2007-04-22 - 4:53 p.m.

Third entry for the day...

This time it's my customary update on the last cycle. I think I had all these entries in me yesterday but my computer was being slow. Yesterday was a glorious day. And it was a pleasant surprise that I didn't spend half of it sleeping and the other half hungover before going out to do i all again last night. I was prepared to spend a lot of money, drink a lot of alcohol and pretty much waste away the days in between this three days off, but I'm sure it's for the best that things didn't quite turn out that way.

Friday was my first day off (I'll go back to the week at work later). I slept in until about 12.30pm, and didn't really do much (except for a bit of house cleaning) until about 2.30pm when I figured I should go down the road and get something to eat. At about the same time Nathan rang to say that he was leaving work and keen for a run when he got home. Well I knew that I wouldn't run as well or as far after eating a bunch of prawn rolls, but if I hadn't eaten I probably would have passed out mid-jog, so I took the eat-lunch-but- not-run-as-far option. Following the jog/walk I watched the Simpsons and had a couple of beers with Nathan before heading up to Newtown with Lucy to meet up with Meegs, Fordie, Schiller, Rachel (who I only met that night), Fi and Marty (who I'd met a couple of times before) for dinner. Had a reasonable amount of wine with dinner, and then most of a bottle at the Townie afterwards (Nathan, Kellee and Claire were at the Townie after eating elsewhere, and Erin, Brian and Ruth turned up much later). There was much talk of big nights and copious amounts of alcohol, but in the end- for the best- we called it a night at about 2am, and I caught a taxi home with Lucy, Nathan and Meegs.

I was woken up (more or less) by a phone call from Jo at 10am-ish, and decided I would get up then, feeling a little hungover but not too much. As I said previously, it was a glorious day, and I read some more of "100 Years of Solitude", cleaned my room a bit, and at about 12.30pm went to Yum Cha with Nathan and Lucy. After walking off the Yum Cha (okay, so a slight detour on the way home to see the front of a house Nathan and Kellee are interested in renting probably only walked off one dumpling) I drove down to Marrickville Metro with Lucy and did some grocery shopping.

By about 5.30pm I was down at the pub with Nathan and Steve (from work, not former flatmate Steve) getting a couple of drinks in before we headed into the Spanish Club. We also played a couple of (average at best) games of pool. Kellee and Claire joined as at some point and the five of us hopped on a bus into the city. The occasion for which we were stuffing ourselves full of Spanish Food was Nathan's official farewell from the lab (he's been working in another department for a year now but only officially for a couple of months), and boy did we stuff ourselves full of Spanish food. So much so that by the time we got to the Townie at 11.30pm we couldn't drink more than one or two beers without feeling like we were going to throw up, so Nathan, Steve and I caught a taxi back to Marrickville and I was home by 1am (we actually left Kellee and Claire at the Townie, and Kellee was the one who was starting at 6am today).

Today I was up at a decent hour, spoke to Jo for the best part of an hour, went down the road to Newspaper then came back about here to lounge around reading it while listening to a selection of music from my hard drive. Nathan came around for a short while and we watched some "Buffy" and The Chaser. And now, apart from being incredibly prolific in Diaryland, I'm pretty much killing time before Lucy and I head up to the Vanguard to see Greta Gertler. The oyster menu had better still be there or Lucy is going to have to deal with me complaining about it the whole night (between songs).

Now as for my 6 days at work. Last Saturday was nuts- two of my team were sick on the same day (and one of the remaining two who were there with me has been here less than a month). But I didn't panic, and felt like I prioritised well, stayed calm, showed good leadership and didn't let the guys stress out too much. Sunday was only marginally better- one person still sick, and after having things well under control by 9am everything happened at once at about 11.30am and didn't let up until 3pm. But once again, I felt like we handled it pretty well. Saturday night I did nothing, and had trouble keeping myself awake and entertained long enough to be able to go to sleep at a decent hour. Sunday night I had a couple of beers and some great games of pool down the road with Nathan before going home to cook dinner.

Monday at work we probably had more people than we knew what to do with, which was a nice change from the two preceding days. After work I went around to my parents' place for dinner, and the next day I was back at work for a fourth (and eventually fifth) morning for a training course. I always tend to like training days, it's a break from the everyday routine, and because of the nature of work (ie rotating shifts doing the work) I don't have two days of built up work waiting for me when I get back. This course took a while to really tell us what the objectives were, but in the end I was volunteering to be trained up to help roll out the training to the rest of the workplace. I don't know how well the stuff they are planning to roll out will work as a system, but I think there is a lot in it that will help my leadership skills, and having to explain it to other people in 4 hour sessions will definitely help my leadership skills.

Tuesday night there was dinner and drinks at the Rydges in Cronulla paid for by work, something which doesn't happen very often and I was certainly keen to take advantage of, so I got a lift to work with Nathan, and work gave me a cabcharge to get home after dinner. Wednesday (18th April for anyone playing at home) was the second day of the training course, and then that night I had tacos in Newtown with Nathan for dinner and Townie trivia with Rowan and others (in which we had a high powered second round which unfortunately didn't lift us higher than fourth). And Thursday should have been my third night shift, but thanks to the training course it was my only night shift for the cycle.

That's all I've got really.

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