Ringrazio il mio amico Vincenzo per averci segnalato l'incotro sul nostro Forum Vivere Ingegneria 

Ricordo ai miei colleghi la riunione di giovedì 18 settembre alle ore 17,30  davanti la presidenza di ingegneria in Viale delle Scienze. A domani.

Infine non dimenticate di partecipare al sondaggio su Vivere Ingegneria 

Ti piace il sito di Vivere Ingegneria? Il sondaggio termina il ven ott 17, 2008 1:02 am

E' utile e completo  33%  [ 2 ] E' utile ma occorrono più attività  50%  [ 3 ] E' poco utile  0%  [ 0 ] Si può fare di più  16%  [ 1 ]

Whoever you are, I love you almost as much as I love poking Adelaide mouse.

Oh, and also: to whoever it was that apparently saw me at a protest in Sydney and saw fit to alert the DSA in Melbourne - are you on drugs? I have better things to do than spend several hundred dollars on a plane trip just so I can go to a protest in another state, especially when there are protests happening here in Melbourne that only cost five bucks to get to. Although, glaring ineptitude aside,  well done you for trying to stalk me, you freak.

A week or two after the craziness, a kind anon let me stay with them for a while at a Secret Location so that I would have time to get things (namely, my head) in order without DSA or my father dropping in without notice as they often like to do. Within a few days of this, an ex-Scientologist, who I have a great deal of respect for, contacted me, as they had gotten wind that something had or was about to happen in relation to me, and they wanted to make sure that I was all right and wanted for nothing.

I was all right, of course, but I felt very scrambled and so I do not remember a great deal of the conversation apart from one small bit, and I only remember that bit because I recounted it to the kind anon several hours later when I had had a chance to process it all. The ex-Scientologist had asked me if I would like to go to the media about this, since they have some contacts, and I said something to the effect of, "Um, okay?"

Which I shouldn't have because I didn't particularly want to and I still don't particularly want to, but there you go. Of course not one bit of blame for what happens next goes to the ex-Scientologist because they do not have the power to read minds, funnily enough.

Anyway, nothing much came of it for quite a while, not until a couple of weeks ago actually, when a journalist from a  tabloid television show tried to contact me via phone. I didn't answer. This did not discourage the journalist however, and so for a week or two I was having to contend with several calls and text messages a day.

I must make it clear at this point that if I had simply said no to the ex-Scientologist or if I had answered the phone and said no to the journalist this whole thing, I am sure, would have been cleared up very quickly indeed, but I find it very hard to say no, and of course if I had said no then I'd have no blog fodder, which is after all the most important thing.

So after being called and texted several times a day by this journalist my resolve began erode. It's the same tactic Scientologists use when they want to get you to come in for an event or come into the org and do services, and as such I should have recognised it for what it was, but I felt as if perhaps I was being mean, and so I texted the journalist and agreed to meet with him on the condition that I would not do an interview, but would give him information if he needed it.

In a kind twist of fate, the morning I was supposed to meet with the journalist I woke with an intense headache which lasted for several hours until I got some painkillers into me. The painkillers, however, made me feel intensely nauseous and so I ended up spending much of the day unable to get out of bed while my brother sat around making the occasional sympathetic noise. I let the journalist know that I was too ill to meet with him, but he insisted on coming in my direction of the city in order for us to meet, at which point I reiterated the fact that I was too ill - so sorry, terrible tragedy, etc.. He then pulled a guilt trip on me ("Think of the children!" "You'll feel bad if you don't!") which felt just slightly too close to the guilt trips reges throw at you ("But what about your eternity!?" "Why don't you just make it go right?" and so on) and I told him so, after which he did apologise, but I had had enough all the same.

So last night or the night before or whenever it was, the tabloid television show did do their story on child labour in Scientology, which my mother wanted to watch and so we did. The only nice thing that came out of it was that there happened to be footage of a woman I was in the Sea Org with who was married some years ago to one of mum's old friends, and so I was able to point the woman out and tell mum how nice she was. And then, much to my slight humiliation, there was an excerpt of one of my blog posts on the screen, prefaced with the journalists voice over saying, "We did speak to one other person et cetera et cetera, but she was too scared or some such nonsense to give an interview" at which point I left the room. I mean, they could have asked.

Anyway, this is a rather long way of saying that if you've found this blog via typing a bit of the excerpt into a search engine, as I know some people have already done, hello, and yes, you're at the right place I suppose, although this is all highly embarrassing.

Anyway. I reminded him that we had already had a reasonably thorough conversation about the first two things a couple of weeks before. (I mean, I go to protests, what do you think my views on Scientology are? You read my blog, for goodness sake!) However, if he had any specific questions I would answer them.

He then replied with this (paraphrased) question that would no doubt stop me in my tracks and make me reconsider the whole thing: 'Why all this disagreement with Disconnection? Surely "u" have stopped talking "2" someone who has been an arsehole "2" "u" in the past?' (Pathetically on my part, the text-speak is what had me the most upset. He's fifty-four years old, not thirteen, and I assure you, I know he knows how to spell because I've seen him do it with my very own eyes, but he can't be bothered to press a few more buttons on a keypad for his own daughter?)

So... no, actually, having been asked this question I am not dumbfounded by my own past blindness and, in fact, am not now overcome by the irresistible urge to give David Miscavige a blowjob. Because there is a vast difference between deciding not to speak to someone with whom you do not get along and Scientology's policy of Disconnection.

Here's an example. Let's say, out in the wog world, you one day find yourself meeting a person named, say, Judith. This Judith seems fairly all right, and you both get along reasonably well, but then one day you find that Judith has done something very nasty, either to you or to someone you care about, or simply has done something you find morally (or legally) upsetting. Do you wish to continue to associate yourself with Judith? Maybe not, and that's okay. You have a few options. You can have a talk with Judith and let her know that what she has done has upset you and you don't like or trust her anymore. You can slowly let the friendship cool off until you both drift away from each other. You can just stop answering her phone calls altogether. You can publicly flounce off after a screaming match in the middle of Flinders Street station or on a widely-read internet forum. If Judith goes to the same school, or is employed at the same place as you are, it may feel awkward, and you'll probably still have to talk to her sometimes in order to get things done, but you don't have to go out for drinks after work or sit together at lunch anymore.

Some of these options are, of course, more wise than others, but all are your choice and you are allowed to do as you see fit. And if, one day, you find that you've changed your mind and you miss Judith because she was a rather nice friend after all, you can resume your friendship with her. (Unless, of course, you took the screaming match option, then she may have decided that she doesn't want to be friends with you anymore, and, well, tough luck, because she's allowed to make that decision, unfourtunately.)

In Scientology, it's slightly different. Let's say you meet and become friends with someone named Becky. Perhaps you met each other because you're both taking a course in a Scientology org, or you're both on staff, or you're both in the Sea Org. After a while, maybe you notice that Becky seems a bit unhappy, but maybe you don't notice anything. Maybe one day Becky doesn't show up for muster in the morning and she's not in her office or in her dorm and all her things are gone. You're worried and upset, because Becky's your friend, and it quickly dawns on you that she's blown, and if she can't be recovered, or if she doesn't come back on her own, she'll be Declared. Which means you'll never be allowed to speak to her again. Even if you wanted to, you have no idea where she is.  She could be anywhere. She could have moved to a different state or even a different country. People have done that before.

