My Conviction

Last Thursday, 27 August, I went for a hearing test for the call centre job I recently applied for. The test had been contracted out to a GP clinic in Prospect, so it wasn't too far from where I live.

When I walked into the surgery, I was immediately struck by how many Muslim women I saw, either working there or sitting in the waiting room. There must have been seven or eight of them, as well as a number of Middle Eastern-looking men. I loved what I saw. With all the beautiful headscarves and the multicultural atmosphere around me, for a moment I felt as though I had stepped into the pages of The Arabian Nights. Below you can see the front desk of the doctor's surgery.

You can also see the view I had of the surgery from where I was sitting in the waiting room.

I'd never had a hearing test before, but when my name was called out, I was led into a small room by one of the Muslim women I had spotted when I first walked in. I outright said to her, "There are a lot of Muslim people here." I told her I loved it and that the place was like a multicultural heaven. She laughed and then explained the hearing test to me.

She gave me a pair of headphones that were hooked up to a computer. The program the computer was running was open, so I could see it on the screen. It would make noises, and every time I heard one, I had to press a button that was attached to the headphones. She then left me alone in the room.

I started to faintly hear noises and pressed the button each time I did, but I would often see the computer program flash as if it had made a noise when I hadn't heard anything. So I started pressing the button every time I saw the computer program flash.

The test was over in around 15 minutes, and I was sent back to the waiting room to wait for a doctor who would analyse the results. Not long afterwards, I was called into the doctor's room. He kept calling me darling. He told me he was the owner of the clinic, and you could just tell that he was a gentle doctor with a beautiful soul.

He had my test results sitting in front of him, and I told him I didn't think I'd done too well because I'd become confused by the flashes on the computer screen. He said I was right, I hadn't done very well, but then said there was a lot of noise in the room and he was going to pass me and make a note of the discrepancy. We chatted for a bit and then I left.

The next day, the 28th, which was last Friday, I got a call from the agency telling me everything was okay with my hearing test and that, even though my police check hadn't come back yet, the company would like me to start on Monday, which is actually today.

I'm assuming they said I could start on the assumption that my police check will come back clear. Technically, it should come back clear. My conviction for using my mobile phone while driving is spent, and it doesn't show up on normal police checks after 10 years. The conviction was in 2013, so that is well past the expiry date. But the conviction can still come up on a police check conducted for certain types of work involving vulnerable people, and I don't know whether that's what the company has requested. They may have, and it would be well within the realms of possibility given the nature of the work.

They asked me if I could start on Monday. I thought about it for one quick moment and then said, "Yes, of course."

On Friday, I read an article in The Advertiser by Lucy Rutherford titled Coroner reveals how notorious child murderer Bevan Spencer von Einem died. The article is about the death of Bevan Spencer von Einem and goes into quite a lot of detail about the state he was in towards the end of his life. Among other things, it points out that when he was found dead, he was wearing disposable incontinence underwear. It also quotes State Coroner David Whittle, who said that while it is customary, although not obligatory, for a coroner to identify something positive about the person who has died, in von Einem's case, attempting to do so would be “neither appropriate nor productive”.

I understand why the coroner said that. Von Einem was convicted of the horrific murder of 15-year-old Richard Kelvin and was suspected of being involved in other terrible crimes. But von Einem did do something good once. I don't understand why he did it, but he did. He went on to commit unforgivable, heinous crimes, and I do believe the world is a better place without him in it. However, none of that changes the fact that, once, he did something good.

Of course, I didn't want to write a letter to the editor that could be seen as defending von Einem, but I did consider submitting the following:

Dear The Editor,

When I was a child, stories about Bevan Spencer von Einem would instil sheer terror around the schoolyard. As I grew older and came to understand the enormity of his crimes, I viewed him as a heinous, sadistic murderer, seemingly beyond redemption in this life or the next.

So when I read Lucy Rutherford's article, Coroner reveals how notorious child murderer Bevan Spencer von Einem died, 28 August, I wasn't surprised that State Coroner David Whittle could find nothing positive to say about his life. What I found interesting, however, was that despite everything von Einem did, there was at least one good deed that could have been mentioned.

In 1972, on the night Dr George Duncan was killed, Roger James was also attacked and thrown into the River Torrens. James survived and made his way out of the river. Von Einem found him and drove the injured man to the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

That single act of kindness can never diminish the horror of Richard Kelvin's murder or make amends for the terrible suffering von Einem caused. Nor does it redeem him.

Like everyone else, I am glad von Einem is dead. But his death, and that one act from more than half a century ago, has left me thinking: is even the very worst of humanity capable of some good?

Kind regards,

Me

But in the end, I decided not to send it. Starting a new job and having just applied to join a new political party, I didn't want to leave myself open to any unnecessary vulnerabilities. It's a fair question, though.

On the actual AdelaideNow website, the tagline for the article was: Died in a nappy: von Einem’s final moments exposed. I thought that was particularly cruel. Not to von Einem, but to anyone who currently uses, or has ever had to use, disposable incontinence underwear. In trying to dehumanise a monster who had already dehumanised himself through his own actions, they were also dehumanising everyone else who uses them.

But I don't want to be the sort of person who has an opinion on everything, so I just let the whole thing go.

Back to the job. So I agreed to start on Monday, and I knew the only way I was going to get through the Monday to Friday training week was if I stayed at a hotel close to the office. I really didn't want to do this because I didn't want to leave Mum alone for that period of time, but I thought this was something worth investing in. If I can just get through the training, then the ongoing hours will be perfect for me and my sleep issues.

So I booked myself into a five-star hotel close to the office, and on Sunday night, which was last night, Mum and I caught an Uber into the city. I wanted Mum to come up to the hotel with me and have a room service dinner before I settled in for the week.

Below you can see a photo of the bed.

The bathroom is a little pokey, but it's still nice.

The views from this room are spectacular. We got here at around 6:00pm yesterday, and it was still light outside. I took these two photos of the view from the room.

Mum helped me get unpacked, and we watched TV for a while before ordering dinner. We both got club sandwiches, although mine was without the meat. Mum and I actually had a great time just watching TV and eating together. Then she wanted to go home, so I took her downstairs and ordered an Uber.

My primary goal for last night was to get as much sleep as possible, if I could get any at all, and then somehow get myself up at 6:00am this morning. I brought along three alarm clocks, which you can see below.

As well as my alarm clocks and my mobile phone, I also booked a wake-up call, which was good because the phone isn't next to the bed and you actually have to jump out of bed and run across the room to answer it.

Initially, I was told that the training would be from 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Friday, but I was then told it would be from 8:00am to 4:00pm. This actually suits me much better because if I haven't slept at all the night before, I finish that one hour earlier, and it just makes the day a lot easier.

