Sparrow, Barrie, ze militoire and me

I'm in the middle of a book entitled Killing: Misadventures in Violence by Jeff Sparrow, who I saw at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Sparrow gave an intriguing talk about Why We Enjoy Killing, which was partial allusion to some of the themes he explored in his book, and also an incredibly passionate source of food for thought in these times of war and seemingly inescapable violence.

It was particularly interesting to hear Sparrow talk about the inevitability of war/violence after attending the preceding talk by Rear Admiral Chris Barrie, which presented and outlined a proposition to bring back conscription. One of Sparrow's points that resonated with me from his talk at the Festival was that a country such as the US has spent literally billions of dollars funding their efforts in the War On Terror, a war which implicitly has no real end/solution in sight. He posited the idea that if the US decided instead to use this money to provide potable water to everyone on the entire planet, it would probably do a lot more to win hearts and minds than any sort of nation-building action that has taken place thus far. Would something like this ever actually happen? Probably not, because despite the clear logic behind taking such a purely positive action with a vast sum of money/resources, there are too many people/organisations that have vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

Of course, I'm paraphrasing and simplifying what Sparrow was saying, and leaving out everything that he said before he reached this point in his talk. Another pertinent point of his was that if you took everything that was said about the Iraq War by even the most conservative of opinions (it will be controlled, it will be short, it will be targeted/specific and minimise any effect on civilians), you could spin it around 180 degrees to get what actually happened/is happening. Not that I know anything about Operation Iraqi Freedom in general or particular, apart from the fact that the ADF's contribution in Iraq (Operation Catalyst) ended in July this year, and that's only because I chose to read my email carefully that day.

I don't know if it was the mood I was in that weekend, from the come-down of being in the soapbox finals (after ranting about women in the military and having more than a healthy dig at Greg Sheridan, no less), or from spending a rainy couple of days in Sydney by myself... but I felt a bit strange about being who I am, and where I was. On one hand, I was getting all fired up about how conscription (no matter how innovative and 'fair' Barrie's new program may have seemed) would possibly be to the detriment of the next generation of young Australians, while I was a serving member that didn't feel compelled enough to care about international affairs, to know anything apart from ADF press releases about what part we had to play in wars on the other side of the world.

I remember when I first started talking to people about enlisting, and how I'd end up having by-the-by conversations with people about their reasons for not following a similar path to me:

Oh, I couldn't possibly join the military...

• I'm a total pacifist. The idea of being told to fight in someone else's war goes against everything I believe in.
• I don't think I could just do whatever I was told to do. The idea of blindly following orders because I had to, scares the bejeezus out of me.
• I question everything too much. I don't think I'd last too long in a military environment without speaking up about something that wasn't adequately explained or justified.
• I'm too much of a control freak. The idea of submitting to anonymous authority figures and the decisions they make is the last thing I'd want to do.

Personally, I think I am a combination of all of these points. By signing on the dotted line, I accept that I have agreed to serve Queen and country for four years of my life, and to remain on call to serve further if someone higher up sees fit. I didn't enlist because I am pro-violence or in favour of any war - rather, if all shit hits the fan, I'd rather be in uniform and doing my bit for my nation than taking a back seat and bitching about how war's good for absolutely nothin'. Don't get me wrong, I am not foolish enough to believe that the ADF's participation in wars around the world is anything like that of countries like the US, nor do I think Australians in general have any real concept of what it would be like to have war/violence as a constant feature of one's culture.

For the record, I do question things, and I am a bit of a control freak. I don't know how I manage to avoid getting into trouble more often for having this sort of attitude, but after not getting kicked out thus far for the things I have said and done, I can probably safely say that it is possible to survive within the ranks (as lowly as I may be?!) without becoming a mindless drone. There have been many times in my life when the authority that I have answered to has been a lot less defined or structured, and I believe I have been more damaged through the control I have given to others during my civilian life, rather than in the time I've spent in uniform.

If anything, prior to my enlistment, I probably wouldn't have had the nerve to get on a soapbox and rant about women in the military (or anything similar that would get me into the finals and voicing my thoughts in front of hundreds of strangers). I wouldn't have formed opinions about the ADF and conscription to ask serious questions of Rear Admiral Barrie after his talk. I may not have even come across Jeff Sparrow (apart from perhaps through the Overland literary journal that he edits), let alone his book on killing. I definitely wouldn't have cared to pay more than accidental attention to the ADF's involvement in Iraq.

I had numerous reservations of my own about enlisting, and about becoming a part of something much, much, bigger than myself for the first time in my short and somewhat sheltered life. Although I can understand why it is generally believed that there's more bad than good about joining the military, I'd like to say that it has made me a better person. You could say that I'm spouting just what the ADF wants me to, but let me also add that although the ADF can be a great option for certain people, it's definitely not for everyone. I think I had a point to make about the relation between making hundreds of sandwiches and holding a gun to someone's head, but that might have to wait until I've finished the book...

do something, before we all get taken over by Asians!

As part of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas over the weekend, Rear Admiral Chris Barrie spoke about the prospect of bringing back conscription. He opened with an introduction that was pretty much along the same lines as this opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, then continued to flesh out some of the finer details of his proposed scheme, and what made it different to the conscription programs of the past.

Mr Barrie has been retired from the Navy for about five or six years now, but listening to him speak showed that forty years of service still manages to shape his words a certain way. In the first part of his talk, there was mention of all manner of statistics and numbers drawn from various reports, to support a somewhat bleak view of what Australia could be like by 2050 if we go on about our merry way. That way being the maintenance of voluntary participation in military, emergency, and community service jobs, and addressing the lack of skilled workers in civilian employment by hiring appropriate employees from overseas. While our Asian neighbours continue to increase in population and improve their standards of living through increased industrialisation and our old pal capitalism, Australia will struggle under the increasing burden of an ageing population and a lack of production from the nation's brood mares, neigh, women.

So I guess what Barrie was trying to say (to the predominantly older middle-class white intelligentsia gathered in the Utzon Room at the Sydney Opera House on NRL Grand Final day) is something along the lines of we're going to hell in a handbasket unless we sort out today's young people with a good dose of national service. For every old person in the Australian community some time in the frightening pre-apocalyptic future, there'd only be 2.4 young people in the workforce that would be able to provide some sort of care or service. Clearly not enough slaves to do the bidding of all the pensioners of Australia! But I digress. The question of whether China is a real threat to us and our way of life, or if we're really going to be okay with Indonesians having a better lifestyle than us in the future, or the possibility that Australia will lose its identity amongst a mass of immigrating cultures, is swept aside and rolled up into the phrase Australia's positioning in the Asia-Pacific region by 2050. Or something like that.

