Brunswick Patrol

Yesterday night while I was waiting for a tram, I was passed by two policemen patrolling the main street. Two things. The good part was that if on the odd chance I was being bashed by a thug or bottled by a prostitute, police reinforcement was a stone throw away. What concerned me was the inference that Brunswick has, apparently, become a suburb requiring police patrol at 9 o'clock at night.

When did this happen? I've seen Brunswick (and Barkley Square) change throughout the past 2 decades, but this was the first time I've come across policemen patrolling my streets. True, it's the same street where one of the Moran's was shot dead point blank (in fact, I was crossing the road when the ambulance drove past). I also acutely recall the infiltration of aggressive derros on my tram line, chroming on the tram as kids and elderly passengers watched horrorified. But this whole police action thing is really surprising.

I usually feel relatively safe walking through the streets of Brunswick. I mean come on, it's Brunswick. B for Benign. But lately I've been reading about all these stabbings, rapes, robberies, general thuggery and all occurring alarmingly close to my house. And it's starting to make me paranoid. It's not like I can just go around carrying a vial of pepper-spray or a knife, which would be more dangerous anyway. Maybe I need to get my own car.

On happier news, the new batch of Sem8'ers have officially started clinical medicine. I woke up this afternoon morning with a massive headache, took some panadol and managed to get to my clinical school in time to give a speech on "surviving" the year. I hope it was useful, they all seemed pretty happy with it. I remember being there last year with all these questions going through my mind, so hopefully I managed to answer some of them. They all seem like a friendly bunch, I hope they enjoy Sem 8 as much as I did. Sem 9 is such a yuck semester anyway so it'd be good to make the most of Sem 8. Also, I officially handed over my presidency role within the RMH clinical school to the new committee, so that's over.

Now for Norway.