I went to bed early last night at around 10:00pm, but I was still tossing and turning at 3:30am. But somehow, somewhere, I got a few hours of sleep, and it is remarkable how much of a difference it made. When I started my previous call centre role, where I was unable to rein in my sleep issues, I went there on the first day on no sleep at all, and it was hellish. When I woke up this morning, I could feel that I had slept, even just that little bit, and it made it easier to start the day.

I purchased breakfast with the room, but I ordered it up so I could eat in private. I had a big plate of baked beans on toast and an orange juice, and that felt like it completely recharged me and got me ready for a big day.

I left my room at around 7:30am, and it literally took me five minutes to walk to the office. It's a big, beautiful office, and I made my way up the escalators. There was a woman from the recruitment agency sitting there at security, and she recognised me from our interview, so I talked to her for a while. Then the other three women who were starting today arrived.

We were given swipe cards and shown around the building. It really is a beautiful facility. There are showers and fresh towels, a wellness centre and endless breakout rooms. It was lovely. We were given a tour of the full facility, which also included other offices, and then we settled in for the morning and were given details about the company.

The three other women who were doing the training with me were really nice. One might be about five years older than me, and the other two were younger.

One thing I've noticed about myself, going all the way back to my uni days, is that I tend to get drowsy and my eyes get heavy when I'm in a classroom environment, even if I'm not particularly sleep deprived. Just sitting there listening to someone speak, with no interaction, can make it really hard for me to stay awake, so I put 100% of my focus into that today. It was really important that I didn't stand out as someone who was falling asleep, and I certainly would have stood out given there were only four of us there.

At lunch, I went to the bathroom, and this is the only photo I took inside the office. It's of the Braille outside the female toilets.

We listened to operators taking calls, and it's the sort of job I can see myself liking. Apparently, it's not overly busy at night when I will be working, but there must be enough calls to justify having a number of staff members on.

Close to the end of the day, when we were back in the training room, one of the team leaders came in and asked to speak with the trainer for a moment. I was certain it was going to be about my criminal conviction. I suddenly got butterflies and felt extremely anxious. But when our trainer came back into the room, he told us it was about something else.

I actually spent a lot of the day waiting for someone to come into the room, call my name, ask to speak to me and then tell me I was being let go because of my spent criminal conviction.

I also wondered whether I should have told them about it, but the thing is, if I did that and it doesn't come up on my police check, I would be unnecessarily slandering myself. But then, on the other side of that, if it does come up on the police check, it might look like I deceived them. Which I haven't.

It's a spent conviction for using a mobile phone while driving. As far as I understand it, it shouldn't come up on a normal police check. But they might not have ordered a normal police check. If they ordered a police check for work involving vulnerable people, then the conviction may appear.

The whole thing is making me feel like a second-rate citizen. I feel like I don't deserve the job, or any job, and that this is literally going to be a problem for me for the rest of my natural-born life.

If I am told that I can't proceed with this job, I am going to devote all my time to volunteering with offenders. It's like I've said before: on paper, I am the same as them.

So I finished the day at 4:00pm, and I felt exhausted, but the exhaustion was light. It was nothing like my first day at my previous call centre role a few months ago. I walked back to the hotel and collapsed on my bed on the 16th floor.

I've spoken to Mum around six times today. I just want to make sure she is doing okay. I was also able to help her navigate the TV remotes so she could watch the movie she wanted. This made me think that if things don't work out in this call centre, I could always work on an IT help desk.

As I lay on my bed this afternoon, I couldn't help but wonder what Nanny would have thought about me staying here. It cost me around $1,700 for the week, which includes breakfast. It is very expensive, I know, but I see it as an investment. I don't think you can put a price on being able to walk five minutes to and from the office for someone like me with unpredictable and unreliable sleep. It made today a whole lot easier.

I've still got another four days to go, so I'll see how I go. That's if I am not let go because of my spent criminal conviction.

My friend Rebecca, who I've talked about a bit on here, is picking Mum up tomorrow morning at 10:30am and taking her to get her nails done. I asked her if she would mind doing it, and she said she would happily do it. I think that is so lovely.

I've been spending a bit of time with Rebecca lately, and sometimes there is nothing like a good old friend. I've known her all her life. She's four years younger than me. She is Nanny's real granddaughter, and I want to make sure I am always there for her and look out for her where I can.

I haven't started my diet as I had planned after I turned 45. My reason for that is because the diet I would like to go on is not really a diet. It's more or less a massive calorie reduction. I want to do the intensive phase of the Optifast shakes for around one year. I know that I have the willpower and determination to do that if I were to execute it, but I need momentum.

The reason I haven't started yet is because I wanted to eat proper meals this week while I'm in training. Particularly if it becomes torturous, I can't be on an 800-calorie diet with hardly any sleep. I wouldn't survive that.

I got really fat back in 2013. They say being fat is a chronic condition, and I can see how that works to a point, but I don't think that if I dropped the weight it would necessarily come back.

People, especially my father, told me I was fat all through childhood and up until my late teens. My Dad even sent me to a psychiatrist for being too fat, and I remember his introduction of me to the psychiatrist. He told him I'd always had problems with food and that it was probably his fault. The psychiatrist was so nice. He told me he didn't really think I had a problem and that I would grow out of the weight I had.

Then I moved to Alice Springs, and I decided I was going to go on a tomato soup diet. I smoked back then, so it was easier to deny myself solid food, but for 52 days I drank Diet Coke and had one bowl of tomato soup a day. I walked to and from my job as an apprentice hairdresser, and I lost a lot of weight.

See, I don't even think that I was really all that fat before this, but after the tomato soup diet, I was very thin. When I came home from Alice Springs at the age of 18, my Dad then decided I was too thin and sent me back to the same psychiatrist. This time, the psychiatrist told me to move out of my parental home because he didn't think my father's interest in my weight was healthy.

My Dad did have an unhealthy interest in everyone's weight. Don't get me wrong, Dad was a good man, but he once banned one of our cousins from coming over to the house because she was too fat.

Throughout my twenties, I maintained a normal weight. Sometimes I was a little bit curvy, but definitely not fat. In my early thirties, I was the same, but at around 33, I put on a lot of weight.

I want to lose the weight so badly. But I don't want a quick fix. I'm going to do it slowly over a year or so, and I don't want it to be chronic. I want to start running to help keep it off for good.

Once I finish this training, I'm going to start my Optifast, start going to the gym and just get rid of it. I think that will make me feel a whole lot better.

We Are The Same

It's currently 7:59pm on Wednesday 26 August. I'm sitting in the front lounge room with Mum while she watches The Guns of Navarone, a 1961 World War II adventure film starring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn. I have sat here so many times while she watches it, but I've never actually watched it in full myself.

I know the storyline, though. During World War II, a small team of Allied commandos is sent to the German-occupied Greek island of Navarone to destroy two enormous guns threatening British naval forces. Facing treacherous terrain, enemy soldiers and betrayal from within, they must infiltrate the fortress and destroy the guns before time runs out.