How does Barrie's AUSSIE (Australian Universal Service Scheme - Individual Experience?) conscription program intend to address this? Well, the idea is that by taking part in various tasks of a community/nation serving nature, Australia's young people will gain points towards the completion of the scheme. For example, every young man and woman will be required to sign up and work towards 1000 points of 'service' within ten years. This service is not necessarily military, and the jobs that are available will be flexible and varied enough so that some Australians may wish to continue employment in various fields, even once their 1000 points are completed. Rewards and incentives such as gaining a passport (true citizenship à la Starship Troopers, anyone?), wiping off HECS debts, or achieving advanced standing within public service and military career paths could also be incorporated with the scheme.

I agree with Barrie that Defence is always going to have a problem with recruiting the numbers it requires to make up for natural attrition, as well as to expand in the areas it needs to as the forces grow in the future. There will also be no doubt that the strain on resources required by the ageing populous will only continue to increase. The idea of implementing a universal conscription scheme that incorporates services to the community in multiple forms other than in merely a military environment is definitely worthy of public debate. I appreciate that by making 'conscription' universal rather than selective is quite different to how troops were signed up in the past, and I also believe that by offering a range of jobs to suit people's varying preferences and aptitudes, most people can be accommodated for.

However:

• I believe there is an inherent danger in employing people in the military if it is not entirely of their own volition.


• I question the effectiveness of a group of young people that have been coerced in any way to serve in such positions, and I worry about the consequences of trying to get AUSSIE troops to work alongside people that have voluntarily chosen military jobs.


• Instead of throwing $500 million at Defence Force Recruiting to figure out how to entice more people to enlist in the forces, why can't the ADF work on retaining as much staff as possible, and taking constructive steps towards making it an appealing enough workplace that people actually might want to work in without all the flashbangwaheynowwhizzery?


• Military stuff aside... why should a whole generation of young Australians be forced into service jobs that for the most part involve taking care of a generation that wasn't forward-thinking enough to find a less uh... Communist(?) way of tackling the messed up babies-to-oldies-ratio problem?


• If it takes about ten years to clock up these 1000 points of service, with the potential to keep a whole generation locked in to various jobs in the local community (especially if you can't get a passport!), will we end up with a mass of socially retarded, cultureless, unchallenged thirtysomething Australians left to write some pages in our nation's glittering history?

Perhaps the true danger behind Barrie's idea lies in the inevitability of such a program being hatched by those who have been shrouded in matters of Defence and politics for too long. This can only mean that the return of conscription in this sense will no doubt be fundamentally flawed, to the detriment of yet another generation of Australians.

nine out of ten feminists recommend...

...knowing what a feminist is before claiming to be one.

According to Wikipedia:

Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression and patriarchy.

I think that's what I'll be getting at when I rant about something to do with Greg Sheridan's view that equality for women in war is lunacy:

All societies have recognised that they therefore need warriors. The warriors are not barbarians. They are brave, skilled, disciplined individuals who risk their lives for something bigger than themselves. The overwhelming majority of people who have lived, and the overwhelming majority of people and societies today, recognise that the warriors are men. This is something that most people know, even if they deny it.

As with so many issues, normal people are smarter here than intellectuals. Is there a home in Australia in which, if attacked by a burglar, the husband would not respond first?

Hello discrimination - surely society at large doesn't really believe you need a penis in order to be a brave, skilled, disciplined individual that risks their life for the greater good? I'm guessing that Sheridan's view of what it takes to be a real warrior in this day and age is whatever image he's got in his head from reading too many SAS books/novels, and he's willing to look past all of the women that have fought/died for their cause and/or country.

As for stereotyping, well it seems that the overwhelming majority has no choice but to agree with Sheridan's logic, which supports that warriors are men. I wouldn't want to seem bitter or anything, but I'd like to point out my doubts as to whether despite his job as foreign editor, Sheridan really knows what most people out of the general population (living or dead!) typically identify as warriors. Assuming he is correct in that I know that I recognise society's warriors as men, even if I deny it, I can't really begin to question whether the glorification of men on the frontline throughout the course of history has anything to do with the fact that women haven't been allowed anywhere near such roles until quite recently, can I?

I'm not too clear on the boundaries of definition for objectification and oppression, but I can't help but twitch a little when I read the last sentence quoted above, referring to a husband's first response. The underlying implication that a woman's place in the home is not only as a wife, but as the second responder, or even worse, the passive bystander whilst the man of the household does all the dirty work of counterattacking burglars (and what mighty warrior work you do, husbands of Australia!) bothers me too much for me to not mention.

I might have winged a distinction in statistics earlier this year, but I don't know what the real facts are on what the typical Australian household is made up of, how many burglaries occur whilst people are still at home, or whether more males than females are first to respond to a break-in. I could probably look these up, after spending a couple of captivating hours researching on the Australian Bureau of Statistics website, but I think I've sacrificed too much time to it already for my marketing subject last study period. But I digress. It wouldn't have taken a seasoned professional (such as Sheridan) particularly long to figure out whether The Husband™ is really the ultimate first responder to crime in an Australian household.

As for patriarchy, well...

Many practical considerations arise from the special nature of military culture and the extreme demands of battle. In close combat male soldiers will try to protect female soldiers. This is a law of human nature. The unit's effectiveness will suffer.

A military unit is bound by common identity, by deep traditions of comradely bonding. The romantic liaisons that inevitably develop in mixed gender units militate against the absolute teamwork, group identity and lack of favouritism that characterise military units in combat. A lack of knowledge of military culture leads to a lack of respect for it and then to policies that compromise effectiveness.

I guess the mother of all patriarchies would be inherent in present Australian military culture. After all this time without anywhere near a 50% female representation in the ranks, is it any wonder? Doesn't it make sense to send young boys and their fathers to war whilst girls stayed back to learn how to babysit and sew, whilst their mothers manufactured and packed parachutes, and filled in jobs that were left empty from all the conscriptions? To a certain degree, this situation is difficult to get around, you know, the whole preservation of the species thing. I've got to say though, lumping all women into the 'stay home and breed for the nation' category without giving them the option to not have children, and fight alongside men for their freedoms is almost insulting in 2009.

