hour there too, so Friday was a really good workout. Earlier in the day, Jessica had text around to suggest we go out for some drinks that night and the plan was decided to meet at a bar called Palmer & Co, near the harbour. I walked home from football, got showered and changed and caught the train to Circular Quay, before finding my way to the bar. However, by the time I got there - I was running fashionably late - they had decided that it was too expensive to spend much of our night and had left, so I caught up near the Apple store on George Street. We eventually headed back to the Noodle Festival in Hyde Park where we enjoyed some Rekoderlig cider and tried some Himalayan food - which was surprisingly fantastic! We began walking back towards home and stopped in at one or two other bars, before I landed in my bed shortly after midnight.
This is a picture of the Himalayan food. There's chicken and potato curry, with some rice and noodles underneath. It sounds like a crazy combination, but I didn't actually chose it, the dish came like that.
Once again on Friday, I was awoken in the middle of the night by my alarm which I had set in order to get up and try to buy the new Rosso Bianco Nero hat, which was being released at 8pm back in the UK. The company make Manchester United hats, scarves and t-shirts, but all of the products are very limited in numbers, so they are very desirable - even more so because they are really quite cheap. Anyway, I had roped in both Mum and Kerry to help try and secure one, which paid off when Kerry managed to buy one on her iPad shortly before the 8pm release time! Some panicked Tweets were sent before it was confirmed that our order had been received and would be honoured, so I was delighted. I found out later that the website had received 10,000 unique hits and there were only 100 hats available for sale - and I am now the proud owner of one! It will be perfect for cold days when I travel down to Old Trafford to watch United next season, which I am missing terribly!
Saturday was a very chilled day, spent mostly watching the West Wing and sitting around the flat. I was pretty tired from my late night shenanigans through the week and I knew that I had another late one on Saturday night for another Man Utd match, so managed to get myself an early night for once. Back home, Cameron and Ade were heading down for the game today and their excitable updates as they travelled down on the bus and had a few pints in Sam Platts was making me extremely jealous. The game itself was very poor for ages, as our team went in at half time losing 2-1, however we managed to turn it around and won 3-2 in the end. When Chicharito headed in the third goal to put us ahead for the first time in the match I literally did a silent lap of the flat, going mad, but being careful not to make any noise since it was nearly 3am by this point. There is nothing quite like grabbing a win from the jaws of defeat. Sunday was another quiet day, where I caught up on some household chores - getting the washing done, cleaning the bathroom and hoovering the carpets. I headed out to Paddy's Market for a while too since I needed some fruit and veg - it is much cheaper there than the supermarkets and I've decided to stop buying fruit, veg and eggs from the supermarket entirely. At night I sat and watched Zero Dark Thirty, which I had copied over from Max's hard drive whilst at home in the summer. It's the film which shows the USA attempts to locate and kill Osama bin Laden and makes for some very intense viewing at times - it's almost 3 hours long too, which would be a lot to handle even without the tense subject matter.
Monday brought more classes and afterwards I headed home, made dinner and watched the X-Factor final, including some decent performances by Katy Perry and Fall Out Boy. The news doing the rounds today was that Lou Reed had died; truly a musical legend, although my mum didn't know who he was. Oh dear. On Tuesday I had planned to go and get a suitcase and a Halloween costume from Paddy's market however quickly remembered that it is closed on a Tuesday. There was also a bit of a shambles sorting out the tour which we had booked in Cairns for Friday, so I ended up spending the much of the day trying to get that sorted out. By the time it had all been fixed, it was almost 3pm so I got changed and headed to the park to play football; I played a blinder and scored some nice goals. It's always nice when you have those days where everything you try seems to work. However, before the game I did have to stop by Rebel Sports to buy new boots since my Nike ones were finally at the point where they could not be worn safely without serious danger of broken toes. I paid $50 for a pair of Messi Adidas boots, which didn't please me very much and I'm planning on picking up some decent boots at a later date. For anyone who is interested, Ronaldo over Messi, every single time.
Another meal picture - this one was Monday's dinner. Go on, admit that you've never seen an omelette folded in half and quartered as perfectly as mines!
Yesterday was my last day of classes for the semester, crazily enough! Time has flown in! I was supposed to have one final Commercial Dispute Resolution class on Friday, but I had decided that it would be alright to miss one class, since I had only missed one other class during the entire semester across all the four subjects which I am taking. It has been miraculously good attendance from me so far and a bit of a contrast to Glasgow where often delayed or cancelled trains, bad weather and long lies(!) can get in the way of making some classes. I was very pleased knowing that the next time I will have a class at uni will be in March - quite unbelievable seeing as it's not even November yet - just! After class I walked home to get my bag packed and other things all sorted out for going to Cairns! Passport looked out, flight ticket printed off, suncream packed.
This morning I woke up around 10 minutes before my alarm was due to go off, which is just the worst - you can't really go back to sleep but similarly you don't want to actually get up earlier than you had already planned. However, a quick browse of Twitter and Facebook, as well as checking the latest scores from the League Cup games which had went to extra time, meant that it was soon time to actually get up. I headed downstairs to go to the shops and get some milk for breakfast, but rather than heading to the local shop across the street which is a complete rip-off, I headed to the new Woolworths which opened today at Central Park. Once inside I realised that it was quite a fancy new place they had built and there were lots of security guards and people in smart attire milling around, then there was me in shorts, hoodie and flip-flops, not long out of bed and not even showered yet. Upon getting my milk in the supermarket, I was handed a free goody-bag at the front of the store which contained some chocolate, fruit, a bottle of water and a pen. The chocolate was eaten before I reached home. After having breakfast, a shower and a shave I headed down to Paddy's Market to try and find a Halloween costume for going out in Cairns tonight. After having several ideas which I quickly dismissed, I managed to find myself a Chicago Bulls basket ball shirt and a snapback - costume sorted! I returned home, packed the remainder of my bag and I'm now writing this before we leave for the airport. I think we might go back to Central Park first though to get a free burrito which one of the food places is handing out today. As students, free food is not to be shunned.
Oh, I also called Jeanswest back and they told me that I have to provide them with email addresses for my references since the time difference means that they can't phone overseas contacts. Once my references are all sorted though then there is a position open for me and they should have a contract ready next week. Furthermore, they've pushed the induction date back to next Friday which means I can actually attend it and I should be officially employed once again in the next week or two! I cannot wait to have some spare pocket money once more!
The next blog post should hopefully be one of the best, with lots of exciting things going on and plenty good pictures. Apologies that nearly all the photos in this post are food, I simply haven't taken many photos in the past week or so, but hopefully the next blog will make up for it! I need to leave soon - buzzing!!
Until next time,
Jamie
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