My favourite bit involves Maria, a young Greek resistance fighter, and Andrea Stavros, played by Anthony Quinn. Amid all the tension and violence, she simply says, “Mr Stavros?” and, when he replies, “Yes?”, she tells him, “I like you.” I love that bit, and I love it when Mum remembers it's coming up in the film and tells me to watch. 

Last week, I had my first volunteer shift at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The role I will eventually be doing is front of house, greeting people as they enter the gallery. For my first shift, I was partnered with an experienced volunteer who showed me the ropes.

They currently have an exhibition on at the gallery, Monet to Matisse, and because of that the front desk was extremely busy. It was so busy that I pretty much had to stop shadowing the more experienced volunteer and jump in and start directing people myself. I felt very comfortable doing that, and I think that came from years of temping and learning to just get on with things on the fly.

I had wanted to do this volunteer role for so long, and the people were lovely, but to be honest, I was surprised that I didn't love it.

I have spoken before about my older half brother, who married into a very wealthy family, and the incredibly pretentious matriarch of that family who is heavily involved with the Art Gallery. I know I've mentioned how much I hate those elitist attitudes towards art in particular, because artists themselves are generally rebels and not like that at all. I didn't come across anyone like that matriarch, but I did get a whiff of the snobbery around art that I both don't understand and deeply reject.

It's funny, when I was standing there at the front desk, I saw a married couple who are both artists and teachers at the Adelaide Central School of Art. They sauntered in and looked so cool, like they belonged there. They didn't need directions because they knew exactly where they were going, and there was a part of me thinking, I don't want to be here.

As I left the gallery, I took the following photo of the front of the building.

Later on in the week, I had my first shift with the organisation that works with offenders. My role is calling people on home detention, mainly to check in on them and see if the organisation can offer them any more support.

The office is in the north-west suburbs of Adelaide and sits within the same complex as a shopping centre which, oddly, has two Romeo's Foodlands. I got there early for a 9:30am start, so I went to a cosy little cafe within the shopping centre and had a coffee. I also ordered a cheese and tomato toastie and asked the lady serving me if she would put mayonnaise on it.

She agreed, and when she brought it out to me, I didn't think anything of it. What I think neither of us realised, though, was that the mayonnaise would liquefy from the heat of the toastie machine. As a result, it dripped all over my top. Luckily, I was wearing a zip-up jacket, so I did it up and no one knew the difference.

As I was leaving the cafe, I noticed a little car ride for children close by. I went over to take a look and realised that it was a convertible Beetle, part of the same family as my car. I took the following front and side profile photos of the car.

I made my way over to the office and, as I went up in the lift, I took note of the graffiti inside it.

I don't know if that is actually considered graffiti or whether it's more a case of someone signing their name. I have heard that people who tag their names or nicknames are able to recognise each other from their particular tags. It's remarkable how similar this behaviour is to a dog marking its territory by peeing on it.

The office is pretty secure, and I know they are very conscious of security in general. When I rang the bell and told the lady who answered that I was there to volunteer, she told me that the volunteer coordinator wasn't in yet and asked me to wait on the chairs outside. I had no problem doing this because, while I was waiting, I spotted what I viewed as the perfect window. You can see a photo of it below.

I never see four-pane windows anymore. I thought it looked absolutely breathtaking. I know it's just a simple window, but it had a magical quality to it. If you look closely, you can see the view through it, which was of a beautiful, cold and wet winter's day.

When the volunteer coordinator arrived, we went inside the office and I settled in at my desk. She had a meeting and told me to have a look at the list of people I had been assigned and go through their case notes. Of course, due to confidentiality, I am not going to write about what I read.

But I will say that on more than one occasion, I read that an offender had been affected in one way or another by having a police check. One person said that once they were asked to undergo a police check, they withdrew from applying for that particular job. Another said that if their employer found out about their conviction, they would resign.

My reason for wanting to call offenders was because I understand what it's like to have issues with police checks because of a criminal conviction. I have one for talking on my mobile phone while driving. I know some people laugh or think that really isn't an offence, but it is a very serious offence. If you use a mobile phone while driving, you can cause an accident and you could kill someone. I have read about people who have done just that.

In saying that, my conviction is different from the ones I read about, but to me, I am the same as them. On paper, we are all convicted criminals, and unlike at the Art Gallery, I knew I belonged in this volunteer role.

I ended up calling two offenders on my first shift, and they both went through to voicemail. I left messages, and my volunteer coordinator told me I had a lovely phone manner, which I really appreciated, seeing as talking on the phone is really my trade.

I made the calls in a small meeting room with the volunteer coordinator, and in between the two calls we got chatting. She would be around my age, and she talked about how passionate she is about working with offenders. She talked about people making mistakes and then those mistakes affecting them for the rest of their lives. She said she liked knowing that she had made some difference in an offender's life.

I think you can look at it from a number of angles. The most obvious would be the victim of a crime and how they might feel about the perpetrator of that crime moving forward with their life and having the opportunity to start again, when in fact the victim may never start again. I think about all the different crimes a person can commit and the infinite number of consequences that can happen as a result of them.

But at the end of the day, someone has to be in the offender's corner. I'm not necessarily in their corner, because I am actually very tough on crime myself. But I am like them. On paper, we are the same.

I've mentioned previously that I entered into a conversation with a man named Liam, who I was involved with a society with. Things got sexual and very flirty very quickly, and now I sit here a couple of weeks later realising that I seem to be a magnet for B-grade men.

Don't get me wrong, Liam is a lovely person. He is a nice man. But he has got a partner, and he is always complaining. He talks about how much debt he's in and how he doesn't have any money. Do some men think this type of talk actually attracts a woman? 

He doesn't even read the newspaper or watch the news. I cannot imagine that, and the thing is, he doesn't care that he doesn't know what's going on in the world. I would never in a million years get involved with a man who didn't follow the news.

Money means nothing to me in a partner, but there is something a little bit obscene about constantly going on about how much debt you're in, how much you need to save money and how you download shows because you can't afford to buy them. Liam is 55 years old. He told me he's been looking for a new job for ten years.

So I asked him for a copy of his résumé and, with my friend Hussein, we fixed it up. Now I'm going to help him find a government job, and I'll do the job and person specifications myself until he gets something.

I want to be there for people, and I don't want to judge, but at the same time, I think I can do better than this. If you're living on a prayer, do it with some integrity. Don't whinge, complain or victimise yourself.

It has got me thinking, though. I'm 45. What if Liam is the last man who ever shows any interest in me? Or, if I do ever get into a relationship again, is it going to be with a man like Liam? I want so much more than a man like this. It's not the money, it really isn't, but there's got to be something more than this out there for me. There just has to be.

Last Friday night I went to my friend Hussein's house to do Liam's resume. Hussein got me a birthday cake to celebrate my birthday which was the Sunday before. You can see the cake below.