The real kick in the teeth from these telling paragraphs from Sheridan is the overall message that with his thorough understanding of military culture, women are a hindrance to the effectiveness of military units in combat. Who would have thought that despite modern training techniques, improvements in battle equipment, and access to wartime intelligence that our forebears could only dream of... the most highly developed of our military warriors could be so easily compromised by a female in the ranks?

Perhaps after seeing the group dynamics of typical military units today, it is difficult for people like Sheridan to imagine the existence of a hoo-ah sisterhood. Despite the ADF discussing the possibility of providing women with more job opportunities if they can meet the physical and psychological requirements, they are working against years of ingrained thought regarding what a woman's place is and/or should be in times of war. Although I see no point in debating which gender would be more effective in close quarter combat for as long as women are actively discouraged or prohibited from the frontline (the word of the day is moot, kids!) I would be interested to see if there was some kind of research into whether 'comradely bonding' is strictly the territory of heterosexual males in the peak of conflict.

So I guess what I'm saying is... does this make me a feminist? :)

zen and the art of sandwich making

My paperwork has been submitted for my competency log stuff, which means I'll be a Leading Aircraftwoman soon. I'm rostered on to work a weekend in a couple of weeks, which is the real sign of promotion. A whole kitchen to myself for five meals! What's the worst that could happen? I'd better not dwell on that too long, because I'll get too nervous.

It's strange, knowing that it's been just over two years since enlistment, and I've broken the back of my service obligation. When I first signed up I thought that four years was an eternity in a job I had no real idea how to do or what to expect. I guess I'm not all the way there yet, and I feel like I've spent a year just learning how to do what I do comfortably enough to tell people with confidence that I'm a cook.

Yet when I speak to the people that have started a year or more after me, and watch the way the new cooks work, I can notice the difference between them and myself. I've been wearing the same rank as them for all this time, but it seems that suddenly they're asking me for help and instruction, and more often than not it's my name on the board where it says 'Duty Cook'.

The other LACs have been joking about how I'm more likely to get a reprieve from sandwich bar, now that I've moved up in the world. I don't know why making salads and sandwiches comes with such a stigma, perhaps because there's little to no cooking involved, or because you have to deal with customers face to face at the Officers' Mess, as opposed to hiding out the back if you're doing cook to order stuff or even just plating up the food. Working on sandwich bar actually makes me miss the buzz I get from dealing directly with customers, the same sort of energy I'd pick up on when I was waiting tables. It's too easy to forget that you're feeding fellow humans, rather than just producing food that gets taken away on plates by the stewards.

I still find it more stressful being duty cook than not, even though it shouldn't be anything to stress about. I guess it's that feeling of not being able to relax entirely until the whole shift is done and dusted. Anything that goes wrong on your watch is your responsibility, and I've already had my share of things go wrong that have not necessarily been under my control, but should have been. On the other hand, it's also tricky to hand over the reins and delegate tasks without worrying about whether they're going to get done properly. I'd still rather bite off more than I can chew and screw things up myself, than have nothing on my plate and be left worrying about whether everyone else can handle the things I've handballed to them.

I've realised that I went through a similar phase when I became a shift supervisor in waiterland. There were the benefits of being able to get other people to do my bidding, but sometimes it was just easier and less frustrating to do something for myself, because I knew I could get it done efficiently and effectively the first time around. I think I'd be a terrible teacher... I simply don't have the patience and tolerance every hour of every working day of the week. I'm at a weird in-between phase right now, where all the other LACs are far more established in their rank than I am, and I am nowhere near the calibre of the ACs that have all just started in the mess this year. Although I enjoy taking charge of a shift and being responsible for its smooth running, sometimes what I'd really prefer is the gentle art of following rather than leading.

I have a feeling that as time goes on, and more ACs come through the mess, I am going to miss making sandwiches.

soon to be replaced by robots

We've got some brand spanking new combination ovens at work. They're pretty freaking Gucci. The more expensive model has got its own computer control panel, and is worth about $35,000. I bet a lot of people would be thinking, whoa, what's so good about a freaking oven that makes it the same price as a sweet new car? Or, why would anyone want to bother with a computer that's attached to an oven?


Because good cooks are hard to find. That, and it won't be too long until our entire mustering can be done by trained monkeys.

Seriously, the SelfCooking Center® is an utter smartarse. It's like the Hermione of ovens, and I'm sure once you've worked with them for long enough, going back to the old school combi where you have to choose from limited and archaic options such as steam or dry heat, time, and temperature, would be like returning to the dark ages.


Say you want to cook some bar snacks to fatten up the Officers on a weekday afternoon. You've trayed up some party pies, sausage rolls, mini pizzas, dim sims, and chicken satay meatballs. Trouble is, they all take slightly different times to actually cook, so it's a bit tricky to avoid overcooking one type of snack whilst undercooking another. Never fear, genius oven is here! Simply load up the trays into any of ten racks, and via the Finger Food menu options, set separate timers for each numbered rack. The computer will buzz and remind you when rack two, party pies are ready to roll, then once you have taken out that tray of tasty pastry, the internal thermostat will ensure the oven returns to its specified temperature before counting down the timers on the rest of the items inside.

Or perhaps you'd like to slow-cook a roast for the next day's lunch. Choose the type of meat from the menu, how quickly you'd like to roast (there is actually an overnight option), and the level of doneness for the meat. Stick the internal temperature probe into the meat once you've put the tray into the preheated oven (the computer will say when it's ready for the meat to go in), and the oven will take care of the rest. You can even choose to do roast with crackling, and once the core temperature reaches a certain point, the computer will crank up the temperature of the oven so that the crackling gets super crisp by the time the whole roast is ready.

Maybe you've got a couple trays of Cauliflower Mornay or Potato Au Gratin that you'd like to cook off. Back in the day, you'd have to blanch or steam your cauliflower or potato to partially cook it, then tray it up with the white sauce, cheese and/or breadcrumbs, then hope to bake it enough to get the cheese golden and melty without turning it brown or black. Now you can just choose from the Gratin menu, stick a probe in your cauliflower or potato, and the computer will know how long to steam/bake for, whilst also pumping up the dry heat in the last moments of cooking so that cheesy crust will be just right.

If you have a pasta choice coming up, you can actually put measured amounts of dry pasta, prepared sauce, and water into a gastronorm tray, immerse the internal temperature probe, and the combi will buzz you when it's ready to go. Ready to go onto the servery that is! Straight from oven to bain marie, without having to deal with the hassle of sticking a pot of water on the stove to heat up water and then cook pasta, then drain it off so it's ready for use. It's 2009, after all... why don't all commercial kitchens do away with such prehistoric means of cooking pasta!?