And you never got to say good bye or tell her that it's okay, you still love her, that in your heart you'll always consider her a friend, no matter what, because you both know life is hard in Scientology - saving the world isn't exactly a walk in the park, after all - , and while you wish she'd left the right way, on a Leaving Staff Routing Form and on good terms with the Church, you understand why she blew. For the next few weeks, or even months, you hope that all she needed was some time to cool off and get her head in order; that she'll come back.

But she doesn't. And one day, on the staff noticeboard, you see her name on goldenrod paper under the words "Suppressive Person Declare".

She never did anything bad to you. As far as you know, she was always kind to staff and public alike. She just couldn't take the heat, and you know, you don't blame her. You know she's not an intrinsically bad person, she's just done a bad thing. Maybe she's done several bad things. But you know she's a good person, deep down. Maybe you cling half-heartedly to the hope that she'll see the error of her ways one day and come back after making amends to the Church for leaving, even though you realise that the chance of that happening is vanishingly small. You wish you could contact her somehow and let her know that she still has people who care about her and wish her nothing but good, but if you ally yourself with her instead of with Scientology, you'll be Declared as well. So you have to make a choice. It's either Becky or Scientology, and with Scientology comes all your other friends. Perhaps your family or your partner or your children as well.

It's not really a choice, is it?

That is the difference. That is why I disagree with Scientology's policy of Disconnection.

Okay, there are a few things wrong with this letter.

"We are instructed that since January 2008 members of Anonymous have engaged in a campaign of violence against the Church, its members and Church property ..."

This would be what, exactly? They're kind enough to tell us:

"That Anonymous members have made numerous bomb threats, ..."

I assume those "bomb threats" would be these "bomb threats". You know, the one where anon somehow managed to send a package clearly marked "BOMB" through the mail without it being (rightfully) intercepted, or the one where anon sent a bag of batteries to them (why? Was anon hoping a Scientologist would be stupid enough to set them on fire? Why would anyone do that?), or the one where anon made a video saying, basically, "We're going to blow everyone up, seriously!" and then put it on YouTube?

That last link is pretty time-consuming, but here's a summary:

"Truth about that 5kg pack of Nitro video that was supposedly posted by Anonymous:

Quality on the Youtube clip was low and grainy. Scientology sent a DVD to the media that had this video on it… Only thing is the quality of that video was crisp high quality. This may not seem like much, but the only way this is physically possible is if Scientology is in possession of the original video file. As in, they made it." - Taken from here. (Scroll down to comment by MattKman, May 8, 2008)

And, in case you're still feeling doubtful:

"What terrorist group would use nitroglycerin? HIGHLY unstable substance instant suicide before reaching any 'target'" - FreedomToThink, half way down the first post in this thread.

Personally, I am not inclined to blow myself up just to bring negative attention to Scientology. I'd be beyond surprised if any anon felt differently. Moving on:

"... arson threats and committed acts of vandalism against Scientology Churches."

Listen, just because you tell the police we're going to throw rocks at you doesn't mean it's actually true.

"That they have made harassing phone calls, ..."

Like this one? Or these ones?

"... sent vulgar and threatening faxes, ..."

You mean the endless loops of black paper?

" ... posted threats on the internet and publicly threatened to kill Scientologists engaged in religious services."

You're projecting again.

"That on 30 January 2008, Anonymous members sent letters containing simulated anthrax to over twenty Scientology Churches in Southern California."

According to the Church of Scientology Los Angeles website (www.scientology-losangeles.org/en_US/related/california.html), there are eleven Scientology orgs in California. An American would be more likely to be able to tell you how many are in Southern California, but it sure as hell isn't "over twenty".

As far as the "simulated anthrax" thing goes... well, I've been searching for hours and all I can find are instances of Scientologists, lawyers hired by Scientologists, or anon talking about how the aforementioned were saying anon have sent simulated anthrax to churches. You're welcome to judge for yourself on that one given the relative lack of substantive evidence (as you are with every other thing in this post), but given the weight of everything that has gone before, and Scientology's history of making shit up about their critics, I am inclined to believe it's another case of Scientology, well, making shit up about their critics.

"Yours faithfully
BROCK PARTNERS"

Brock Partners are apparently located in Sydney, and they have entries in lots of business/legal search directories, but they don't have a website or email address that I could find their website is here, although they do have a telephone number. Alternately they're a real estate firm in Adelaide who changed their name to Brock Real Estate at some point.

That all said, see you Saturday!

The room was massive. Old grey carpet, creamy white paint and wooden sideboards. On one side of the room, five bunks were stacked two high, and on the other, six bunks were stacked three high. Big old wooden wardrobes stood in front of each bunk. It was summer outside, but inside it was very cold. I chose to sleep on a bunk against the wall, on the lowest level. I unpacked my things and put them onto one or two shelves, and then climbed into bed and went to sleep.

I woke up at eight the following morning and met my roommate. She was Taiwanese and didn't speak a great deal of English (I spoke absolutely zero Mandarin at that point however so it is all relative). I had never met a person who wasn't a fluent English speaker before, and so I spoke in normal (fast) English to her, while she tried to pick out keywords and then replied back to me in Mandarin, throwing in any English keywords she knew until I realised that I was probably coming off as incredibly obnoxious (to my dubious credit this didn't take very long) and stopped speaking like a six year-old on speed. To her credit, she deigned to take me under her wing for the next few days until I got used to life on the EPF.

Soon after, I went to see the EPF I/C in her office. She handed me a blue piece of paper -- an orientation checksheet -- and told me to follow it. An orientation checksheet is a list of directions and small tasks that a person follows, that is customized to the building, to help the new person figure out how to get around and what leads where without having to drag someone else from their job to come along and help them out. ("Go up the stairs, then walk in a straight line until you come to the place where the bare floorboards stop and the blue carpet begins. This is the AO wing. The AO crew sleep here." or, "Once you reach the foot of the stairs, continue walking straight ahead. The second door on the left is HCO. Knock on the door and when it is answered, introduce yourself and let the HCO terminal who answers know that you are doing the orientation checksheet. Count how many desks are in HCO.") I got scared and turned back once the comparatively light and airy EPF wing lead down to the truly creepy, echo-filled, gloomy concrete of the RPF corridor. When I went back to the EPF I/C's office she was surprised that I'd finished so fast.

After lunch I was assigned to a unit for cleaning duties, and in the evening we were transported to the AO to set up and cater for Beer and Cheese night. My father, who had come to Sydney with me, was going back to Melbourne that night. I begged him to stay but he couldn't, and so we said good bye. Minutes later I jammed my finger in the galley doors and so I went to the bathroom, locked myself in a stall, and cried for a little while. I decided I didn't want to be in the Sea Org after all. I missed Melbourne already.

That summer the bush fires were so bad that firefighters from other states traveled to help put them out. Each morning as I made my way to the mess hall for breakfast the smoke was so thick that I could barely see to the end of the street, and the smell of burning trees and leaves permeated the Base. The RPF filled huge plastic barrels full of water and rolled them out onto the parched, dying grass around the Base, and climbed up on splintering wooden ladders to clean out the gutters every few days.

