~ ANNE! ~

Today is dress-down day at the law firm. YAY!!! Seriously, everyone seems so much happier when they can wear clothes they actually WANT to be wearing - why can't we wear jeans all the time? I could see having to dress professionally if I was meeting with clients or something, but I'm locked in a small basement room all day with a phone and a computer, and I never see anyone except the other telephonist. Who is too busy eating bananas squished onto crackers (ew!) and phoning her son to pay attention to what I wear anyway. And it's not as if the people who phone in can tell. I sound exactly the same no matter what I wear (though it's possible I sound slightly more uncomfortable when I'm wearing office clothes, because I AM.)

However, happily they do have dress-down Friday every couple of weeks. They charge you a pound for the privilege, and at the moment the proceeds are going to the tsunami disaster relief fund. I've actually donated quite a lot of money to this already, relatively speaking (ie. relative to my income, which is nearly non-existant.) There are buckets and boxes set up all over Edinburgh, and there were official donation boxes at the Hogmanay celebrations (they also had a moment of silence for the victims, which was nice). It's interesting how this disaster has made most of my friends sort of pause and evaluate their lives. It's kind of like, being upset because you hate your job or an Irish jerk broke your heart suddenly pales in comparison when you realize that at least you didn't lose 21 relatives in one fell swoop.

The weather here continues to be horrible. I am told it is bad in New Zealand as well, but I have no sympathy. Oh no, overcast sky in your tropical paradise! You poor things! hmph. I've spent the last week trying to reinforce the plastic weatherstripping on my windows, because the force of the wind through the cracks is so strong that it keeps overpowering the tape that's holding it to the window frame. Now I have about six layers of masking tape over the window, which would totally wreck the view if there was one.

Pia finally came home. I MISSED HER! You will understand why when I say that the first thing she did after she got in the door (after giving me a big hug) was to hand me three giant German chocolate bars, one of them Canadian Maple flavour with a big ol' Canadian flag on it. She's the best. Life is much more entertaining when she's around, if only to have someone to talk to (Craig's always in his room) and a partner in crime.

I bought a book on yoga in the post-Christmas sales (�2) and have been trying some of it out. It's extremely nice to have a big enough bedroom to do yoga in, by the way. Anyway, I took about three classes in the week I had that free gym membership and loved it. Am scheming to find out a way to afford a membership permanently, but I'm afraid it will have to wait till I have a full-time job. sigh. But in the meantime, just trying laughably to do some of the poses properly (hardish, in the absence of a mirror or an instructor) is actually working quite well. It's very good for stretching the office-work tension out of my muscles, and it helps me chill out at the end of the day. Probably strengthening some of those muscles or something, too.

I have been spending all my time at work updating my resume and reading Mimi Smartypants' blog. I can't remember how I found this (probably a link from somewhere while randomly surfing) but it is great fun to read and distracts from the mind-numbingness of this job. I think Mimi is starting to influence the way I've been posting, though. I'm not sure I like that much, but it's kind of insidious, like a meme. A Mimi meme! argh. Probably time to go have another look at that resume.