Office, office, office

I spend so much of my day/life plinking away at the computer keyboard. The past few weeks have been especially painful. Today I have been clicking away through the audit database, typing in numbers, oh so many numbers, chugging down bottle after bottle of water to help stop myself from going crazy. I stare out the window at what seems like a whole other world from my window, above the buildings of downtown Sydney (my roommate Bec laughs when I say downtown...Sydney's downtown is known as the CBD--central business district, but that doesn't stop it from being downtown!). Last week there were army helicopters flying through town, landing on some building over yonder, flying past the Centrepoint Tower, and being good enough to distract me from mind-numbing work for a few minutes. The Sydney airport isn't so far from downtown and I frequently see planes flying to and fro. On rainy days, I sit and watch the rain spill over the buildings. I watch rainclouds and non-rainclouds float through the sky, I see the immense blue on beautifully sunny days, and I watch Australian flags fly in the wind. I kind of feel like it's my own little world where I can look to my left and see Aidan's big circle building (though it's called something Square...misnomer...), look through a small crack between two buildings and see Marcus's fancy lawyer building, look a little to the right and see the big concrete block they call a courthouse with a big crane on top, and I get knocked to my senses and become for a short time thankful for my job security inside this building while watching window washers scale and attempt to make shine these skyscrapers. Today I was particularly distracted by big white fluffs gliding through the air. Not balloons, but maybe mini-parachite or air jellyfishes. I watched them float up from in front of the Westin, past the Centrepoint tower, behind the shrunken white eiffel-tower looking thing. It's a strange world to be in. While I lived in Seattle, I was jealous of my friends that got to work downtown in their tall, tall buildings. I envied the proximity to the water and ease of public transportation. I now have all these things, but never thought about the work that I'd actually be doing while in that setting. I guess the grass is always greener.

My department had an extended Christmas lunch on Friday, which was good fun. Two of the deputy auditor generals came out to lunch with us (and sad, apparently no one has ever invited them out to a Christmas lunch since they sort of don't fit into any department!), us being the three ladies I work with (Rosie, Katie and Beth--Beth's our boss) and Lisa (Beth's boss). It was a boozey lunch and I had the best mudslide I've ever had! We had Christmas crackers, read silly dad jokes (which are laffy taffy jokes), and wore paper crowns while playing with the toys. This is the first year I've ever even seen Christmas crackers and I kind of enjoy them. Everyone wearing silly paper crowns, telling stupid jokes and playing with toys...of course I would! So we sat and I got to know each of my co-workers a little better. Rosie and her past work, Beth and her past loves, and Katie and her wonderful cheeriness and light personality. After conversing of a mutual satisfaction of organic food, Lisa (instead of Beth this time) asked if I wouldn't consider staying permanently.I told her if she helped me find an AMAZING volunteer position somewhere here in Sydney, I'd consider it. Not likely. Then we moved locations and other people from the office came in...and it just wasn't quite the same. I've seen movies with the shady office parties where people flirt with other people and yucky things happen, but this was my first in-person exposure to such behavior. Ugh, I am not a fan. Two guys were way too touchy feely and were too close and cuddly to some of the girls, putting their hands on their knees and the other arm around the shoulder. It was in between uncle and creepy dude, though it could all be summed up with creepy. One guy hinted he had a girlfriend, then denied it twice, then finally admitted it while hitting on one of the girls. Ew! Then a 65 year old was trying to be subtle about saying that his number should be in my phone. YUCK! I blatantly changed the subject, pointing out how hard it was raining outside (then proceeded to flee into the rain five minutes later!). Marcus also had some stories from his extended office lunch that was going on at the same time--except worse. Guys with long-time girlfriends making out in front of everyone with another girl at the office. Some other guy making out with another girl, then his girlfriend called and he tried to get his secretary to answer for him! Then he said one of the guys he works for was rumored to be having an affair with a junior associate in the office. Ugh. I was happy to be home, away from the debauchery (or pre-debauchery), with Marcus. What a breath of fresh air.

The next day we were planning on going up to Nelson Bay to visit his mom and spend some beach time since it was supposed to be a hot day out (34 degrees). When we woke up, it was cloudy and we figured the weatherman had gotten it all wrong. Nope. By the time we finally got our arses out of bed (11:30) the weather had warmed up so much that we decided it would be a good idea to go to the beach anyway. Would you believe that we drove past the guy Marcus works for and the junior associate? Ay!