The weeks dragged on endlessly. I was progressing in my courses, but slowly. The manual labour was exhausting. I wasn't sleeping well, averaging five hours a night. The food was so awful that I couldn't bear to eat anything more than toast and bits of salad, and I had already been verging on the side of emaciated when I was living in Melbourne. I was unspeakably miserable. But there was no way out.

I don't remember what changed. Maybe the EPF I/C gave me a talking to. Maybe the course room supervisor told me to do more word clearing. Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome. Maybe I had just finally gotten past the stage of utter exhaustion and was now experiencing the energetic euphoria of a second wind, only radically prolonged.

Whatever it was, something clicked in my brain, and I became very enthusiastic about being on the EPF. I loved the work, and the time constraints, and how we could manage to complete a white-glove of an enormous bathroom in seven minutes, and frantically trying to find the Bosun so he could inspect a project before Thursday 2pm. I loved running everywhere. I loved my fellow EPF members so much that even now I can't find words to properly describe it - I loved teaching the ESL-ers new English words and learning new words from their respective languages in turn, and teasing one of my friends for slurping when he ate, and talking with the women and girls at night long after secure time, and cheering the slowest on as they ran as fast as they could around the field each morning, the clapping and cheering and stomping of feet as each member completed another course or finally graduated the EPF. I was progressing at lightening speed on my courses and I found myself dreading the point at which I would complete the EPF and become a Sea Org member.

Our eyes met at Flinders Street station -- I say this and it sounds like I'm making it up because it's just a little too dramatic, but I swear it's true -- I was standing at the top of the steps and he was standing at the bottom, behind anon, scanning the crowd; I saw him out of the corner of my eye and slowly, slowly I turned to face him at approximately the same time as he spotted me and did the same. And I thought, Well, shit. Game's up. And I laughed. And then he turned away in disgust and headed in the direction of the org.

While he was off somewhere calling my mother and getting my mobile phone number and sending me juvenile, cruel text messages (which I didn't receive until later as I'd left my mobile at home), I was reunited with one of the anon who had been at the Deakin protest and so I followed him around for most of the day, handing out many fliers and telling a little of my story to various people. We walked a different route this time and it really made a difference, we had so much more exposure and people were actually coming up to us and asking for a flier which was really neat.

After the protest I didn't go home as I guessed I wouldn't be allowed. I went to my mother's house to let her know what had happened, and so she contacted my father to find out what he planned to do. He planned to not ever speak to or see me again, and to not let me live with him anymore. My mother, extraordinarily brave woman that she is (although as her daughter I often loath to admit it), refused to disconnect from me, and so she helped me go to my father's house while he was out so I could pack my things and get my cat. My friend also came to help once I let him know what had happened.

It was while I was packing that I found the message that my father had left me, which I deleted immediately and so I cannot recount it word for word here -- I was very upset at the time but had I been thinking more clearly I would have saved it for you all.

Anyway, the next weekend, seemingly out of the kindness of his heart, my father showed up on my mother's doorstep while I was also there, said, "I miss you," did a sad face, did the good roads, fair weather thing, then left. And then the Scientologists started calling my mother's house asking for my father.

Please note, it doesn't look sincere at all if you make it completely obvious you're acting on someone else's orders, or coordinating your schedule with Tom Reid and (who I assume was) Mary the DSA, both of whom you don't normally keep in close contact with, at the very least.

So that more or less brings us up to date, yes?

One last thing: fuck yes I am still going to go to protests, how easy do you think I am? If my own father can choose his religion over me then I sure as hell am not going to compromise my integrity just so he'll deign to let me come crawling back to him.

There are different groups you can join, dedicated to geographic regions or countries or certain universities. There is a forum for posting discussions and news or info on trade shows or conferences you might know of. There is also a special event section where you can post SCN activities or external events. You can read other members' profile and their professional or academic expertise and how to contact them.

The web site itself has a very nice layout, thanks to the folks at ning.com, the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds, hence the URL "scmprofessionals.ning.com".

Currently the Supply Chain Network SCN numbers more than 2300 members and appears to be growing steadily. From a  quick browse before making this post I realized there are quite a number of highly qualified and merited members, which most certainly will help me keep up to date the latest in Supply Chain Management, so yes, you should join the Supply Chain Network SCN.

Visit SCN Supply Chain Network

The documentary will air Wednesday at 8 pm on the public educational network.

The point is, I had no house and thus no internet, but now things have changed, and so your regular programming will resume shortly.

¡Un viernes! ¡Ya te vale!

RECOMENDACIÓN de ALyCie:

Si produce, extrae, prepara o importa cualquier producto químico, preparado, sustancia o material, o si tiene intención de hacerlo después del 01 Dic. 2008, debe de prerregistrar esa sustancia, si su volumen es igual o superior a una tonelada al año, o prevé que pueda alcanzar esa cantidad con posterioridad a esa fecha.

Incluidos, los aprestos y colorantes textiles que contiene la ropa importada, el barniz de las placas con circuitos integrados, todo, e incluso el alcohol extraído de la fabricación de cerveza sin alcohol y de sus orujos, cuando no estén destinados al uso de boca.

En cualquier caso, si no está incluido en los Anexos IV y V del reglamento REACH, preregistre cualquier producto químico, preparado, sustancia o material, aunque sea de origen natural, por ser gratuito y permitirle seguir produciendo, extrayendo, preparando o importando hasta nueva fecha, según tonelaje y clasificación. [ 30 Nov. 2010 / 31 May. 2013 /31 May. 2018 ]

Las excepciones, corresponde a los productos que ya han sido registrados y autorizados por otros procedimientos, como los medicamentos, fitosanitario, biocidas, isótopos radiactivos o los residuos cuando estén adecuadamente documentados y algunos polímeros.

This afternoon I decided I would like to defrost the fridge; it hadn't been done since we bought it and I had been thinking for quite a while now that I probably should. So I went back and forth from the sink to the fridge with a measuring cup full of water for a while until I realised that the fridge was now leaking water onto the kitchen floor. I grabbed a towel and put it in the bottom of the fridge and then closed the door and went back to my less disastrous duties until someone else decided to appear and help me drag the fridge outside.

To make a long, slightly tedious story shorter, the fridge is now defrosted, and I look forward, hopefully, to a few green patches of grass on the lawn as the huge chunks of ice I threw at it defrost. That, or it'll all be dead from ice burning, but then it can't really get any more dead than it already was, can it?

I probably should have mentioned this a few days ago, but there's a protest on Saturday (April 12). Details are here, and addresses are here, in case you want to have a look. If you want to meet a person from the internet, I'll be the one in the mask.

Everyone wants to be an auditor and it almost never happens unless you co-audit up the bridge as a public or win the lottery and get posted in the Technical Training Corps. Or, if you're really lucky, get sent to the RPF.

I had just finished reading Dianetics, and so when the HAS (HCO Area Secretary) at the AO told me, on my first day in Sydney, that she'd like me to have a Book One session to see how I like it, I was reasonably willing, if a bit apprehensive about being audited by a student. Being audited by a student was the only way it could be done for free, though, and so I agreed.

