August 1

A weekend at Bronte possessed by the irascible and antisocial spirit of my father, walking and drinking tea and ignoring the world. I feel anxious and worried and plagued by hormonal doubts about my future, romantic and otherwise. Until Klaus Masannek resurfaces I'm living in limbo and I resent it. I have forgotten the colour of Marcinski's eyes and I'm ashamed but vindicated- it means we've been apart too long. He doesn't seem to mind as much as I do, being possessed of endless Slavic patience (and stubbornness), but I'm starting to seriously wonder if it can go on like this for much longer without falling apart.

Later and home from work- back on the Arabic project, though this time only half the conversation is represented so that the translation looks something like this:

condoms, singlets and underwear

sexy movies

no

blue

Abu Mohammad

two meters

green

bombs Kalashnikovs and RGB lunchers

They've given me a semi-real job and a chance to work on Arabic and learn something about the way a project is run and I feel slightly guilty: plenty of bilingual Arabs more competent than me are still labouring away in transcription hell. I feel -as so often- like an imposter which is one of my major causes for anxiety (the other being atrophy of my genitals after half a year of disuse). In fact everything is really OK - I am doing an interesting job, I have been encouraged to pursue something I love by someone I admire -Jim Martin told me that he hopes I become a linguist because I really do have more than what it takes-, I'm having a functional relationship, I have enough money that I don't have to think about it for the moment. The only thing is that I can't shake the idea that I should be pursuing animal happiness up a Himalaya instead of cultivating urban neurosis as I hunch over my computer hoping that nobody will find out I'm not really a grown up. Physical immobility doesn't suit me - ask my neglected reproductive organs.

July 27

There is an endless list of numbers which I need to run my life and operate as a human being. Bank account numbers, tax file number, phone numbers, passwords for logging in to my email, the Homeland magic card number for calling foreign parts, Centrelink customer service number, my student number, Marcin's case reference number for his visa, the code for opening my mobile, the code for opening the door at Appen (which, by the way, changes every five minutes). It's a kind of modern-day Kabbalah where numbers open the way and unveil the secrets of ordinary domestic existence - without them, it's impossible to survive a single day of life as we know it. A person can find out anything they want about you, rob you blind, wake you at three in the morning, read your personal correspondence, just by possessing the right combination of digits. It seems that words are superfluous so (for the moment at least) I will cease and desist.

July 25

The first day of the university term and the first day of my last term as an undergraduate-everybody smells fresh and looks enthusiastic, and there is a soft premonition of spring in the air. The last few days have been marked by minor technological triumphs: installing a printer and discovering how to burn CDs on my computer. Mobile phone in hand, I am proceeding apace into the 21st century.

I finished reading The Black Sheep, which dragged me in before I knew it with its good sons and bad, its peaks and troughs of fortune, its intrigues. All the favourite elements of the trash mags wrapped up and presented as literature which was good news as Appen seems to have cancelled its subscription to New Weekly and I am tired of rereading the Charles and Camilla Fairytale Wedding back issue.

On Saturday night there was a farewell barbecue at Liz's house: she got poisoned by the salad and went to bed, leaving me to be harangued on the combustion engine and architectural software by a chemistry student who insisted on telling me about his extremely boring life in minute detail. In fact it appeared to be quite similar to my extremely boring life but there was no opportunity to point out any of the miraculous parallels (poverty at the hands of Centrelink resulting in a diet of lentils and cabbage) because I wasn't allowed to open my mouth. His successor was a schoolteacher who had recovered from narcolepsy with the aid of Paolo Coelho, baby jesus and an Indian guru and now induces it in others instead. What is it about encounters with the majority of Australian males which leaves me feeling brutalised and unsatisfied? I think that it's a lack of reciprocal curiosity and a need to impress which is almost infantile at times, and usually has the opposite effect: the whole conversational transaction is draining and I can't imagine conducting any sort of friendship with these creatures.

