March 24

Daylight saving has been extended in order to accomodate the Commonwealth Games so I now wake up in the dark to head off to my daily rounds of the mad people, where I am developing my feminist principles and my concept of social justice and trying not to purse my lips too much at frequent infringements of same. I am seeing the dark underbelly of Australian society which nice middle class girls like me don't usually infiltrate: the inside of psychiatric wards, the Housing Commission dumps with squatters living on the balcony, the supermarkets on pension day. I still have the energy to cope with this and to believe that things can be changed albeit in a random and very incremental way, but I can imagine that this optimism wouldn't last long if I had to live in the circumstances that a lot of the clients live in. ('Patient' is out, as a designation. 'Consumer' and 'client' are the tags of the day. ) . At the moment, despite being chronically underpaid, I am getting an education I wouldn't be without and regretting the loss of my student life less as time passes. And now off to a picnic in the rain with Julie.