Just your average Saturday night

It's after 1am on a Saturday. If I'm going to be up this late I'd prefer there was a good reason. You'll be most unhappy to know there isn't. More to the point, there, in fact, is, but I'm clearly not awake for it.

A friend's band are playing tonight at a local club. Alien Digit, they are really good, you should check out the website. Anyway, I've been trying to see them ever since C and I got back, but haven't managed yet and tonight is no exception.



So, here I am, up well past midnight working on a job application. I really hate writing these things. In fact, there is little else I would rather not be doing right now - the obvious exceptions (like touristing in southern Lebanon) being set aside of course.

It doesn't seem to matter how many times I sit down and address selection criteria it never gets any easier, and, it would seem, as I gain more experience it actually gets harder, both to remember what's relevant and to squeeze it all in.

The worst thing though is that, essentially, I'm applying for a job I'm already doing. The Australian Public Service makes you go through the entire competitive process (selection criteria, interview, etc) every time you go for a promotion. When I'm in a lucid mood I can see the value of this for transparency, accountability and fairness, but when the clock is fast approaching 1am and I'd much rather be sleeping my perspective gets somewhat skewed.

Still, only a little talking myself up left to do this gentle evening and I'll be able to reward myself with some well deserved (cough, splutter) sleep.

Speaking of things that annoy me. I'm not sure if C or I have filled you in on the insanity that is the fire alarm system in our building. When we moved into our apartment 6 months ago it was brand spanking new and rather too shiny. The only issue we had was that the fire alarm seemed to have a penchant for setting itself off at all hours. At least a couple of times a week we'd drop what we were doing (eating, sleeping, showering) and trudge down 5 flights of stairs to wait on the street with dozens of dazed fellow building dwellers for the fire truck to roll up and give the all clear. After the first few weeks things eased off and we hadn't had an alarm for a few months - until last week when things started going haywire again. We've had so many false alarms in the last fortnight that we've started ignoring them altogether (Chicken Little style) which is not a good thing.

And here's why.

Tonight (during a hard earned tv break) the alarm started screeching, but we were in the middle of an episode of the West Wing (just got hold of season 4 on DVD...) and so decided that, since the other 60,000 had been false alarms this one probably was too. The general routine is that the alarm goes off for about 10 minutes, the fire truck arrives and several strapping young men in yellow jump out, turn the racket off and tell everyone to go back inside as it was a "false alarm". If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that this year...

Anyway, we ignored the alarm for the better part of an episode before realising that it hadn't stopped. I popped out into the corridor to have a peak and, to my horror, saw (count them) five fire trucks, including one with a giant crane on top, and four police cars blocking off the street.

We quickly layered up and headed down the stairs to face the cold. Nobody seemed to know what was going on, so I approached a chilly looking officer and asked what the deal was only to be informed that they were trying to figure out where the smoke was coming from.

SMOKE! Holy crap! And to think, not 5 minutes ago we'd been happily immersed in the West Wing totally unawares that there were yellow-suited hardbodies stalking the corridors risking life and limb trying to track down a fire!

After about 10 minutes we were told it was safe to reenter the building, unless you were from level 3, where they were testing the air quality...

It's been all quiet ever since, but I'll be sure to not ignore fire alarms (however annoying) in future, that's for sure.

Right, now back to that selection criteria...