Taking Stock

I’m writing this curled up on a coach seat somewhere between Sydney and Canberra. I am still sometimes struck by the strangeness of being back in Australia – sometimes people ask me how I find my frequent commute between Canberra and Sydney - travelling by bus?!  Not driving? Not flying?  The indignity! The discomfort!

Could be worse.  At least there’re no chickens (alive or dangerously consumed days after death).

By far the worse bus trip I’ve endured was last July in Tanzania, on a rickety retired Japanese passenger bus from the 80s, pale and sweating from the dodgy chicken twisting my intestines, windows shut, squashed amongst dozens of other passengers, and the front of the dalla dalla filled with squawking flapping chickens.

This is bliss by comparison.  I’ll arrive in Canberra at 5.30pm, and then I’ll walk home in the rapidly deepening dusk to my apartment.  That also is a strange luxury compared to the constraints on my movements after dark the last time I updated this blog.

It has been quite a while.

I have no hope of giving a full account of everything that has happened since.  I won’t try.

I left Swaziland in mid-July 2011 and met my then-boyfriend in Jo’burg.  We travelled East Africa for a month – starting in Zanzibar, then Dar es Salaam up to Arusha, safari across the Serengeti then to Mwanza, an overnight passenger ship to Bukobo, and a long bus ride up to Kampala.  Uganda was glorious, and I hope very much to spend more time there and do that country justice.  Brief side trips to the DRC (Parc National des Volcans) and Juba, a few days paddling a kayak in the white water rapids of the Nile (mostly spent hanging upside down in the river trying to learn to eskimo roll), and then home.

In late August 2011 I moved to Canberra to work for Justice Hayne of the High Court of Australia.  I’ve been living in Canberra since, and travelling to Sydney regularly to see friends and family.  I’m now down to my last month in Canberra before finishing my associateship and moving back to Sydney… and then moving overseas.

Along the way I’ve lost the boyfriend (there’s an amazing story of Hollywood-esque deception, intrigue and betrayal that goes with that statement, but it’s a bit last year’s season), engaged in some serious Personal Growth, begun to question my desire to enter commercial legal practice, and (I hope) have put in place the first stepping stones towards building the legal career I want – using law in the pursuit of justice, using law where it is needed most.

The next step for me is Harvard Law School, where I will be studying for the LLM (Masters in Law).  I will most likely do a doctorate after that, either with Harvard or with an Australian university.  

I leave Australia on 25 July 2012, and once again my plan is to use this blog as my means of mass communication with the folks back home, as well as a place for me to explore my thoughts on and responses to the brave new world of the United States.

I can’t wait.

There’s a glorious sunset out the window and we are almost in Canberra.  I will sign out here.