Say you're a bit of a control freak, and you're not 100% willing to relinquish control of your meal to software that has been developed by Germans (who no doubt wish to take over all of the world's cooking facilities, one combi oven at a time). You can still work in manual mode, and go into all sorts of menus to program your own cooking styles and save them on the oven's computer. Want to start off by steaming something at 75% humidity and 50 degrees, but finish off with a searing dry heat at 250 degrees? You can do it. It's like going into the source code of the cooking programs, and if something works well, you can even download it to a USB drive and transport your winning programs to another combi elsewhere. If you don't trust the autopilot, you can tool around with as many settings as you like. If you want to change messes and still insist on cooking quiches your way and no one else's, jam your masterpiece onto a USB key and show everyone else who's boss.

Maybe you have to be a bit of a geek as well as a not-too-precious chef to appreciate this sort of technology. The guy who was sent out to train us (madlove an oven that requires basic training, manuals, and a dvd included!) said that he used to work functions where he could get his produce in on a Tuesday. Then he'd prep it all on a Wednesday. Cook it and plate it up on a Thursday. Then blast chill it whilst the plates were loaded onto special trolleys. Pull it out of the freezer on the Friday, load it straight into the oven and stick it on the special reheat setting (the trolley is designed to fit into the oven whilst it is full of plates). Wait for the oven to bing, pull out the trolley and put a special thermal cover over it that can keep it at temperature for twenty minutes or so... which is the time it takes to heat up another trolley load. Work smarter, not harder! Pity you still have to rely on humans to actually take out the plates to customers at the function.

Luckily for us, there is still a need for human cooks, so that the right decisions can be made with the oven, and the right things are put on for meals. Some could argue that this takes the fun out of cooking, because so much of it is done automatically, but to be honest, I don't think anyone really sees checking temperatures and moisture content of food as the most enjoyable part of cooking. The other great thing is that the oven tracks temperatures and times for food that has been probed within it, so if someone decides that they've got food poisoning, we can actually pull up a record that says everything we've served has complied with HACCP standards.

I probably shouldn't be saying all this, because word might get out that the mysteries of cooking and getting things right with food have now been taken care of by a computer. The same ten year old that once knew how to program a VCR whilst their parents scratched their heads about how to get it to stop flashing 12:00? They're going to be smart enough to know how to cook a succulent steak, or a tray of perfect soft-poached eggs. You probably won't need Year Nine maths to be a cook any more, you'll just have to watch a DVD and be tall enough to shut the door.

I'm more awed than scared at the moment. Still, it's a good thing I'm looking into remustering in a couple of years. :)

muffins, meringues, and meat-based mayhem

The day didn't start off too well. I dumped my bag with PT gear in it (hopeless optimism that I'd get time to duck out for a quick game of something with some of the other cooks), hung up my squadron cap, and realised that I forgot to bring a skull cap with me. A quick look in a couple other lockers saved me from scurrying back to my room, as I discovered Kina's secret stash of hats. Now things were looking up. A quick stop to check work emails, and look up a basic muffin recipe, and I was on my way.

Usually when I'm working, I've got to write out a full plan of what I've got to get through that day. It'll have a list of the tasks I'm assigned to, as well as timings so I can actually get everything done on time. It's one of the perils of being a bottom rung Aircraftwoman (ACW), but I don't mind it. I'm not that much of an organisation nut or list junkie, but I like looking at a timeline to get an idea of whether I'm ahead or behind schedule, so I can sing out for help or give someone else a hand as necessary. It really helps in sweets to have stuff nutted out before the shift as well, because I often struggle trying to get things baking, mixing, setting, and garnished simultaneously, and there's not enough time in the day to do everything as separate tasks.

Fridays mean a bit of a reprieve from all the planning - if the week's gone well, I know what ingredients there are in the fridge that are leftover and to be used up, and I know what we've run out of in the freezer or the dry stores so I'll come prepared with ideas that I'll be able to do without having to beg other messes for the right ingredients. There's a lot of flexibility with the sweets we can offer with meals - there used to be a set menu, but now it's pretty much an open choice as long as there's a hot sweet for lunch, and fruit salad with lunch and dinner.

I started off with a mega muffin mix, seeing as it's good to get the baking requirement of the day done first. It also helps warm up the kitchen and fill it with that awesome baked goods smell, which always gets the other cooks wondering what's cooking... and later swooping like seagulls for whatever scraps they can steal. The other thing about Friday sweets is that as well as preparing assorted platters of sweets for the upcoming weekend, the sweets cook has to offer something to the 58 Gap Year Cadets that have a weekly barbecue up at the Officers' Mess for lunch. I figured that I didn't have enough leftovers kicking around to sacrifice to the cause, so a giant batch of banana, mixed berry and white chocolate muffins would just have to do!

Doing something well whilst in sweets bay elicits a variety of responses:
'Ooh, yummy! What a shame you don't have a penis.'
-- from a seemingly easily impressed female

[Walking past the oven and looking in] 'Oh my God! Those muffins look like shit!'
-- the most backhanded of compliments from one of the guys

'Why are you wasting perfectly good muffins on the Gappies?'
-- from the new kid who was probably too scared to ask for one directly

My favourite response of all - busting a couple of the cooks stealing muffins from the bowl I was filling up for the Gappies, while they didn't think I was paying attention. :)

Due to the lack of equipment on hand, I only had a 24-cup tray, so I did two and a bit rounds of spooning the mix in and baking, giving the tray a quick wash in between. I ended up having enough mixture for 58 exactly, but with some muffins going AWOL earlier on in the piece (gotta love how blatant some of the guys are, not even putting the glad wrap back over the top of the bowl properly after yoinking a muffin), if each Gappie wanted a muffin, they might have to duke it out for the last couple. Well, they're going to have to learn sooner or later that life isn't fair and rations aren't always what you expect them to be. They looked so happy to receive a giant bowl of muffins for their dessert too! I can just imagine how crushed the last couple of Gappies would've been, discovering that they're too late for pudding. Survival of the fattest, ey?