He's so lovely. We usually celebrate our birthdays together every year. His wife and all three of his children are normally there, but his wife and oldest daughter are currently in Iraq for a special Muslim pilgrimage. Hussein got his other two kids to sing Happy Birthday to me, which was sweet.

I gave my old computer to Hussein's young son, and he was so happy that he gave me two big hugs, which was lovely because he usually just sticks to himself when I'm there.

Hussein and I spent the night doing Liam's résumé and just talking. I love spending time with him. I really admire him and his whole family.

The five of them, Hussein and his wife and their three children, migrated here from Pakistan with $10,000. I know that is a lot of money, but that was it. There was no safety net. They had to rent a place, pay for everything and they had no guarantee of an income.

Hussein worked hard. He first bought a bike and did Uber deliveries on it. Then he bought a car, and eventually he got a job in tech. His story tells me that anything is possible, and it is people like Hussein and his family that Australia should welcome with open arms. I have known them for quite some time now, and they have become like family to me.

I went to the doctor the other day. It was the young, precocious one who wanted to see me about my toe. She just wanted to do a final check to make sure it had healed over, and it had completely. She couldn't believe it, and she also asked if she could take a photo so she could show the other doctor who had been involved in its treatment.

Of course, I let her take the photo, and for a moment I thought about how seriously these two doctors had taken my toe. The severity of the wound didn't seem to have registered with me.

I got off the bed in her consulting room and she asked if I had any other medical needs. I said I was fine, but she looked at my file and saw that I was overdue for a cervical cancer screening test by something like 19 years. Back when I last had one, it was a Pap smear, but now you can do it yourself.

She handed me a swab-like thing, looked me in the eye and said, “This is like a RAT test for your vagina,” before telling me what to do. I couldn't help but think about my old, retired GP, who I'd had since I was a child. In some ways, he was quite youthful and modern. For example, he went surfing, but he was mostly a traditional doctor. I wondered what he would have thought of her description of it as “a RAT test for the vagina.”

Just before I left, she looked at the computer once again and told me I was overdue for my bowel screening. I told her I had literally just become eligible because I had only just turned 45, and she said she wouldn't hassle me about it yet. I'm yet to complete the cervical cancer test, but I will do it over the weekend.

I made fun of this doctor a little bit before. She has a youthful arrogance, but around two weeks ago I had an appointment scheduled with her to check on my toe. I received a text message from the clinic to confirm the appointment, and you could write back Y for yes or N for no. I couldn't go, so I typed N and thought nothing of it.

But later that day, this young doctor called me and asked if I was okay. She told me she wouldn't be able to sleep that night unless she knew my toe was okay. There's something to be said for that. She didn't have to call me, and I thought that if I really do end up alone in the later stages of my life, hopefully I'll have a GP who cares enough to ring and check up on me if I can't make it to an appointment.

I sent 75 local letters out the other day. They were addressed to bakeries around Australia, asking about sausage rolls for the project I am putting together for the Attorney-General. You can see the letters at the post office below.

I've been waiting on news about the call centre job. I was offered the position subject to a hearing check and a police check. I have my hearing check tomorrow morning, and I have applied for the police check through the process they asked me to follow, but I am still waiting on a response.

I got a call from the recruitment agency today asking if, assuming the hearing check goes okay tomorrow, I can start next Monday, to which I said yes. They didn't say anything about the police check. I wonder if they are assuming it will come back clear. It should come back clear, but there is always a chance my conviction for using a mobile phone while driving will come up. I'm just going to hope like hell it doesn't.

I saw the sad news that Dolly Parton had died. I loved her. I thought she was a force of nature. I read a lovely tribute from talk show host Jimmy Fallon:

"And even though we did all that, I would still get butterflies just being in her presence. And that's kind of what I think of when I think of Dolly. She's like a butterfly. Beautiful . Magical. Dreamy. And like most butterflies, they stay for a moment - captivate you, fascinate you, mesmerise you and then fly away far too soon. I love you Dolly. I will always miss you."

I teared up a little when I read it. I thought it was a beautiful way to capture the sadness of losing someone like Dolly.

The Determined Heart

And in a heartbeat, I was 45. I still can't quite believe how old I am now. I don't necessarily think 45 is old in terms of a lifespan, but it is certainly not young, and there are expectations about where a person should be by my age, what they should be doing and who they should be with. I don't remotely live up to any of those expectations, and the longer I've gone without making any progress, the deeper I have felt totally and utterly inadequate.

45 is a significant birthday. They say it's when a mid-life crisis really begins, and I am in one. A crisis, that is. But the good thing about a crisis is that it suggests there can be some sort of resolution. If there was no resolution, it wouldn't be a crisis; it would simply be reality.

When I was thinking about this yesterday, before the clock ticked over, I realised I've already done one thing people in a mid-life crisis do, and that's buy a new car. Even though my car is an older car and didn't cost me an arm and a leg, it's still a car with character, and my Beetle makes a statement. Now I just need to get myself a toy boy and change careers.

But I never really had a career to begin with. I've just been jumping all over the place my entire life. I have been offered this new job, but I just have this feeling it's not going to work out. I still need to apply for a police check, and training apparently starts in three weeks. My last police check took more than three weeks to come back, and while it came back clear, I'm worried the same thing could happen again.

If it works out with that job, I'm going to spend my last couple of thousand dollars and stay in a nice hotel in town, which is close to the office. I'll do that for the five-day training period, which runs from 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Friday, for just one week. After that, it shifts to night shift, which I will be able to manage.

But it's not going to work out that way. I know it. I'm not going to be overly disappointed, though. Later today, I am going to apply for a job at the Centre, which is something I really want, and I think I've put together a competitive application. If I could just get a few days a week there, I think it would make all the difference to my life, both financially and personally.

Something that has defined my life is that I've always been an outsider. I have never fit in anywhere I've studied, worked or socialised. The main reason for that is that I was always the new girl at school, at work I was always the new girl who was just passing through, and I was always someone joining an already established friendship group.

But the thing is, I was an outsider long before all of that. Below you can see a photo of me as a child. I'm dressed up in what looks like a witch's costume, but if you look closer, I actually think it's a wizard's outfit. Whatever it is, I love that it's magical, and I'm sure it was for a dress-up day or Halloween.

This photo of myself makes me really sad. When I look at the expression on my face, I see a deeply disturbed and deranged little kid. And the truth is, I really was. There was something going on inside me even then that I didn't understand and certainly couldn't have explained.

At primary school, I would stand up on the benches outside the classrooms, and I would lift up my school dress and pull down my pants. All the boys would watch and cheer. And because of that, I received special attention from them. For example, one day my friends and I were skipping. Two of the kids stood on either side of the skipping rope, turning it while I skipped in the middle. A boy came up to us and asked them to stop the rope. He then walked over to me and kissed me on the lips.

Kids would call me sexy, and it made me feel so dirty. I had a friend, Rachel, I used to do everything with, and I stayed at her house a lot. Her parents collected antiques, and their whole house was filled with things like grandfather clocks and old poker machines. It really was like a museum.

