Melbourne Sun

martian dawn
Originally uploaded by mugley.

There have been many bushfires around Melbourne lately. We had a really dry winter and now we're paying. I'm not sure many people in the world realise this, but Australia burns down every year. This year is particularly bad, but nonetheless, it's not a surprise. This isn't my picture - mine aren't as good, but this is what it looked like for days. The city was so smokey it was unbelievable. Almost like I was back in China. Almost.

I haven't been blogging much. This is probably due to a number of reasons, namely, I'm lazy. However, as you can see from my previous post, I am still making my short films.

I've been forced to do what I said I'd never do again. No, I'm not teaching in China, I'm temping for a couple weeks. During the day I'm entering the data of thousands of entering students into the Royal Melbourne Institue of Technology (RMIT - the other/royal MIT).

Anyway, that's not bad. Just mindless motion and brain cells being sucked away by the hourly pay. However, on Wednesday I received a call from another temp agency asking if I was available that night. There was an election here a couple weeks ago and they needed a recount of ballots. Apparently the US isn't the only one who fucks up.

Anyway, I need the cash so I decided to go. I arrived at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. A building so awesome in it's sheer mass you are surprised the meer humans could have built it; however, given the lack of intricate design and aesthetic quality, it doesn't seem that difficult to conceive.

So I arrived at this massive building and followed the stream of temps down to the last and final "room" of the exhibition centre. I quote 'room' because it was the size of an airplane hanger. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Before we entered the room we were all forced to sit outside and wait until 6 o'clock. At 6 a woman from the Victoria Election Committee came out and asked all the data entry temps to line up. That wasn't me. They lined up and were taken into the massive 'room'.

We waited another 5 minutes or so and then the same woman came out and asked the rest of us to line up. The guy in front of me was drunk.

We filed into the hanger, signed our names on a piece of paper and then were shuffled through to some tables and told to find a seat if there was one available, otherwise, they'd find something else for us to do.

I found a seat.

There was an Irish girl who was already sitting when we arrived and looked up from her book when we sat down.

"Do you know what you're in for?" she asked.

Before we could reply she continued, "We've been sitting here for an hour and a half. We were counting for a bit then told to go on break, and now we've just been sitting here."

I didn't know what we were in for. I didn't know what counting votes entails. I just always took it for granted.

Anyway, they asked the temps who'd been sitting there for an hour to switch to a different table or go on break. Most of them just switched tables and the Irish girl was replaced by an Australian family.

Mother, father, daughter, daughter, son all sat across from me. Until that moment I wasn't aware that families registered together at temp agencies. And what a family. I could probably write a book on them, but I'll just keep it at this: They were a bit 'bogan'. If you don't know what that means, look it up.

Anyway, after a good 45 minutes (paid, thank god), the woman, I'll call her God, came up and gave us instructions for counting votes. We were to be handed a stack of 50 votes. We were first supposed to count to make sure there were 50 pieces of paper, and then go through to see that a 1, or check, or x was placed in the correct box. If not, they would take the ballot and replace it with one that was and so we'd have a stack of 50 votes for one party.

We were all given rubber thimbles and began. Sounds easy, right?

Well, it was, except for the scrutineers. What, you may ask, is a Scrutineer? Well, I'll tell you. They are volunteers for the various parties that walk around and have their say on whether the votes are being counted properly. They'd been there since 6 this morning and were not happy and were not getting paid hourly. I hate them. I understand thier function - fairness and all - but they're just annoying.

I got in a fight with one. The voter had clearly marked a one in the box and she was disputing it. She called over 4 different officers, we all argued over it, and then it was withdrawn to be further discussed.

Anyway, I was there until midnight. I took off at that point, I think others stayed until 4 in the morning, but I just wasn't committed to Australia's democracy on that level. Plus, I had to waste more brain cells at my other data entry job in the morning.

The moral of the story is that somewhere between the drunk guy and the scrutineer, I lost the little faith I had in democracy.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Democracy simply doesn't work.