My auditor was this guy. He's been in and out of the Sea Org for years, and back then he was in. We sat down in two chairs at the back of the course room, separated from everyone else by a divider. I could easily tell that he was very nervous; his TRs were out so far I wasn't sure he'd ever be able to get them in again. He mumbled when he talked and he had a very bad stutter which made it harder for me to understand what he was saying. I very emphatically did not want this guy auditing me, but I was too afraid of seeming rude to say anything. He mixed up the commands and obviously had no idea what he was doing which I found very distressing. I was deliberately very unhelpful and tried to make it clear that I didn't want to be there, and he, flustered, eventually gave up and brought me back - or, he tried to, but there was no count back up, there was no snap of the fingers, no making sure I knew where I was or what date it was or who I was, no how-are-you-doing, which is all supposed to be standard in Book One. Just, "Okay, that's it."

I felt very dazed, like my brain had been stretched thin and splattered all over in a very wide circle six feet around my head in every direction. I couldn't distinguish colours very well and I couldn't move my body properly. I felt very dizzy and confused. I stumbled back down two flights of stairs to the foyer, fell into a chair in front of a television that was playing a tape of an event over and over, and tried to get my brain back into my head.

My recruiter found me soon after and sat in a chair next to me. "How was it?" she said, looking concerned.

I shook my head. "Not very good," I said, and then I cried.

"It's all right," she said. "You feel a bit spun out, don't you?" I nodded. "It's all right, I'm going to go and get the HAS and we'll sort you out, all right?"

The HAS had my folder rushed off to the C/S. I told the HAS I didn't want any more auditing. She said, "You can't be an auditor if you don't have auditing, can you?" and assured me that this time I would have a proper auditor to do the repair session. I felt a bit better about it after that. My new auditor was, as promised, an actual auditor on her internship in the HGC. She wrote my session worksheets in Japanese and then translated them after the session for the C/S to read, which I thought was really neat. She was very kind and had a clear voice. I liked my session with her and left feeling much better. Over the next day and a half she would also be assigned to do my sec checks.

On the night before Beer and Cheese Night, I was driven by the Cope Off and my recruiter to the house my father and I were staying at. My father and the other people who lived there were sitting in the lounge room. I ran up the stairs and stuffed my things into a bag, and then ran back down, shouted, "Bye!" and got back into the car, which was headed for the Base.

Keep in mind these are 2001-04 schedules; things may have changed since then. (for example, there were plans few years ago for the CLO to move to the Base, although I don't know if this ever actually happened) As well as that, individual crew may be on slightly different schedules depending on what area they work in or their status. (Some execs take the car in with RTC and CMO, bus drivers get approximately no sleep, night watch boys sleep during the day once or twice a week, people on the decks float around waiting for someone to tell them what to do, etc.)

AO Schedule

Buses leave at 7.45 AM and 8.00 AM. If you have a shower at night and wake up in the morning fifteen minutes or less before the buses leave, you feel like you've slept longer. If you're lucky, you'll score a seat on the bus and you'll be able to doze for a while; the way to doze on the bus (what with the serious lack of leg room) is to brace your lower legs against the seat in front of you so that you're sort of in a foetal position. Try not to let your shoes fall off, or your skirt ride up, or your stockings get ripped by the splinters, or your shirt get creased - if you're lucky enough to have a jacket, all the better, but remember: you're only allowed to wear the Class A jacket with your Class A uniform. No regular jackets.

Bus arrives at the AO around 8.45 AM. Here is where you'll really surprise yourself with how fast you can get things done: my friends and I regularly made toast in the old rotating toaster, got eggs, muesli, yoghurt, and coffee, and then ate it, all in five minutes.

Muster at nine, after which everyone is supposed to go to study, but hardly anyone does because if we did we wouldn't be able to get our stats up. So, off to work for three or so hours, then lunch, after which is another muster.

After muster it's back to work for another six or so hours, dinner, muster, then letter writing (if anyone has ever gotten a ridiculous letter that basically says, "Hi _____, how are you? Are you on course? ARC, _____" - that's why. Everyone hates letter writing because it takes away from our post time in order to boost the Director of  Communication's stat, and the Dir Comm back then was almost universally despised.) Now back to work!

If you're elderly or you've got some other excuse, a bus leaves for the Base at 8.45 PM, otherwise you work until nearly midnight, and then head to the mess hall yet again for cleaning muster. After cleaning muster you clean your work area and one common area. (HGC, hallways, bathrooms, and so on) then make your way to the last bus to the Base via the CLO. Try to grin and bear it when some ridiculously smug upstart teenager from CLO who is twenty years your junior tells you to stand up.

Finally, you're at the Base. Change out of your uniform, then go to exercise muster on the tennis court, and then exercise. Shower, or see if you can find anything to eat, or just go straight to bed afterward - fair enough, it is around 1.30 AM after all.

On Thursdays, the AO crew stay late for staff meeting, and don't get back to the Base until around one.

CLO Schedule

Wake up whenever you like, as long as you've had breakfast and are down in CTO (course room) for roll call at 9 AM. Study for 2.5 hours, and then at 11.30 AM go back up to the mess hall for lunch, after which you pile onto the 12 o'clock bus headed for the CLO. Bus rules apply as above.

Once at the CLO there is muster, and then work until dinner time, which is between 6 PM or 6.30, depending on how bad the traffic is (the food, as I have mentioned before, is transported by bus from the AO to the CLO in peak traffic), then muster, and work.

Around 10.45, it's time for cleaning stations, and then more work until whenever the bus decides to show up (the last bus especially is subject to the whims of the AO Captain, who sometimes decides that the AO crew should stay late for whatever reason) and then back to the Base, but not before scanning the bus for exhausted young children in two-inch-tall high heels, or middle-aged, low-status people that you can order to give up their seat (alternatively, you can win the hearts and minds of the masses when the six hundred year old gung-ho woman who was on the ship with Ron stands up and you tell her to sit back down). Change out of your uniform, head to the tennis court for exercise muster, exercise, and then shower/food/bed. Once again it is 1.30 AM.

For CLO crew posted at the Base (Translations Unit, CTO, etc.) mornings are the same as above, but after lunch we muster in the chapel instead of getting on the bus, and continue our work. When the rest of the crew get back from the city we go to exercise muster on the tennis court and secure by 1.30 like everyone else.

Saturdays

Saturdays are different. The AO and CLO crew, Cadets, and EPF, muster on the tennis court at 8.30 AM where we do roll call, practise our emergency scenarios (Fire!, intruder!, etc.), and then clean our dorms and common areas. Lunch is at the Base, and then everyone gets on the buses to resume the usual schedule.

So, there you go.

Are you a girl aged between 15 and 24? And live in regional Australia? Enter our Puff Out Your Chest competition and win a boob job and priceless confidence!! Upload your video here!!

It's the double exclamation marks that do it for me; it makes them sound so sincere. They really want to make the young women of Australia more confident!!!!! Oh, please.

In other news, I have a confession to make: when I wrote this post, asking "Is anyone free next Saturday?" I was actually being facetious. However, I mentioned the flyer to my friend, who mentioned it to his friend, and they rehosted the picture (at my request) and posted it on the Enturb forums. So Saturday evening found us rugged up and sitting outside our super secret meeting place, where a Narconon guy soon met us. We headed off towards Deakin while his back was turned, which I found terribly amusing.