I remember one night we walked into her parents' bedroom and found them having sex. We didn't understand what we had seen, but afterwards the two of us tried to recreate it. The next morning, when Dad came to pick me up, we were still playing around with what we had seen, and Dad literally had to pull me away from her.

I also lied to the police about seeing two people having sex in the back of a car that used to park behind the school every lunchtime. In reality, it was the cleaning lady from a neighbouring school eating her lunch in her car. That completely destroyed my credibility, and later, when a friend's father really did expose himself to me and my friend, people struggled to believe me.

My friend's dad exposing himself to me and Rachel was a major life event for me. The exposure itself wasn't so bad, but the way everything unravelled afterwards was extremely upsetting.

I remember this man's face as he had his penis lying out of his boxer shorts for all of us, including his daughter, to see. I looked right at him, and he smiled at me. I remember everything about him.

After I saw his penis, I went to the master bedroom and asked the mother if I could go home. She told me that I couldn't because my parents were going to be out that night. I am certain my parents wouldn't have minded coming to pick me up if they knew what was going on, but I went back to the room and lay back down in my sleeping bag.

I wasn't scared. I was confused. But I will never forget that man's face, and years later it came back to impact my life in another way.

I feel real, genuine, deep-seated shame over those events of my young childhood. Back when I used to think that I might meet someone and get married, I used to wonder how I could possibly tell someone about those things without them being disgusted by me or ashamed of me themselves.

I think the shame began when my family and I were up at my dad's farm and Mum and I were in the kitchen. She told me she knew that I had been flashing myself to the boys on the benches next to the classrooms. Then she went on to say what a dirty girl I was and how badly I had embarrassed her and my father.

It was a devastating thing for me as a young kid to hear my mother say those things. But the thing that got me the most was that she knew all that time, acted like everything was normal and didn't tell me until then. I hate it when people do that. Even to this day, I don't respond well to it.

One thing I find interesting about my life's journey is that I didn't become overly promiscuous or particularly enjoy the company of different men. I think with a hyper-sexualised childhood like I had, there was a real risk of that happening, but something I didn't ever do was grow into having healthy relationships with men.

I'm now 45 years old, and I've never been in love. I think it would be so much harder to find love at 45 because not only do I need to lose weight, but I look haggard and old. It's funny, back in 2013 I wrote a letter to Mark Griffin and told him that if I ever had of had a child, and that child was a daughter, I would have called her Sue. My reason was that I wanted to be a lawyer, and I thought it was funny to use legal terminology as a name. But the thing is, back then I was only 31 years old. I could still have had a child, yet I was already writing as though that possibility had passed me by.

But at 45, I sit here and think, no, I can't have a child, but I also don't think I could possibly fall in love. Not only am I older and not as aesthetically pleasing, but no one could love someone who started off life like that. I've done a lot of things I'm ashamed of as an adult, but nothing compares to those years as a hyper-sexualised little brat.

I talk about being alone a lot, but I'm not really alone. I have this beautiful friend, Maureen, who is in her early twenties. I call her Maureen for the purposes of this blog, but she's actually from Iran, and "Maureen" is probably the least Iranian name I could have come up with.

Like Hussein, she was also my tutor. She tutored me in maths and physics when I was doing a course called the University Preparatory Program at what was then the University of Adelaide. We are so close now, and I love her like she was my own daughter. She's moved to Brisbane to do another university course, but we talk all the time.

On Friday, I received an Express Post package from her and inside was a wrapped birthday present. I told her I wasn't going to open it until today, so we waited up until 12:00am on WhatsApp together and then I opened it. It was a beautiful edition of Frankenstein with special artwork throughout the book.

I love Frankenstein. I know this probably sounds ridiculous, but I can relate to the monster because of the way society reacts to how he looks. It is one of my favourite books.

My favourite quote comes from Robert Walton's letters at the beginning of the novel, when he is consumed by his ambition to explore the Arctic and reach places no one has reached before. He says:

“What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?” - Robert Walton

I was so grateful for the book, and I am so grateful to have this beautiful young woman in my life. She is so smart, so funny, and she has a bit of attitude too, which I like. It made me feel that even if no one else wishes me a happy birthday today, I'm glad I got to start it with her.

It all goes past so quickly. I remember it in flashes. One minute I'm belting out a song with my childhood band, the Teacups. The next, I'm living with a bunch of apprentice butchers in Alice Springs. Then I wake up to a view of Mount Kilimanjaro every morning. Then I'm standing face to face with a criminal, administering an oath in court. And then I find myself at 45, sitting in front of my computer at 3:32am, reflecting on a life that just flew past in a heartbeat.

There is literally no one else awake. This morning I have the heater on for the noise, but if I turned it off, I could hear a pin drop. And I hate the silence. The silence is deafening.

As I spend my life dodging the silence, I realise that for the past 13 years of my life, nothing has happened. I have simply existed and allowed more than a decade to go by without really doing anything. I cared for my father, which I wouldn't change. I never took care of his personal care, but I really just sat with him for years. When my sleep became really bad, some mornings I would take my doona upstairs and lie on the couch and sleep while he read the paper. Then I would properly get up and we would go for a walk or watch something on television.

When he went into a nursing home, I went to see him every day. He was never alone, and that is one thing I draw comfort from. I also became very good at communicating with people with dementia. I would always validate what he said and acknowledge his stories, which at the time were very real to him.

While Dad was in a nursing home, I studied at the University of Adelaide. First I did the University Preparatory Program, which I absolutely loved, and then I went on to creative writing. I switched to studying online, and then I started volunteering four days a week and gave up the study. I gave up the volunteer work, I looked for jobs, I couldn't sleep, I was sleep deprived, I tried to work, I couldn't manage it, and now I sit here early in the morning while the rest of the world sleeps and think about the fact that this is my mid-life crisis.

I hate it when someone reads a self-help book and all of a sudden they're full of beans and start unrealistically going about changing their life. I feel like it all ends in tears when you do it on a whim. But I'm going to make some drastic changes. I've decided to take one year to fix my life.

The first thing I need to do is lose weight. I gained a huge amount of weight back in 2013, and I haven't been able to shift it. I think it's part of the whole mindset I've been stuck in it's too big a task, therefore I won't do it. But I'm going to take it seriously and follow a structured weight-loss program. I have an appointment at the gym on Wednesday night, and I'm going to hire a trainer three times a week to start with. Then I will gradually start doing more myself. I am determined to do this. No quick fixes, just solid hard work and discipline. My life will be better if I lose weight, and this time I am determined to see it through.

I am going to care for Mum in whatever capacity is needed. Mum has been diagnosed with mild dementia, and she is very forgetful, but she's still here. She still has a good long-term memory, and her intelligence and humour are still completely intact. I am going to work my life around her, and as her needs change, I will change what I am doing to suit her.

