David Castor's Day Off

With the exception of the week between Christmas and New Year, I haven't had any time off work for a fair while. This is because I desperately needed to get 75 days work experience completed before the cut-off for applications for the February 16 ceremony for my admission as a legal practitioner. It has been a busy week for me, filling in work journals, other forms and declarations, as well as travelling out to Strathfield twice to get a reference to attest to the fact that I am a person of "good fame and character". All this while I was doing a little work on the side.

After briefly travelling into work this morning, I had to go to St Leonards to hand in my forms in the hopes of getting a completion certificate. Unfortunately, they told me that they wouldn't be able to process these forms for a few hours. This turned out to be alright, because I ended up going into the Chatswood RTA and asking for a copy of my driving record. I had to do this because part of becoming a legal practitioner is making disclosure of all those things that may affect one's good fame and character. The irony is that a few speeding fines aren't going to prevent one from being refused admission, but if you don't disclose this information and it is later discovered, the accusation of dishonesty is then brought against you, which really does affect your standing as a solicitor.

After obtaining absolution for my sins, I had a few hours to kill while I waited for my completion certificate, so I went shopping for two badly needed shirts and ties after my broken iron killed two of my favourite shirts, much to my chagrin. I then went to a cafe and spent the next hour and a half sipping my chocolate frappe while doing the crosswords and the other puzzles in the Herald - rather badly, I might add. Still, it was a strange indulgence to be able to relax for an hour and a half on what otherwise would have been a work day. For some strange reason, it felt like I was a school kid wagging classes while all the other poor suckers were stuck learning about the finer points of chemical equations, which was a thought that I cherished warmly.

After the novelty of overstaying my welcome in the cafe wore off, I travelled back to St Leonard's to collect my completion certificate, before travelling back into the city to hand in my admission application. One wouldn't think that this would be a drama, but when I arrived at the building I had discovered that I had left my mobile phone on the train. After finalising my application, I rang my phone to discover that someone had found it and had called perhaps the only person in my contact list that would could into the city to pick up my phone. I haven't got my phone back, but it will be safe with me tomorrow afternoon after work.

All in all, it was a pretty busy day, but I day I enjoyed immensely, with the exception of having to pay my application fee to get admitted. This said, I can't complain all that much, because most of the pressure is now off. However, it's back to work tomorrow, where I will I return to my general state of undisclosable busyness. After that, I will soak in my three day weekend and indulge in that event which is more Australian than anything else - a public holiday.