While the muffins baked, I got platters ready for the weekend, as well as plating and garnishing up some desserts for lunch. I had a big tray of chocolate cheesecake brownie slice to cut up, something I prepared yesterday because the recipe said that brownies taste better the day after they're made. They weren't wrong! The beauty about cutting up good sweets is that anything you trim off the edges, or happen to cut unevenly, just gets eaten without you even realising it. Limited wastage all round! The guys thought that the hybrid of cheesecake and brownie was a bit unusual, but still dug it once they gave it a shot. I've made this recipe a couple of times, but I still can't match how one of my favourite cafes back at home does it.

The second round of muffins went in, as I decorated some mini-pavlovas for the weekend. I later discovered that I shouldn't have spread the pavlovas around all the platters, because they won't be any good beyond about 24 hours. Yes, sweets can indeed self-destruct. Something about the moisture making meringue go all spoogy after it's been sitting in the fridge for too long. A few bits of strawberry and some mixed berry coulis to finish off the pavlovas, and there's only a few gaps left on the platters to fill.

That's where my totally ghetto recipe for the day came into play... I made an orange polenta syrup cake yesterday, but buggered it up somewhat when flipping it out of the tray too soon after taking it out of the oven, so I ended up with a heap of scrappy bits where the cake cracked apart and I couldn't salvage a square-sized serving out of it. However, with a waste-not-want-not mentality, and spaces in the weekend sweets platters to fill, I thought I could turn these cake bits into Jaffa Truffle Balls. Feel the fear and do it anyway, right? :) A couple of cans of condensed milk, a smattering of cocoa powder, rolled into disturbing poo-balls and finished off with desiccated coconut. Everybody wins. I totally kick food wastage butt!

All that was left to do for the day is the hot sweet. Today's masterpiece was butterscotch self-saucing pudding, served with hot vanilla custard. I thought I should face my nemesis from Monday once more, after the pudding I tried to cook was nowhere near ready for the whole of lunchtime, whether it was due to too much liquid in the recipe, or the oven was turned down too low for most of its cooking, I still don't know. This time around though, I got the pudding in early, held back on the amount of liquid it recommended to pour in for the sauce, and it was ready ahead of schedule. I wasn't even using a recipe that I had tried before, but it all turned out like it was meant to. What a relief! After cleaning up the sweets bay area and putting out my hot sweet for lunch, it was time to... cook burgers.

I'm not kidding. Yes, I get paid way too much per hour to flip burgers, but this was my lunch job. One could argue that I also get paid too much to make sandwiches to order, but I might save that rant for another time. The new kid Harry was torn between the torment of sandwich bar, and the pressure of cooking burgers to order back in the kitchen... he first requested to swap jobs with me for lunch, but then went back on his wish and opted to go out to sandwich bar anyway.

This left me to find out all the wild and wonderful ways to not assemble a burger, according to Adam's Rules of Burger Assemblage:

1. Do not melt the cheese onto the base of the bun.


2. Do not start with any salad item other than lettuce.


3. Do not melt the cheese onto the top of the burger patty.


4. Do not put unmelted cheese underneath the burger patty.


5. Do not attempt to close the burger with salsa on the underside of the bun lid.

I have a feeling they're going to make me do remedial burger cooking at Ron's barbecue on Monday... I think I might have to plead strategic incompetence to get out of it. Who knew that there were even five ways to mess up a burger? Apparently it was painfully obvious that I never worked a job at Macca's or Hungry Jack's. I'm kind of glad that it shows, though. :)

Too bad I can't give up my day job until 2011!

and now for the weather...

It's going to be windier than a baked beans convention... depending of course on how many delegates there are. All joking aside, if you're going to be marching tomorrow, you'd better hang on to your hats.

No kidding, that was the latest weather update on our local substitute for Channel Seven!

I don't think I've ever used the chinstrap on my service dress hat. I don't think there's any other way (short of wedging the hat right onto my head) of keeping it from blowing away in the wind, either.

At least it's not going to rain?

how can you have any pudding?

Part of my competency log training is a checksheet on identifying different cuts of meat. Presumably so I can do an accurate stocktake of meat we've got in the freezers and fridges, as well as sign for deliveries and check them off properly. Although I've been doing this for almost two years, and I've even got posters of Australian Beef/Sheep/Pork primal cuts on the walls of my room, it's still my kryptonite.

I don't remember being explicitly told that meat came from dead animals. I think I've been fed meat for as long as I can recall any memories of eating. I can't really remember a time where I've not eaten meat, apart from when I've been too poor to afford any, or phases of inspired vegetarianism like when we did the butchering unit at TAFE and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was dissecting, cooking, then eating corpses for a living.

One strange thing about the Chinese language (or at least, in Mandarin) is that there is no word for pork. The word for pork is actually 'meat'. I guess a rough translation of beef would be 'cow meat', and fish/chicken have their own separate words, but perhaps when you eat so much pig meat, it's just a matter of efficiency to just call it meat and let everyone assume that it's pork unless otherwise specified.

It wasn't until I moved out of home, and started exploring various Chinese restaurants, as well as eating all manner of other foods, that I realised how much of what my parents cooked for me as a kid truly revolved around pork. I found it odd that a friend of mine at my 16th birthday would mention how she didn't eat pork, and disliked it so much that if she did eat any, she'd throw up... what's to fear? It's not like there's pork everything on the menu! Wasn't as tricky a situation as for vegetarian friends of mine, anyway...

So there's all these dishes that I don't know the proper Chinese or English names for, that I sometimes wish I could order at a restaurant. Pork dumplings and pork spring rolls are easy enough to find, as are barbecue pork buns. You know how you can get barbecue pork just cut up in special fried rice, or even chopped up for a take-home pack from some restaurants, you know, the ones with the ducks hanging in the window? It has that bright red tomatoey looking coating on the outside... as kids we called that 'red meat'. My Dad used to make us this marinated braised pork belly dish that I used to love with congee... because of the soy and whatever else was in the marinade, the pork belly was dubbed 'brown meat'. I didn't even know what congee was until just a few years ago, it was called something that I think translates to 'wet rice'.

Then there was this meatloaf kind of thing Dad made, which I think was just leftover dumpling filling moulded into the base of a bowl, with an egg cracked into a dent in the top of it, then it was steamed until it was cooked. You could break off bits of it with chopsticks or a fork and eat it with rice. This classic was simply called 'meatball'. I had all sorts of favourites - meat with bamboo shoots (which I didn't connect with pandas, as a kid!), meat with celery, meat with tofu, meat with Chinese spinach, meat with minced mushrooms. I don't know how they managed to do it, but my parents managed to feed me a million variations of pork without me being conscious or even annoyed with the constant source of meat. It was like a ghetto version of Iron Chef, but the secret ingredient is always pork. Just don't tell the kids!