Soon after we arrived two Scientologists caught sight of us and started taking photographs and following us around, so we took photographs of them as well. Eventually we made our way around to the lecture hall where the event was being held and, to our surprise, discovered that some more anon had gotten there before us (general delighted cries of "Mudkips!" and "I heard you like _____!" and so on) and so we huddled around and greeted eachother. One anon gave me a spare mask that they had brought with them which was very kind as I was having a bit of trouble keeping my scarf over my face.

We stood around outside and made friends with Security, and took photographs of the group of Scientologists who were standing in front of the doors as a sort of barricade (I had a terrible urge to shout hello and call them all by their names at this point) while they huddled in a circle and muttered at each other. Twice, they laughed very loudly but it sounded so obviously forced that we couldn't help but laugh along with them, however ours was sincere. Their ridiculous play at conveying the message of "Scientologists are the happiest people in the world! Your suppression doesn't bother us at all!" was slightly pathetic and it made me pity them a little.

When dusk had well and truly fallen, some of us went around to stick up flyers while the others went a bit closer to the group of Scientologists standing around and started talking at them (they didn't respond, of course). Apparently one Scientologist tried to start a fight with my friend by shoving him with his shoulder as he walked past, although to my dismay I wasn't there to see it as I was part of the group who were putting up flyers; it has been confirmed by other anon, though, and I am inclined to believe it as we've had similar reports from past protests of this sort of thing happening.

Songs were played, Xenu was chorused, a rather long speech was made, and then we all headed toward our homes. Once again I am quite glad I went.

Mid-morning the next day, I wake up and stumble out into the lounge room. My mother is sitting at the computer; her face is damp and pale. The television is on channel 7, which is streaming live from NBC in America. Over and over again they replay footage of the planes flying into the towers, and then over and over again they replay footage of the towers falling, while American reporters frantically try and get more information, interview witnesses, conduct online polls. 'Should we attack whoever did this?' one poll asks. Twenty percent say yes. My mother has been up for 36 hours. She has been crying and trying to get in contact with her internet boyfriend. Apparently he was driving to New York on the eleventh. I secretly hope he died, but I say nothing and sit on the couch, to watch the news. My mother goes to bed, and I make some coffee and sit back down on the couch.

This year I'm in a secular public high school for the first time, and that week I go to school as usual. The teachers try to explain what happened, how it's relevant, what it might change. No one feels safe. It feels like the top has been ripped off the world. There's a burning in the pit of my stomach that constantly screams that I should help. Somehow, I have to help make this never happen again. That week, Ansett, an Australian airline, goes under, leaving thousands out of work. Those two stories are all that get covered for the remainder of the week.

On the weekend we go to a Christian church in the city where a man from the American consulate talks. The pastor is a young-ish man from Ireland and he recounts a story of when he was a child, how someone broke into his home and the feelings of violation he felt. Hundreds of people are here. I have a coughing fit in the middle of the sermon and old women look at me sympathetically. They think I am crying. Afterwards we buy flowers and lay them at the American consulate along with the thousands of other bunches of flowers. I sit on the edge of the flowerbed, and a woman from New York who is here for a holiday sits beside me and hugs me while I cry. We stay like that for a long time.

The violence at home escalates over the next few weeks. One weeknight evening in mid-October my mother and I get into a particularly vicious physical fight. She pulls my hair and hits me endlessly, and I fall back onto my bed, exhausted, and use my legs to push her away. She leaves, slamming my bedroom door behind her. Frantic, I bundle my school uniform, my school books, my journals, a small purse where I had stashed three hundred and fifty dollars, my phone book, and my teddy into my backpack. I take the flywire off my bedroom window as quietly as I can, and then open it. I throw my backpack outside onto the ground and follow it. My ankle jars, and I stumble. It's raining, and I am sobbing, but I limp as quickly as I can up the side of the house and onto the footpath, terrified my mother will see me and come after me.

Once I'm on the highway that leads to my school, I slow down a little and try to think. I need a payphone. I need to call someone who can save me. My old babysitter sent us a letter a few months ago. Maybe she'll save me. Cars drive by, splashing rainwater onto my pants. There is a McDonald's up the road. I decide to go in and ask for directions to a payphone, and by the time I get there I am drenched, and my face is red and puffy from sobbing.

There's a young boy at the counter, only a couple of years older than I am. His name tag says his name is Brett. "Do you know where a payphone is?" I choke out. He tells me there's one down the road, back the way I had come, and my heart goes cold as I contemplate walking back towards my mother, but I smile as best I can, thank him, and leave the store.

As I near the corner of the street that leads to my house, I hear pounding footsteps behind me, and I freeze in terror. But it's only the boy from McDonald's. He grabs me gently by the arm and says, "Come back. You can use our phone."

"I can pay," I say, digging into my backpack for the purse. He says no, just come in, you don't have to pay. He walks back with me into the store, staying close by my side. As we walk back through the heavy glass door, the manager, a beautiful woman with brown hair in her late twenties, stands behind the counter and gives Brett a glare before smiling gently at me and gesturing to a phone she had put on the counter for me to use. The place is virtually deserted. I tell her I can pay and she says no, it's okay. She asks me if I'm all right, and I say yes, despite all obvious evidence to the contrary. I tell her I'll try to call my old babysitter, and she stays with me while I call. I get an answering machine.

"Do you have anyone else you can call?" She asks, her voice high and non-threatening. I tell her I could call my father, but I don't want to. I haven't seen my father in months. My mother says he's a bad person. She says he deserted us. The manager asks me what happened, and I tell her vaguely that my mother was angry, while Brett hovers close by, pretending to sweep the floor. "I have to call the police, sweetie," she says, and I start to cry all over again, begging her, no, please don't. Eventually she agrees. "You can stay here, it's okay. Don't go back outside, it's raining too much. I won't let you go back to your mum, all right?"

She walks with me to the back of the store, away from the windows and as far as I can get away from my house while still staying inside. She leaves for a while and I curl up on the cushioned seat and cry some more. Brett slowly makes his way over to my table, smiles sadly, and asks me if I want to talk. I say no, and thank him. He tells me that if I do want to talk, he will sit with me and listen, just call him over. I say thank you again and he goes back to cleaning.

The manager returns with a cup of hot Milo and those McDonald's staples, a burger and fries. "It's not very good food," she says, sitting down across from me, "but you should eat something."

"I can pay," I say, digging out my purse to prove it. She smiles and tells me not to be silly, it's all right, it's for free.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" she asks, as I sip the drink. It's too hot, but I'm not hungry, and I don't want to upset this lady. She has been so kind. I tell her I don't want to talk about it. She doesn't pressure me, and instead changes the subject. She tells me she's originally from Tasmania. She tells me that you can drive from one side of Tasmania to the other in two hours. She tells me that her husband is also a manager at this McDonald's, and that they met here. She tells me how long Brett has been working here, and that one day he might become a manager too. He smirks at me behind her back. I tell her a little about myself: where I was born, how often we moved, about my pet cat, where I go to school and what year I'm in.