July 23

On Thursday morning I woke up at 5 am and started worrying. Here are some of the things I worried about, in order of appearance:
1. Marcin's visa. His case officer (henceforth referred to as Klaus- that really is his name) is AWOL and doesn't answer his emails or his phone calls. What if he is refused and I have to survive my state of suspended monogamy until the end of the year and then go to live in a country with 4 million Catholics and no vowels?
2.My future. Closely linked to point 1. Will I end up Warsaw housewife or a lifetime transcriber? Neither option looks appealing.
3. My tax return. Having not lodged one for the past 10 years I should probably start to consider the possibility of the ATO kneebreakers turning up unannounced on the doorstep. This led me into thinking about
4. the PAP smear police. I owe somebody $40 for the pleasure of having my vagina excavated which I have not gotten around to paying. See above re: visits from the kneebreakers.
5. When I went for a blood test in Jordan and they euphemistically declared me 'free of contagious and infectious diseases', did they definitely mean AIDS? because I have been watching Angels in America which reminds me that it's not a disease I would like to have.

These are only selected highlights and of course as any dedicated fretter knows the options are endless at that time of day and in that frame of mind. Things improved somewhat when I found out that there are jobs open for transcription supervisers and the office manager asked me to apply. At least I wouldn't have to listen to irate callers telling the robot what they think of it for 8 hours a day (and the irascibilty quotient has just gone up because now we're dealing with Americans.)

On Thursday night I went with Bob and Cameron and Liz to see Margaret Cho at the Enmore theatre. She made a lot of political satire and I realised how far out of it I am when it comes to current events. I have been steadfastly ignoring all media for so long now that even Pope jokes and reminders of the idiocy of George Bush have regained some of their novelty. I'm ashamed to say that I buy the newspaper so that I can play the word game with 9 letters in a box and read the book reviews and the House and Garden section (did I mention that I am nesting with a vengeance?) and then throw the rest away. The content bores me and the sensationalist language embarrasses me and that's my excuse if anyone is interested.

Back to school next week so there will be ample opportunities for diary updates as I hang around the library reading the desk graffitti and pining for my Prospective spouse. Stay tuned.

July 19

Back from QLD with carpet burn on my knees after 4 days as my beautiful tyrannical niece's horsy, and an existential dilemma is looming. Why I am selling my life for $17 an hour to optus and the CIA, in order to pay off the devil (thinly disguised as the Australian embassy in Berlin) who has no compunction about accepting my soul as payment for a migration visa for my Slavic lover? There must be other ways of making a living. Probably this crisis has been brought on by the fact that my beloved Arabic project is finished and I'm back in the outermost circles of transcriber hell where old ladies search in vain for their remote controls under the couch and the answering machine stubbornly refuses to comprehend the term 'adult movies' until the frustrated caller (who has probably had an erection pointed at an undisclosed target for the past week) finally shouts 'PORN! I MEAN PORN'. Which the innocent answering machine hears as poor. Which in the case of this caller is probably not that far off the mark.

The day is both extended and somehow redeemed by the long commute. In the train humanity is at its most naked- nobody is trying to impress anyone, here. There's no point. We pick our noses and stare out the window and push people out of our way like children on the school bus, and for those who care to look the world is wearing its heart on its dust jacket. A hairy youth in a beanie reading Twelve Steps to Successful Living, a fat middle-aged man engrossed in Memoirs of a Geisha, a mousy brown lady of indeterminate years perusing The Satanic Verses- their secret selves are on display. ( I am reading Balzac but I hide the cover in case anyone is attempting to leap to conclusions about me- as I do about them- based solely on my reading matter.)

In other news I am now the not- so- proud owner of a mobile phone, a castoff of my fathers which heralds my entry into the techno-age with a tinny rendition of the Mexican Hat Dance. I pretend I'm not interested in it's eruptions but I'm not fooling anybody as I slink off to the dunnies in my break to see if the vibration in my handbag was actually an abbreviated signal of love from eastern Europe. Now there's no way back.

July 2

Everything is functioning as it should except that there's no time for autobiographical updates- I have been working every day proofreading translations of interviews with Iraqis which is more nteresting than I would have imagined possible(everything that you get paid for must be obscenely boring, in my world- that's why they have to give you money to do it). For the moment everything is apposto- financially, romantically, professionally. Let's leave out sexually for the next couple of months, though at least I've stopped having mad extramarital fantasies.

That's all. This is for the record so that if and when my fortune fails I'll have a reminder that sooner or later it will be back.