Assorted marginalia

Just when I find myself whinging about living back in Canberra and the struggle of adjusting to the mundane of the day-to-day I wandered over to http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ and had a read about life in Baghdad - I think we're all pretty sick of hearing about Iraq, partly due to compassion fatigue, but perhaps mostly due to the endless-beating-of-head-on-wall sensation of what do you mean the American government didn't foresee what was going to happen in Iraq? *I* foresaw what was going to happen in Iraq, *me* - I'm not exactly privy to intelligence briefings, or even a particularly refined understanding of world events, and even I could see that going into Iraq would result in a total disastrous mess. And that was before the Americans decided to be disastrously incompetent on a scale that is unbelievable. If one were to have written a novel about it, it would be read as incredibly anti-American and over-the-top unbelievable, but they have actually done it.

Oops, sorry I keep slipping into rant-mode whenever the topic of Iraq comes up: what I was trying to suggest is that you head over to http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ and at least read the post about Saddam's execution, it makes some good points about just how offensive the timing was of the execution, and of CNN's misreporting. Both of which are disturbing on numerous levels. The previous posts also give a much more real - and even more disturbing - perspective on life in Iraq at present.

On to other matters.

January seems to be whippeting away from us doesn't it? At this rate, in approximately four minutes I'll be ranting on about Christmas shopping again. It is very strange to ponder that I'm just off two years into this thesis palaver. Also, terrifying.

So moving on.

January has largely been spent settling into my new abode in Canberra, which is working out very nicely. My suitcase is back in the cupboard! I have a wardrobe! Things hang in there! I have regular access to a washing machine! I haven't had to attempt to drag all my possessions through city streets and onto a bus/underground/tube/train/metro! Followed by inadvertently uphending a bag a scattering candy across a floor littered with commuters... for instance. So there are some benefits to not having to constantly uproot myself.

I keep coming across random momentoes of travel - an Oslo bus ticket here, 4000 photos of world museums there, and sighing, slumping and having to remind myself I knew that it was going to come to an end. Ah, the breads of the world, so far away. I have been watching West Wing (just for something startlingly new and different...) and every time they mention bagels I whimper. The hairstyles in season one were truly spectacular. And I don't remember trousers of the late nineteen-nineties, for both men and women, being so ravishingly unflattering at the time.

A lot of time has been spent at my parents' home, celebrating my Grandma's ninetieth birthday with all the family. And when I say with all the family, I mean *all* the family. You haven't lived until you've had a three year old wake you up by subjecting you to the Nemo dvd menu, because you're sleeping in the lounge room. At six in the morning, after a good night's work endeavouring to free up some of your parents' storage space by ploughing through their wine... One of the most annoying dvd menus ever I think. Why do they put those stupid repetitive tracks on dvd menus? Why? Especially when it is the Nemo style voiceover ones, so they can repeat the same jokes over and over again. When they weren't that funny the first time. Bastards.

Beyond such trivial matters, it was wonderful that my Grandma was able to travel from England to share her birthday with us, and to have the chance to spend time with family members, even the smaller ones, who woke us all up at inappropriate moments. But they do photograph well. I went back to Canberra briefly last week to do some study and am now back in the Highlands, but only until tomorrow.

Is anyone else concerned about the Sydney Morning Heralds' opinions columnists? Today they had a whole page devoted to such sterling thoughts as: Domestic violence is bad, the republic really isn't a big issue in Australia, and there is an increasing number of 1-2 person households. Genius! Clearly our best and brightest minds are at work.

Blogging just isn't the same when every day isn't new-and-exciting with travel experience. I've kind of become attached to the process so I don't want to stop - after all, it's about *me* - but I just don't have the same excit-o-meter reading as I did when I was discovering new countries and the galleries and breads therein. But I plan to continue, just not quite with the same frequency... lucky you hey!