"Are you sure you don't want me to call the police?" she asks. I beg her not to, desperate, and she promises me that she won't call the police without my permission. She tells me she has to go and do some work, but she'll be back later, don't worry.

Brett comes by every few minutes and asks me if I want to talk. I tell him no each time.

Outside it gets colder and darker, and eventually it's ten thirty at night, and Brett puts his jacket on and gets ready to go home. "Do you want me to stay with you?" he asks. I tell him no, it's all right, thank you. "Are you going to be okay?" he asks. I nod and tell him yes, and he leaves, waving good bye.

The manager closes up shop and comes to sit with me again. She asks me where I'm going to go, because I can't stay here. I tell her I don't know, and I begin to shake. "Sweetie, I really do have to call the police." I cry, and I beg her not to, but this time she's serious. "It's going to be okay, I promise. I'll stay with you until they come, okay? If they want to take you back to your mum, I promise, I will not let them take you. We'll figure something else out if that happens." she says. I decide that this is a plan that I can live with, and so I nod. She calls the police, and she sits with me until they arrive.

A policewoman and a policeman in their mid-thirties arrive in a van soon after the call. They have kindly faces and soft voices, and they ask me to come with them to the station. They promise that no matter what happens, they will not let me go back to my mother. The manager walks out to the carpark with me. "You're not in trouble, okay?" says the policewoman. "But you're going to have to sit in the back of the van, because there's not enough seats in the front. When we get to the station you can come out straight away and sit in the main office. We're not going to put you in a cell or anything. You're not in any trouble. You haven't done anything wrong." I nod, and the policeman opens the back door while the policewoman helps me into the van.

"Take care of yourself, okay?" the manager calls after me. I nod.

"Thank you for looking after me," I call back, and wave good bye. The man closes the door.

Inside, the back of the van is metal, with rounded edges. The seats, such as they are, are raised perhaps one or two inches from the floor. The metal is surprisingly warm to the touch, and I crawl to the far corner, furthest away from the door. There are seatbelts here, and so I strap one around my waist. It's loose. "Are you buckled up?" asks the policeman, from the front compartment. I tell him yes. "All right, let's go, then."

"The station is about ten minutes away, we'll be there soon." says the policewoman.

Once at the station the two officers let me out of the van and lead me to the front office. The interior is outdated. Wood panel wallpaper lines walls that are covered in anti-crime and -drug pamphlets and posters. The carpet is old and worn, but clean. Two cushioned seats and a plastic plant sit against one wall, and I sit down in the chair closest to the door, drawing my knees up to my chest. Across from me is a counter, behind which is a tall, stocky man with a neatly-trimmed moustache. He smiles at me warmly.

"That's Sarge," says the policewoman. "He's been here since the seventies. The guys are allowed to grow facial hair now, it didn't used to be that way. Sarge took full advantage of it. He looks weird with a moustache, don't you, Sarge?" Sarge laughs and shakes his head as he walks into a back office with a stack of papers.

"I've got to do some paperwork, but I hope it works out for you, kid," says the policeman, and he smiles at me and walks down the hall into another office. The policewoman sits down on the chair beside me with a serious expression.

"We have to call your dad, honey." she says. I tell her no. She shakes her head and sighs. "Is there anywhere else you could go?" I shake my head and look at my hands. No, there's no one else. But mum says he's a bad man. Mum says he deserted us. I know these things. She said so. She told me every day.

"He can't be that bad," the policewoman coaxes. "If he is that bad, we won't let you go with him. But we should call him and find out if he'll come get you, yeah?" Eventually I agree, and I take out my address book and give her the number.

At half past eleven, my father arrives at the police station. "Hi, Sab," he says, and smiles, before turning to the policewoman. They shake hands. She tells him what has happened. They decide they should call my mother. She's probably worried, they say. We should let her know you're okay. We won't let her come to get you, they say. You're going with your dad.

"I don't want to talk to her," I say, wringing my hands.

"That's fine. You don't have to talk to her." says the policewoman. My father sits in the chair beside me and squeezes my shoulder while the policewoman dials my mothers number. She talks for a while, and I can hear my mother screaming on the other end. The policewoman hands the phone to my father. My mother screams some more, and then my father hangs up.

"What did she say?" I ask.

The policewoman frowns. "She didn't even know you were gone."

I raise my eyebrows. "I've been gone since four o'clock this evening."

My father and the policewoman share a look. "Let's go home, Sab, okay?" my father says. I stand up and pull my backpack over my shoulder. I thank the policewoman for her help and she gestures for me to go to her. She leans down to my ear and says, "If things go wrong again, go somewhere and ask someone to help you call the police, okay? We're good guys. We'll help you." she smiles and then, louder, says, "Take care of yourself, okay?" I nod and thank her again, and follow my father out to his car.

"Are you okay?" he asks as we pull out of the station and onto the highway. I nod, and rest my head on the seatbelt. I doze for a while, half listening to the radio. The air is cold and I shiver.

By midnight we pull into the driveway of an old brick house. In the moonlight I can see a cream-coloured wooden bungalow. Cyclops, the dog made from old rusted metal parts welded together more than a decade ago, is perched on the roof. I smile at him and wave. To the right is a massive mound of dirt with a moat around it. Tiny poppy bulbs are already poking through the surface, and in summer the mound will be a rainbow of flowers. My father helps me out of the car, and we walk in the back door, where my uncle, who owns this house, sits at the kitchen table, smoking a roll-up cigarette and reading an old book.

"Oh, Sab," he says as I enter, rising to shake my hand and clap me on the shoulder. "Good to see you. My dear Sab. Would you like a drink?" I smile and tell him no thank you, and my father leads me to his room.

The room is large and cold. A lamp on the floor rests beside two futon beds pushed together. On the far side of the room is our old green formica dining table. On it sits a television and a DVD player. I have never seen a DVD player in real life before. On either side of the table sits large speakers that my father had salvaged and done up. In the corner is a fireplace, but boxes of books are stacked in front of it.

"You can sleep here," my father tells me. "Help me carry this bed into the other room, okay?" I do so. The other room is filled with hundreds of sculptures and paintings, and the tennis table my cousins and I learned to play on. Now my father has to sleep out here as well, because of me. I feel bad and I tell him so. I offer to sleep out here instead. He tells me no, and so I go back into my new room and sit on the bed while my father gathers his clock and his clothes and sets up camp.

Beside my new bed there is a small stack of religious pamphlets and brochures with familiar phrases like, "Come to the Mecca of technical perfection!" and "Go OT at AOSH ANZO!" as well as this months Advance! magazine. On top of this stack lies a few legal-size sheafs of crisp, creamy-coloured paper, bearing the emblem of RTC. Below this emblem, in capital letters, are the words, "WAKE-UP CALL". I pick it up and read it through.

The last line of IGN #44 reads, "Will you please help us?"

"Yes," I think. "Of course I will." because there is no other way, and by December I have moved to Sydney and am on the EPF.

On to other, less tragically accident-prone, things.

In light of the upcoming LRH birthday event, I would like to talk a little about what goes into these events from a crew perspective, particularly in Sydney, where the Sea Org in ANZO is based.

About a month before the event is to be held, the Addresso Officer at the AO (the person in charge of the database of names, addresses, and other contact information for every single person who has ever bought a good or service from Scientology in ANZO and is expected to keep this vast list up to date until, presumably, the end of time) is asked to print off a list of public who live in Sydney, which she does.