I know I've been offered a job, but as I said, I don't think that's going to work out, so I am pinning all my hopes on the Centre. But if neither of those jobs works out, I will keep my eyes open for something that suits me.

More than anything, I want something to happen. Something exciting. I've been talking to Liam, and I hate the kind of stuff he says to me. When we were talking about my birthday, I told him I am now old, and he says stuff like, “You're not old to me.” That is actually a massive, backhanded compliment, but I think I've continued the conversation because, in some respects, I'm bored.

I actually like having someone to text while you're getting to know them. It can be fun, but I wish I was having this conversation with a single man. Not that I would be interested in anything, but it certainly makes life a bit more interesting.

I went through this period of my life where I was scared of getting bored. I remember I used to ask Mum all the time if she was bored or if she ever got bored. She told me she would never get bored. In my mind, I was thinking, what if I read all the books I want to read, watch all the TV series I want to watch, and then wake up one day with nothing to do? Nothing to think about?

I don't have that fear of being bored in general anymore, but I am bored. I don't want a man or new friends, but I would like to meet someone interesting to talk to.

The defining feature of my younger years was my revolting hyper-sexuality. And the defining feature of my adult years has been my unrequited love for a NSW District Court Judge.

I would say it was a milestone in my life when, one day in March 2011, I was standing in an anteroom between two courtrooms at the Downing Centre District Court. I was dressed like a secretary, with high heels and a face full of makeup, when the most beautiful creature I had ever seen stepped out of the lift alongside his gruff-looking male associate.

He was the spitting image of my friend's dad, who had exposed himself to me when I was a young child. When I first saw the Judge, I could see the father as clear as day in my mind, smiling at me. I was overwhelmed with emotion and desire directed at this Judge and spent the next three months dancing a dance with him that became obvious to so many of the other court staff. I interpreted his behaviour as paying me a lot of attention, and from my perspective, it seemed that he had a sexual interest in me. I knew that he didn't love me as I loved him, but I didn't care. I would have done anything he asked me to.

On the day I was let go from the Downing Centre, my heart literally broke into a million pieces. I felt humiliated and, most of all, devastated that I wouldn't get to see the Judge every day. The way it made me feel hit me like a tonne of bricks, and I don't think I ever really got over it.

I wrote the Judge the most insane letter I have ever written. I talked about Jesus, the Bali Nine and sperm making its way to fertilise an egg. Before that letter, I had imagined that the Judge thought of me in some sort of high regard, even if that regard was only sexual, and afterwards I imagined his opinion of me taking a massive dive.

I wrote hundreds, if not thousands, more letters to judges, courts, tribunals, police and anyone else to do with the law, all in an attempt to harness some sort of understanding of my own crimes. But if you stripped the whole situation back to its core, I simply loved him. I couldn't get over it, and I didn't know why.

When I was back in Adelaide, I was working on reception at a government healthcare facility when, one day, a nurse that worked there came up to reception. She was the spitting image of both the man who had exposed himself to me and the Judge himself. I found myself sexually attracted to her. I made my attraction fairly obvious in the way I behaved, and she didn't seem to mind. Nothing ever happened between us, and the fact that I compared her to two men takes nothing away from the feminine beauty she possessed.

Around that time, I had started taking some of the letters and oaths I was collecting from Supreme Courts around the world into work, and I showed a few of them to her. She asked me whether I wanted an oath from the Supreme Court of South Australia. I asked her why, and she told me that her father had been a Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia. The coincidence was so extraordinary that it quite literally took my breath away.

I am now unable to engage with any current or former members of the judiciary, and that actually resulted in me receiving a criminal conviction.

I stopped loving the Judge years ago, but I remembered how I told a few other court officers that the Judge reminded me of Count Dracula, I later discovered that Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula, had worked at Dublin Castle which became the Dublin District Court. Somehow, in my mind, judges, courts, Count Dracula and the Judge himself became intertwined. When I reread the book, I was mesmerised by so many of the quotes. The following reminded me of the Judge:

“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.” - Professor Abraham Van Helsing

For a very brief moment, I stopped and considered what it actually means that I experienced such deep, passionate, unbridled, unrequited love for a man who was 30 years older than me, but who also looked so much like the man who exposed himself to me as a young child. I'm sure there's something in it, but I'm not willing to explore it in clinical detail. Sometimes I quietly think to myself just how uncanny the human condition really is.

I miss Nanny today. I would have called her in a couple of hours to wish her good morning, and she would have made me feel so old. I remember when I first started getting wrinkles and I would point them out to her, she would say things like, “What do you expect? You're 40 years old.”

But we would have gone out for dinner tonight with Mum, her granddaughter Rebecca and maybe her daughter Sharon. We did it every year.

Below you can see an old photo of Nanny and me.

It's hard to believe I am living my life without her. And without my dad. I lost them both within months of each other. It just all seemed to happen at once.

I am definitely in a mid-life crisis and things have to change. I've got one year to sort myself out and if I can't do it in a year, I'm going to give up. I want to lose weight, get a job, care for Mum, write as many letters as physically possible, get books bound for people I like, study something, write my book but most of all I want something to happen. Anything. Just something to make me feel like I am not chained up in a dungeon of boredom.

The first book I wrote was a bit of a mess. It jumped around, and I hate the tone I wrote it in, but surprisingly, some of it made a bit of sense. I wanted the title of that book to be Comfortably Numb because that is one of my favourite songs by Pink Floyd.

At the time, I thought I could relate to the lyrics, but then, just a couple of years later, it felt as though the lyrics could have been written about me and a particular experience I had.

Comfortably Numb is about a person who has become emotionally and physically detached from the world around him, retreating into a numb, almost dreamlike state. The song contrasts that disconnection with flashes of childhood memory and a time when he was still capable of feeling intensely. The song finishes with the following words:

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb

The song makes even more sense to me now. But I'll be damned if I'm going to let myself wallow in this self-indulgent, pitiful, meaningless existence for one second longer.

Didn't Quite Fit The Mould

Yesterday I drove from our place to Munno Para, and it took around an hour. I haven't driven my red Beetle that far before, and I was worried it might break down in the middle of traffic. I've always felt confident with my other cars that I wouldn't have any drastic mechanical problems, but this Beetle is old. It was made in 2007, and it does make some weird noises.

Nevertheless, I made it to my destination, which was my friend Hussein's new house. Hussein is a dear friend of mine. I actually hired him as a personal tutor to teach me how to make websites, and then we started having our classes at his old house and I became friends with the whole family. He's a couple of months older than me and migrated to Australia with his family from Pakistan.

His wife, Miriam, and his oldest daughter are currently in Iraq on a Muslim pilgrimage, so last night it was just Hussein, his two younger kids and me. It was such a massive milestone in Hussein's life when he and Miriam were finally able to buy a house in Australia. They had been renting for six years since they arrived here, and buying this house was literally his dream come true.