Which brings me back to a year of vague attempts at discerning veal from beef, topside from rump, knuckle from collar, and meat from... meat. I totally blitzed my theory tests during the meat unit at TAFE, because I studied the primal cuts like a doctor would cram anatomy, but when it's not me that's done the breakdown from animal to chunk of something wrapped in plastic, I struggle.

My parents' parents would probably laugh at my so-called misfortune and tell me to stop trying to label it, just be grateful and cook/eat it instead.

in defence of defence

DEFENCE FORCE FATTIES screamed the headline of The Daily Telegraph on an ill-fated morning whilst I tried to enjoy my usual weekend breakfast of glee. The online article has the less sensational headline of 'Defence Force Obesity Epidemic', but you get the idea. Apart from the immediate guilt at scoffing down the breakfast of champions (I think it was the vegetarian big breakfast with scrambled eggs, but I can't quite remember), and having recently failed my Physical Fitness Test multiple times, I was taken aback by the image in the paper of 'Hot chicken heroes':


Fortunately, the surname patch on the left side of HCH#1 has been craftily edited out on the online version of the photograph, but nothing seemed to stop the newspaper from printing the unedited version in several hundred copies. The soldier's rank is obscured by the kebab, but due to the Australian flag on the arm of HCH#2, and noting that the caption mentions the photo was taken in Brisbane, it probably wouldn't be able to find out who HCH#1 probably is. Regardless of whether anyone can narrow down the true identify of HCH#1, I'm sure the two know who they are. How embarrassing. Since when was it a crime to grab a kebab? I'd like to think that this article says more about the quality of TDT's journalism than anything particularly conclusive about the state of our troops.

I should say at this point that even though I failed my PFT earlier on this year, I eventually passed on my third attempt, after a couple of weeks of solid training, sound advice and remedial PT classes led by the supportive and encouraging staff at the base gym. I guess that makes me a form of evidence that even though someone in the military can lack the discipline to maintain their fitness during the entirety of the year, it doesn't take that much in effort and resources to get that fitness back. Obviously the situation is different for other people who have more work to do, whether it's due to recovering from injuries, being deployed in areas where it's difficult to maintain physical fitness routines, or because they ate more ham over Christmas than I managed to during my leave. However, I'd like to think that any member of the ADF would also believe that it's possible to achieve the basic fitness level and maintain it without too much difficulty.

The big stink about this article is that is uses BMI as a metric to classify people as 'obese'. A multitude of people (military and civilian, from the looks of it) commented to various incarnations of the online and print articles, pointing out that BMI does not take into account muscle mass or body type/structure when labelling people as obese or otherwise. BMI is useful as a guide, but when you're talking about a subsection of the population that are more likely to contain muscular types, or at least people that have greater than average inclination to do regular weight training (whether it's incidental from pack marching, carrying a weapon/webbing, compulsory PT sessions involving weights work), it becomes less useful.

It's also worth pointing out that Australians in general are becoming bigger/heavier as a population, so the alarmist comment that our troops 'are becoming super-sized, averaging 16kg heavier than their World War I counterparts' is somewhat irrelevant. Never mind the fact that no other statistics are mentioned about how the average size of Australians has changed in the past 100 years, and that the size increase of today's troops compared to WWI could also have something to do with the average age upon enlistment (or even of members in the entire ADF, for that matter).

Some online commenters brought up the point about mess food quality and choices available, and I must admit that after eating at four different military locations (RAAF, Navy as well as Army), there are not always a wide variety of healthy options. However, some choices are always better than others, and policing the food that messes provide to ADF members would be a futile solution to the 'epidemic', considering that most members have the ability to eat food from elsewhere anyway. During recruits, when I was eating three square meals a day, going crazy on weekends with whatever I wanted, and scoffing vending machine snacks and contraband whenever possible, I still managed to lose weight and get fit in a way I never have before. I didn't give much thought to what I ate at the mess, because I was far more concerned about getting as much food into my mouth as possible during the limited time we had during meals. I realise this totally goes against anything that a nutritionist, doctor, dietitian or personal trainer would recommend, but I guess we worked hard enough to work off everything that was put on our plates.

When I had my first Annual Health Assessment, I informed the Medical Officer in a general questionnaire (which I guess is used by them to determine what kind of healthy habits or bad health indications there were to praise/beat out of us with a stick) that I had gained 10kg in approximately 6 months. Yes folks, this isn't a normal or healthy occurrence, and to be honest I didn't realise how drastic the numbers seemed until I compared my weight at the time to my all-time-record from rookies. I put down a little weight gain to having come out of the recruit lifestyle, and a little more to starting cooks' course, which meant a lot more eating than I was used to. What I didn't count on was the influence of Depo injections, which I'd started once I got to Cerberus, and decided to stop after struggling to shake off the weight that I'd gained since finishing recruits.

Despite not knowing for sure whether Depo was to blame for all that weight gain, the MedicO informed me of what resources were available to me to help me lose it once more. I could make specialist appointments with a dietitian in town, to see whether it was a matter of what I was eating that was the problem, or if it could be some weird hormonal thing (Depo, anyone?) or some other kind of body malfunction. I could weigh in weekly in a sort of Weight Watchers manner, so that during my weight loss journey I could be accountable for my progress and also get regular support and advice . I could participate in Physical Conditioning Program classes at the gym (also for people that had trouble passing PFTs), and speak to Physical Training Instructors on what sort of exercise I was doing. I even read some documentation on Defence sponsored diet products and even gastric surgery, which scared me a little. But this all goes to show that ADF does actually care about managing weight/fitness, as opposed to just kicking people out once they don't meet a certain standard/number/metric.