The list is then separated into parts and distributed to a group of between fifteen and thirty people from the AO and CLO who have been pulled off their regular post in order to do call-in. Whenever they call a wrong number, the details are sent back to the Addo Off, who tracks them down and finds out where they really live these days, and then sends the updated information back to the call-in room.

While on call-in, you are treated to eardrum-burstingly loud music from many a delightful album -- inevitably you will find yourself with such gems as "I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm singin'! I'm singin', I'm singin', to-day!" and, "Make it go right! That is the way!" stuck in your head for days afterward, yet another of the many gifts Ron bequeathed to human kind -- all this while trying desperately to hear the angry member of the public on the other end of the line as they huff and puff, "I said I was coming when you people called me yesterday, and the day before that, and last week. Can you please update your list?"

In fact, the lists are updated every evening. They're sent back to the Addo Off with notes beside each name such as, "Confirmed," "Unconfirmed," "Died," and the ever-delightful, "This person has been declared Suppressive for years, take them off the list!". The list is updated accordingly, and a brand new list is printed off each morning: one containing the unconfirmed people, and another containing the confirmed. The confirmed are called again, to be reconfirmed. Yes, really.

While all this is going on, the event is getting closer and closer. The RPF have been lovingly constructing beautiful sets, posters, placards, and centrepieces, for the past few weeks. Whenever the clumsy idiots of the EPF stumble past to get on with the cleaning duties the RPF hover around their creations protectively, almost hostile, forming a barricade between the EPF and their art: "No, don't touch it! We'll do it. Be careful! Hey, watch it, you stepped on it! Bloody EPF, I don't know... got to get their act together if they're ever going to make it in the Sea Org..." (As EPF are not technically Sea Org crew members, the RPF are allowed to talk to them without having been spoken to first.) it's all a delightful show of "You Damn Kids Get Off My Lawn: the Sea Org edition" really.

Finally, the event is only one or two days away, and it's time for the EPF to get in on the action as well. Events are a welcome break from the tortuous monotony of everyday Sea Org life, and when event time rolls around the EPF get an opportunity to experience, up close and personal, the sleep deprivation and constant hunger they'll find themselves living with throughout the rest of their Sea Org careers. For the next two days they'll be running up and down the unfamiliar stairs of Randwick Racecourse or Centrepoint Tower carrying stacks upon stacks of chairs; blowing up hundreds of balloons; carrying boxes of whatever it is we're flogging off to the public this month from one floor to the other (and back again if whoever is in charge changes their minds); mustering in elevators; squeezing into the tiny kitchen of the CLO for five-minute meal breaks; and staggering their few minutes of dozing in a corner so that if the EPF In-Charge or Bosun were to come along everyone else could very quickly wake the dozing person up and have them pretend they were doing something actually productive, like chicken-picking the carpet.

With minutes to spare (there's always only minutes to spare in the Sea Org), the chairs have been set up, the displays of books and lectures are sitting prettily on their tables, the RPF have hung their various masterpieces all over the place, the balloons have been hung from the mezzanine in order for them to be -- god willing -- dropped on everyone at some point (The New Years Eve event 2002-03 was quite amusing in only this respect: the balloons had been filled with helium and when they were released they floated dreamily from above everyones heads towards the ceiling, unnoticed), and the hundred or so public who, bless them, had nothing better to do on a Saturday night despite being hounded for the past month, begin to trickle in.

After the event proper, the lights are turned back on and the customary, "To LRH!" is shouted and his enormous picture set behind his ridiculously heavy bronze bust is clapped at. And then all the crew run around like chooks with their heads cut off in order to avoid being caught by a senior and made to flog whatever shiny new thing it is we've been trained to flog for the past few weeks in preparation for the event, while at the same time gazing longingly at the food that has been set out for the public. Lots of crew find their way to the bathrooms and lock themselves in a stall for as long as possible without raising suspicion, or, if the stalls are full, they quickly learn to perfect the purposeful walk (This walk says, "Don't bother me, I'm off to somewhere important."). Some gravitate to behind the stage or into a back room. Anything to avoid having to try and sell things to people who aren't going to buy them anyway.

After an hour or two of this, most of the crew (minus the EPF and the RPF, who are cleaning up after everyone long into the next morning) pile onto the buses and pray they can get a seat. Once they've stolen themselves a seat they pray that someone with a higher rank or from a higher org doesn't come along and tell them to give up their seat. The younger ones sit on the floor of the bus; if they're lucky, one of their friends has managed to get a row seat, and they'll be able to use their leg as a pillow. The bus lights are turned off because having so many people on the bus is illegal. On the ride home we wonder if we will have enough strength to get these ridiculous gowns off before we clamber into our bunks.

Unfourtunately for my poor org, the weekend closest to LRH's birthday was also the weekend we protested, and so it had to be postponed by a few weeks and, apparently, moved quite a way away. To lecture hall 1, Deakin University, in Burwood, in fact.

Photographic proof (admittedly more for my amusement than yours) below the fold.

I had a conversation earlier this week that was very interesting to me. I had been recounting some of the frightful conditions at the Base: the rats in the CLO girls' dorm; the cockroaches that woke me up in the night with their discourteous crawling across my face and that spilled in their hundreds from out of microwaves, from under benches and stoves whenever a hose was turned on them; the food that was dropped on the eternally filthy galley floors and then served to us, because if we didn't eat that then we all would go hungry; the bunk beds stacked three high and how they swayed with every tiny movement; how constantly, endlessly cold it was in that big old building, even in the summer time.

"It is almost symbolic of the bigger discord, isn't it?" she said, and that is what reminded me of this episode.

The cook had just had a comm ev and was sent to the RPF, largely for the aforementioned food on the galley floor (also for other things, but it's not relevant to this story and in any case his various failings are not for public consumption). As luck would have it, a woman from uplines had just finished her comm ev as well. She at first had been sentenced to the RPF, but a dear friend in a high place exercised his "impartiality" to veto the sentence and make her the Chief Steward instead. When she had gotten food standards up reasonably high, he said, she would be allowed to petition to go back to her old post.

Then there was me. I had been on the decks for months, wanting to leave, but finally, for the second time, I had resigned myself to the fact that unfourtunately I was stuck here for ever. It was soon after this that the woman, Kelly*, convinced me that I would very much like to work in the galleys as the Chief Stewards "assistant".

In very short order we began working excruciatingly long hours, getting up at five or six and going to bed long after midnight, in order to have breakfast ready for the crew and to clean up and do inventory and order food for the coming week once everyone else had gone to bed. The most immediate improvement was the appearance of jam, marmalade, and peanut butter in the mornings, along with the usual vegemite and butter. We began cooking the crews toast for them so that they could get on with the important task of eating, and on Saturdays and Sundays we had English muffins and sultana bread.

In very short order the newly astronomical breakfast food standards trickled down to the rest of the meals, most notably when we discovered that the previous cook, who was now on the RPF, had been ordering mouldy food from the markets in order to save money. The way we discovered this was by deciding the nights meal would involve brussels sprouts, which resulted in my standing over a sink for the better part of a day, peeling off the mouldy leaves, trying to discover the fresh, healthy vegetable that was surely inside there somewhere, in vain.