It's a lovely house. Hussein gets guests to take their shoes off before they enter, which is something he also does at our house. It was particularly nice last night because they'd just had new carpet put in, and it felt all squishy and new under my feet.

I went to Hussein's house first of all because it had been a long time since we'd caught up, but he'd also offered to fix up my resume for the job at the Centre that I'm applying for on my birthday. Hussein is a techie. He has a commerce degree from Pakistan, but he's also a self-taught computer guru and works for a large organisation doing all their techie stuff. He makes websites too and has pretty much taught me everything I know about AI and graphics programs.

In the middle of doing my resume, I decided to order dinner for everyone, so we got pizza. On Sunday I'm starting a new life and won't be eating food like that anymore, but the kids love pizza and I thought I might have one final hurrah.

Hussein's two children who shared dinner with us are between the ages of nine and eleven, a girl and a boy. Hussein told me that at their Islamic college they hear some very strong views about Israel. I asked his son if he hated Israel, and he said, "No comment." When I asked his daughter, however, she went right into it. She knows I'm pro-Palestinian, so we had a bit of a "Free Palestine" moment together.

Hussein has told me that the kids have attended protests and other events, although I've never seen them at any of the protests I've attended. I think some of the events they go to are smaller community gatherings, including religious and political commemorations connected with Iran.

Hussein himself is a peaceful soul. I've had many conversations with him about Israel and Palestine, and he sees it as a regional conflict rather than a religious one. He doesn't say too much about it, though. His wife, Miriam, is a more observant Muslim than he is. She gets their two girls to wear hijabs, but Hussein actually told me last night that he would prefer that they didn't.

We pushed on with my resume, and it's absolutely perfect. I can't wait to send it off on Sunday along with my application addressing the job and person specifications and my cover letter. Hussein and I also arranged for me to come over again next Friday night so he can help me set up another blog, which will be more focused on my take on current affairs. He told me to bring Mum too because he gets along really well with her.

On the way home, my fuel light came on. I didn't know whether to risk driving all the way home with the needle sitting just above zero, and then I started thinking about how there didn't seem to be any service stations around. That got me thinking about what would happen if I couldn't afford to put petrol in my car at that particular moment. The car could conk out in the middle of the road and I would literally have no other option than to push it to the side and leave it there. I'm sure that happens to people.

Eventually I found a service station and filled up.

When I got home, I was talking to Mum while having a text conversation with Liam at the same time. At first Liam was quite sexual with me, but now he's becoming really amorous, and I don't like it. He says things like, "You're a keeper," and, "I've been thinking about you today."

Last night I really just wanted someone to talk to, and I told him I was freaking out about turning 45. He sent back, "Don't worry, I've got your back."

I really did not appreciate this. It made me feel weird. Disgusted, almost. I don't want him assuming that he knows me well enough to "have my back", or that I need him, or anyone else, to have it. This guy has a partner, and while I was initially attracted to him, that attraction very swiftly disappeared when he started talking to me like that. Strangely enough, I actually prefer the sexual stuff to the whole "I've got your back" business.

I don't really want to talk to him anymore, but I don't want to stop abruptly either. I'll just ease my way out of it.

In the midst of the messages from Liam, I got one from my brother.

"You're going to be 45 on Sunday."

"Thanks for the reminder," I replied.

Then he came back with, "You're closer to 50 than 40 on Monday. So, wasn't sure if you reached the point in life where you needed a reminder."

"Is there some reason you are saying this?" I asked.

"No. Just joking."

But no, he wasn't just joking. I think this was his way of trying to inspire me to seize the day. To make something of what's left of my life. But the thing is, I'm already inspired. I don't need some little shit whispering in my ear that time is slipping away.

It's quite funny. My younger brother is, by most conventional standards, the successful one of the two of us. He has a wife and two beautiful children, a high-paying job, and I actually think he's the CEO of some company. He owns two houses and, hopefully, is in good health. So, in theory, he's so much more respectable than me.

But every now and then, he still pulls out the annoying little brother card and makes comments like that.

Over the last couple of nights, I've talked about the two beautiful houses I lived in that provided the backdrop to my younger years. After I left the elite and exclusive co-ed school, Mum and Dad decided to move again, this time to another affluent area of town, and send me to a school close to our new house.

Mum and Dad settled into this house for around thirty years, and I lived there on and off during that time. It had two storeys and, just like in the previous house, my brother and I had a floor to ourselves. This time, it was the bottom floor.

It was an old house, and we lived there while my parents undertook significant renovations. When it was finished, it actually looked quite similar to the house we'd just come from, but it was beautiful. Some people called it a mansion, and whenever people came through the house they would comment on how lovely it was.

It's too bad the school I was sent to wasn't as beautiful as the house we were living in.

The school was of a similar standard to my previous one, but this time it was an elite, exclusive, private all-girls school. I went to eight schools, and this was the worst one I attended. The girls were cliquey and bitchy, and some went out of their way to make me feel like a complete outsider.

It's funny because at my previous school I'd been part of what was considered the "cool group", so I half expected to step straight into the equivalent at my new school. Instead, I started at the beginning of Year Eight and literally had no friends. I would go to the library at lunchtime just so I had somewhere to be.

In time, I became friends with a girl named Daina, and there was a similar dynamic to the friendship I'd had with Susan because Daina lived on the same street as me. We started hanging out after school and spending a lot of time together. I think her parents may have known or liked my parents and perhaps encouraged her to befriend me, but we did form a genuine friendship. She was one of only two old friends I had at my 21st birthday.

At school, though, Daina had her own crowd. I'm sure she would have included me, but I didn't feel as though I fitted in with any of the girls. Like I've said before, I was an awkward-looking kid and everyone else seemed so pretty. Some of them already had boyfriends, and they were all really good friends with each other. It felt like there was literally no place for me.

Some girls would laugh at me or make fun of me, but it was the deliberate exclusion that upset me more than anything else.

I remember that during my first year at the school I didn't particularly excel at any of my classes, but one day in art we had to present our projects. I'd created a square cushion, painted ladybirds on it and then stuck 20-cent coins all over it. It looked kind of cool.

It really impressed the art teacher, and she told me that art was something I should pursue. I recall her saying something along the lines of, "You have an artist's eye."

Thinking back to that art class now, I appreciate what she saw in it because it wasn't traditional painting or drawing, although it did have painted ladybirds on it. I like to think of it as my first piece of conceptual artwork, where the idea was more important than the aesthetics. Although, to be fair, I think the aesthetics were pretty good for an eighth grader too.

Years later, in 2013, I briefly attended Adelaide Central School of Art. These days, though, I've largely rejected formal artistic education. I feel that too much emphasis on curriculum, technique and prescribed ways of thinking can strip an artist of some of their integrity and inhibit their ability to express themselves to the full extent of their creativity.