Perhaps it's not even worth my time saying that although 14% of the ADF appears to have a BMI over 30 (myself included, and even at my fittest during rookies I wasn't ever in the healthy weight range), the real concern should either be the ADF's capability to defend the nation despite the size of our respective girths, or the percentage of Australians that have a BMI over 30. I can't help but be biased in saying that the ADF made a wise choice in changing the entry requirements so that people with a BMI over 30 could still enlist, otherwise I never would have made it in when I did, but I am a firm believer that as long as you are physically fit enough to do your job, your BMI should not matter.

friends, civilians, military men... lend me your inboxes

CIVILIAN FRIENDS - Disown you for running around their house naked in front of a bunch of people none of you have ever met before.
MILITARY FRIENDS - Take photos and then join you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS- Think its disgusting that you got so drunk you pissed your pants and drowned the phone in your pocket - in their bed.
MILITARY FRIENDS-Upon hearing what happened say "That's fucked - that's why I don't sleep with my mobile in my pocket anymore" and help you turn their mattress over.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Get upset if you are too busy to talk to them for a week.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Are glad to see you after many years; and will happily carry on the same conversation you were having last time you met.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Never ask for food.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Are the reason you have no food.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Call your parents Mr and Mrs.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Call your parents Mum and Dad.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Bail you out of jail and then tell you what you did was wrong.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Would be sitting next to you saying, 'Mate...we fucked up ....but what a giggle?'

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Have never seen you cry.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Cry with you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give it back.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Keep your stuff so long they forget it is yours.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Know a few things about you.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Could write a book with a shed full of direct quotes from you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that is what the crowd is doing.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will kick the backsides of whole crowds that left you behind.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Would knock on your door.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Walk right in and say, 'I'm home, got any beer!

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Share a few experiences.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Share a lifetime of experiences no civilian could ever dream of.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will take your drink away when they think you've had enough.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will look at you stumbling all over the place and say,'You had better drink the rest of that, don't waste it. Then they carry you home and put you safely to bed.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will talk crap to the person who talks crap about you.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will knock the crap out of people who use your name in vain.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Know where you buried the body.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Helped you bury the body.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will call you 'mate' as a term of endearment.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will call you 'Wanker ' C*&T or 'Tosser' as a term of endearment.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Are for a while.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Are for life.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will ignore this.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will forward this to their military mates.

the tyranny of fitness

The first couple weeks back for a new year involves a lot of updating of compulsory annual training, such as firefighting, first aid, occupational health and safety, and for a lucky few, physical fitness tests. I wasn't due for another PFT until closer to June this year, thanks to a lucky(?) clerical error in my favour last year, which has meant I haven't actually done a PFT since passing one in week eight of rookies circa August 2007. However, I wasn't so fortunate this time around, by finding myself on the list for a PFT last Monday.

What I was worried most about, I passed with no troubles - the push-ups. I'm not a fan of push-ups at the best of times, and usually train up for a PFT by doing push-ups until fatigue point just before bed each night. I used to do the same with sit-ups back in boot camp, practicing with other girls that weren't otherwise occupied with cleaning weapons or ironing (such is life!). The alternative exercise to push-ups is the flexed arm hang, which I couldn't do at all back in the days when I was first seeing a personal trainer to get fit enough for enlistment. Weighing ten or so kilograms more than I do now also didn't help with relying on my puny arms to support my whole body weight. However, before I realised that push-ups were another metric used in the PFT, I worked on all manner of exercises to build my core, arm, and back muscles to the point where I could hang for long enough.

I was less concerned with sit-ups, considering in a circuit training session the previous week, I had been able to do the requisite amount. Whether it was because I hadn't slept or eaten enough to restore my energy reserves and rebuild the abdominals I'd worked in that session, or because I'd made the foolish choice of having my feet off the mat as opposed to on the mat (which even the PTI Sergeant admitted was a slight biophysical disadvantage I was giving myself), I don't know, but I missed the sit-ups target by two. I tried again with my feet on the mat about ten minutes later, but my feet kept coming up off the floor, my abs had nothing left to give, and I said I'd try the walk before coming back to attempt the sit-ups with feet held (which use slightly different muscles).

As for the walk, well it was definitely deceptive. I've never done the walk option before, as we didn't have a choice of it in recruits (that I knew of), because we were expected to do the run. I didn't trust my post-Christmas cardiovascular ability enough to get the right pace for the run though, so I thought choosing to walk would be easier. Boy, was I wrong. The cracking pace required to make the time target was more of a slow jog than a brisk walk, considering how short my legs are and how useless swinging arms and stepping out is for keeping the speed up. I used a guy that was pacing along listening to an iPod (another thing I didn't know we were allowed to have for PFTs!) to mark my time, but we ended up both missing out by four seconds.

Four seconds, and two sit-ups, what's the big deal, you may ask. Much like the military doesn't care if you beat the targets by seconds, minutes, fives, or tens - a pass is a pass and a fail is a fail. So I've now got 90 days to redeem myself, with the opportunity to retest any time between now and some time in April, in order to avoid further reproach (baby's first Record Of Conversation! Argh!) and regain my Individual Readiness aka deployability. I was slightly pissed off with myself for missing my targets so marginally (I probably deserved to miss them by heaps, considering how much I ate and how little I did over my summer holidays), but took it all as the kick in the butt I need to get cracking on my physical state in 2009.

I already had plans to start yoga, boxing, and Krav Maga this year. I'll tone down the running until it starts getting interesting again, but I am interested to see what these three different yet related disciplines can do for me with some serious practice. For those not in the know, Krav Maga is a military hand-to-hand combat system developed in Israel, which assumes no quarter will be given, and emphasizes threat neutralization (according to Wikipedia). I'm basically doing it for fitness and self-defence, and considering its military (and quite practical) roots, I didn't think I'd have a problem with being allowed to partake in it.

That's part of the joys of being government property, you see. Even though we ran around with webbing, rifles, and CBRND suits in 30 degree heat, threw ourselves over and under logs, ropes, chains on an obstacle course, and did numerous battle PT sessions hauling around logs, ropes, tyres, stretchers and trucks, if anyone wishes to participate in organised sport during their spare time, they need permission from the RAAF. I'm not too sure on the definition of organised sport, but considering a friend of mine struggled to be allowed to practice and teach Judo (despite being a State champion) because it wasn't recognised by the RAAF as a permissible sport, I was a little wary of admitting my potentially un-approvable extracurricular intentions.

I thought I'd do the right thing anyway (not entirely convinced by annual Fraud and Ethics training), and ask my Flight Sergeant for the 'permission to partake in outside sport' form to fill in. Just in case Krav Maga is not on the white list (even though there's another RAAFie practicing that does have permission to play!), or Iyengar yoga is seen as a national threat of some kind, or non-contact boxing is only allowed during RAAF supervised PT sessions. Part of filling in this form is seeking approval at the unit level (even though I'm sure the Commanding Officer has better things to do than sign off on everyone's voluntary sporting activities), but I thought I had a pretty good case seeing as working towards being fighting fit can only be an advantage.