We began enforcing the use of gloves while preparing food, and after the prep cook's hair got into an RTC meal -- thereby making us lose our stat for the entire meal -- the use of hair nets and hats was enforced as well.

How it happened was this: at that time, dinner was prepared in Glebe, at the AO galley. It was then sent to the CLO, in the city - twenty minutes away in peak traffic, and to the Base in Dundas, over an hour away. One evening, we made chicken for the crew. We cooked the chicken and sent it off in various directions, but time was running increasingly short, as it often did, and so it is likely that the chicken that was sent to the Base was undercooked. In any case we asked the bus driver to let the RPF know that the chicken headed for the Base would need to be reheated for a while once it got there, which is what the RPF did.

The stove at the Base is an ancient, fan-force, enormous old thing. The knobs had fallen off and gotten lost and found many times, so it was almost impossible to judge how hot things really were in there - the two temperatures were, "I can feel my eyebrows cooking" and "It is not turned on". This probably contributed enormously to the debacle that ensued.

A woman who was on the RPF ate some chicken that hadn't been cooked for long enough. This was no surprise to regular crew; of course it started with an RPFer! They had been put there because of their various evil deeds that had brought disrepute (undeserved, obviously) to the Sea Org and to Scientology. They weren't "rehabilitated" yet. Of course they were going to continue secretly trying to bring Scientology to its end. In any case, the woman was hospitalised with salmonella poisoning for two weeks, but not before it had spread to the rest of the RPF, and from the RPF to the RPF I/C, who is regular crew, and to the Chief Steward, Kelly, who worked closely with the RPF in her work, and from these two it spread to a further 150 or so people -- half the Sea Org in ANZO.

To diagnose salmonella and to find out if (or not) you are cured, you have to send in a stool sample to the hospital. Naturally the hospital was quite alarmed to be getting so many stool samples from the one address, all testing positive for salmonella, and the health authorities were alerted.

The conditions of the AO galley were absolutely dire: holes in the floor, leaking and filthy sinks, cockroaches far and wide. The conditions of the Base galley were absolutely awful as well, but slightly less so, and so we lied and told the authorities that the Base was the only place where food was prepared. There would be an inspection.

OSA found a list on a government website detailing the basic points that would have to be met to get a pass on the inspection, and once emergency money was disbursed from Treasury we set to work: throwing out all the chipped and damaged crockery and replacing it with new; throwing out most of the chopping boards and buying new ones, stacking them on shelves and labelling them "meat" and "vegetables"; scrubbing down every inch of the galley, food stores, and mess hall, getting rid of cockroaches, moths, and spiderwebs; setting aside a sink exclusively for hand washing and making soap, hairnets and gloves embarrassingly conspicuous; buying new knives, cloths, dish racks, and storage containers -- the whole lot. All this to meet the basic guidelines for approval.

They came on a Saturday, and the EPF, the RPF, and some of the CLO crew were pulled off their jobs in order to make everything sparkle, including the main entrance and the hallway leading to the galley and mess hall. Fifteen minutes before they were to arrive, Kelly ran around with a checklist, ticking off all the points on the food standards list, and then went on a mad dash into the next suburb to buy hand soap and paper towels. Just as the inspectors were walking down the hall to the galley, Kelly was running up the back stairs, goods in hand, and she slammed them down by the sink just as the inspectors were about to enter.

We passed.

* Not her real name. As always, I'm not particularly interested in trouble, but if trouble would like to let "Kelly" use the internet I am sure she'd be very pleased indeed.

It was terribly hot going into the city; Connex is the devil incarnate but I wanted to shower them with praise after getting onto that nice air-conditioned train. I met up with one of my friends at Flinders and as we made our way to Russell Street we passed a few anon walking about and handing out fliers.

We got to about thirty metres away from the protest when I decided I didn't want to go any closer for now, so we stood in a doorway relatively out of view and I had a bit of a cry. It seems a bit stupid now, but seeing my poor old org, where my best friend and I used to play hide-and-seek under the desks and skip the "death stair" -- the stair leading up to the third floor that has a nail in it -- and get freaked out by the echoes as we ran up and down those stairs late at night when we were on staff... seeing it surrounded by protesters who were on my side, who I was relatively safe with, it was completely surreal and slightly overwhelming, but all in good ways. So I cried for a while and when I calmed down and was wiping at my face an anon came up and handed us each a flier. After that I felt braver, so we headed closer to the protest.

We stood up at the back and leaned against the wall where we could be quiet and take everything in. People handed us fliers and I even got a sticker, which was nice. Quite a few people walked by and they were all handed fliers, and a ton of cars, buses, taxis, and even two or three groups of wedding cars, drove past and honked their support.

One woman walked by after getting some fliers and asked me, "Are you supporting them or protesting them?"

"Protesting," I said.

"Oh, thank God." and with that she walked away.

At this point I felt slightly deranged as I was laughing nervously every time anyone went by honking especially enthusiastically, but I think it was mostly just because of the intense relief I felt at seeing so many anon (around 200 people all up) and so many regular people on foot or in transport, all on my side. It was really amazing.

One highlight was when everyone started chanting, "Xenu, Xenu, Xenu!" over and over. Not many people inside the org knew what they were on about -- they're not up to that "spiritual level" yet -- but it was great all the same. I never thought that would be something I'd hear right outside my org.

After a few hours my legs had started hurting and we had to get back home, so we left around 3.30PM while the protest was still going pretty strong. Props to the poor woman dressed up as a body thetan, she must have been terribly hot under that sheet.

There is a man in the Sea Org. I think about him and it seems odd to call him elderly, but really, he is I suppose. His hair is grey, his hands are covered in liver spots, his face is a maze of crows feet and smile lines where it isn't obscured by his white beard. He stoops. But his eyes are bright and they sparkle and he is kind. We were close for a while. After midnight before everyone went to bed, he would cook horrible-tasting meals out of whatever ingredients he had managed to afford for himself, and he would share it with me. I ate it partly out of politeness, partly out of hunger, but mostly out of intense gratitude. In the Sea Org, sharing food means a lot. And he was going to adopt me.

I got a letter from him today. Usually when I get letters from the CLO they're just statements printed out from my eternally unpaid Freeloader debt and I throw them out. But this one didn't; it was a proper letter. I opened the envelope and skimmed right down to the bottom of the short, typed letter, and saw his name. I haven't thought about him in years, but I remembered him all of a sudden and smiled. And then I read the letter.

Dear Sabina,

I see [from reading your CF file, not from my memories of us working together for years] that you once did the Purif. Have you heard about the Basics? They're all the old books in brand new shiny packaging and I really think you should buy them. Reading them is life-saving apparently!

I admit this is not word for word, but the gist is there. I feel stupid, now, for hoping that someone in there would at least acknowledge that they knew me. Especially him.

I know this must sound ridiculous to normal people, and it often sounds ridiculous to me as well. I'm well out of it now, I know. But I was born into this thing, and everyone there has known me since I was a baby, knew my parents before they got married. So they're like family to me, closer than family, and it does hurt. It hurts a lot.

But I'm well out of it now, I know.