My placement (all two days of it so far) is going quite well. It's full of beautiful women dressed in stylish short skirts who don't walk so much as hover gracefully around the office and generally make your little world a better place for floating into your field of vision. My role so far has been a fairly passive one, sitting in on cases, filing, photocopying...basically all the stuff I do for V.A. without the joy of payment to look forward to. Still, I live in hope that I will amount to more than a glorified administrative assistant.

In other news, Jenny brought a guineapig back from the country. She is small and very nervous (the guineapig, not Jenny), with twitchy albino eyes that ensure you can never be certain what she's looking at. Loud, unexpected noises cause her to scrabble madly in her chaff or adopt the "if I don't move, you won't see me" position, and the sound of the washing machine is enough to drive her into a neurotic frenzy.

It's unfortunate that her cage is set up in the laundry.

During the eight-hour, super-duper-traumatising car trip home, the guineapig was stored in a box adorned with a cartoon character that reminded Jenny very much of Atomic Betty, and so Betty the guineapig was thus named.

To look into Betty’s eyes is to know true fear.

Betty has a strong survival mechanism; she does absolutely NOTHING in order to avoid being unduly startled. Last week, Jenny and I went on a shopping expedition for her, further perpetuating the rumour that we’re an item; the lady at the pet store told us that Betty was one "very spoiled little baby" (and gave us a meaningful glance) after Jenny bought one of those rolly balls to promote a little bit of healthy living. After being begrudgingly crammed inside, Betty decided that it wasn’t for her and sat, motionless in the middle of the loungeroom floor instead, confirming her status as Crappest Pet Ever. So far, Jenny's Sea Monkeys have proven themselves to be a far more interesting investment, and even they're nothing to write home about ("Hi mum, today I bought some freeze-dried brine shrimp...").

Maybe I consider Betty to be boring because she's so passive. Perhaps a less fearful animal would get out there and explore, wander up and down the little ramps in their cage, run in their wheel and what have you, and their owners would clap their hands in delight. But Betty...no. Perhaps she's so worried that she won't enjoy herself, or that she'll fail at what she tries that she just doesn't try in the first place --> passivity and accusations of BEING BORING from those who don't understand her. Poor pig.

Speaking of life lessons...