Imagine my surprise when the reply from FSGT was that he could give me the form, and was happy to set the wheels in motion for me to get it signed off in the right manner, but not until I was IR current. In essence, this means I may not be medically covered if an injury occurs to me whilst I take part in 'unapproved sport', and following that sort of logic, I shouldn't be doing any extracurricular sporting activity until I am deemed 'medically fit' again. Time to play spot the Catch-22, perhaps? One would think that having failed a PFT, I should be encouraged to do anything (in my spare time or otherwise) that will increase my fitness, and therefore my prospects of passing a PFT in the near future, not discouraged.

I'm tempted to look up the relevant Defence Instructions on such rulings, to see if I have anything to wield against FSGT for doing this, but I've already been told by my immediate SGT that I should do whatever it takes to get fit again, and in the event of any injury, just say I fell down drunk or something similar. Like that's much more honourable/believable!

the year in preview

I've only been back at work for a week, but I can already tell that it's going to be a pretty busy 2009. Christmas/New Year break was fun, spent mostly in Melbourne, but stopping at Canberra, Wangaratta, and Terrigal along the way there and back. Clocked up some much needed kilometres on the new/old car, caught up with friends and family, and thankfully didn't get called up to do any RAAFesque duties.

I'll start with some not-so-breaking family news. While talking to my Mum and Aunt about someone who ran into me last year while I was attending the International Women's Day Dinner at Telstra Dome, I found out that this woman's father worked in the Air Force with my Grandfather. I didn't even know my maternal Grandfather was in the Air Force! I'm guessing it was for Taiwan, seeing as that's where my Mum grew up, but who knows. I'm determined to learn Mandarin properly, and go back to Taiwan to research more of this untranslated side of my family's flying history. Maybe it's something in the blood, which could explain other relatives on my Mum's side working for Cathay Pacific, and my own brother's fascination with aviation.

I think I remember seeing photos of my Grandfather with medals, or at least ribbons/braids of some kind, but no one in my family told me there was any kind of Air Force connection when I first said I was enlisting. So much for being the first in the family to go the military route. Not only was my Grandfather in the Air Force, he was a fighter pilot! My Mum and Aunt continued bantering away about the odds of me coming across someone who was two degrees of separation from my Grandfather, while I was still gobsmacked about him being some kind of AFie! Funnily enough, the woman that spotted me at the Telstra Dome thought I was with the Victoria Police band (who were performing that night), because I was in my service dress blues, which look quite similar to the Police uniform. I could have also been two or three degrees of separation from this woman, because she worked for Metropolitan Fire Brigade, which isn't too far removed from the Paramedic I'm with...

News on the future career front is that my application for LEAP, which is a scheme that basically covers the cost of the Bachelor of Business (Logistics and Supply Chain Management) course I'm attempting by distance learning, has been successful. This means that I've really got to get my rear into gear and pass all the subjects that I'm pledging to get through this year (four of them, yikes!), and spend the next couple years doing the equivalent of first year university. Through the application process, I've had to inform my superiors (and their superiors) of my intentions, which is basically to get a head start on the Business degree in order to be competitive for the Undergraduate sponsor scheme (full time study at a civilian university campus) or entry to ADFA via the Airman/Airwoman Access to the Academy Scheme (full time study in Canberra) by 2011. Not entirely concidental is the end of my initial sentence (sorry, Return Of Service Obligation) of 2 July, 2011, although I'm not sure what the payback is meant to be for however much of my degree the RAAF ends up footing the bill for. :)

So what does this all mean, in a nutshell? Well, for one, it doesn't look like I'm going to be saving up money for that little bar or cafe in the near future. My initial impetus for going the logistics path was a mixture of wanting to open up my career options so that I could possibly move back to or closer to Melbourne and live with my partner (RAAF cooks can only be posted to NT/QLD/NSW below Corporal rank), and also coming to the realisation that I don't think I'm physically and mentally capable of spending years in catering without wondering why I didn't give in to the curiosity of what I could do and where I could go if I pushed myself that little bit further. Also, if I do want to leave the RAAF eventually, I think the idea of a civilian job in logistics is much more appealing than one in hospitality (if it's not for my own business). My bar and cafe dreams have somewhat dwindled to the mobile coffee or kebab cart for now; I think that owning/running a small business is its own battlefield of sorts, and the sum total of my hospitality (and life!) experience hasn't readied me for that at all.

To put another twist in this tale, it turns out that I might not be a couple years away from wrangling my way to a more Victorian location, as it seems quite possible that my Paramagic partner can share this lovely State with me a lot sooner than 2011. There are no guarantees of course, but considering for the best part of a year I've thought that I'm going to be up here keeping the bench warm by myself for a couple years, this is amazing news to me. I'm still going ahead with the degree studies, and pursuing that ever elusive commission (if only to have an ending of sorts for this story!), but there's less pressure to ride the career rodeo just to be in a more geographically favourable position. This year I'm hoping that I'll be sent away on an exercise within Australia, that I'll get my Leading Aircraftwoman rank, and that I'll move into a non-military dwelling of some kind.

That's right - with a little luck, and a bit of work, this little baseling is going to go places.

how to recruit the right person for the job…

(A debrief of the first week back to work to follow; for now, here's the best of the jokes that were sent to me in the month or so that I had off. Translations in square brackets for the civilian impaired!)

Put about 100 Bricks in some particular order in a closed room with an open window. Send 2 - 3 candidates into the room and close the door. Leave them alone and come back in 6 hours to analyse the situation.

If they stack and count the bricks: Assign to RAAOC [Royal Australian Army Ordnance Corps]

If they recount the bricks: Assign to Pay Corps

If they've done nothing useful except make a huge mess with the bricks: Assign to RAE [Royal Australian Engineers]

If the arrange the bricks in strange order: Assign to Clerks

If the make the bricks into a wall and insist on knocking it over with their heads: Assign to Infantry (without delay)

If they insist on eating the bricks with the belief of hardening up: Assign to Armour

If any bricks are broken and one candidate dobs them in: Assign him to MP's and the others to Infantry [Military Police]

If the candidates are throwing bricks in no particular direction: Assign to Artillery

If they've already knocked off for the day: Assign to the RAAF

If they're staring out the window: Assign to Navy

Finally, if they are all sitting around talking to each other and no bricks have moved… congratulate them and send them to Duntroon. [Royal Military College, for officer training]