Year Eight was a pretty lonely year for me. I would walk to and from school, and we had to wear our blazers and hats whenever we were in uniform off school grounds. Prefects used to hide along the way and catch me and other girls who weren't wearing them. I don't know how many warnings we got before we were given detention, but I know I was sent there a few times.

It was always nice to come home from school and see Nanny. I can't remember whether she picked my brother up from school while I walked home, but she was always there. Always with us. And she remained with me until the day she died.

It was during my second year at this school that things got interesting. A new girl named Riley started, and she was the epitome of cool. She was also a bit of a loner, and the two of us gravitated towards each other.

There was a stark contrast between us. She had short blonde hair, was stick thin and very beautiful. I had shoulder-length jet-black hair, was on the plump side and didn't consider myself nearly as visually pleasing. Thinking back now and knowing how girls can be, I've sometimes wondered whether she was friends with me because I made her look better.

Whatever the reason, we became inseparable. Just the two of us. She would stay at my house for sleepovers. I used to listen to mixed tapes before I went to sleep, and I remember one night when Riley was staying over, I put on a tape that had Kylie Minogue on it. She stopped the tape, turned on the light and told me how unbelievably uncool it was that I was listening to Kylie. I felt so stupid that I took it on board and never played Kylie again when she stayed over.

The thing with Riley was that she really was cool, or at least everything I thought was cool at fifteen. She smoked and drank, and she was much more experienced with boys than I was. She used to tell me all about it.

I don't know what the actual cool group of girls at school thought of Riley, but I was just pleased she wanted to hang out with me instead of them. As well as being cool, she seemed so wise and street smart. She wasn't the typical girl you would imagine going to a school like ours.

After a couple of months of friendship, Riley and I became friends with two Year Eleven girls, Mandy and Louisa. They were both Italian and quite naughty too. We used to go to parties at Mandy's house, where her younger brother, who was in Year Ten, would have all his friends over and we'd all get drunk together.

Most of the people we hung out with were Italian. Riley got together with a few of the boys, but I never did.

That was until one night when we went to a party with Mandy and Louisa. Riley and I were drinking Tia Maria and Coke, and we were considerably drunk for two fifteen year olds. I remember a very good looking Italian boy talking to me and then asking if I wanted to go for a walk.

We went to the park, and things became physical very quickly. It was consensual, but it went considerably further than kissing. I remember feeling a little bit dirty afterwards, and the sad thing is that nobody knew this was actually my first kiss.

Some other kids from the party eventually came looking for us, and I remember this big Italian boy who went to school with my brother coming up to me and saying, "Put your clothes on. You could get raped out here."

I crossed paths with that guy a number of times in the years that followed, and he was a great person. I've always remembered him coming to find me that night and looking out for me.

The boy I'd been kissing asked after me a couple of times afterwards, but I don't think there was anything romantic behind it. At the time, I suspected he'd simply decided I was easy and thought I might have sex with him if he got another opportunity.

Louisa's brother Jack had a large number of male friends, all Italian, who went to the same school together. Thinking back, we were all considerably young to be behaving the way we were, but apart from that one incident in the park, all I really did was drink.

That was, of course, until I tried marijuana.

It was Riley and me with a big group of Italian Year Tens, and they offered us what they called a cone. I don't know what they call it now or what any of the terminology is, but it was something like that. Both Riley and I ended up unbelievably stoned, as were all the guys.

At some point, Riley disappeared with one of them and I was left out the back with the rest of the group. Then they started talking about me.

"If we were going to get stoned, we should have done it with someone good."

"She's so ugly. I'd never get with her."

"Why is she here?"

I can't remember exactly what else they said, but it was all along those lines. I wanted to cry so badly. I don't think I'd ever wanted to cry that much in my life, but I just sat there and pretended I couldn't hear them.

I painfully waited until Riley eventually came back, and I can't even remember how we got home. I didn't tell her what they'd said, mainly because I was so embarrassed.

The thing is, my earliest introductions to boys weren't particularly positive. My first kiss happened during that encounter in the park, and not long afterwards I found myself sitting among a group of boys listening to them tell each other how ugly and unattractive they thought I was.

Then, later, when I went to places like Alice Springs and suddenly had guys all over me, I didn't know what to do with the attention. I still don't really know what to do with it and, these days, I don't particularly want to do anything with it.

Riley and I were in detention quite a lot together. She sometimes used to smoke in the toilets, although I can't remember whether she ever actually got caught.

To spice our lives up a little more, Mum and Dad decided to host an exchange student from Brazil. Her name was Penelope. She was quite short and absolutely gorgeous. She also smoked and got along really well with Riley, but I didn't have much in common with her.

Penelope craved male attention and, I know this sounds horrible, but I used to just send her off for nights with Riley. God knows what they got up to. The only older boys I really knew were some Italian Year Twelves whose father knew my mother.

One of them, Robert, lived on the same street as us, and we used to visit him quite a bit. I remember one night my brother and I collected all the Messenger newspapers from around the neighbourhood and used them to spell out HELLO on the lawn outside Robert's bedroom window. 

The school counsellor at this elite all-girls school happened to be the mother of one of the BPs from my previous school. I used to see her from time to time, and I remember her once telling me that I should move out of my parents' house and that she would help me get set up.

I also remember her making some analogy about a triangle trying to fit into a circle, or something along those lines. Whatever the exact shapes were, her point was that I didn't quite fit the mould.

This same school counsellor once drove Penelope to a park away from the school so she could have a cigarette. My parents were incredibly unimpressed when they found out about that.

One morning, when Dad was walking us to the car to drive us to school, Penelope dropped her bag and all her cigarettes fell out. She started stressing because she thought my parents would send her back to Brazil.

They didn't care she smoked; they just didn't want her being taken out of school to do it.

Our exchange student also slept with the son of the man whose company renovated our houses. My brother and I have a theory that she may have left the country pregnant with his child because, after she left, my parents received a bill from a doctor for a pregnancy test. 

Penelope was naughty. Riley was naughty. The truth is that I wasn't really naughty at heart.

I just wanted so badly to be considered cool that I would basically do anything Riley said if I thought it would make me look that way. I smoked marijuana because everyone else was doing it. I drank because everyone else was drinking. I got myself into situations that weren't really me because I desperately wanted to belong somewhere.

Daina was the real angel to come out of that horrible school, and I genuinely treasured our friendship. I've seen her mother a few times over the years at my old hairdresser, and apparently Daina now has teenage children and a husband she's been with for years. It's strange to think that the two girls who once lived on the same street and hung around together after school probably wouldn't even recognise each other now.

My parents moved me on from the school at the end of Year Nine. I think the incident with the counsellor taking our exchange student off school grounds so she could have a cigarette may have been the final straw.

I'm glad I left, although part of me wishes I'd been normal enough to make it work in a place like that. Some people would have viewed being sent to a school like that as a wonderful opportunity to receive an education that other children could only dream of. But for me, it was just a cesspool of jumped-up, bitchy, elitist, snobby and, most of all, cruel young women.